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The psoas is so hot right now! Last week’s newsletter about the psoas muscle, along with a link to my free 30-minute psoas tutorial, generated a flood of responses. There were so many great questions that I wanted to answer a few of them this week and provide some more clarity.

So much of the deep work of mobility training—the really juicy work where patterns shift and muscles move in new ways—requires a quieter approach than most fitness applications. This could not be more true than with the psoas. That’s why I call this tutorial more of a meditation than a workout.

But of course that deep, subtle work is bound to generate some questions. Here are 5 of the most common queries I received from you this week.

You’re not doing anything wrong, it’s just that we all have different anatomy and that psoas is pretty deep down in your innards. There are a few reasons why you might have a hard time feeling anything:

There are various devices on the market that you can lay on that are supposed to poke the psoas, though I find them too aggressive for that sensitive region and don’t recommend them for most folks. If you really feel like your psoas needs a palpation many manual therapists can do this.

Hooray you were able to feel that stretch of the deep hip flexors! The block stretch in this video is one of the few positions where you can get a reasonably good passive stretch of the psoas. The reason it is so much harder in a lunge is because it requires a lot of strength to stabilize the pelvis and spine when you are upright and unsupported.

Last week I used the analogy of a big truck stuck in the mud with the winch attached to little bitty tree. When you tighten that winch the tree will bend before the truck lifts out of the mud. Without a considerable amount of core strength and control, pulling on the psoas by moving the thigh bone back into extension will just yank the back into an arched position, removing the stretch on the psoas. You can still stretch the other hip flexors a bit because they don’t attach to the spine, but the psoas will remain tight.

The supine block stretch removes the need for all that stabilization because you are supported by the floor and the block . Pulling the opposite knee to your chest prevents the back from arching. You still have some responsibility to keep your hips square, but much less strength is required in this position than in a lunge.

Once you’ve spent some time working on the supine stretch and strengthening your spinal stabilizers you can translate that feeling to your lunges.

This kind of deeper sleuthing is a bit beyond the scope of a newsletter and would require more one-on-one work and a full assessment. The short answer is that the psoas does not exist in isolation and so, while it is very important, it is rarely the sole cause of any back or hip pain. When we work to address ongoing pain or tightness we must include the hips, glutes, core muscles, knees, ankles, feet, and even your breathing patterns.

Doing this work to find, engage, and release the psoas can bring about powerful change but not because the psoas alone was causing the problem. It is because addressing the psoas helps you address the entire system for improved cooperation.

I don’t think I’m saying anything controversial when I reiterate that sitting all day is hard on our whole body, including the psoas. Sitting compresses the psoas, and after a long day of being squashed it is likely to be grumpy.

But the reality is that many of us sit more than we’d like because we have to work and study and drive and such. So we make the best of it.

I’m a huge fan of sprinkling my sedentary days with little mobility snacks. Try to take just 5-10 minutes a few times a day to stand up and do some knee lifts, or leg swings, or lunges, really anything that gets you moving again. Snacks may not get you ready for a career as a contortionist but they can be the difference between ending the day walking smoothly vs staggering like a zombie.

I’m such a fan of movement snacks that my next big module drop is going to be a collection of snack-sized workouts that you can cram into those narrow crevasses of available time. Stay tuned!

This is a great question and one that begs for clarification. In the past we thought that perhaps certain muscles stored chronic stress and trauma.

Newer research has shown that the muscle doesn’t actually store anything, rather the brain’s relationship with the body changes in response to stress and trauma. Because all muscle function is controlled by the brain, a vigilant brain is more likely to generate tension—see my post on muscle guarding—particularly in certain muscles that are highly responsive to stress, like the psoas.

The hips are a very common area for the brain to send its vigilance signals, causing those muscles to stay engaged and alert. The long term effects can include tight hips, knee pain, difficulty breathing, lower back pain, and a host of other issues.

It is also true that stress and trauma make us more sensitive to pain. This means that the same level of tension might not bother you at all one day and might feel wildly unpleasant the next, contributing to unpredictable pain patterns.

Finally, a while back I wrote about the importance of the homunculus, the brain’s internal map of the body. Because the psoas is entirely internal—you can’t see it and struggle to touch it—it’s very easy for that part of the homunculus to be blurry. Blurring can get worse with stress, which is why the super slow, meditative leg lifts in the psoas tutorial can reduce tightness and pain by restoring some of that proprioceptive information.

All of these are compelling reasons to get to know your psoas and understand what it needs. I hope that this inspires you to find a little psoas meditation time in your busy schedule to lay on your back and do tiny, curious movements with your hips. It may not have the pizzazz of splits training, but the rewards have a ripple effect through so much of the body.

Thank you everyone who wrote in with your questions and experiences. I love to hear from you!

Happy Bendings,

Kristina

Further reading:

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