The Incredible, Indelible Psoas: The Back Edition

So, I have not written in a while as I have been high from last weekend’s three-day workshop focused on abdominal massage, the uterus, the pelvis and pretty much everything that has to do with “down there”.  It was truly enriching and invaluable experience for me.  The Self Care class that I attended is part of Arvigo therapy.  It is great to see and learn just how many issues, for both men and women, stem from a displaced uterus, the alignment of the pelvis or weak pelvic floors can read to issues such as prolapse, infertility or even fibroids.  It will be great to continue to apply much of this work on myself and eventually take the professional course in the future.  A great blog to read that discusses the work Barbara Loomis, a fellow Restorative Exercise™ Specialist and Mayan Abdominal Therapist,  is doing applying the Mayan Abdominal work to her practice.  For you ladies, out there, this work is almost a must to have a better understanding of your body!

Now on to the blog for today!  As discussed in the last blog, we looked at how the psoas plays a part in knee pain and now the focus turns towards the lower back.  While doing research for this blog, I found a really great name for the psoas, it was called “the great pretender”.  Due to where the psoas is located, how hard it is to access it manually and some of its functions, it does a great job masking symptoms that many of us incur.  One of these such symptoms is lower back pain.  Lower back pain is definitely one of the leading injuries facing many of us and for reasons such as our current lifestyle of sitting for long periods of time and not moving as much as we used to.

Above is a picture of me doing a yoga pose called upward bow.  This was taken about two years ago and doing backbends was one of my favorite poses to do.  I felt that I had so much flexibility in my back and I was able to get into them super easy.  Yet, during this time, I was definitely experiencing a low of lower back achiness.  Looking at this picture, what is one thing you see?  Especially since this is a psoas focused blog, you can see, hopefully, that there is not much opening or extension in the front of my hips, but I have a lot of compression in my lower back.  The amount of hyperextension present in my lower back, I felt was a good thing and helped me to easily move into backbends. It was not until I met Katy Bowman and realized that the source of my back pain was not so much just the hyperextension in my lower back but also the amount of tension that was in my psoas that was causing my bottom ribs to flare out and move forward causing the muscles along my lower back to compress and tighten.

The psoas is known as a major hip flexor and when this muscle spasms, the muscles around the area, moving from the deepest to the superficial muscle, will begin to compensate, become overused, hypertonic and very painful. In this case, this is what happened to me.

In the picture above, you can see just where the psoas attaches, starting from the 12th rib, all along the transverse processes of the lumbar vertebrae down to the lesser trochanter of the femur bone.  It definitely ahs a long way to travel and because of the psoas’ attachment sites, they can pull and torque not just on the lumbar vertebrae, but the lower ribs and have ann effect on your gluts and hips.  The picture also depicts these muscles as being deep to the body, which means it is hard to access by palpation alone.  When these deep muscles are spasmy or strained in any way, the next layer will then take over the job of the deep muscles.  Those muscles, such as the quadratus lumburum or multifidi are not meant to do the job of the psoas, but will and then they too will become overused, then spreading the job over to the erectors, one of the superficial back muscles and you know what happens next…back pain!

In addition to back pain that can be experienced, all due to “the great pretender”, when the psoas is tight, the gluts no longer fire.  Why is this?

As the pelvis tilts posteriorly, or backwards, the psoas, which may be tight as well as weak, causes the pelvis to thrust forward thereby weakening the muscles along the gluts and hamstrings.  If you didn’t already know, the glutes are one of the muscles which should help to keep you erect as well as help you to walk.  When those muscles aren’t engaging, then the psoas and quads d the brunt of the work and as you can see the knees take a beating as can be seen above, bent knees.

So, moral of the story…if you are suffering from lower back pain, it may not hurt to take a look at how your psoas may be playing a big part.  Next posting will consist of exercises to help lengthen and relax your psoas.  Stay tuned!

Related articles

• Psoas Stretches – Happier Low Back (flatbackyoga.wordpress.com)
• The Incredible, Indelible Psoas: The Knee Edition (tiawellness.wordpress.com)

The Incredible, Indelible Psoas: The Knee Edition

Just coming off of the heels of my Rehab for Your Knee workshop last weekend, we barely touched upon the psoas.  While we performed an exercise that required bringing the knee into flexion, there were many students who would definitely benefit from this blog posting.  The knee and the psoas may be a somewhat far off cousin, they really aren’t that related and don’t have much in common; one is a joint, the other is a nice tender muscle, one is at the center of your core while the other is a distal thing that we tend not to pay too much attention to until it hurts too much to walk.

A little background on the psoas, I have heard it called the “filet mignon” of muscles, I guess because it is a very tender muscle, but maybe also because the psoas of a cow or the tender loin is actually a filet mignon! The psoas travels a long distance from the two places where it attaches/inserts, from the 12th rib all the way down to the lesser trochanter of the femur bone.  Its main purpose is to keep us upright and walking, it is actually one of the first muscles that babies begin to engage when they begin to learn how to walk.  This is a muscle that can definitely use some releasing either because we sit in chairs all day, stand with incorrect alignment or maybe we are all just butt tuckers.  I don’t know about you, but I am a recovering butt tucker addict, I definitely tend to relapse when I am not aware of how I am holding myself, when I am cooking and even in one of the places where I should be the most aware of my body, in my yoga classes.

The drawing above, courtesy of Katy Bowman, is a great example of when the pelvis is tucked from a tight psoas (which you can’t see) and the quad is pulled and being overworked having to hold up the weight of the body. Knee problems develop, and in this case, the patella presses into inflamed tissue.

So how does being a constant sitter, butt tucker or  just someone with incorrect alignment have anything to do with knee pain?  The tightness that is present in the psoas can lead to very tight hip flexors, which make it difficult for someone to draw their knee into their chest while standing or lying down and therefore inhibits using the strength of your gluteal muscles when standing or walking.  With the psoas shortened, the pelvis may tend to tuck which will encourage a forward leaning of the body which will then cause shortening or tightening of the quads which can then pull on the knee. The knee will take on more of the load of the body in standing or walking since it is most likely in constant flexion.   Not only will a tight psoas inhibit gluteal strength, but it will also inhibit or bypass core strength, i.e., TVA (transverse abdominal muscles) and internal obliques.

Great example of a balancing pose where the standing leg is straight and weight drawn back into heels, she is making good use of her glute strength!

I find this interesting looking at it from a yoga perspective.  When I have fairly new or beginner students in my yoga classes working on a balance posture like tree pose, I always see bent knees and tucked pelvis.  Tree pose as well as any balance pose requires strong core musculature so you can then move your limbs anywhere; when that is lacking, you may actually be moving or requiring your psoas to hold you up which may already be hypertonic or have too much tone.  And then factoring in that there my be no glute strength and super tight quads, the knees bend!  I am realizing that I may actually not be including enough psoas release stretches/asanas in my classes.  Obviously, this has to change if I want to encourage my students to work on balance if they can’t even release their psoas. I feel that even for some, there is a lack into how to tune into that muscle or even know what it feels like or where it is.  Maybe this will be my inpisration to develop a workshop or class focused on this special muscle.

Tune in next week for the next blog which will target how the psoas can be a culprit for back pain.

Below is an example of a psoas release that can be done at home, starting today! The pose below is called Crescent Pose and is a great yoga asana that can help to open the psoas.  the pose can be done with the back leg extended out and then you can work to bend the back knee, bringing it towards the ground while keeping the shoulders sitting on top of the hips. I will be sure to post some more psoas release exercises, but here is one to start off with!