Most grapplers know the hips are essential for jiu-jitsu.
What fewer realize is how often the hips are held back by a tight, compressed lower back—and how that silent dysfunction can impact nearly every part of your game.
If you’ve ever felt like your hips just “don’t move right” or your movement feels rigid and slow, the problem might not be your hips at all.
It might be your lower back.
I dealt with lower back tension for years until I finally herniated a disc and was forced off the mat for over a year.
Relieving this tension and getting a better position of my ribs over my pelvis allowed me to eventually return the mats and receive my black belt.
These are the things I used to achieve that.
The Chain Reaction of a Tight Lower Back
Tension in the lumbar spine is almost always linked to an anterior pelvic tilt—a forward-tipped pelvis that pulls your center of gravity ahead of your base.
That forward shift affects how your hips function. When the pelvis is tipped forward, your femurs become positioned differently within the hip sockets.
This altered position limits your hip flexion, or how much you can bring your knee upward toward your torso.
Essentially, you reach your end range sooner, forcing compensations elsewhere—usually at the lumbar spine.
Full access to your hip flexion is vital for effective movement in BJJ – think guard retention, passing from a low squat or split squat, and most control positions like side control, mount, and back control.
In fact, flexion is the most common position of the hip in grappling.
Additionally, a tight, compressed lower back and anterior pelvic tilt is often paired with flared ribs, which causes your breathing to be shallow and inefficient.
That’s a recipe for restricted movement, poor endurance, and increased injury risk.
Why Grapplers Should Care
Every position in jiu-jitsu—guard, passing, takedowns—relies on healthy hip flexion and spinal movement.
If your pelvis is locked in a forward tilt and your lumbar spine is tight and overextended, you’ll struggle to move efficiently. Worse, your joints will bear force in positions they weren’t built to handle.
This leads to:
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Compensatory movement patterns
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Slower transitions
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Strain on your knees, hips, or spine
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Shallow breathing and quicker fatigue
And for grapplers over 35, this all compounds with age.
How to Decompress the Lower Back
Fixing this doesn’t mean stopping training or spending hours on mobility. And it should be noted that an anterior pelvic tilt and flared ribs doesn’t always correlate to pain or dysfunction.
But if you’re feeling tight, restricted, or feeling pain, try this.
It starts with 3 simple steps:
1. Decompress the Lower Back
Reclaim posterior tilt and neutral spine. Try:
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Hooklying Passive Low Reach
2. Create Space In the Hips, Don’t Just Stretch
You need both range and relative motion of joints. Try this:
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Prone Hip Decompression
3. Move the Center of Gravity Back
This move will help push your rib cage back for a better stack over the pelvis. Focus on the breathing cues.
- Heels Elevated Goblet Squat
Do these consistently and you’ll notice a better relationship between your pelvis and rib cage, less low back tension, and a major upgrade in hip function—on and off the mat.
Final Thoughts
Most people chase hip mobility without realizing that a tight lower back is often the bottleneck.
By decompressing the spine, repositioning the pelvis, and restoring a better rib cage position, you unlock your true movement potential.
Once the hips can start to move and do their job again, you’ll have much less lower back pain and injury potential.
Try this a few times per week, and use steps one and two after every training session.
It’s not flashy—but it’s the kind of work that builds resilient, high-performing bodies for years of grappling ahead.
WHENEVER YOU’RE READY, THERE ARE 3 WAYS I CAN HELP YOU:
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