Release Your Psoas

These 10 poses can help you create the internal awareness needed to access the muscle that is the key to your structural ability.

By Liz Koch

When your pelvis is stable and your skeletal structure is free to align properly, sitting feels effortless. You shouldn't have to use muscular tension to hold yourself up—thrusting your chest forward or pulling your shoulders back to lengthen your trunk. If you feel as though your spine collapses without these actions, if your weight is still placed behind your sitting bones, or if your knees are still higher than your hip sockets, continue to add towels or blankets until you find the sensation of support that accompanies proper alignment.

If you still don't feel this support even though you're aligned properly, try shifting your weight slightly forward through your hip sockets until you feel a release at the core of your body. At first, this release may feel a little unsettling. You may even experience a subtle fear of falling. As the psoas lets go, you are shifting from a familiar feeling of controlling your posture with muscles to an unfamiliar feeling of relying on your skeleton for support. Since it's new, the sensation may feel a bit scary—or you may feel relief as you let go of unnecessary muscular contraction.

Standing Release

Maintaining a released psoas can be challenging in standing postures. Biomechanically, standing on two legs is a very complex task, and many of us have developed habitual—but less than optimal—patterns of muscular contraction to help keep us upright. Fortunately, there's an excellent exercise that allows you to discover what it feels like to relax your psoas while standing. Take a block or thick book and place it 12 to 16 inches away from a wall. Stand on the block or book with your left foot, supporting and balancing yourself with your right hand on the wall. Let your right leg and foot hang completely released. Gently swing this leg back and forth like a pendulum, taking care not to let the trunk bend or twist as your leg swings. (If your pelvis is torquing, you're going beyond the released range of motion of your psoas.) See if you can sense the pendulum movement deep within your torso; it should begin at the very top of your psoas at your 12th thoracic vertebra, behind your solar plexus.

After you swing the leg for a few minutes, step down from the block and see if your two legs feel different. You've released the psoas attached to the swinging leg, and most likely this leg will feel longer, freer, and more relaxed.

Now reverse your position and swing the other leg. This time focus not only on the leg you're swinging, but also on the standing leg. Check to make sure you're not leaning into the standing leg hip. Try to sense your weight passing directly down through your leg and foot and into the block. Even though this leg is now bearing weight, you can release the psoas by bringing your awareness to the front of the hip socket and softening any tension you notice there.

Tadasana (Mountain Pose)

Now let's investigate Tadasana (Mountain Pose). Stand with your feet directly underneath your hip sockets, and conduct an inquiry of your sensations. Does your pelvis feel like a stable foundation? Is the rim of your pelvis parallel to the floor? You can check by looking in a mirror, or by placing your hands on top of your hips and following the pelvic rim around to the front of your body, checking to see if both hands are level. Do both your legs transfer weight equally? Are you grounding equally through both feet? If your answer to these questions is "Yes," your psoas should feel released, and you should be able to sense gravity drawing your weight down through your bones. If your bones are aligned, you'll feel a slight sensation of rebounding from the earth, just as a ball dropped to the floor bounces up again. This rebounding force creates a current of energy that aligns the body, flowing up through your spine and out the top of your skull. If your pelvis doesn't feel stable and even, try returning to constructive rest position and the supine psoas stretch. After a few minutes of releasing the psoas and stabilizing the pelvis, return to Tadasana and see if you feel more balanced.

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