Suspected Psoas Muscle Injury

[Brent Ramos]

Over the last few months, I’ve been having tenderness in the area around my left-side psoas (most notably when doing leg lifts/flutter kicks it would feel tender before warming up). I believe this is a result of an increased focus/programming of cleans/snatch into my workouts over the last few months.

However, I usually never feel any tenderness in my right side psoas muscle (I’m left handed, so just about everywhere from the shoulder down to the knee on my left side has been mildly injured in some way).

Anyway, about a month ago, I was doing sprints following a long Olympic lift focused workout and I felt a sharp burning sensation in my right groin area where my psoas is. It was sore and mobility felt limited for the weeks following. I gradually worked up to running again to where I can run at near 100% (with the exception of sprints, I want to give it a few more weeks before I push myself with those again), however, following the runs, the psoas on my right side feels pretty tender and sore.

I suspect it was a pulled psoas, but do you guys have any recommendations on assisting with the recovery? I can ‘feel’ the best pulling/activation of the afflicted muscle when in the half pigeon pose, with my left leg bent and my right leg stretched behind, with my torso upright and twisted to the right. There is a noticeable difference in the perceive stretching of the afflicted area if my torso is facing forward vs twisted to the right (it is hardly noticeable if I am facing forward, but very much noticeable/felt when twisting my torso to the right).

I appreciate any advice and apologize for the vague description, I’m obviously not very physiologically educated.

[Luke Sirakos]

Old thread but I pulled my psoas really bad a few years ago and am just now back to 100%. I tried every stretch and mobility thing I could find but at the end of the day the only thing that actually helped was doing the psoas march exercise regularly to strengthen your psoas. Forget anything you read about glute amnesia, your psoas compensating for other weak muscles/a weak core, poor posture causing it, etc. ItÂ’s all complete BS and has no data behind any of it. Get some bands and strengthen your psoas and donÂ’t push anything past the point of pain.