Background: Uncontrolled lumbopelvic movement leads to asymmetric symptoms and causes pain in the lumbar and pelvic regions. So many patients have uncontrolled lumbopelvic movement. Passive support devices are used for unstable lumbopelvic patient. So, we need to understand that influence of passive support on lumbopelvic stability. It is important to examine that using the pelvic belt on abdominal muscle activity, pelvic rotation and pelvic tilt. Objects: This study observed abdominal muscle activity, pelvic rotation and tilt angles were compared during active straight leg raise (ASLR) with and without pelvic compression belt. Methods: Sixteen healthy women were participated in this study. ASRL with and without pelvic compression belt was performed for 5 sec, until their leg touched the target bar that was set 20 ㎝ above the base. Surface electromyography was recorded from rectus abdominis (RA), internal oblique abdominis (IO), and external oblique abdominis (EO) bilaterally. And pelvic rotation and tilt angles were measured by motion capture system. Results: There were significantly less activities of left EO (p=.042), right EO (p=.031), left IO (p=.039), right IO (p=.019), left RA (p=.044), and right RA (p=.042) and a greater right pelvic rotation angle (p=.008) and anterior pelvic tilt angle (p<.001) during ASLR with pelvic compression belt. Conclusion: These results showed that abdominal activity was reduced while the right pelvic rotation angle and anterior pelvic tilt angle were increased during ASLR with a pelvic compression belt. In other words, although pelvic compression belt could support abdominal muscle activity, it would be difficult to control pelvic movement. So pelvic belt would not be useful for controlled ASLR.

Active straight-leg raise (ASLR) is a physical evaluation procedure to test lumbar spine stability. Several previous studies have reported various methods to control the activation of abdominal muscles during ASLR. We investigated the effects of three different hip positions in frontal plane on abdominal muscles to increase or decrease the difficulty level of lumbar spine stability exercise during ASLR in pain free subjects. Eleven young and healthy subjects voluntarily participated in this study (6 men, 5 women; mean age=24.0±1.2 years, height=160.0±7.3 ㎝, weight=55.0±10.6 ㎏, body mass index=21.5±2.3 ㎏/㎡). The subjects had three trials on each ASLR with hip 10° adduction, neutral hip, and hip 30° abduction. Separate repeated-measures analysis of variance (ANOVA) and the post hoc Bonferroni tests (with α =.05/3=.017) were performed for each muscle among the three different hip positions in frontal plane (ASLR with hip 10° adduction, neutral hip, and hip 30° abduction). The ipsilateral external oblique (EO), contralateral EO, ipsilateral internal oblique/transverse abdominis (IO/TrA), and contralateral IO/TrA were significantly greater in ASLR with hip 30° abduction compared with ASLR with hip 10° adduction. Also, the ipsilateral EO, contralateral EO, and ipsilateral IO/TrA were significantly greater in ASLR with hip 30° abduction compared with ASLR with neutral hip. These results suggest that ASLR with hip 30° abduction and neutral would be useful method to strengthen the EO and IO/TrA. And, ASLR with hip 10° adduction would be effective in early stages of lumbar stabilization program due to low activation of EO and IO/TrA during maintaining of ASLR position with low load.