Have you ever felt pain in your lower back but weren’t sure if it might actually be coming from your hips or pelvis instead? Maybe you’ve even tried treating one area—only to have the pain shift somewhere else. Understanding the source of your pain is essential to being able to manage and treat it properly. If its not done right, your pain will keep coming back (or worse, it won’t improve much at all and over time, will only get worse)
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Understanding the Source of Your Pain
Is It Your Back, Pelvis, or Hips?
Have you ever felt pain in your lower back but weren’t sure if it might actually be coming from your hips or pelvis instead? Maybe you’ve even tried treating one area—only to have the pain shift somewhere else.
This is one of the most common frustrations I hear from people dealing with back, hip, or pelvic pain. So in this video, I’m going to help you figure it out. We’ll go over simple self-tests to help you pinpoint which area is the real problem, so you can start addressing the root cause.
Hi I’m Alexis Weidland, osteopath and co-founder of BlossomingMe and Healthy Learning Lounge. Stick around, if you’d like to work out exactly where your pain is coming from—and what to do next!
Why Pain Can Be Misleading
Before we jump into the self-tests, here’s something you need to know: Pain isn’t always where the problem is.
For example, you might feel pain in your lower back, but the real issue could be coming from tight hips or an unstable pelvis or even your feet.
💡 Think of your body like a chair. If one of the parts of the chair is not able to hold the weight properly or is holding on too tightly. Then if you were to sit on the chair, it might bend, break, twist, sag or torsion. So when any one part of your body isn’t quite functioning optimally, then many if not all the other parts of you needs to compensate. This means that nerves may get irritated causing pain, or overworked muscles may complain about the extra effort they have to use, or the weak area is too weak to cope with a certain movement and tears a little (or a lot) when it gets used, even for its intended purpose. That is why focusing on only the area of pain can be a mistake.
So, how do you know which area is actually causing your pain?
Well, from my experience, there may be one tissue that you can see from testing or imaging that is specifically damaged and causing pain. However, even when this is the case, especially if the pain did not occur from a single specific fall or trauma. Then often the tissue causing the pain is the tissue that is overcompensating for the tissue that is not functioning as it should. If we don’t treat both the tissue that is stressed from compensating AND the tissue that is not working correctly, then the pain will either re-occur or not even feel like it is improving at all. And over time, things could deteriorate even further.
Self-Tests to Identify the Source of Pain
Test #1: Is Your Pain Coming from Your Lower Back?
👉 Test: The Forward Bend & Backward Lean Test
Stand up tall and slowly bend forward, reaching toward your toes. Pay attention—does your pain increase, stay the same, or go away?
- ✔️ If bending forward increases pain, the issue might be in tight muscles in your back, a disc issue, or dysfunction of one of the vertebral joints or you sacro-iliac joint.
- ✔️If bending forwards increases the pain and pain goes down your legs, the issue could be your sacro-iliac joint or nerve irritation from your lumbar spine, potentially from a disc
- ✔️ If leaning backward increases pain, it could be reduced space between your lumbar vertebrae, a disc or nerve irritation
- ✔️If bending backwards increase your pain, but you notice the pain more at the front of your hips, it is more likely to be tight hip flexors
- ✔️ If pain stays the same, your back might not be the primary issue.
It is also useful to note if the pain is slightly off to one side or directly in the middle of your back, or if it travels a little up and down your back or feels like a band right across your lower back
If pain increases with either forward or backward bending, then you lower back will be at least partly involved in your pain. But this does not determine what tissues might be involved, only a likely location
Test #2: Is Your Pain Coming from Your Pelvis? (SI Joint Dysfunction Test)
👉 Test: Single-Leg Stand Test
Now, stand on one leg and hold for 10-15 seconds. If you feel sharp pain or instability in the lower back or pelvis, this could indicate SI joint dysfunction, especially if the pain is a little to one side of centre.
Repeat on the other leg
- ✔️ Pain on one side? Your pelvis might not be stabilizing properly.
- ✔️ If you feel wobbly or weak, the issue could be deep pelvic muscles not engaging.
Test #3: Is Your Pain Coming from Your Hips?
👉 Test: The Hip Flexor Tightness Test
Lie down on your back with both legs straight. Pull one knee to your chest and let the other leg stay flat.
- ✔️ If your extended leg lifts off the floor or feels tight, you likely have tight hip flexors—which can pull on your pelvis and lower back, causing pain.
- ✔️ If this test doesn’t trigger discomfort, your hips might not be the main problem.
💡 Tip: Tight hip flexors are extremely common, especially if you sit for long hours. Even if they’re not the root cause, keeping them mobile can help reduce pain.”
Interpreting Your Results
Now that you’ve done these self-tests, let’s quickly break down what your results might mean.
- ✔️ If you felt pain mainly during the forward/backward bending test → Your lower back is likely the main issue.
- ✔️ If you struggled with the single-leg stand → Your pelvis might be unstable or your SI joint could be irritated.
- ✔️ If your hip flexors felt tight or lifted off the ground → Your hips may be pulling on your pelvis and back.
Important Note:
💡If you found that multiple tests triggered pain, that’s a sign these areas are all interconnected—and your best approach will be to address them together.
👉 In the next video, we’ll go even deeper—breaking down the exact symptoms that come from dysfunction in each area, so you can finally understand your pain.
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So, what did your self-test results show? Drop a comment below and let me know—was your pain coming from your lower back, pelvis, or hips?
And don’t forget—this is just the beginning. In the next video, we’ll go over the key symptoms of dysfunction in each area, so you can recognize patterns and take the right steps to fix them.
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Click the Button Below if you’d like to access our Free Self Test & Symptoms Guide for the Lower Back, Hips & Pelvis
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(pick Turramurra location; osteopath; select Alexis as practitioner, then choose our special Foot and Posture Assessment)
About Blossoming Me
BlossomingMe offers a fully integrated approach to your wellbeing. Located on Sydney’s Upper North Shore. Sarah is our Cranio-sacral and Remedial Massage Therapist and health and lifestyle coach. She can help relieve those problematic knots, tightness and other specific ailments to promote a healthy recovery. These complementary massage therapies can be combined to suit your needs, and include: craniosacral therapy, shiatsu, acupressure, reiki, remedial, swedish, and body-mind-massage.
Our qualified Osteopath, Alexis, offers a drug free, minimally invasive, “hands on” treatment focusing on the musculoskeletal system with its associated muscles, tendons, ligaments, membranes, bones and joints. Alexis takes a functional approach. This means that she focuses on the way a component (body part, tissue or group of tissues) performs its role, as well as the way the body works, performs and integrates as a whole. Our team can support you to improve your posture and therefore your overall health.
ional advice or care. Please seek the advice of a qualified health professional before you make any changes to your health regime, before dealing with new symptoms, and, if something you have read here has raised any questions or concerns regarding your situation.