are you having a hip groin pain hip instability paint a ghost on your leg
or your inner thigh and sometimes all the way to your seat think it's a sciatic nerve
maybe is your obturator internus welcome back to my channel any Pilates physical
therapist today I'll be discussing about the obturator internus the anatomy and how
to strengthen and stretch this muscle so get your Mac ready and join them
so let's discuss first about the anatomy of the obturator internus it's a very deep muscle it's
part of the pelvic floor this is all the way here the stars at the pubis area and the issue of the
membrane of your pelvic bone and then it wraps around like a boomerang shape and inserts on
the medial aspect of your greater trochanter of your femur bone which is your thigh bone I know
it wraps around all the way through but so thin and it helps abducts while your hip is in flexion
which means it opens as well as external rotate which is a slight movement up with your hip extend
extension so when this is tight and sometimes inflamed because of the weakness and rubbing
there's a membrane there the ischial membrane that gets inflamed and sometimes it's mistaken
as a piriformis syndrome because the piriformis muscle is just above it and tear posteriorly and
then the Attic nerve that passes behind it the piriformis and then in front of me obturator
internus so what happens with this problem it causes sciatica so if you've been treating your
back pain and you're still having pain going down your leg maybe you need to target this muscle to
help out and then if you have weakness on this muscle that's the thigh bone gets unstable so
your walking pattern on one side usually when you play sports you feel like a clicking sound or an
instability so the first exercise that we're gonna do is the sideline open kinematic chain so in this
position you're gonna put your foot out like this stabilize pushing it down to stabilize more your
pelvic and then bend your knee here and slowly lift it up and my recommendation without your
knee lifting keeping your chin up posterior pelvic tilt to keep your spine straight belly button in
with your breaths and help your nose and blow and do this up to 50 times 50 because it takes a lot
of repetition to get results for this tiny muscle and the nerve that innervates this muscle is from
L 2 3 4 if you have low back pain on one side in left side and it irritates this nerve and this
nerve that originates in this area of your lumbar spine becomes the obturator internus nerve and if
you have that nerve damage it causes weakness on that muscle as well so sometimes you need to
stretch and strengthen your obturator as well as strengthen your spine and you can check out my low
backs treatment plans on my playlists so after 50 times and it gets easier now you can progress with
isometrics isometric miss you put resistance and the first area when the perverseness is in your
knee and hold it for 5 seconds hold again up to 50 times and then as they goes on it gets easier then
you can start resisting on your medial aspect of your leg and then you go further up to your ankle
and then if it gets too easy then your in your toes then it's for me this is still very difficult
because I have a problem on my obturator internus on my left from low back pain years ago and then
I need to continue with this as my program to keep it healthy and strong and the next progression is
putting ankle weights on your knee area first and then you can slowly put place it further
away from your knee and another great idea is to get the resistance band and someone holds on
the outside part so you pull it out you tie it down on the floor somewhere they can stabilize
on the furniture and you put resistance around it like this and up to fifty times as well and
the progression and this one is getting a bolster I'm placing it underneath your needs so when you
put it underneath your knee still a 90 position you have more range of motion and you can read an
elevate it up so when you stretch up you're up to eight or internists and in this position you get
more range and it's much more difficult I know I'm very flexible now I've been doing this for a long
time but if you're beginner it's okay if it's low do it as much as you can I can also lift with your
hand to stretch it out and feel so lovely stretch on your obturator so the next one is sitting up so
this is called the mermaid stretch so if you're targeting at the back of your leg before me it's
my left side I have to put it behind me so it's called mermaid because looks like a mermaid but
in the 90 position so 90 degrees on your knee 90 GPS on your hip on your knee as well at the
back and your hip so you feel already a stretch just trying your best to sit up because of the
tightness the foundation of your spine which is your pelvic area and your hip so just holding
it here take a deep breath through your nose and blow and hold it there up to ten breaths and then
slowly progress with your hands pulling it up in this position pointing down to the floor with your
fingers and down and up and down like this for ten repetition with your breaths to take a deep
breath up and down blow feels a lovely stretch on my hip area and it really pushes it in a closed
kinematic chain to stretch the obturator internus and now we're gonna progress you're gonna turn and
twist towards the left side where I have the problem and then back to the center with your
breath so take a deep breath up turn and back to the center and blow and my recommendation again
is up to fifty times three sets so after doing this the next progression is lift turn and open
your knee out and you can really feel the tension on your obturator on your inner thigh and do that
as well for 50 times as you progress and then with your hands out like this and lifting you feel this
is a little bit more challenging and you'll be surprised on their bodies biomechanic that this
gets harder with your palms out and when you turn it's another progression but you can progress as
well once you found that this is easy so this is the progression and lift and of course I love the
anti symmetric so you're gonna put resistance on your in behind your knee to target and hold it
for five seconds after ten seconds hold as you get better with less as long as there's no increasing
pain and you just feel some muscle resistance and resistance over here and then down and turn
fifty times as well to challenge your obturator internus and the last one will be lying down so
I'm gonna forget my laughs operator and turn the sold obturator internus when your knees straight
and down your muscle is actually slack it's not tight in this position but once you start
blending it that's when it gets taught and you feel the pain or deep inside your hip so you're
gonna use the bolster here as a self massage I'm gonna target my left so my right side will be
stabilizing it and then I'm gonna go up and down just to stretch and then I'm rolling it gently on
my glutes area because it's behind those deep it's a very deep muscle behind the glutes and
when I go the straight it's really relaxed the obturator and when I bend fully and pull it back
should really feel the stretch and then if I turn inwardly you feel the stretch I could feel it more
when you pull it towards your chest like this and then down who what the stretch so bent fully and
pull inwardly to stretcher you know you can feel the inner thigh pull of the muscle and
so again I'm gonna slow the bend and twist back to the center and hold it up to 10 seconds whole
bad twist 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 back to the center and down last one so you're gonna Bend hold it
here pull feel a stretch and progress twist inside and then another progression you open it out for
self massage mobilizing your hip that's at a balloon and Delta so those are the muscles the
obturator internus stretch that I showed you how three simple exercises that you can do at home
to strengthen and stretch this deep lovely muscle that's being neglected and once you start treating
this maybe you feel better on your sciatica as well as maybe your piriformis syndrome as well
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