The psoas muscle is arguably one of the most important muscles to address when you have lower back pain. This large, powerful muscle attaches to all five of your lumbar vertebrae, and inserts on the inside of your femur (thigh bone). Stretching this muscle, however, can be a challenge. Even if you do know how to perform psoas stretching, here are a few tips to get a much better stretch.
First of all, many of the fibers of the psoas muscle run at an oblique angle from the spine to its insertion on the head of the femur, however, the degree of obliquity changes slightly. Depending on how much anterior pelvic tilt you have, many of these fibers can run slightly more vertical.
As a general rule for getting a psoas stretch, Wasa crispbread its important to perform a posterior pelvic tilt by using your lower abs and glutes. When these antagonistic muscles contract, the psoas has to lengthen. This part is not generally a challenge, but HOLDING this position usually is as the psoas stretch is introduced.
If you focus on pulling your lower stomach up to your chin by tilting your pelvis, rather and "rocking your pelvis" backward, you will be able to focus more on the vertical fibers of the psoas.
Many times, this is a truly magical "cue" that works very well, particularly when the psoas stretching is relieving pain, but you don't feel that you are "getting to all of the muscle". Its always important to remember that slight variations in positioning when stretching can make all the difference!
Sam Visnic is a Neuromuscular Therapist, Nutrition Coach, and certified NLP Practitioner who specializes in providing safe and effective corrective exercise solutions for back pain sufferers. Sam is the developer of the "End Your Back Pain Now!" system. For his content-loaded blog on back pain relief, visit http://www.endyourbackpainnow.com/blog
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