No, Stretching Alone Won’t Relieve Your Tight Psoas. Here’s What Will.

By Rachel Land for Yoga Journal.

If you’re like most of the population, you spend much of your day in hip flexion, whether you’re running, hiking, cycling, skiing, or even sitting passively at your desk. That means the psoas muscle, a hip flexor that runs along either side of your spine, is constantly contracted and tense.

This unrelenting tightness can contribute to more issues than just your hips feeling in dire need of stretching. Psoas dysfunction can affect your walking and running stride, interfere with your lumbar stability, even cause pelvic and lower back pain.

But it can be tricky to find psoas muscle stretches that adequately address  the tension. Plus, if you spend most of your waking hours with your psoas in its shortened state and only stretch it every few days, it’s not exactly surprising that you don’t experience long-lasting relief.

To learn more about the psoas and 3 ways to make psoas muscle stretches more effective, click here to read the full article on Yoga Journal.