Pourquoi vous ne pouvez pas relâcher votre muscle psoas tendu avec des étirements

Votre physiothérapeute, chiropraticien ou professeur de yoga vous a peut-être dit que vous avez un muscle psoas tendu et vous a peut-être appris des exercices d'étirement pour le relâcher.

Bien qu'ils aient probablement raison - avoir un psoas serré est un problème très courant - l'étirement statique a peu ou pas d'effet durable sur le niveau de tension dans le muscle psoas.

As a former ballet dancer, I used to have an extremely tight psoas muscle, which caused me to have back pain, back spasms, and functional leg length discrepancy. In the course of my training to become a Clinical Somatic Educator, I learned the technique of Pandiculation, which allowed me to finally release years of built-up tension in my psoas muscle. As I practiced Clinical Somatics exercises daily, my psoas muscle gradually lengthened, my back pain and spasms disappeared, and my hips evened out.

J'expliquerai pourquoi les étirements ne fonctionnent pas plus tard dans le post, mais je vais d'abord expliquer ce qu'est le muscle psoas et quels problèmes un muscle psoas tendu peut causer.

Qu'est-ce que le muscle psoas ?

The psoas muscle, formally called the psoas major, is a very important core muscle. The psoas attaches the lumbar vertebrae to the lesser trochanter, near the head of the femur.

The psoas muscle is often grouped together with the iliacus muscle, and together they’re referred to as the iliopsoas. Due to its location deep within the core of the body, the psoas is difficult to feel with your hands and to sense internally.

Iliopsoas stretch

A quoi sert le muscle psoas ?

Le muscle psoas effectue plusieurs actions importantes :

  • The psoas flexes the hip, so when it contracts it brings the knee in toward the stomach. If you spend a lot of time sitting, your psoas is likely tight as a result of spending so much time in a shortened state.

  • The psoas laterally rotates the hip, allowing you to stand like a ballet dancer with your feet pointed outward. Dancers often have a great deal of tightness in their psoas muscle.

  • The psoas adducts the hip, bringing the leg in toward the center of the body. If you squeeze your knees together, you’re engaging your adductors.

  • Because of its attachments to the lumbar vertebrae, the psoas muscle contributes to lateral tilting of the pelvis (hiking the hips up one at a time) and lateral flexion of the spine (bending the spine to one side).

Quels sont les symptômes d'un muscle psoas tendu?

You may have heard of “iliopsoas syndrome.” That’s just a convenient way to refer to the symptoms that often result from chronic tightness in the iliopsoas:

Pourquoi le muscle psoas se contracte-t-il ?

Il est prudent de dire que la plupart des gens, des employés de bureau aux athlètes professionnels, ont une certaine tension chronique dans leur muscle psoas. En plus de la surutilisation (comme l'entraînement sportif) et des mouvements limités (comme s'asseoir toute la journée), les traumatismes physiques et émotionnels ont été liés à la tension du psoas.

En raison de son emplacement au plus profond du corps, le muscle psoas se resserre instinctivement lorsque nous ressentons du stress ou de la peur. Pour certaines personnes, apprendre à lâcher la tension dans leur psoas est un processus émotionnel intense.

Pourquoi les étirements ne fonctionnent pas

Il est largement admis que vous pouvez libérer un muscle psoas tendu en vous étirant, mais les étirements statiques ne font en réalité que très peu pour libérer la contraction musculaire involontaire.

The resting level of tension in our muscles is set by our nervous system. Over time, as a result of repetitive movements and stress, our nervous system learns to keep certain muscles tight. While static stretching temporarily lengthens muscles by reducing the activity of our stretch reflex, the effect is short-lived. Our muscles typically start tightening up within a few hours as our stretch reflex regains normal function.

You can learn more about the stretch reflex and why stretching doesn’t work in these two posts: Qu'est-ce que le réflexe d'étirement ? and Pourquoi les étirements ne fonctionnent pas, and in this video: Pourquoi les étirements ne fonctionnent pas.

As a ballet dancer, I stretched for at least 30 minutes a day for 17 years—and my psoas was still extremely tight! During my professional training to become a Clinical Somatic Educator, I stopped stretching altogether and started practicing Clinical Somatics self-pandiculation exercises. The process of releasing my psoas with pandiculation was truly life-changing. It felt like I was waking up a part of my body that I had never felt before.

Pandiculation : Le moyen le plus efficace de relâcher un muscle psoas tendu

La seule façon de modifier le niveau de tension musculaire au repos défini par le système nerveux consiste à effectuer des mouvements actifs.

Pandiculation is a neuromuscular re-education technique developed by Thomas Hanna, the founder of Clinical Somatic Education. Pandiculation involves gently contracting and releasing muscles in certain ways so that accurate feedback about the level of tension in the muscles is sent to the nervous system.

La pandiculation réinitialise naturellement le niveau de tension dans nos muscles, soulageant les douleurs musculaires et articulaires, réentraînant la posture et les schémas de mouvement et prévenant les blessures récurrentes.

You can read about recent research on pandiculation in this article.

Gardez à l'esprit que votre muscle psoas tendu n'est pas le seul problème

Il est important de comprendre que la raideur d'un seul muscle n'est jamais la seule cause d'une affection douloureuse ou d'une limitation des mouvements.

Every movement we make involves many muscles working together, so every pattern of tension that we develop involves chronic tightness in a number of muscles. You must work with the entire pattern of tension in order to relieve your problem. While we teach a highly effective psoas release exercise in Clinical Somatics, we still always work with the entire pattern of tension.

You can learn how to address full-body patterns of tension that involve the iliopsoas in this article.

The most effective Clinical Somatics exercises for releasing your tight psoas

If you’re interested in learning Clinical Somatics exercises to release your tight psoas muscle, you should start with the Level One Course. The course includes the iliopsoas release exercise, as well as other exercises that relieve tightness, pain, and muscular imbalance in the back and hips. You can read testimonials about how Clinical Somatics releases tension and relieves chronic pain here.

The following exercises from the Cours de Niveau Un are the most effective exercises for releasing a tight psoas and the associated patterns of muscle tension.

Cours de Niveau Un

Arch & Flatten: This exercise allows you to release and regain control of the lower back and abdominal muscles, improving the alignment of the pelvis and lower back. Most people who have a tight psoas also have tight lower back muscles.

Back Lift: This exercise releases the muscles of the back, which are typically tight in people who have a tight psoas.

Arch & Curl: This exercise releases the lower back and abdominal muscles, and is a necessary warm-up for the Iliopsoas Release, which involves a Curl.

Side Curl: This exercise releases the obliques, quadratus lumborum, and psoas, which together laterally tilt the pelvis and laterally flex the spine.

One-Sided Arch & Curl and Diagonal Arch & Curl: Like the Arch & Curl, these exercises allow you to release and regain control of the lower back and abdominal muscles. These exercises have the added bonus of focusing on one side at a time, allowing you to address imbalances in your muscular patterns.

Iliopsoas Release: The previous exercises have worked with releasing the psoas gently, and now you’re ready for this most important exercise! The Iliopsoas Release is the movement that most directly works with releasing a tight iliopsoas, and it can feel intense and challenging. There are three versions of this exercise, and it’s important that you are able to do Version 1 comfortably before moving on to Version 2, and so on.

Hip Slides: This exercise allows you to regain voluntary control of the psoas by working with lateral pelvic tilt and lateral bending of the spine.

Hip Rotation: This exercise releases the psoas by working with both internal and external rotation of the hip.

Click here to learn more about the Level One Course.

En savoir plus sur:

Lecture recommandée:

The Pain Relief Secret: How to Retrain Your Nervous System, Heal Your Body, and Overcome Chronic Pain by Sarah Warren, CSE

Somatics: Reawakening the Mind’s Control of Movement, Flexibility and Health by Thomas Hanna