Your Body is a Fortress, Part 4 – The Iliopsoas

[A favorite fortress of mine: the Golden Gate bridge in SF, CA; USA]

The ilio-what?

And, why should you care about it?

I must admit…

I love muscles. Not necessarily eating them, but looking at the well-defined curves of professional athletes, for example. More importantly, I love to study them, to learn their names, to tease apart their actions, origins, and insertions and to use this knowledge to erase pain.

I appreciate what muscles do for me. If I didn’t have them, my body would be a pile of bones, organs, and other connective tissues wrapped in skin. That doesn’t sound like much fun, does it?

One of my favorite muscles is the iliopsoas, which is the combined muscle groups of the psoas major and iliacus.

I know, I know, bla, bla, bla, names and muscles are boring! I get it. But before you click and run, give me a chance to tell you why these muscles are so cool and how the benefit of knowing about them can improve your life at least a smidge.

Are you ready?
Take a deep breath and relax (are your arms supported?).

First, let me show you what the iliopsoas looks like and where it’s located. The image on the left contains the entire iliopsoas muscle group. The image on the right, the iliacus only. You’re looking at an anterior view (i.e., this bloke’s stomach from his front/belly button).

[taken from Trail Guide to the Body, 2nd Ed by Andrew Biel; a great thing to have if you want to learn more about your body!]

Isn’t it beautiful?

One of the most valuable lessons I’ve learned as massage therapist is, surprisingly, not the techniques of the trade, but what muscles do for a living and their specific locations. This is important because if you pay attention to your body’s aches and pains, knowing the source of your pain (i.e., where it resides), can alert you to what you may be doing to aggravate that muscle, thereby inducing pain.

So, with that in mind, think about this and truly take a moment to be aware of your own iliopsoas as you read…

These muscles are situated deep and close to the spine and hip, but you can actually feel the psoas major if you lie flat on the floor and palpate deep towards your spine. To make sure you’re in the right spot, just bend a leg at 90 degrees, exhale, and gently lift foot off the ground just a bit. You should feel the muscle jump to action. Don’t be crazy about this—you have important other “stuff” in there, too (be gentle). You can feel the iliacus best in a side-lying position, similar procedure—grab the ‘lip’ of your hip bone while gently lifting the leg.

The primary function of the psoas is to flex your hip (move your body closer to your legs). You can see from the picture that the muscle attaches directly to the front of your spine (termed the origin), spans your hip, and connects to the upper portion of your ‘leg bone’ (lesser trochanter of the femur; the connection is termed the insertion).

Is your back sore? Here’s the clincher…

In addition to strengthening your TVA and core it would most likely benefit you to stretch your psoas. I found a good example of how to do this via my good buddie, You Tube, and uploaded it to the end of my post. Check it out.

If your iliopsoas is accustomed to sitting or driving a lot, it may shorten or become “tight” or contracted. This can happen to cyclists, too, so watch it, Lance!

What happens as an effect of this tightening? Ouch! The natural curvature of your lumbar spine (your low back) becomes accentuated, basically giving you a hyper-J.Lo posture—called hyper-lordosis. This effect is from the pelvis being pulled into a downward rotation from that tight iliopsoas. Your lower back hates this, it is getting scrunched up (!), and it will start screaming bloody murder.

So, stretch it, baby, stretch it!
And make sure to move around once an hour, at least, if you work in a seated position. In the office, you can modify what you see in the video below by sitting on one butt cheek and moving the leg that is off the chair behind you with your foot well behind you, then arch your back and look up gently. Think of the anatomy I made you suffer through—(key point!) where and how that muscle sits—and simply move the origin away from the insertion. It’s that easy.

You’re worth it! Take care of the structures of your fortress and it won’t let you down.

Please don’t hesitate to contact me with questions or if you’d like to talk shop about anatomy. Oooh, the fun we’ll have.

Create Your Day!