Do you have piriformis syndrome, a literal pain in your butt? Maybe it's irritating your
sciatic nerve and you're also feeling radiating nerve pain down the back of your leg? If so,
this video is for you. Hey, my name is Lucas. I'm a yoga teacher and a teacher trainer, and in this
short video we'll chat about the anatomy and the biomechanics of your piriformis muscle. What it
is, what it does, and also what goes wrong. And number two, we'll look at a couple of different
exercises you can do to release tension and to lengthen that muscle if that's what you're
looking for. A quick disclaimer here: if you have a major back pain, a sciatic nerve problem,
any major pain problem, please check with your doctor. This is for educational purposes only.
Down below you'll find a link to the PDF if you'd like to skip forward to the exercises themselves.
Let's start off by looking at the muscle from an anatomical biomechanical perspective.
We'll flip around and look at Mr skeleton here from the back side. You can see this clay here is
meant to represent your piriformis muscle. People say it looks like a pear shape. To me not so much,
but this is one way to remember it. It attaches to your sacrum, to the anterior side of your sacrum,
it crosses and then attaches to your greater trochanter on your leg, on your femur essentially.
When this muscle contracts it's one of a group of six muscles referred to as your "deep six".
Deep meaning they're underneath your glutes and when they contract, your piriformis muscle and
those other five muscles too, they open your hip to the outside. They're called lateral rotators.
That all makes sense, that's all straightforward. What's weird about the piriformis, what's unique
and part of the reason it can become problematic, is aside from being a lateral rotator, once your
your hip is flexed past 90 degrees, take a look here, it suddenly becomes a medial rotator and a
little bit of an adductor as well. So we have this very weird relationship where the muscle laterally
rotates and then medially rotates, which means in different planes of motion it's going to have
very, very different actions. Long story short, it's very common that this muscle gets overworked,
over trained, strained, inflamed, and these are collectively referred to as piriformis syndrome.
Why does all of this matter? Well it's really uncomfortable. Second reason it matters is your
sciatic nerve runs right next to your piriformis muscle and for a significant minority of people
the sciatic nerve actually runs through your piriformis muscle. So if you have a hypertonic
over tense piriformis muscle, if it's strained or inflamed, in many cases it can impinge upon
your sciatic nerve and this small muscle problem can turn into a much bigger pain problem. So what
to do about it? There are two things that we'll look at. The first one is relieving
tension, so if you have an overactive muscle. And the second thing we can do is stretching
the muscle, which is a lot less obvious than it would look. Let's take a look at the exercises.
We'll start off today with an exercise to release tension. There's a principle
called autogenic inhibition where when a muscle gets overwhelmed with signals
it gives up and releases its tension. We're going to elicit that either with a massage ball,
a foam roller, a tennis ball, really anything you have around the house can work, you don't need
specialized fitness equipment. But essentially I'll take this massage ball or this foam roller
and I'll position it underneath my bum, and there's no way to get at my piriformis muscle
without also affecting my glutes, but that's okay. I'll lift up and I'll sit right on that ball,
right where my piriformis is, and I'll sit on it and I'll hold here and count to five.
Here's the key thing, whether using a foam roller or a massage ball you need the intensity to be
pretty high, let's say a 7 out of 10, which is where your voice is almost changing but
not quite. Let's do it together. I'll sit on that massage ball for five, four, you can pivot, three,
two, and one. Good. Release. We'll switch sides. Again, what we're trying to do is overwhelm the
muscle with sensation, so if it's hypertonic, if it's holding a bunch of tension, it'll release.
Sometimes when tissues are injured or overused they hold tension, kind of like up here in your
traps. Let's do it here again on the other side. You have to wiggle around to find that position.
Please keep in mind you will hit your glutes as well, but that's no problem. Let's sit on it,
7 out of 10 intensity. You can roll a little bit, five, four, three, two, and one. Good. Sit down,
be careful. This doesn't feel like much at first but it can be pretty intense. Let's
try again on the other side. Sit up on top of that ball, find a support with your hand,
this time let's add a little bit more motion. So let's go clockwise, one, two, three, four,
a little bit more intensity and five. Now reverse, five, four, three, two, and one. Switch sides.
You have to be careful here not to overdo it. Let's go clockwise, one,
two, three, four, and five. And now reverse, but increase the intensity, five, four, three, two,
and one. Good. Again, that's self massage and what we're attempting to do with this is not just
increase circulation but actually apply so much pressure that your muscle gives up and relaxes.
And the same way if somebody presses on your upper traps you uh and then you relax, the same
idea with our piriformis. Now we'll get into a stretch. This is a stretch on your back. Let
me show you what it looks like. I have a timer here, we'll do two minute holds on either side.
As I mentioned before, your piriformis is kind of a tricky muscle to target because of its location.
I'll take my right leg over the top of my left leg and attempt to squish my legs together as much as
possible, attempt to squish my legs together as much as possible, you might even hook your ankle
around your shin. But let me show you, assuming that that doesn't work for you. So squish your
legs as close together as you can, make sure that your ankle does not come to 90 degrees.
Instead keep your knees further away from you. In fact, you can plant your heel down on the floor.
I'll take my left arm, I'll press my knees towards the floor nice and slowly no rush
at all. What we're attempting to do is get in here and stretch your piriformis. Personally, I like to
poke around, try to feel that tension. Oddly, it's an easy one to miss. Both arms straight,
gaze up towards the ceiling, and then close your eyes. We'll inhale through our nose for four.
Exhale for eight.
Inhale four.
Exhale.
Stay where you are and continue breathing. I'll warn you in advance, stretching your piriformis
is tricky because there's absolutely no way to isolate it. What do I mean by that?
Well we're doing full axial rotation of our spine here,
so there's a whole bunch of different muscles that come along for the ride.
That's a benefit, but it's also a drawback, because if I'm just trying to target my piriformis
there's really no way to do it without targeting other muscles as well. That means you need to
be patient, and you need to be gentle, and give yourself some time. Inhale for four.
Exhale for eight.
Yes
and release all the way back up, and we will switch sides. This time your left leg comes up
over the top, squish the space out between your legs, squish the space out between your legs,
maybe your foot hooks around the shin, let's assume it doesn't, keep squishing
the space out. We'll keep a greater than 90 degree angle between our knees and our chest,
right hand on your knee, press your knees down towards the ground. Again, I like to palpate back
there, see if I can find some tension, remembering that you're going to take other muscles along for
the ride there's no way around that look up towards the ceiling close your eyes and
relax. It's helpful if both arms are straight, you gently press your knees down towards the ground.
Remember, because our piriformis is a lateral rotator, meaning when it contracts it opens
our hip to the outside, to stretch it we need to immediately rotate. That sounds kind of obvious
when I say it, but sometimes it's easy to get confused. But since this muscle when it contracts
opens our hip out to stretch it we need to go the other way. The only complication with
the piriformis is, again, we need to keep that hip angle above 90 degrees.
Inhale for four through your nose.
Exhalate through your mouth.
Inhale four.
Excellent.
Both with that self massage and with these stretches I very much encourage you to take
a really slow start in terms of intensity and in terms of duration. Don't go too fast,
too far. Slowly make your way back up to center, hug your knees, and roll up to a seated position.
As I was mentioning, take your time with these poses. They might not feel like much,
but again, if you've got an over strained hypertonic, too much tension, in that muscle,
you want to err on the side of caution, especially at first. Hope you found this
video helpful. You can always find my teaching calendar at yogabody.com. If you'd like more
science-based yoga videos, hit subscribe down below. I do my best to answer all the comments,
if you have questions please post them down below and we'll see you in the next video.