Psoas the troublemaker – Eliminate pain by sitting less Is the leisure industry that interested in educating us to exercise properly?! The majority of modern population has a chronically tight (short) psoas. Buried deep in a trunk, the psoas muscle connects the lower and upper body together. With his helper iliacus, psoas muscle is more known as “hip-flexor”, aka iliopsoas. Psoas assists in walking upright, standing up and in almost every athletic movement. The psoas muscle may seem like one long muscle passing multiple joints, but in reality it contains on average 11 muscle fiber branches attaching to different bony sites (high up to thoratic spine, down on lumbar spine and on the femur). The psoas has superficial and deep layers and in between, there are embedded many nerves. If (or we should rather say “when”, because it is matter of time if you don’t take a good care of it) psoas starts “misbehaving”, it will cause many aches and injuries. Psoas’ main function is to flex the hip (lift the leg) and stabilize the spine (preventing the vertebrae from rotating in the frontal plane). For the spine and hips to move naturally, freely and without pain, the psoas has to be able to lengthen. And here is the culprit: the majority of modern population has a chronically tight (short) psoas. We sit too much. Besides the short bursts of fitness activities, we sit at work or school, we sit in the car or public transportation. We sit while eating, watching TV or socializing. Many people sit 10-12 hours a day! During sitting, the psoas is constantly in contracted position and becomes chronically tight. When you stand up, the short psoas prevents you from perfect alignment while standing and walking. Many of us move straight from school or office to the tennis courts or other fitness activities and perform high intensity training with misaligned structures. To add insult to injury, many activities additionally shorten the psoas: cycling, spinning, stairmaster, treadmill or sitting in the weight machines. No wonder that the majority of population has problems with lower back, pelvis and hips. Psoas on the treadmill Walking or running on the treadmill is one of the top fitness activities and an addition to a many as a cardiovascular fitness program — unfortunately, not the best one for the already compromised psoas. The natural gait pattern is through a hip extension, where you push off the ground using the backside of your body (glutes, hamstrings calves). The treadmill changes the natural pattern to one with greater hip flexion. Because the treadmill belt is rolling from under you, your feet have no resistance when they push off. Instead, you have to lift your leg out and up in front of you, recruiting the already too tight psoas. If you run a lot, make sure to dump the treadmill and get out to the nature as much as you can. Psoas on the floor The Asian populations (and other non-western populations) have the great habit of sitting on the floor. They sit with crossed legs in lotus or pigeon positions, their hips are beautifully flexible and they have no issues with tight psoas and lower back pains. They also sit in deep squat position and look extremely comfortable, because their joints are fully flexible. This is something we should work on more and if you have a moment, while watching TV or socializing, why not sit or squat on the floor?
Posted on: Sun, 09 Nov 2014 14:05:23 +0000
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