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If you’ve ever had pain in your lower back or that feeling of tightness in the front of your hips after sitting for a long stretch of time, you have met your psoas!
The psoas can play a major role in how well your body functions, and yet, it isn’t often a muscle that many people pay attention to with regard to stretching or mobilizing.
So, what is the psoas? It’s a core muscle that essentially connects the lumbar spine (the lower back), the pelvis, and the inside of the top of the femur (thigh bone). The psoas attaches up as high as the T10 vertebra in the thoracic spine (upper back), as well as all five lumbar vertebrae (L1-L5). It then joins the iliacus muscle on the inside of the pelvis to form the iliopsoas, and both attach on the inside of the femur at the hip joint. The function of the iliopsoas is to flex the hip (bringing your knee to your abdomen); it anteriorly tilts the pelvis (tips your pelvis forward), which increases the arch in your lower back; it approximates the hip joint (brings the head of the femur into the hip socket); and it helps to stabilize the spine. To say it does a lot is an understatement!
Sitting for long periods of time, especially with little support or weight through your legs will put the iliopsoas on low grade tension, and over time this will cause the muscle to become both tight and weak. This can exaggerate that arch in the lower back by tilting the pelvis forward, compressing the lower back and putting us in inefficient posture and alignment.
It might also cause a problem in the reverse way: When we stand with our chests lifted, (thinking this is proper posture), this tilts the rib cage backward, which then needs to be counterbalanced by tilting the pelvis forward. This position will increase the tension of the iliopsoas, which can create back pain.
Even those who work out a lot, weight train, run or cycle, can have tight or shortened hip flexors. Many people when performing squats or deadlifts have been told they shouldn’t round their backs when lifting, so they will often exaggerate a straight back by excessively arching their lower back and anteriorly tilting their pelvis. This can be just as bad as rounding your lower back with regard to possible injury. Running with inefficient posture can overuse the quadriceps and hip flexors, and inefficient pedal strokes as well as prolonged cycling can overuse and restrict the iliopsoas respectively.
Bottom line, there are many causes of low back, pelvic, and hip pain, and the iliopsoas can be a major culprit to these issues. If you do have any of these issues, your best bet is to get assessed by a physical therapist to truly determine what is causing your pain. If you’re not able to get in to see a PT right away, try some of these stretches, which may help:
Keeping your psoas strong and mobile is something that everyone should do, to prevent possible pain and keep your body moving efficiently.
Beacon Physical Therapy
At Beacon Physical Therapy, we support our clients in establishing healthy movement patterns that help maintain strength, flexibility and mobility. If you are having an issue, make an appointment today. We’d love to meet you and get you back to doing what you love.
