Full-Body Patterns of Tension That Involve the Iliopsoas

As I mentioned in my first article about the iliopsoas, it’s important to understand that chronic tension in a single muscle is never the sole cause of a painful condition, habitual posture, or movement limitation.

Every posture we adopt and movement we make involves many muscles throughout the body working together. So, every pattern of tension that we develop involves chronic tension in muscles throughout the body. We must work with releasing and changing the entire pattern of tension in order to relieve chronic pain and change habitual posture and movement.

So, while we teach a highly effective Iliopsoas Release exercise in Clinical Somatics, we still always work with the entire full-body pattern of tension. Your full-body pattern of tension may be keeping your iliopsoas stuck in a shortened state. No matter how much time and focus you spend on releasing your iliopsoas, if other tight muscles are keeping your iliopsoas stuck in a shortened state, it will not be able to fully lengthen until you release and retrain the entire pattern of tension.

The iliopsoas, which is how we refer to the iliacus and psoas muscle as they work together, is a major hip flexor. This means that it brings the knee in closer to the abdomen and chest, decreasing the angle at the front of your hip. The iliopsoas performs other actions as well, which I discussed in my previous post and will discuss in this article as well.

Iliopsoas stretch

Due to its location deep within the core of our body, the iliopsoas is involved in all muscular patterns that involve the lumbar spine and pelvis. In this article, I discuss the three most common full-body postural patterns of tension that involve the iliopsoas, and list the exercises that are most helpful for releasing the muscles involved in these patterns.

Tension in the iliopsoas is at the core of all three patterns, helping to keep you stuck in that pattern. But, which pattern you adopt is largely determined by the other muscles involved—not by the iliopsoas itself!

In addition to the three main postural patterns described in this article, the iliopsoas is chronically tight in pelvic torsion and pelvic rotation. Those patterns of pelvic misalignment can be present along with any of the three postures described below.

How the iliopsoas is involved in Action Response posture

The action response describes a postural reflex that occurs automatically every time we want to get up and go. We arch our back, lift our head, pull our shoulders back, stick out our chests, straighten our knees, and rotate our legs outward.

Our action response is also triggered by eustress, or positive stress, such as giving a presentation or meeting our new boss. Whenever we want to make a good impression and be on our game, we instinctively contract the extensor muscles of our back so that we stand up straight, look taller, and appear to be confident. This posture prepares us both physically and psychologically for action.

If you tend toward action response posture, your pelvis is likely tilted forward, or anteriorly, as shown in the photos below. This creates an exaggerated arch in the lower back, referred to as hyperlordosis.

Anterior pelvic tilt
Action response

You may initially adopt this posture as a result of positive stress, athletic training, or a repetitive activity. Then over time, as your pelvis is held in anterior tilt, the iliopsoas will gradually become tighter as a result of being held in a shortened state. Once the iliopsoas is tight, it can help to keep you stuck in this posture.

The reverse can occur as well. Your iliopsoas may become tight as a result of repeated hip flexion, such as occurs with running, kicking, or even sitting down for long periods of time. If you have chronic tension in your hip flexors and you’re standing upright, your nervous system has two options to allow your hip flexors to stay in a shortened state:

1. It can allow the pelvis to tip forward, as occurs in action response posture.

2. It can allow the pelvis to stay upright or even tilted backward, but must flex (bend) the knees in order to allow the hips to flex. We’ll talk about this posture in the next section.

I have seen this referred to as the “psoas paradox.” Chronic tension in the iliopsoas can cause either hyperlordosis or hip flexion depending on the person’s full-body postural tendencies and the position of the body relative to gravity (standing vs. sitting vs. lying down).

Lastly, the iliopsoas laterally rotates the hips. This means that it rotates the legs so that the feet point outward like a ballet dancer. External hip rotation tends to occur along with the arching of the lumbar spine in action response posture.

So, in order to allow the iliopsoas to fully lengthen, we need to not only pandiculate the iliopsoas itself, but also the entire pattern of tension that’s keeping the pelvis stuck in a shortened state: the action response posture, in which the pelvis is tilted forward and the hips are rotated outward.

The tabs below list exercises that address the full-body pattern of tension that causes action response posture. After becoming comfortable with each individual exercise (by learning them in the Level One & Two Courses), you can start by practicing the short daily series, then rotate the additional exercises through your daily routine in a way that works for you.

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. The arching and flattening movements also gently engage and release the iliopsoas. This is the most basic and important exercise to do every day.

Back Lift: This exercise is practiced lying on the stomach, allowing you to most effectively pandiculate the muscles on the back side of your body, from your shoulders down to your lower back and gluteals. This exercise directly addresses the full-body pattern involved in action response posture.

Arch & Curl: The Curl element of this exercise pandiculates the abdominal, chest, and neck muscles, while the Arch pandiculates the lower back muscles. Most people with hyperlordosis don’t need to release excess tension in the front of their body, but they do need to activate these muscles. It’s important to have balanced use of the core muscles—both front and back of the body—so be sure to practice this movement daily. It’s also an important warm-up for the Iliopsoas Release.

Iliopsoas Release: This movement directly pandiculates the iliopsoas. As I instruct in the video and audio, it’s crucial that you keep your lower back flattened down into the floor the entire time as you lift and lower your leg. The keeps the origin of the iliopsoas fixed, allowing it to lengthen as you lower your leg down. I instruct three versions of this exercise, so be sure to do the version that you can do safely and correctly. And don’t overdo it; stick to just one or two repetitions on each side.

Proprioceptive Exercise 1: This is an important exercise for anyone with Action Response posture to practice regularly. Even after practicing Clinical Somatics floor exercises diligently, it’s common to slip back into habitual postural patterns once you’re upright, because you’re comfortable holding yourself a certain way when sitting and standing. This exercise allows you to retrain your proprioception (the way you sense your body in space) and learn to sit and stand with your pelvis upright rather than tilted forward.

One-sided Arch & Curl and Diagonal Arch & Curl: Like the Arch & Curl, these exercises release the lower back, abdominal, chest, and neck muscles. They focus on one side of your body at a time, allowing you to address imbalances in your muscular patterns.

Hip Rotator Releases: These exercises release the internal and external hip rotators. The external hip rotators can often be tight in the action response posture, so be sure to practice the External Hip Rotator Release (the second exercise shown in the video, with legs crossed) regularly.

Flowering Arch & Curl: This is a bigger, full-body version of the Arch & Curl. It has the added benefit of working with hip and shoulder rotation. You can practice this once you’re comfortable with the Arch & Curl and the Hip Rotator Releases.

Lower Back Release: This exercise releases the lower back, gluteals, and hamstrings. If you can’t comfortably hold your legs above your hips in the starting position, you can try practicing this movement with one leg at a time. If that doesn’t feel comfortable or productive, then practice the Hamstring Release, External Hip Rotator Release, and Gluteal Release.

Quadriceps Releases: The rectus femoris (one of the quadriceps muscles) is a hip flexor, so chronic tension in this muscle will tilt the pelvis forward if you tend toward action response posture. When the pelvis is tilted forward, the iliopsoas is brought into a shortened state. In order to retrain the full-body pattern of the action response, it’s important to release tension in the quadriceps.

Gluteal Release: This exercise pandiculates the gluteus maximus, as well as many other muscles that externally rotate the hip. The external hip rotators can often be tight in the action response posture, so you should practice this exercise regularly. Be sure that you’re very comfortable with the External Hip Rotator Release before practicing the Gluteal Release.

Standing Hamstring Release and Seated Hamstring Release: These exercises release tight muscles on the back of the body: the lower back, gluteals, and hamstrings.

Head & Knee Lifts: While you may not find it necessary to practice this on a regular basis, it is an interesting exploration of the muscles that extend (arch) the back and extend (bring backward) the hips. Be sure that you’re very comfortable with the Back Lift before practicing this exercise.

How the iliopsoas is involved in Withdrawal Response posture

The withdrawal response is an innate reaction to fear or negative stress. We instinctively pull our extremities inward and bring our body into a crouched or fetal position, protecting the most vulnerable parts of our body from attack. Our abdominal muscles contract; our hips, knees, and ankles flex; our inner thigh muscles and hamstrings tighten; our elbows bend and our arms rotate inward.

For those of us living in industrialized societies in which our lives are not being threatened on a regular basis, the withdrawal response does more harm than good. The never-ending demands of work, family life, financial responsibilities, and social expectations are constantly present in our minds, and we perceive these stressors to be life-threatening. When we experience these types of chronic psychological stress our withdrawal response is constantly activated, contracting our abdominal muscles and bringing us into the rounded posture we associate with aging.

In addition to stress, spending long hours sitting at a computer or driving can cause us to become stuck in withdrawal response posture. So can chronic fatigue, being very tall, feeling cold on a regular basis, or having an abdominal injury or surgery.

In withdrawal response posture, the pelvis can be upright or tilted backward, as shown in the illustration of the man on the left in the image below. In withdrawal response posture, if the pelvis is upright or tilted backward, then the knees must bend to allow the hip flexors to contract.

Stooped posture

Alternatively, if the abdominal muscles are quite contracted, anterior pelvic tilt can occur in withdrawal response posture. But instead of creating hyperlordosis, the entire spine and head will tilt forward, as shown in the photo of the man on the right above. This brings the hip flexors into a very shortened position.

In the action response posture that I discussed in the previous section, the iliopsoas may or may not play a central role in the postural pattern developing in the beginning, depending on the person. But in withdrawal response posture, which arises from our instinct to curl up in the fetal position, repeated contraction of the iliopsoas is by definition an initiating factor in the development of the posture.

Adduction of the hips—bringing the knees in toward each other, contracting the inner thigh muscles—also tends to go along with this postural pattern. And as it happens, the iliopsoas is a hip adductor.

So, in order to allow the iliopsoas to fully lengthen, we need to not only pandiculate the iliopsoas itself, but also the entire pattern of tension that’s keeping the pelvis stuck in a shortened state: the withdrawal response posture, in which the abdominals are contracted, the hips are flexed, and the hip adductors are contracted.

The tabs below list exercises that address the full-body pattern of tension that causes withdrawal response posture. After becoming comfortable with each individual exercise (by learning them in the Level One & Two Courses), you can start by practicing the short daily series, then rotate the additional exercises through your daily routine in a way that works for you.

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. The arching and flattening movements also gently engage and release the iliopsoas. You should begin your daily practice with the Arch & Flatten.

Arch & Curl: The Curl element of this exercise pandiculates the abdominal, chest, and neck muscles: the tight muscles that cause the withdrawal response posture. This movement also gently works with the iliopsoas, and is an important warm-up for the Iliopsoas Release.

Iliopsoas Release: This movement directly pandiculates the iliopsoas. As I instruct in the video and audio, it’s crucial that you keep your lower back flattened down into the floor the entire time as you lift and lower your leg. The keeps the origin of the iliopsoas fixed, allowing it to lengthen as you lower your leg down. I instruct three versions of this exercise, so be sure to do the version that you can do safely and correctly. And don’t overdo it; stick to just one or two repetitions on each side.

Proprioceptive Exercise 1: This is an important exercise for anyone with withdrawal response posture to practice regularly. Even after practicing Clinical Somatics floor exercises diligently, it’s common to slip back into habitual postural patterns once you’re upright, because you’re comfortable holding yourself a certain way when sitting and standing. This exercise allows you to retrain your proprioception (the way you sense your body in space) and learn to sit and stand with your pelvis upright rather than tilted backward.

One-sided Arch & Curl and Diagonal Arch & Curl: Like the Arch & Curl, these exercises release the abdominal, chest, and neck muscles. They focus on one side of your body at a time, allowing you to address imbalances in your muscular patterns.

Hip Rotator Releases: These exercises release the internal and external hip rotators. The internal hip rotators can often be tight in the withdrawal response posture, so be sure to practice the Internal Hip Rotator Release (the first exercise shown in the video, in which you lower one leg out to the side) regularly.

Flowering Arch & Curl: This is a bigger, full-body version of the Arch & Curl. It has the added benefit of releasing tight hip and shoulder rotators. You can practice this once you’re comfortable with the Arch & Curl and the Hip Rotator Releases.

Hamstring Release: People in withdrawal response posture tend to keep their knees slightly bent and their hamstrings contracted. So, it’s important to release the hamstrings regularly with this gentle exercise. More advanced ways to release the hamstrings are the Standing Hamstring Release, Seated Hamstring Release, and Lower Back Release. But, these should not be practiced until you are comfortable with this initial Hamstring Release (practiced lying on the stomach).

Head Lifts: This exercise releases the muscles that pull the head and neck forward into forward head posture. When retraining the full-body pattern of the withdrawal response, it’s important to bring the head into alignment on top of the spine. So, be sure to practice this exercise regularly.

Quadriceps Releases: People in withdrawal response posture tend to keep their knees slightly bent, resulting in tension in the quadriceps muscles. And since the rectus femoris (one of the quadriceps muscles) is a hip flexor, chronic tension in this muscle will tend to increase hip flexion, bringing the iliopsoas into a shortened state. In order to retrain the full-body pattern of the withdrawal response, it’s important to release tension in the quadriceps.

Diagonal Curl: This movement focuses on pandiculating the obliques, which are abdominal muscles and therefore tend to be chronically tight in withdrawal response posture. This movement is especially helpful if one or both of your shoulders are rounded forward and rotated inward.

How the iliopsoas is involved in side-bending postures

When I say side-bending postures, this includes lateral pelvic tilt (functional leg length discrepancy), scoliosis, and any small degree of lateral curvature of the spine that is not large enough to be diagnosed as scoliosis.

This imbalance between your right and left sides may develop due to the flexor reflex. This reflex makes us automatically pull our body away from a source of pain, like stepping on a thumbtack. In a similar way, when we suffer an injury, undergo surgery, or have chronic pain, we contract certain muscles to protect the painful or injured area, and modify our movement patterns to avoid the pain.

Side-bending postures can also develop simply as the result of repetitive activities, like carrying a baby or heavy bag on one side every day. They can also develop from athletic training in which the sides of the body are used differently.

Because of its attachments to the lumbar vertebrae, the psoas muscle contributes to lateral flexion of the spine (bending the spine to one side, as shown on the left in the image below). It also contributes to lateral tilting of the pelvis (hiking the hips up one at a time, as shown in the middle and right in the image below).

If other tight muscles—like the obliques and the quadratus lumborum—are keeping you stuck in that side-bending posture, focusing on releasing just the iliopsoas will not fully solve the problem. In order to allow the iliopsoas to fully lengthen, we need to not only pandiculate the iliopsoas itself, but also the entire pattern of tension that’s keeping the pelvis stuck in a shortened state.

The tabs below list exercises that address the full-body pattern of tension that causes side-bending postures. After becoming comfortable with each individual exercise (by learning them in the Level One & Two Courses), you can start by practicing the short daily series, then rotate the additional exercises through your daily routine in a way that works for you. As you become comfortable with the exercises, you can read or watch How to Even Out the Imbalances in Your Body and apply those principles to your daily practice.

Arch & Flatten: While this exercise works with forward and backward pelvic tilt, it’s still an important exercise to start your practice with each day. It warms up your lower back and abdominal muscles, and prepares you to get the most benefit possible from the following exercises.

Side Curl: This exercise pandiculate the obliques, the strong abdominal muscles that bend your spine to each side and hike up the hips one at a time. This is a very important exercise for you to do every day. Many people have difficulty sensing and releasing their obliques at first, so be patient with yourself. Really try to get a sense of the muscles on the side of your waist contracting as you curl up, then release them as slowly as you possibly can—resist gravity as you lower down. This exercise also works with the hip-hiking action of the iliopsoas and quadratus lumborum.

One-sided Arch & Curl: This exercise pandiculates the lower back, abdominal, chest, and neck muscles. It focuses on one side of your body at a time, allowing you to address imbalances in your muscular patterns.

Iliopsoas Release: This movement directly pandiculates the iliopsoas. As I instruct in the video and audio, it’s crucial that you keep your lower back flattened down into the floor the entire time as you lift and lower your leg. The keeps the origin of the iliopsoas fixed, allowing it to lengthen as you lower your leg down. I instruct three versions of this exercise, so be sure to do the version that you can do safely and correctly. And don’t overdo it; stick to just one or two repetitions on each side.

Proprioceptive Exercise 2, 3, or 4 (only one per day)

Proprioceptive Exercise 2: This standing exercise allows you to directly retrain the postural pattern of lateral pelvic tilt (functional leg length discrepancy), so it’s an important one to do regularly if you tend to hike one hip up higher than the other.

Proprioceptive Exercise 3: This standing exercise allows you to retrain your posture if you tend to bend to one side or the other, whether or not you have been diagnosed with scoliosis. If your spine is curved to one side, you may notice that the sides of your waist look different (one may come in farther than the other) or one of your shoulders may be lower than the other.

Proprioceptive Exercise 4: You can use this exercise to retrain your posture if you tend to shift your rib cage to one side or the other. This occurs along with the spine curving to one side or the other. However, your hips and shoulders may be even while your rib cage is shifted to one side.

Back Lift: This exercise pandiculates the muscles on the back of the body, which are often tight in postures that involve side-bending and hip-hiking.

Hip Slides & Hip Raises: These offer a wonderful opportunity to go back and forth from side to side, compare the differences between your two sides, and learn from your more coordinated side.

Washcloth: This exercise works with the spinal rotation action of the obliques. Rotation of the spine and/or pelvis often occurs along with side-bending and hip-hiking. So if you tend to rotate your spine or pelvis to one side, explore this exercise.

Hip Rotator Releases: Explore these movements to figure out if your hip rotators are unevenly tight, which they may be in lateral pelvic tilt. For example, if your right knee lowers out to the side easily, but your left does not, then spend some extra time gently lowering your left knee out to the side using the Internal Hip Rotator Release.

Big X: This is a full-body, integrative movement that involves bending the spine alternately to each side. You can use it to explore the differences between the right and left sides of your body. This movement can also help to improve your body use when walking and running.

Iliotibial Band Release: Tension in the iliotibial band may pull the hip downward. So if you have one hip higher than the other, try practicing this exercise more with the lower-hip side as your working side.

Diagonal Curl: This movement focuses on pandiculating the obliques, which bend and rotate the spine to either side. This movement is especially helpful if one or both of your shoulders are rounded forward and rotated inward.

Hip Directions: This exercise works directly with the muscles that tilt the pelvis laterally, including the obliques and the iliopsoas. If you have lateral pelvic tilt (functional leg length discrepancy), be sure to include this in your rotation.

Recommended reading:

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