Muscle Minute Monday: Psoas

Welcome to the first Muscle Minute Monday , where I keep it short ‘n sweet, as we dive a little deeper into the different muscles of your body! This week I’d love for you to meet your Psoas muscle. I’ve had a few people this past week who were having trouble with this, so I figured it would be a good one to start off with. If you don’t like reading, then make sure you have the sound on when watching this video.

The Psoas is a deep muscle located in the lower back (you have one on your right and on your left side). It originates from the bodies and transverse processes of your vertebrae, of T12 (the vertebrae of your last rib) and L1-L5, basically all of your lower lumbar spine. It goes through the pelvis and inserts into the lesser trochanter of the femur, which is the upper inside part of your femur bone. So essentially this muscle is going from your lower back through your pelvis and attaching to the inside, very top part of your leg.
This muscle helps with quite a few different movements:

• It allows you to bend forward, or trunk flexion

• It helps you with side bending, or lateral flexion

• It helps with hip flexion, which is where you raise your knees up, kind of like you’re marching

When this muscle gets tight, shortened or weakened it can cause pain in the lower back and the hips. It might be difficult to stand fully upright or painful when sitting and changing positions.

I often see this with runners, new mamas and people who have jobs that require them to sit for extended periods of time.

There are definitely a few reasons why this happens, which is why it’s important to speak with a professional to help figure out what may potentially be going on, or causing this pain. And for the sake of your short attention span, I won’t go into that right now.