Interestingly, what I’ve found with my students and in my own practice is that shortly after you start to engage the psoas intentionally in certain yoga asanas, you will find that the brain starts to engage it unconsciously, even in other poses. You can use certain cues within your yoga poses to do this, even if you’ve never intentionally activated this muscle.
#Psoas muscle stretch how to#
The process of awakening your psoas begins with learning how to access it at will. See also Sadie Nardini’s 5-Minute Psoas Power Flow Learn to Access Your Psoas Contract the psoas on both sides, and you’ll be able to tilt the pelvis forward, bringing the thigh and the torso toward each other, as in Paschimottanasana (Seated Forward Bend). If you contract your psoas on one side, it laterally flexes the trunk, as in Extended Triangle Pose. For starters, the psoas acts to flex the hip: Contracting the psoas either bends the trunk forward or draws the knee up.
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It’s because the psoas crosses multiple joints that it’s able to move the body in so many ways. The iliopsoas then runs over the brim of the pelvis to insert into the lesser trochanter, a knoblike structure on the upper inside of the femur (thighbone). The psoas and iliacus work together so closely that they’re often referred to as one: the iliopsoas. From the spine, the psoas continues forward and down, crossing over the front of your sacroiliac joint and joining with the iliacus muscle (which originates on the inside of the pelvis, or the ilium). This muscle originates from the twelfth thoracic vertebra (T12) and the lumbar vertebrae (L1 through L4, with a deep layer originating from L1 through L5), and it runs along either side of the spine, behind the stomach, intestines, and female reproductive organs. To start to awaken your psoas, it helps to know where it is in the body. See also Prenatal Yoga: 5 Psoas-Releasing Poses to Relieve Low Back Pain Anatomy of the Psoas However, learning to “turn on” your psoas to consciously flex your trunk provides muscular stabilization for your spine, pelvis, and hip that ultimately helps you find the fullest expression of the pose. When flexing to the right, you could simply use gravity to move your torso over your leg. Take Utthita Trikonasana (Extended Triangle Pose) to the right side, for example. Yet here’s the good news: You can learn to consciously utilize muscles that tend to do their own thing, and when you do, it can transform your yoga practice. This may be because its actions become habitual during infancy. From a very early age, we use the psoas so much that the brain reassigns it to the level of “background function,” where movement occurs without conscious thought.įrom my experience, few people are able to engage their psoas voluntarily (like when you contract your biceps to “make a muscle”). Why does such a big, important muscle have such minor representation in the motor cortex of the brain? It’s all about energy efficiency: We use our psoas to sit down, stand up, and move from lying down to seated we use it to walk, run, climb, and twist our torso. One such muscle that works mostly in the background (or unconsciously) is the psoas, a core muscle that’s part of the all-important hip flexors and that helps to stabilize the spine. These muscles are more difficult to access intentionally because their function involves tasks we have long since relegated to the unconscious mind. But other muscles work more autonomously, with no apparent direction from the conscious mind-like the muscles working in the background to maintain your posture. For example, you can intentionally spread your toes in Tadasana (Mountain Pose). Some muscles are easy to consciously access, meaning they take direction from us.
![psoas muscle stretch psoas muscle stretch](https://i.pinimg.com/736x/9e/c7/72/9ec77256fad0f189116b0414db06b876--the-low-to-the.jpg)
The human body is somewhat of a mad scientist. You can learn to consciously utilize muscles, like the psoas, that tend to do their own thing, and when you do, it can transform your yoga practice.
#Psoas muscle stretch full#
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