Reducing increased or early lumbopelvic motion during trunk or limb movements may be an important component of low back pain treatment. The ability to reduce lumbopelvic motion may be influenced by gender. The purpose of the current study was to examine the effect of gender on the ability of people with low back pain to reduce lumbopelvic motion during hip medial rotation following physical therapy treatment. Lumbopelvic rotation and hip rotation before the start of lumbopelvic rotation were assessed pre- and posttreatment for 16 females and 15 males. Both men and women decreased lumbopelvic rotation and completed more hip rotation before the start of lumbopelvic rotation post-treatment compared to pre-treatment. Men demonstrated greater lumbopelvic rotation and completed less hip rotation before the start of lumbopelvic rotation than women both pre- and post-treatment. Both men and women reduced lumbopelvic motion relative to their starting values, but, overall, men still demonstrated greater and earlier lumbopelvic motion. These results may have important implications for understanding differences in the evaluation and treatment of men and women with low back pain. 1. Introduction Motor control impairments and lumbopelvic instability have been implicated by many as a cause of low back pain [1–5]. More specifically, several authors suggest that, for some people, low back pain is the result of impaired lumbopelvic motion control [2, 3, 5]. Impaired lumbopelvic motion control may be defined as excessive or early lumbopelvic motion (flexion, extension, rotation, or lateral bending of the lumbar or pelvic regions) during trunk or limb movements. Excessive or early lumbopelvic motion is problematic because as particular trunk or limb movements are performed repeatedly, such as with functional activities, stress may accumulate in specific lumbar or pelvic region tissues and over time may lead to tissue damage and pain [2, 3, 5, 6]. Many studies have demonstrated a relationship between increased or early lumbopelvic motion during trunk or limb movements and low back pain [7–15]. Controlling or limiting lumbopelvic motion during these trunk or limb movements, thereby improving lumbopelvic stability, may be an important component of low back pain treatment [2, 3, 5]. Lumbopelvic motion during the limb movement of hip rotation has been of particular interest to investigators. Active hip medial and lateral rotation performed in prone are among the limb movements most often associated with an increase in low back pain symptoms [16]. Although hip medial rotation
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