The Iliopsoas: Tightness or Weakness?The Deep Hip Flexor is the deep muscle (close to your lumbar spine) that brings your knee upward resulting in flexion at your hip joint.The Deep Hip Flexor is actually made up of two muscles: 1) The Psoas Major and 2) the Illiacus but is commonly referred to as the Iliopsoas because these muscles share a common tendon.For all you anatomy geeks out there:Psoas Major:Origin: Anterior surfaces and lower borders of transverse processes of L1-L5Insertion: Lesser trochanter of femur inserts as iliopsoas tendonAction: flexion at the hip joint, external rotation, bends lumbar vertebral columnIlliacus:Origin: Iliac fossa and crest; ala of sacrumInsertion: Lesser trochanter of femur inserts as iliopsoas tendonAction: Flexion and external rotation at hip joint; ipsilateral (same side) bending of trunk, raises trunk from supine positionCommonly, runners develop weakness in this muscle. Unless youre sprinting, the iliopsoas isnt really worked at slower paced running the other hip flexors (rectus femoris (part of the quadriceps), sartorius and tensor fasciae latae, which are superficial) tend to take over because the hip angle does not reach greater than 90 degrees, which is where the iliopsoas activates more in relation to the more superficial hip flexors. Since middle-long distance running takes place below a hip angle of 90 degrees, the deep hip flexor can weaken over time.Check if youre weak: Stand super tall and bring one knee to your chest. Bring it super high, well above 90 degrees. Keep it there for 30 seconds. Did your low back round? Did you round forward to meet your thigh? Were you not able to hold your thigh above 90 degrees? If you answered yes to any of these questions, you have weak deep hip flexors (either uni- or bi-lateral).If you felt a fatigue-feeling or cramp deep in your stomach, while keeping the thigh above 90 degrees for the full 30 seconds, your deep hip flexors are probably sound.This drill is one of my favourites to activate the iliopsoas prior to a run or workout. Place a band around your feet. Bring both knees to your chest. Press one leg away, keeping the opposite thigh tight with your stomach. Hold for 5 seconds and repeat.However, having said that, the iliopsoas can also be tight and short because of all the sitting we do. A tight iliopsoas pulls the lumbar spine anteriorly, creating a large lordosis of the lumbar spine and a subsequent anterior pelvic tilt.

Running with an anteriorly rotated pelvis restricts how much hip flexion you can achieve when running at faster paces. This would negatively affect your stride length and obviously your running performance.Test to see if you have tight deep hip flexors:Lie on a coffee table or bed. Let one leg hang over the end and hug the opposite leg. Only hug enough to keep a neutral pelvis and lumbar spine **Note: if you hug too tightly, your pelvis will posteriorly rotate and pull your down thigh upward. This will give a false positive reading.Your down leg should be in contact with the end of the table if your one joint hip flexor (iliopsoas) length is normal. If your down thigh is hovering in mid-air, its too tight and short.

If youre tight, sorry to kick you when youre down, but you may also suffer from lower cross syndrome. This is a syndrome found by Professor V Yanda and describes this anterior pelvic tilt and hyper lumbar lordosis as resulting from tight hip flexors, weak abdominals, weak gluteals and weak and/or tight lumbar extensors.Gluteandcore trainingare a must in addition to hip flexor lengthening to fix this problem. Long term lower cross syndrome and hyper lumbar lordosis can result in lumbar disfunction including: disc degeneration, spondylosis (degeneration of lumbar spine), spondylolysis (vertebral defect), spondylolisthesis (vertebral anterior or posterior displacement).

If your iliopsoas is tight, add in this hip flexor stretch with core activation into your routine. Thecore activationis essential to maintain a neutral spine remember, the iliopsoas will pull your lumbar curve into hyper lordosis, so in order to prevent that from happening when youre trying to stretch the muscle, the core needs to be activated to maintain neutral spine.

See the picture below: Kneel on the side that is tight. Place the opposite leg forward. Get tall and tight, squeeze your glutes on your kneeling side and press your arms straight into a rod or table that is roughly chest height (when in this 1/2 kneeling position). You should feel a stretch in the front of your kneeling leg hip. Hold for 6 to 30 seconds depending on if its before or after a run.

The iliopsoas also has 3 trigger points that when present, can refer pain in the lumbar region or along the thigh. Active Release Techniques, a type of massage therapy may be required to remove these trigger points.So there you go. Iliopsoas strengthening and lengthening exercises.See where youre at and judge accordingly.Thanks for reading and RUN STRONG.Please leave your comments below.Oh ya, share this post with your running friends so they can benefit from the content too :)-JK