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Why Your Hip Flexors (Psoas) Are Always Tight (It's NOT Your Hip Flexors). — Transcript

by Neal Hallinan · 3,634 words · 516 segments · language en · Watch on YouTube

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0:00You stretched your hip flexors. You
0:01probably foam rolled them. Maybe you
0:03paid someone to give you a massage or
0:05you bought one of those funky devices
0:06that you lie on top of. Uh, and maybe
0:09you feel a little bit of relief, maybe
0:11for an hour, a day, maybe even a week,
0:13but eventually it comes back. And why
0:16does it come back? Well, the reason is
0:18you haven't addressed the underlying
0:20issue. The hip flexors are not the
0:23problem. They don't just stay tight on
0:25their own. The reason they stay tight is
0:27because the brain wants it like that. So
0:30here's the question. What do hip flexors
0:32actually do? And that's the crux of the
0:34issue. The local view, which is
0:36basically most videos you're going to
0:38find on YouTube or social media about
0:40what a hip flexor does and why you need
0:42to stretch it, is that the hip flexor
0:44flexes the hip, which it does, and that
0:46maybe they'll talk about the fact that
0:47it externally rotates the leg, which it
0:49does that also. And they're almost never
0:51going to talk about how it rotates the
0:53lumbar spine, the lower spine to the
0:55opposite direction, which it does. But
0:57that's a very, like I said, it's a local
0:59view. And when you are looking at it as
1:01a local issue rather than a systemic
1:03issue, you're going to be told that you
1:06need to stretch it or, god forbid, even
1:08strengthen it. And it's very rare that
1:10you'll need to strengthen it. But again,
1:12that's local. You're missing the big
1:14picture. The big picture is called the
1:16global view. So, the real reason hip
1:19flexors get overactive and tight is
1:21because they're embedded inside a
1:23postural system, an overall system that
1:26has to hold you up against gravity. It
1:28has to move you forward. And oh, by the
1:30way, the SOASS, you cannot separate it
1:34from the diaphragms. So, if you're not
1:36breathing with your diaphragms, which a
1:38lot of people are not, you're going to
1:39have tight hip flexors. The the big
1:42point is this. They do not exist
1:44independently in a local way. That's a
1:47biomechanical way of thinking about
1:49things. Your brain is not thinking of it
1:51like that. Your brain has to keep you
1:54upright and safe. And when your hip
1:57flexors are overactive, it's going to
1:59come down to one of just a few reasons
2:01why that is. So when you can finally
2:03take the global view, you'll realize
2:05that the brain's primary objective is to
2:08keep you upright and moving forward
2:10safely. So first, it needs to figure out
2:12where you are in space. That's actually
2:14what posture is. It's not about standing
2:15up straight. is about where your brain
2:18postures you in space in relation to the
2:20environment and the ground that you're
2:22standing on. And that comes down to
2:23vision, audition, meaning what you're
2:26hearing,
2:27interestingly, the oral cavity, the
2:30surface that you're standing on, and non
2:32diaphragmatic breathing. So, when
2:34there's any issue with your vision, with
2:36your hearing, with your oral cavity,
2:39your jaw, and your teeth, that's a big
2:41part of postural stability.
2:43uh the surfaces that you're standing on.
2:45It's not really the surface, it's the
2:47shoe that's you're wearing as you're
2:49standing on that surface. And then the
2:50ability to breathe with your diaphragms.
2:52When any of those are impeded, when that
2:55sensory input is not there, uh or you're
2:58just not breathing with your diaphragms,
2:59those hip flexors are going to stay
3:01overactive as your brain has to
3:04stabilize your body by tilting your
3:06pelvis forward and arching your back,
3:08bringing your head and neck forward, and
3:09now you're tight. And that's the
3:11problem. You're tight. you're safe.
3:13You're not gonna fall, but you're not
3:14gonna move forward in a flow-like
3:17manner. You're gonna be rigid, but
3:19again, your brain doesn't care because
3:20you'll move, but you're going to move
3:23under constraint. And that's where the
3:25pain will start to to show up also. So,
3:27I'm going to show some videos
3:28demonstrating each of these. And the
3:32reality is the hip flexors will stay
3:34tight and overactive. If, like I said,
3:36if any of those are not where they need
3:38to be, you're going to stay in a
3:41restricted position. Before I show the
3:43first video, I want to mention I've made
3:45numerous videos about each of these
3:47vision, jaw, teeth, a little bit about
3:49hearing, and definitely shoes on this
3:51channel. So, there's I'll put some of
3:53the links to the videos about those
3:55specific uh modalities in the
3:58description. But here's the first uh
4:00this is vision. So this individual uh
4:04her old prescription,
4:06her left leg will not adduct. Those are
4:10overactive left hip flexors. And then
4:12when I put her into her new
4:14prescription, her left leg adducts no
4:17problem. So the number one issue I see
4:20with people who are in this type of
4:21situation is too much power. Uh for the
4:25nearsighted individual, they just have
4:26too much minus power. And this is a
4:29known thing in the optometry community.
4:31uh like my optometrist would tell you,
4:34if you give someone too much power, it's
4:36going to tighten them up. Having too
4:38much power is a known thing. And I would
4:40say at least 40% of people that come in
4:43to see me who are nearsighted uh need
4:46less power in their prescription before
4:48they will be able to shut off their hip
4:50flexors. The other issue is for people
4:52who don't wear glasses at all when they
4:54really should. So my rule of thumb is
4:56this. If they have a if someone has a
4:58prescription and it's over
5:010.5, meaning minus 0.75 or above,
5:04they're going to need to be wearing
5:06those glasses when they come in to see
5:07me to be able to pass that test. uh at
5:10some point as they start to restabilize
5:14their body, they might not need the
5:15glasses. But in the beginning for their
5:18brain to be satisfied that they're not
5:22under threat, they're going to need to
5:23they're going to need the glasses to
5:25allow their body to relax. My name is
5:27Neil Halinan. I am a posture restoration
5:29therapist in Chattam, New Jersey. I have
5:31links to my online consulting and my
5:33in-person sessions in the description
5:36below. It is now being acknowledged in
5:38the medical world and in the dentistry
5:39community that the jaw has a huge impact
5:43on neck position, head position, and
5:46thus posture. So this individual didn't
5:49have sense of their left molers. So
5:52you're going to see she's going to fail
5:53her test. Her left hip flexors are on.
5:56Then we put a tongue depressor between
5:58her left molers
6:00and no problem. Her hip flexors turn
6:03off. So because humans are not symmetric
6:08and this whole channel is about human
6:09asymmetry and in posture restoration
6:11what I do uh that's the whole basis of
6:14treatment is humans are not symmetric
6:16are not symmetric. Uh a lot of people
6:18will lose sense of their left mers even
6:20when they're actually there. Uh but they
6:22get so right sided that they're really
6:25only sensing the right side of their
6:26teeth. And no your teeth should not be
6:27touching at all times. There's just
6:29correlations. So when someone loses
6:32sense of their left mers, their left hip
6:33flexors won't turn off because they're
6:35not going to be able to get their head
6:37all the way to the left and they can't
6:39get their gr their the ground underneath
6:40their foot fully sensed. So give them
6:43left molar sense and there you go. Hip
6:45flexors turn off. Now uh just I love
6:48this illustration because again other
6:50professions know that your cranium and
6:52your pelvis are completely linked. The
6:55jaw and the pelvis are completely
6:57linked. That's actually well known, just
6:59not well known enough. And I just want
7:02to show one more thing because people
7:04are always surprised. If you look at the
7:06second paragraph, an uneven bite or mal
7:09acclusion, meaning your teeth just are
7:10not touching right, may lead to
7:12unbalanced muscle use, jaw muscles,
7:14throat muscles, neck muscles with domino
7:16effects throughout the body. And you
7:18know, that's the really important thing
7:20to to keep in mind. uh headaches, ear
7:23pain, tonitis, respiratory, cardiac,
7:25digestive disturbances, neck and back
7:27pain. So this is again this is known
7:31just not in a holistic way. So I'm just
7:33showing what's already known but they
7:36wouldn't necessarily understand it as
7:37I'm showing it but none of this is out
7:40of the realm of normaly. It's completely
7:42normal. It's just not enough people know
7:44it. Now could you have both issues? Oh
7:46yeah, this is my story. And and in fact,
7:49here's a study called bite and sight. Is
7:52there a correlation clinical association
7:54between dental mal acclusion and and
7:57visual disturbances? It's in pediat
7:59pediatric patients, but it happens in in
8:02adults also. This is my story and this
8:04is when heads start to get in really
8:06weird positions and jaws start to shift
8:09and there's twisting going on. Uh you'll
8:11see a picture of me. Uh the picture to
8:15the left is showing what happens. The
8:17the right side, this is my right side of
8:19the jaw shifts, right? The right side of
8:22the head kind of moves down and
8:23everything for me. This is why my
8:25YouTube channel exists. I was the
8:27ultimate patient. Uh but my the whole
8:29right side of my head was literally just
8:31collapsing as I stayed over on my right.
8:32And that was the reason it's called a
8:34torsion of the cranium. It's twisting
8:36going on. Uh, and that was the origin of
8:40all my physical problems. My physical
8:42body, the pain that I had from, you
8:44know, a teenager up until I was 35,
8:47those were the worst ears and the ring
8:49in my ears, that was because of what
8:51you're seeing here. Uh, but my physical
8:53body, where most of the symptoms were,
8:56that wasn't clearly the problem. It was
8:58what up here was do my vision, my jaw,
9:01my teeth, the position it was putting me
9:03in uh was throwing off my ability to
9:06move properly. And this was the head my
9:09head position from the back. You'll see
9:11this was years ago. You'll see my left
9:12ear is significantly higher than my
9:14right ear. So, uh I guess if you're f
9:17So, this is my left side. It was like
9:19this. And here I am as a kid and a
9:21teenager in 20s and early 30s up until
9:2440 living like that, lifting weights. I
9:27played sports like that. Uh I did
9:29everything like that. Now, that's going
9:30to stress out the neck. It's going to
9:32keep you tight and it's going to keep
9:33your body from moving properly. Uh and
9:36that's kind of difficult to unwind once
9:38you're in that position. That's why
9:40vision, jaw, teeth. I'm so I make so
9:43many videos about this subject because I
9:45don't want this to happen to other
9:46people. But a lot of people uh
9:48especially when they are not wearing the
9:49right shoes, which is going to be next,
9:51they're headed towards this whether they
9:52know it or not. All right. So, now we
9:54arrive at shoes. is you're going to see
9:57uh an individual who came in with very
9:58soft shoes and then we put him into a
10:00pair of Brooks uh well a stronger heeed
10:03shoe. And I'll discuss this a little bit
10:05more after the video, but you're going
10:07to see the difference in his hip flexor
10:08testing depending on what shoes he has
10:10on. So here he has his minimalist his
10:13his very soft shoes. You can see they're
10:15soft. His left hip flexors are
10:18unsurprisingly on. Then we're going to
10:21put them into a pair of Brooks. It's not
10:23about the Brooks. about the fact that
10:25the heel is solid. And then I retest him
10:28and his lift I mean his left hip was so
10:31loose after that I didn't have to the
10:33moment I touched it I knew it was it was
10:34relaxed. Then we go back to his
10:36minimalist shoe or soft shoe and his hip
10:39flexors are back on. It happens that
10:41fast. All I had him do is put the shoe
10:43on, walk around, lie down again and then
10:45uh re uh retest him. So it comes down to
10:49this. what surrounds the heel on the
10:53around the edge and in the back. So
10:55you'll see where the surlal nerve is.
10:57It's on the lateral edge. That's that's
10:59a left heel because I was testing left
11:01hip flexors and it's just the left hip
11:02flexors that are generally more active
11:04than the right. The right can be
11:06overactive for a completely different
11:07reason. So I'm not going to talk about
11:09that. The left hip flexors because of
11:11human asymmetry are the ones that tend
11:13to become you know the dominant hip
11:15flexors. So the surlal nerve, it's you
11:19see where it really its branches really
11:20are. It's along the it's along the
11:22lateral edges and the and the back of
11:26the heel. It's not so much underneath
11:29the heel that we care about.
11:31[clears throat] It's around the edges.
11:33So these shoes, they're they're kind of
11:35softer. If I squeeze, I can squeeze
11:39them. They move. They're just pretty
11:41soft. All right. They're not terrible,
11:43but they're pretty soft. The difference
11:45is between these, these are, again,
11:48doesn't matter if they're Brooks,
11:48they're just strong or healed. When I
11:50squeeze, it doesn't move. It's strong.
11:54So that area of the shoe is stimulating
11:58that nerve. That when that nerve was
12:00stimulated, that surl nerve, when that
12:02was stimulated, that's what turned off
12:03the hip flexors. It was nothing else.
12:05The brain got the information that it
12:07needed from a shoe that was stronger. I
12:10could have just touched the outside of
12:11his shoe or I'm sorry, I could have just
12:13touched the outside of his foot with my
12:15finger, which I've made videos on. Uh,
12:17and I would have gotten the same the
12:19same um the same response. The hip
12:20flexors are the hip flexors will turn
12:22off. So, remember the problem is this.
12:26We live on most of us live on flat
12:29floors. So, when people start talking
12:30about, oh, well, humans didn't wear
12:32shoes, you know, I don't know. Well,
12:35that's kind of a ridiculous argument to
12:37begin with because you think people in
12:38colder climates didn't wear shoes. That
12:41makes no sense. They get frostbite. So,
12:43I don't even know where this this
12:45argument really comes from. People were
12:46wearing shoes. But yeah,
12:50hundreds of thousand years ago, were
12:51they wearing shoes? Maybe not, depending
12:53on where they were living. But the point
12:54is this anyway, they weren't living on
12:57flat floors. So people who weren't
12:59wearing shoes, they were if they're
13:01living on real earth, that real earth
13:03which has pitch to it, has up and down,
13:05it has grass and sticks and twigs,
13:08things that would, you know, stimulate
13:09the edges of the heel where that nerve
13:11is.
13:13That would Yeah, that that's for the
13:15brain. That's all the information it
13:17needs. Again, remember, I could have
13:18just touched the outside of that heel.
13:20But we live on flat floors. That's the
13:23big problem. I live in northern New
13:25Jersey. I grew up on flat floors with
13:27high arches and my high arched feet were
13:29not getting enough information through
13:31the arch and definitely not what was
13:32surrounding the heel and that was
13:34probably what at least partially led to
13:36my problems. So the feet are the feet.
13:39They're multi-dimensional.
13:40Threedimensional if you want to say
13:42threedimensional they have to supenate,
13:43pronate, do all that stuff. Flat floors
13:46do not give that brain that sensory
13:48information to allow it to understand
13:51where your feet are. So what happens?
13:53You extend your your pelvis comes
13:54forward, your hip flexors kick in, your
13:56lower back arches, neck and head and
13:58neck will start to come forward a little
13:59bit and now you're tight and well you're
14:02again you're safe because you're not
14:04going to fall but you're rigid. You
14:06can't rotate pretty well and you're
14:08going to start to move through strain.
14:09Younger people that I work with, younger
14:11men in their 20s, their primary
14:12complaint, I said this in one of my last
14:14videos, is tension. And you know what?
14:16how easy it is to change their tests.
14:18Put them in a pair of shoes that I an
14:20extra pair of sneakers, their hip
14:21flexors turn off immediately. Their
14:23lower back relaxes, their neck relaxes.
14:25You give them a couple techniques,
14:26they're fine.
14:28If you're wearing
14:31soft shoes, uh if you're wearing, you
14:34know, these minimalist type of shoes on
14:36real earth, have at it, enjoy. But I
14:39would just be careful. If you're wearing
14:41that stuff uh on flat surfaces that are
14:46not giving your brain the appropriate
14:48sensory input where those nerves are
14:49actually located, you're going to end up
14:52in well, you could I'm not going to say
14:54everybody, but you could end up in in a
14:56in a bit of trouble in the long run
14:59because eventually as that pelvis comes
15:00forward and your ribs go up, you're
15:02going to lose the ability to breathe
15:03with your diaphragms. And that's the
15:05next video. So as I mentioned the hip
15:07the soass muscle is contiguous with the
15:10diaphragm and actually the QL and the
15:13iliacis uh maybe through um fascia but
15:17the soass and the diaphragm are
15:19muscularly connected. So what are you
15:21even stretching? You're stretching a
15:23soass and a hip your hip flexors and
15:25your soass to do what are you trying to
15:27stretch your diaphragm at the same time
15:29because you can't separate them. So the
15:31point is this. If you cannot breathe
15:32with your diaphragms, and you can't if
15:35your pelvis is forward on one or both
15:37sides and your rib cage is up, the dome
15:39of the diaphragm, they can't descend.
15:41They can't pump. So you're not going to
15:43be diaphragmatically breathing. But the
15:45only way to shut off a hip flexor long
15:48term is to be able to breathe with your
15:52diaphragms. Now again, what about the
15:54vision, the jaw, and the teeth? Well,
15:55when the vision, the jaw, and the teeth,
15:56and the shoes are not in the right spot
15:58or not giving the brain the input that
16:00it needs, you go into a position of
16:02extension. And in the position of
16:04extension,
16:06the diaphragms lose their position,
16:07their ability to pump. So, that's the
16:09issue. So, you got to get your eyes
16:10right, your jaw, your teeth right, your
16:12shoes right, you'll be in a nice relaxed
16:14position. Your pelvis will be in a good
16:16position, your rib cage. Uh, and then
16:18you'll have the ability to regain your
16:20ability to breathe with your diaphragms.
16:22So this would be an example of turning
16:24off a left hip flexor or a left soass
16:27just through uh blowing up a balloon. So
16:30this individual, his left leg does not
16:31adduct. His left hip is stuck forward.
16:34Left hip flexors are overactive. I just
16:37have him sit on his left butt, take a
16:40breath, blow into the balloon, and
16:43that's all I needed to do. Uh because
16:46his left leg now adducts. So his left
16:48hip flexors, his left so are now off.
16:51Why? Because he took a breath with his
16:54diaphragm. I put him in a position where
16:56his pelvis was posterly rotated and his
16:59back was rounded. In that position, when
17:02you go into that position, now you can
17:04bre I put my hand on his back. I put my
17:06hand on his back. He took a breath in
17:09his rib. I felt his back, his rib cage
17:11in the back expand backwards into my
17:14hand. And that's what has to happen to
17:16allow the diaphragm to go down. It only
17:19took one breath to shut off those hip
17:22flexors. One breath to take him from a
17:24fight orflight type of position to a
17:26rested neutral state. So that's how it
17:30all works together. Vision is number
17:32one. Jaw and teeth are number two.
17:34That's jaw and when jaw and teeth are
17:36involved by far the harder situation to
17:40resolve because when people have vision
17:42issues the most common vision issue is
17:45too much power in their glasses or
17:47they're not wearing the glasses that
17:48they need to be wearing. Uh audition I
17:50didn't go into it um in this video
17:52because it's a lot less common and I
17:56don't get many people so I don't have
17:58any videos of it. uh shoes all the time.
18:01And then once that's taken care of, if
18:04they have none of those issues, they got
18:05a good pair of shoes, their vision's
18:06fine, their jaw, the teeth are fine,
18:07well, I can do PRI techniques, posture
18:09restoration techniques, and turn off a
18:11hip flexor really quick. So, this is
18:13remember this is all nervous system and
18:15nervous systems, autonomic nervous
18:17systems work fast. You shouldn't have to
18:20stretch a hip flexor, honestly, probably
18:22ever [laughter]
18:24because it's not a local issue. It's a
18:27systemic issue because the hip flexor
18:28again is embedded in a body that has to
18:31stay upright moving forward and and
18:34breathing with diaphragms in a safe way
18:36and that is all dependent on head
18:38position and head position and neck
18:40position is all dependent upon vision,
18:42jaw, teeth, hearing and shoes and at
18:45that point and then breathing and if you
18:47have all that in in order those hip
18:50flexors will not stay tight.

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