Your Psoas Isn't Just Tight, It's WEAK [Don't Stretch, Do These Instead]

If

your

psoas

or front hip area feels sore and

tight

, stop doing standard hip flexor

stretch

es. In this video, you'll learn why that is and five exercises to get to the root cause so you can relieve that pain and stuff. tension forever Hi, I'm a Precision Movement coach here and we're back with another YouTube video to help you move freely and pain-free. Today we're going to focus on this area, the hip flexor area, and do some focus. More about the

psoas

muscle, but there are other muscles involved in the exercises that I'm going to show you and problems with pain and tension in the front of the hip, right here now if you like unique exercises that save time and, what Most importantly, they are effective.

To get you out of pain and keep you moving, then make sure you're subscribed to our channel because that's what we do here now before we start the five exercises. I want to cover a little history, some anatomy, and some science. reasoning behind why the soas muscle and hip flexor area get

tight

and sore and even before that I

just

want to congratulate you for being here, continuing to be a student and learning and taking control of

your

own health and well-being. something we need more of and we need more people like you so keep up the good work now that the muscle is involved.

I mentioned that the psoas muscle is a popular one and it's part of the hip flexor group, so hip flexion is this movement here that brings the knee up to the chest, which is hip flexion, the PSO is a muscle that does it, there's also the iliacus and those two muscles are often combined and called iliopsoas, but we like to think of them differently because they have slightly different functions, which I'm going to cover in a second, there's also the Rectus femoris, which is a quadriceps muscle, is part of the quadriceps group, but because it crosses the hip joint, it can contribute to hip flexion.

What we simply don't want is for it to contribute to hip flexion as well. a lot and the last muscle I'm going to talk about is the pectineus and that's a short muscle in the front of the hip here and it does hip flexion and adduction so these are kind of the four main hip flexor muscles. and the psoas is the That's what we're going to focus on because where it originates, it originates in the different vertebrae and the lumbar spine and this tells us that it contributes to the flesh of the hip and yes, but it also contributes to something in the spine lumbar, that is something that is lumbar stability. especially in the neutral position or the slightly extended position, that is a key signal in all the exercises that you will see is that we need to maintain the position of the lumbar spine so that the psoas can work effectively, now that you can see it and you can visualize it, should help you perform the exercises better and get more out of them, so that's one of the really important signals when you do the exercise, so remember now we're going to cover a couple more of the why? this always becomes tense and

weak

when sitting, that is something that contributes to many problems in today's society, we sit too much, but specifically when we sit, we are often face down in a posterior pelvic tilt, so if we had a tail would be as if we were putting our tail between our legs and with the lumbar spine flexed.

So, based on what I

just

said, the psoas can function effectively in that position, the other thing is that we have a backrest, so we are leaning back, we are in this bad position this flexed and dropped position so the psoas it shortens and it doesn't have to work because we're in this backrest so the psoas doesn't have to contribute to this proper neutral spine good alignment of the lumbar spine and stability of the lumbar spine so if we don't use it we'll lose it use it or lose it, that is a maxim that applies at least to almost everything human, but if we do not use it, we are losing it. it's getting

weak

er it's atrophying it's in the shortened position it's getting shorter and that causes so many problems so we're going to do exercises to restore all those problems now that I mentioned at the beginning of this video without static

stretch

ing the standard stretch is this hip flexor , kneeling lunge, half lunge, hip flexor stretch, where you basically go like this, you can raise one arm, you can stretch your side like this and stretch your hip flexor.

I actually used to prescribe this quite a bit, but I rarely do it now and when I do there are some specific signs we need to look out for. The problem with this is that number one does not restore strength, so if you expect lasting changes in muscle length and range of motion. You're not going to get this because you're not going to strengthen the muscle with this and number two, it's very easy to be too aggressive with this stretch, you can get in there, you can really put your weight on it. and be aggressive, the problem here is that doing so will aggravate the anterior part of the hip, specifically the capsule of the hip joint and the ligaments there, when you do it, it can increase your pain and you think, oh, I need to do more stretches, he does it.

Keep doing it and it's just a vicious cycle and you're going to get worse and worse and you're going to feel more and more sore and you're not really going to improve the length of your hip flexors, so we're going to do five exercises in this routine. which you can do two, three days a week, if you want to feel some good effects, at least four weeks, it could be up to eight weeks, but four weeks is a good amount of time to feel some good effects. two weeks, you may feel some. things, I mean, you might start to feel some beneficial effects if you do it just once with me today, but if you want your results to persist and the changes to persist, you have to put in the time and the repetitions, the first technique we'll use.

We're going to do an active myofascial release for the hip flexors and with this I have a massage ball here and I'm going to use a weight that is the easiest to use for this exercise, you can apply pressure with your hand, but it's much more easy to do with the weight for this all you are going to do is in the front of the hip where those muscles are you are going to place the ball then you are going to place the weight on the ball and keep bending the knee to start, once you have some pressure, relax all the muscles that you are not tense, the hip flexors and then just slowly slide your legs forward, now you are going to perform the hip extension and then move the ball to another area and repeat.

If you feel something strange, you might be in a glass, just don't go to that area, don't do anything that feels strange or causes more pain, so I'm going to reset the entire front of the hip here for one or two. minutes and if you only have one side that is bothering you do both sides, this is good for you and this will help restore the quality of the tissue, break down any adhesions or scar tissue and allow that muscle to function properly through its full range of motion. it contracts through its full range of motion, so an active myofascial release occurs for the hip flexors a minute or two per side, after that we have restored the length there, after that we want to activate the activation immediately, we never stretch or we never try massage and then we just leave it like that, we loosen the tissue, we improve the quality of the tissue, then we activate that tissue and that's how we can get those changes that we have gotten through massage or through stretching or releasing that we can obtain. they stick, so the next exercise is the standing glute crunch, this is in the ROM coach app and I have shown it in other videos, but it is very simple, all you have to do is start with good posture, good alignment , knees relaxed, soft, not hyperextended. gentle and then you're going to slowly increase the glute activation with a little bit of internal rotation of the hips turning your thighs inward like this just a little bit, it could be one to five degrees, that's all.

I'm going to finish. nice and strong as hard as you can in terms of activating the glutes and then holding them for five to ten seconds and then gradually releasing them, so it's a slow ramp up and down, the key is that internal rotation that will help you Keep your weight on your feet, even without rolling to the sides, and you maintain the alignment of your pelvis and hips, so again I'm standing here. I'm going to increase glute activation with some internal rotation once I'm holding it as hard as I can without any pain or issue.

I'm breathing and holding for five to ten seconds or one or two slow breaths and then I wrap it around and what this does is it activates what we're focused on. activate the glutes but it's going to contract around the hips, get all of your hip muscles working those hip flexor muscles that we talked about earlier and have them work in this neutral or slightly extended position because remember we've got our hips trapped. this position after sitting, now we are lengthening it and activating the muscle, so we are starting to restore that activation, restore that strength for this exercise, two or three sets, none to two sets, actually, four to six repetitions holding for five to ten seconds after that, we'll go to standing psoas drop and this is a great exercise because it dissociates the commonly associated movement pattern of hip flexion, which is when we flex the hips, often tilt the pelvis back and We flex the lumbar area. spines, but by doing that we're not effectively targeting the psoas muscle, especially, so we're going to do the opposite of what you do: stand against the wall, lean against the wall, and just adopt bad posture, so we start at that leaning back lumbar flexion and dropped spine is really bad posture from here.

I'm going to step aside. I'm going to flex my hips as I tilt my pelvis anteriorly and straighten up and get into good posture. Good spinal posture at the top here. I'm holding and what I'm thinking about is keeping my pelvis level, so I might have to drop this hip towards the floor and then breathe naturally and suck the leg into the pelvis, those two signals, so I'm here holding and then from there I slowly go down and try to feel the hip flexors lengthen and keep them contracted to work that eccentric movement of the hip flexors again.

We're going to demonstrate that I'm going to do the other side, so I'm going to switch sides, I'm going to start with a slumped posture, bad posture and then I'm going to flex my hips and get into good posture at the same time and stay on top. I'm going to keep raising my knee to flex my hip and activate those hip flexors and I'm going to think about the level of the pelvis here, so I'm going to drop this hip toward the floor and suck. the leg towards the pelvis sucking the thigh towards the pelvis not closer to the wall but away from the wall a strong supporting leg here and then hold those muscles while I slowly drop the foot to the floor for a soft landing that is the lumpy sauce and it's a great exercise to work this muscle the right way to start building strength here now once you have a good activation we can use them and add some external load like a dumbbell to this because by then you'll be standing in line on your Technique should be good, you know all the signs and all you do is start the same way and then place the dumbbell on the knee and then suck on that leg to drive that knee up and here we can progressively add load to build strength.

Just like any other exercise we would do in the gym, it is a great way to activate it and then use the same technique and cues to strengthen it. Now, one thing that many people have. A problem that many people face. it's overrecruitment of the tfl, which is another hip flexor and not one that I talked about before because we really don't want it to affect the flexion too much, but if the tfl is working too much, you can follow a couple of tips. what you can do to turn it off is when you're flexing your hip, you come out a little bit, it's a little bit of abduction and a little bit of external rotation and that will target more of the pectinium, the iliopsoas, the iliacus and it will turn off the tfl, so those signals can help you adapt if you feel too much tfl activation in the outer hip, it's incredibly sloppy here, so for that we do two or three sets, four to six reps per position for five to ten seconds and if we can add load, start adding loading next we have one of my favorite techniques to restore this hip extension range of motion, which is the hip flexor lengthened position, it is the side lying hip extension and range of motion technique, so for this We depend on our side. and make sure you're in good posture in terms of your spine, you're not curled up in the fetal position and I'm going to work this bottom leg.

I'm going to actively bring my leg back, let me change views for you. It'll be a little easier for you to see, so I'm going to bringI actively move my leg back like this, so now I'm in hip extension with glute activation and this is the range I want to work in, so I'm taking it back. and right there the first activation remains there, activation stuck, I continue trying to bring my heel back, maintaining a strong contraction of the glutes for 10 to 15 seconds and then I am going to place my other foot on the knee and introduce my knee into the foot . not letting it move and what this does is strengthen the hip flexors in this extended range of motion again 10 to 15 seconds keeping it nice and strong, keep activating and the last contraction, there are three contractions, is the extension of the hip again pushing the heel back.

I raise the glutes trying to get deeper into the range of extension maintaining good posture breathing and then I let it go and that's one cycle on that side and I would switch sides and do two to four cycles and that would work that final range of motion of the hip flexors that length andrange of motion of the hip flexors and strengthens both the hip muscles and the glutes, the hip extensors, and that's what it will tell your brain, hey, I have strength here , so I'm using it, so I'm not going to Don't lose it, I need this, so that's the side lying hip extension, end of range extension, Erie technique, the last one we're going to look at is another one to the that you can progressively add load two and it is called frontal. supports hip flexion, so for this you can see I have some bands I have these ankle straps here I have an ankle strap attached over there and then I'm tying myself over here I'm going to crawl forward off the mat Once in a while from time to time, the front stand is basically a pushup position and from there all I do is flex the pinch.

The same cues apply, keep your pelvis level so don't raise your hips, keep elevating your knee so you're constantly activating. it's just a two second hold there and then come back and then two second hold all the way up, sucking the pelvis, the leg up to the pelvis and then controlling the way back up. The nice thing about this band setup is that I can add bands if I need more charge. and this exercise is an example of functional integration because here I need that good core stability to maintain the alignment of the spine and train this aligned spine, which is necessary for any sport you play baseball tennis, you want good posture and an aligned spine, so I maintain core stability while performing hip flexion, so even if you are running you want good posture and the ability to maintain good posture while running and the hip bluster works properly, so this is a great exercise. and for this one do two to three sets of six to ten reps depending on how much load you have but keep the reps no more than 12 but if you can get enough load and enough bands to make it a challenge and you can just do six and ten repetitions.

That's how you're going to build strength, so this whole routine again, do it two or three times a week, the more intensity you use, the more weight you use or the more bands you use, the less frequency per week you'll want. If you only do bodyweight, you can easily do it three days a week and give it at least four weeks. If you do that and stop doing static stretching, you'll feel more relaxed and you'll have a greater range of motion and you'll have greater strength and if you're in pain, hopefully you'll be in less pain and I'd love to hear how it goes so leave us a comment at below so that is today's video.

I hope you found it enlightening and found something useful. You are going to do this routine more importantly and you have other things for you if you want to see some other videos that are related here and here and are quite popular. and if you have a pin, if you like this approach, the best thing we can offer you is our hip pain solution program, so click the link below because it includes exercises like this and much more, and it includes the approach and programming that are easy. follow and save time