What's up, guys?
Jeff Cavaliere, ATHLEANX.COM.
There's a reason why some of the biggest muscles in the body are some of the most important.
Today we're going to talk about the role of the psoas, and not only why it's so important,
but what you can do to make sure that yours is adequately flexible, and at the same time
working on that hip as well.
All of this is going to be extremely important for how you function in the gym or out on
the field if you're an athlete.
Your hips need to be mobile.
I say it all the time.
If you want to look like an athlete, you've got to train like an athlete.
Today I want to show you exactly how to mobilize that hip and work on that psoas so that your
lower body is functioning the way we need it to.
We'll start by taking a look on the skeleton exactly what the role of this muscle is and
why you need to start focusing on it.
Alright, so let's take a quick up-close look at the psoas muscle so you understand why
it's so important that we focus on it because it is big.
It covers a lot of ground.
And it has a couple of very major functions.
You can see that it runs from here all the way down to the top of our femur.
And what it does is it primarily will make our hip flex, ok.
We'll lift our leg up into hip flexion.
But that's not all.
It attaches to all of these lumbar vertebrae here and into our thoracic spine so that you
see, as I spin this around, it comes right up here.
And it literally, like I said, attaches to the vertebrae.
Well, by attaching to the vertebrae, if we were to leave our leg fixed and contract from
the top down,
you know, pull from here, we're going to get a lateral bending of the spine in one direction.
So you can see if there's an asymmetrical tightness between right side and left side
of our psoas here, it's going to cause a compression on one side of the spine versus the other.
If they're equally tight and they're pulling down and you're actually getting a compression
on the spine and the discs themselves which can cause problems
and that's why people get back pain when they do their ab work, if they have tight hip flexors.
So, there's a way that we can actually stretch this big muscle out
and improve the mobility of the hips at the same time, and that's what I'm going to show
you right now.
Alright, so if we're going to stretch out this muscle, then we have to go back to the
functions I just showed you on the skeleton.
You know you need to get your hip into extension because this is a powerful hip flexor, and
we also want to get some lateral trunk bending because as I showed you,
if we allow one side of our psoas to work, it's going to pull ourselves down on the right
hand side, pull us down into lateral flexion of the spine.
So, if we can get lateral bending of the spine in addition to hip extension, then we've got
a good stretch for the psoas.
A lot of people forget that secondary component because they think of it just from the bottom
up as opposed to the function of it Top/Down.
So, we can go to the Smith machine, and I love the Smith machine for this very purpose
because it allows us to quickly move this, essentially our bar will be our dowel
about where we want this to be to help us do Hurdle Unders or Hurdle Overs or a lot
of other variations of hurdles which are great for hip mobility.
So, we'll take a hip mobility drill here, but we'll add a component of static stretch
to make sure that we can get both the flexibility and the mobility of the hip addressed at one
time.
So you set this thing up here.
I'm going to stand out of frame here.
But you set it up about hip height, just at the crest of your hip.
So right up where your hip will crest up,
that's where you want the bar to be.
And obviously, if you're training with different people, you slide it up and down until they
find their height.
Now what you want to do is position yourself on the outside here of the bar where we do
a Hurdle Under.
You try to keep your head and body squared up.
Your feet will step in.
Try to keep your toes straight on the line of the bar.
So, straight ahead here towards the camera.
As I go under, I want to then slide over, rotate my torso so that I can stretch the
back side hip flexor.
You'll see it good when I come back out this way.
But I slide under, I sit low, ok, I slide my body over.
I don't just dunk my head.
That's a neck mobility drill.
You're here.
You slide under, and then once you're there, you rotate your torso.
Now we drop down.
I've got a nice stretch on this back hip flexor here.
And I'm going to lean the opposite direction, ok.
So, I'll show you now as I come back out.
So, I square up.
Now I'm straight through here.
Good hip mobility in through my hips.
I slide that way, ok.
I drop in.
Good hip flexor here on this leg, a good stretch.
I raise up.
Remember, this one wants to pull you down to the same side.
So, when I'm here, I'm up extending the hip and I lean away from it.
So now I've got a really good stretch and mobility down through both hips.
I ease up.
Slide straight back down again, over, twist, and go to the other side.
Come up, slide down, over, up, and move.
Just like that.
Up.
Down.
Slide.
Here.
And come across.
Like I said, quick drill.
It attacks the hip from both sides, flexibility and mobility.
And again, if you do it in here, nothing's stopping us from getting these a little bit
lower and then working on over drills as well.
Alright.
But that's for another day.
For now, guys, I wanted you to see that not only is this muscle im,portant, not only can
you not ignore it,
but if you really want to start training like an athlete, you've got to address this component
of your preparation as well.
Be mobile.
Be flexible.
And then start training.
You'll be able to lift a lot more if you have adequately mobile hips
because they'll allow you to get into positions you may never have been able to on some other
important exercises like Squats and Deadlifts and things like that.
So, if you're looking to train lilke an athlete, then head to ATHLEANX.COM and get our complete
ATHLEANX Training System.
Let me coach you every step of the way through every aspect of your training,
and I'll be sure that I can get you to your goals faster than you could if you were doing
it on your own.
In the meantime, if you like this video, make sure you leave a comment and some thumb's
up below.
Did you find it helpful?
What else do you want to see me cover, and I'll make sure I do that in a future video
here for sure.
Alright guys, I'll be back here again real soon.