How to Permanently Loosen a Tight Psoas (Updated)

so in today's video I want to show you what you need to do to permanently loosen a tight soaz muscle or tight hip flexor and I'm inspired to create this video because of this one almost 2 years ago I posted this video in the hope of trying to help educate people on ways that they can permanently loosen a tight SE as muscle and I'm really proud to say that at the time of this recording that video is currently the most watched video on my channel but being almost 2 years ago it's also a great representation of the audio struggles that I had when I first started doing YouTube and boy do people like to let you know that there's an issue I've been inspired to create a more updated version in the hope that it's even more helpful than the previous one so that being said let me show you how to permanently loosen those tight soas muscles forever the secret behind trying to permanently resolve soas tightness counterintuitively does not lie with soas stretches what we need to understand is that there are definitely some fantastic stretches that we can get you to do and we'll go through a couple of good variations in this video but if we're not taking a step back and trying to understand understand what's prompting your so as muscle or muscles to be tight in the first place then there's absolutely zero guarantee that just your stretching alone will cure you of your soas tightness forever and again clinically as a physiotherapist and if you've seen the previous video on the topic you'll hopefully understand this is that one thing that we do understand about the soaz muscle but often forget when we're trying to resolve tightness in that muscle long term is the anatomy of that soaz muscle that soas muscle attaches from the front of your thigh and it anchors into the lower back so if you're not taking the time to also go looking for any restrictions and dysfunctions in your lower back then you could be missing the single most important piece of information that's prompting that muscle to tighten to help out so if you have been following the channel for a while now you'll know that one of the best ways that I've found over the last 10 to 15 years to mobilize a stiff tight restricted lower back is with either a ball or a foam roller it doesn't necessarily matter which tool you use to do this the idea is where we put them and what you do while that device is in the right area so for the purpos of this we'll use the roller to begin with but what we can basically do is clinically I often find that stiffness at the base of your rib cage and the top sections of your lower back can be the hidden dysfunction that asks the Seas muscle to be tight in the first place but the great thing about these exercises is that you don't necessarily need to know exactly what you're doing or the names and the labels of the tissue that you're pressing into we want to base it on feeling for anything that feels stiff tight or restricted so with that being said if you start with the roller at the base of that rib cage the top of your lower back we can get you to recline back on to that roller and just gently move it up and down going looking for anything that feels a little bit stiff tight or restricted now the secret to a good exercise is that we're not rolling as the exercise we're just moving the roller up and down until you find something that you would consider that feels a little bit harder than it potentially could be and we want to basically compare right to left so for me twisting to my right side here the foam roller feels like it sinks in a little bit further whereas when I come to my left side it does feel a little bit harder a little bit more dense and a little bit thicker now it's important to understand that you may have absolutely no pain or tenderness associated with your lower back generally but we're looking for mechanical restrictions they can be tender to push into but if the opposite side feels tender to the side that feels stiff we actually want to care more about the stiffness than we do the tenderness because the stiffness is that mechanical handbrake and that tenderness or pain is potentially a consequence of that mechanical dysfunction so once you found a level that feels comfortable to you and you found the side that feels a bit restricted you can place your hands behind your head and gently recline back as far as you feel comfortable allowing the roller to press into that stiff restricted tissue now obviously if you aren't flexible enough to get your head back onto the ground please have a couple of cushions there we don't want you to feel like you're overly stressing yourself to do this we need you to put a little bit of pressure through that area to allow that tissue to give we want the joints underneath to loosen we want any typ muscular to feel like it can release as well another way you can do this is you can start with your head on the ground and Bridge your hips up and from here you can drop those hips down to try and tension up the area as needed but just choose the version of that stretch that you feel comfortable doing stay on each segment for long enough so that you feel like something actually changes once you spend a minute or two on one spot then just gently move it up or down a little bit to go looking for all the areas that might be restricted that you may potentially never have noticed before you can work your way up as high as you feel comfortable you can come down as low as you feel comfortable but the further away that you move from that Junction between your rib catch and your lower back you might start to get some diminishing returns and ultimately trying to find and mobilize any of those restrictions in that lower back that your soaz muscle connects to can take off one of the main prompts as to why that soas muscle is tight in the first place take that away and you might find that these hip flexor stretches and Mobility drills that we're about to go through May instantly become far more effective in the moment but also make you feel like you're getting better and better and better over time as a postage is going up and down on the spot so a really simple and easy stretch that you can do to quickly mobilize a tight seaz muscle is the near kneeling hip flexor stretch all that this requires you to do is to to kneel place the leg down that you're trying to stretch you can definitely hold on to something if you feel you need that extra support if this is uncomfortable for your knees make sure that you can put a pillow or a tail underneath that if that's still too much for you we can do this sitting on a chair or at the edge of a bed and then just letting your leg drop behind you just so that most of the pressure is through your hips and not down through your knee but this is a very simple way to stretch a tight Hip Flex up if you do it correctly so all we want to basically get you to do is B up nice and Tall keeping your trunk level we don't want you to lean backwards or lean forwards you want to keep your trunk together and shift your entire body weight forwards essentially trying to leave your knee behind looking for any tightness that you can feel right at the front of that hip we don't just have to go forwards or backwards in a linear motion we can get you to twist your body from right to left a little bit to find where the best version of your tightness might be because once you're there it's not good enough to just hold this position for 30 seconds and hope that that tissue Magic magically releases it's not good enough it doesn't work anywhere near as effectively as getting active and what I mean by that is if you can find a really juicy amount of tightness in the front of that se as muscle then if you can squeeze your butt cheek tense up that tissue actively make it work hold this for 5 to 10 seconds what this does is this gets your brain involved so that when you stop tensing it creates this reflex that physically releases that muscle and what you should instantly feel if you've done it correctly is you should then feel that you can go instantly further into the stretch than what you could before and then all you need to do is just keep squeezing that muscle for 5 to 10 seconds relaxing going further squeezing that muscle for 5 to 10 seconds relaxing going further and very quickly you should feel like that Soze muscle starts to release in real time and that kneeling hip flexor stretch is a fantastic way to Target that soas muscle specifically and as long as you're doing that PNF or contract relax stretching technique over the top you'll hopefully be pleasantly surprised at how much better benefit you can gain from just such a simple stretch and the second fantastic stretch that you can do to quickly improve that hip flexor flexibility is the couch stretch all this requires you to do is to get your knee back into the corner of a chair or a wall if you're flexible enough when to get your opposite leg up and the idea with this is squeezing your bottom keeping your back straight we're trying to extend up through the front of your hip as far as you feel comfortable without needing to hold your breath or wise or feel like this is a horrible position this has the potential to be a brutal stretch for some people because of how tight we tend to be through the front of those hips and like we did with the kneeling hip flexor stretch you can gently twist your body from side to side just to give you a sense of which angle gives you the best access to your hip flexor tightness once you found it squeeze your butt cheek tense that thigh muscle tense your hip muscles up as much as you can make them work again for 5 to 10 seconds same idea once that gives you'll be able to go a little bit further into the stretch straight away repeat that process give it a squeeze then relax go further and further again just make sure that you're not determining how far you go by how far back your shoulders go because I can keep my hips in the same position and extend through my back and get a lot further back we want to make sure that you're just thinking about opening up the front of your hips you may not go as far but we need to make sure the tension is here and not jamming up your low back at the same time as I said before if you do find that that position is quite Advanced for you start by doing it onto a chair to begin with and eventually work your way down paying attention to how it feels but more importantly the amount of progress that you can make with that hip flexor tightness straight away so once you spend some time mobilizing any potentially hidden restrictions in your lower back and figured out which hip flexor stretch or SE stretch is the best version for you we can also take a ball and go looking around that hip flexor soaz region for any other soft tissue or connective tissue that might also be restricting your hip extension or the function of that soaz muscle and all you need to do with this is you take a ball any ball find the hip bone at the front of your hip want to place the ball on that bump and just come inside of that which is where most of those hip flexor tissues reside and if we can get you to lie down on your tummy and gently let that ball push in very quickly you should be able to find a couple of spots that maybe the hip stretches or the lower back didn't necessarily affect and again I'm not a big fan of using the ball and rolling up and down tissue we can be more specific and more effective with our techniques there's two that you can try that can really fundamentally shift this restriction quickly the first is if you find a particularly tight and potentially tender spot like we did with our hip flexor stretches you can squeeze that muscle squeeze your butt cheek tense up the tissue underneath the ball for 5 to 10 seconds when you give it will subtly relax and you might then feel like the ball sinks in a little bit more straight away you can move the ball around a little bit you're looking for the next tight spot give it a squeeze for 5 to 10 seconds and then relax and allow that to give just systematically work your way around the inside of that hipbone up and down that track or anywhere else around that you might feel is also tight and restricted as well the other strategy that we can use is we can incorporate movement into this exercise to Shear free some restricted tissue if you bend your knee this can tension up the wre fem muscle which isn't your SE as muscle but it's also a muscle that crosses the front of that hip if this doesn't do anything for you the next step from here is to have your knee bent and then gently lift your knee up off the ground now this can be a bit awkward for some people especially if you're not flexible enough to get into that hip extended position we don't want you to extend your back while you're doing it want you to keep the pressure down on the ball and imagine that you're pulling your leg backwards off the ground to Shear free that muscular tightness underneath again this is an amazing way to quickly Shear free restriction to the point where as soon as you start it might feel a little bit tender a little bit tight but then after a few of these motions you might find that it very quickly starts to subside and feel a little bit more comfortable but add that into the mix to make sure that you're not just addressing the hidden back component and that se as muscle specifically but anything else around red that could also be interfering with your sense of freedom in that area so once you spend some time trying to mobilize that lower back and hip area we need to have one more really important conversation folling on from from the theme of this video where just stretching a tight soaz muscle on its own isn't enough to fix that and take away the need for it to want to be tight in the first place fringing up your lower back can genuinely be a tangible piece of the puzzle that asks that to be stiff and tight but if you're not also taking note of how much time you spend sitting especially in a hip flexed position and position that you put your back into while you're sitting then it might be unrealistic to expect your SE as tightness to disappear for good the reason for this this is because the things that we do most throughout our day logically can have the biggest influence on how a tissue feels and for most people one of the main things that we do each day is sit sitting on the couch at home watching TV or playing computer games sitting at your desk using a laptop sitting down using your phone playing an instrument reading a book watching a movie it doesn't really matter what you're doing but the position that you put your body into the most throughout the day has the most potential to influence the function of that body and because sitting plays such a big role in our dayto day lives it's a great place to start when looking for the reason why your hip flexes have become tight in the first place so if on balance you spend more time in a sitting position where your hips Flex to about 90 OD de and not enough time in an extended position where your knee is traveling behind your hip then that so as muscle won't have the need to be elongated and loose because the environment that it's in is consistently asking it to be a lesser version of itself and while it's unrealistic to expect people not to sit down in this modern world it is something that's worthwh paying attention to to see if you can optimize that more than what you currently might be whether that's trying to invest in a standing desk to stand up a little bit more to take away some of that unnecessary sitting or if you're someone who has to sit a lot maybe you can find times to stand up and get out of that position maybe to take a break or to eat some food but anything you can do to analyze the shapes and positions you get into the most how much sittings involved in that and how much of that you can control versus how much you can't control we really want to optimize the positions you put your hip into to make sure that that soas muscle doesn't want to keep getting tight and following on from that we also want to pay attention to the position that your back is in while you're sitting as well because if we can understand the effect that mobilizing your lower back had on the function of your SE as muscle and you found that there's a specific part of your back that feels a bit stiffer and tighter than anywhere else and when you release that tightness your hip flexor your Seas muscle felt better then again there has to be a reason why that exact part of your back became stiff tight and restricted especially if it's one side more than the other and clinically as a physiotherapist what I tend to find a lot is that if we look at the positions that you get into when you're not paying attention to your posture we might find that where you let go where the hinge goes where you slouch through where you bend through May very closely line up with where you felt stiff tight and restricted and again if releasing that restriction helps you free up your soaz muscle then it makes sense that we need to find ways and strategies to get you out of that slatch posture long term if we're ever going to give that soas muscle a genuine chance to never be tight and stiff again and for most people that can be as simple as just physically being being conscious of being up a bit taller this does require more muscular endurance and tolerance to this shape so it might take a couple of days or a couple of weeks to really feel comfortable holding yourself in this position out right what you can also do in the meantime is that if you know that there's a hinge that you may create when you sit in a certain position on the couch computer car whatever it is if you can roll up a tail if you can grab a cushion stick it into that part of your back so that it's filling the Gap that your spine might have naturally filled for so long and by keeping you in that position we're not prompting that tissue to become stiff and tight which could be the first step in a number of steps that lead to this Seas muscle being tight and staying tight long term so with that being said there are plenty of different ways that you can stretch and mobilize a tight Seas muscle but unless you're taking a step back and looking at this through a different perspective of your lower back function and your sitting habits doesn't matter who you are doesn't matter what advice you've been given you may not be creating the environment that your tight so as needs to not feel like it has to be tight so as always a genu genely hope that was helpful I hope that resonates with you please like the video and subscribe to the channel if you do like more of this content following on from that if you are dealing with a persistent issue of any kind whether it's an actual pain and injury or you're just not able to do the things that you want to do the way that you want to do them and maybe you're not getting the answers that you need from other people please consider booking in an online consultation with me and I'll leave the link in the description below and we can try and figure out what the root cause of those issues might be and then plot some tangible results based ways for you to get the progress that you hope looking for but once again I genely hope all that was helpful and I hope to see you next time bye

Channel: Your Wellness Nerd

Views: 504,600

Keywords: psoas stretch, psoas mobility, psoas tightness, tight psoas, psoas muscle stretch, how to loosen a tight psoas, cause of psoas muscle tightness, hip flexor tightness, iliopsoas tightness, iliopsoas muscle tightness, tight iliopsoas, tight hip flexor stretch, how to stretch a tight hip flexor, how to stretch a tight psoas, how to stretch a tight iliopsoas, best psoas stretches, psoas release, iliopsoas release, psoas exercises, psoas, hip flexor stretch, psoas stretches

Id: k2eZUjMPd5Y

Length: 15min 38sec (938 seconds)

Published: Sun Nov 12 2023