This post is the third and last in a series on working with psoas trauma. Reading Part 1 and Part 2 first is essential.
Part 1: Personal experience of psoas trauma
Part 2: How aquatic bodywork can help with psoas trauma recovery
Part 3: Some ways of working with the psoas on land and in water
Deepening our core awareness we enter the influence of water. It is imprinted in all form and it is by exploring ourselves as fluid beings that we enter into a deeper level of movement awareness and life. Liz Koch, Core Awareness: Enhancing Yoga, Pilates, Exercise and Dance, 2003, p. 74.
PART 3: Some ways of working with the psoas on land and in water
The ideas I have shared in Parts 1 and 2 of this series on psoas-related trauma, including those gleaned from the work of others, are presented in a context of inquiry based on my personal experience as someone troubled by psoas issues and likely underlying trauma, and also on my professional observations as a massage and movement therapist with a special interest in aquatic bodywork. They are not intended to suggest definitive methods for working with someone who has psoas-related trauma. Please be very careful with such work.
If you believe you have psoas-related problems, please check this out with your preferred health professional. Treat yourself with as much care as I hope the previous posts (Parts 1 and 2) have indicated may be warranted. Below I have summarized some of the practices that have been helpful to me in my ongoing explorations of this. Though I cannot take responsibility for your use of these suggestions and their possible outcome, I sincerely hope that if you do try them you will find them beneficial. Please comment or share your experience below or by email.
The psoas (see Part 1 for the location of this muscle and its significance) is most effectively worked with by developing a deeply subtle awareness of it and what it needs, rather than attempting to control or manipulate it. On land, Liz Koch's Constructive Rest Position provides a simple but powerfully effective starting point for developing this awareness. It would also be a helpful practice for someone with psoas trauma to do both before and after an aquatic bodywork session.
Constructive Rest Position (CRP): A simple technique to release your psoas before you begin stretching or other movement, or bodywork. Rest on your back with knees bent and the feet placed parallel to each other, hip width apart. Place your heels approximately 12-16 inches away from your buttocks. Keep the trunk and head parallel with the floor (you may need a thin pillow). Do not push your lower back to the floor or tuck your pelvis under in an attempt to flatten the spine. Simply rest in the position for 10-20 minutes. In this position, gravity encourages release of psoas tension.
Note: There are subtleties to this simple exercise that make some instruction valuable (see Liz Koch's website). As with any psoas work, this position can cause emotions to surface and the best approach is to witness these without self-judgment, letting them move through.
Note: I first came across this on the prenatal aquatic workshop mentioned in Part 2 when one of the participants brought her machine along. Many of us found it to be a great adjunct to the work we were doing in the water. I have since used it both personally and in my land sessions with others to good effect.
Trauma Releasing Exercises: These 7 simple exercises were developed by David Berceli, as a self-administered process for trauma recovery. Those with a history of physical limitations, psychological or emotional stress are advised to seek guidance in using them. The exercises generate neurogenic tremors (shaking) that allow the body to throw off deep chronic tensions. They can be practiced daily for a month if no ill effects are experienced and thereafter about twice weekly to process normal stresses of life. Strong shaking will eventually be replaced by fine tremors that feel pleasant.
Note: I have used these mainly on myself, but also in a few private movement sessions, and found them to be both safe and effective. The shaking effect occurs in most people that I have tried it with.
Maya abdominal massage: Please see the next post for this interesting (and water connected) addendum.
Muscle stretching - a caution: As mentioned in Part 2, there is an entirely physical or functional explanation and approach to resolving muscle exhaustion such as can occur for the psoas. Below is an example from The Psoas Bodywork Center, a stretch-oriented exercise and massage service. The Center recommends many different stretching exercises to rebalance muscles - and they do insist that these should not be attempted without prior instruction from one of their staff.
Sitting all day causes the hip flexors to shorten, and muscles shortened for a long time tend to stay shortened. This shortening or sustained contraction causes a reciprocal inhibition, which is a neuromuscular condition that occurs when a contraction in a specific muscle causes a decrease in the nerve impulse to that muscle's functional opposite. When the muscle is contracting continuously, like it does in this case, its opposite muscle stops firing as much and sometimes it stops completely.
In general, these muscle imbalances are caused by postural stress, repetitive positioning, repetitive movement, lack of core strength, lack of neuromuscular control, immobilization and decreased tissue recoverability following activity. Someone who is both a sitter and an athlete often suffers doubly. The repetitive nature of running, for example, combined with the sedentary nature of desk work greatly increases the risk of this kind of problem.
By way of contrast, in her article Journey to the Core And Explore Your Psoas, Liz Koch, gives the following caution to anyone who habitually uses strong stretches to support their favored exercise practice. Even yoga practitioners do this, as I can personally attest: it was probably a lack of self-care, while teaching a yoga class after the log lifting incident I describe in Part 1, that exacerbated my own recent psoas injury. Healer heal thyself!
Powerful stretches done when the body is hot potentially jeopardize pelvic integrity. Heat combined with force can, over time, stretch the delicate sacral iliac (SI) joints. If the pelvis has torques or the SI joints have been stretched, the psoas muscle must engage to create stabilization. As a stabilizer, the psoas loses its supple, muscular motion. A misused psoas becomes an exhausted, constricted psoas and eventually shortens, minimizing your internal openness. Monitoring the force you use to feel energized can help you avoid misusing the psoas. By staying in touch with your belly core, you will know what your body needs. When practicing yoga poses, trust your gut feelings and go only at a pace that allows you to stay centered in your core.
Attempting to achieve range of motion too quickly forces your psoas muscle to act as an anchor or muscular lock, rather than as an integrative muscle.
Facilitated stretching is often used by massage therapists who specialize in working with structural problems as opposed to relaxation, such as the friend who helped me out in Part 1. Direct palpation of the psoas muscle is now widely considered to be potentially injurious. Here is a caution from The Stretching Handbook:
Proprioceptive Neuromuscular Facilitation (PNF) is a form of flexibility training that involves both the stretching and contraction of the muscle group being targeted. It was originally developed as a form of rehabilitation, and for that it is very effective. It is also good for targeting specific muscle groups, increasing flexibility and range of movement, and improving muscular strength. Care must be taken when performing PNF stretches as they can put added stress on the targeted muscle group, increasing the risk of soft tissue injury. To reduce this risk, it is important to include a conditioning phase before an intense effort is used.
Exercise focus
In her book Core Awareness: Enhancing Yoga, Pilates, Exercise and Dance, 2003, Liz Koch offers many psoas-awareness-raising exercises. Here is my summary based on her advice for yoga and dance practitioners, of effective aspects to focus on for any given exercise. The same ideas could be shared with someone as part of their preparation for an aquatic bodywork session, in whatever manner they might best understand them.
- awareness of the skeleton (sensing bones)
- musculature (superficial and core)
- stimulating internal righting reflexes
- organ functioning
- circulation
- energetic, emotional, mental thoughts or images.
A note about reflexes
Sitting for long periods of time with a constricted psoas muscle can inadvertently signal the flight/ fight reflex, suggests Liz Koch. This in turn depletes the adrenals, the immune system, and the body's overall vital energy. Fixating on a computer screen fatigues by overriding natural reflexes that coordinate and align posture. These internal righting reflexes include: head/neck reflex which orients the head/ neck in relationship to the horizon: head/ body reflex which keeps head over body and body under head: eye/ head reflex which maintains orientation in space, as the head moves the eyes respond.
(For more see Sitting at Your Computer: Keeping Your Psoas Muscle Released by Liz Koch.)
Body psychotherapy
Here are two techniques that appear to have much to offer as adjuncts to psoas-trauma healing, especially where resolution and reintegration is needed in addition to releases.
This educational and therapeutic approach to movement, developed by Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen to help release stress, fear, aches and pains, and restrictive habits and perceptions, could be a valuable adjunct to developing psoas awareness. It is not so much a technique as an experiential and cognitive journey for discovering how the mind expresses itself through the body in motion. I had a sample session on the prenatal workshop mentioned in Part 2 with Annie Brook, and found it very engaging. It does require a willingness to enter a state of deep internal focus.
This body-oriented method of working with trauma, developed by Peter Levine, has been mentioned in Parts 1 and 2. He believes that trauma is the result of physiology, not psychology, specifically our instinctual fight/ flight drives. According to this approach, discharge of repressed emotions is not sufficient to address underlying developmental and psychophysiological stress. A practitioner is trained to notice subtle shifts in posture or parts of the body trembling, vibrating, pulsing, or moving in other ways. They then guide someone in following their internal sensations while staying very present.
The following quote from Liz Koch, would make an excellent meditation or focus for anyone with psoas trauma to reflect on while doing exercise or receiving bodywork (including during aquatic bodywork):
Unraveling muscular, myofascial, visceral imbalances involves a constantly flowing inward/ outward movement. Go in towards freeing the bones and core muscles and out to the surface to release outer muscular compensations. Similar to breathing you will go back in toward the core and out toward the surface over and over again.
Below is an outline of some of the effects of aquatic bodywork noted in Parts 1 and 2 that could be given particular emphasis when working with someone who shows evidence of psoas trauma. These suggestions should only be used by a practitioner experienced in aquatic bodywork who has the skills to support and facilitate spontaneous movements of someone in water.
The responses of someone carrying trauma can be very dramatic: losing contact with someone such that their nose goes under water or they impact the side of the pool will not be effective for healing. Careful observation of their responses, combined with knowledge of anatomy, may tell you which muscles are affected in terms of tension or shut-down.
Certain touches or movements offered in a place of safety and by a person who is trusted might well elicit trauma release - what is crucial for its resolution is that the person triggering them knows what to do next - resolution and reintegration, not just releases. This is where the forthcoming workshops offered by Diane Tegtmeier and Inika Spence in Aquatic Trauma Healing will be of great value.
Movements that facilitate unwinding
As described in Part 1, the psoas plays an important role in the body's structural integrity. Where this role has become disturbed - usually quite visible in a person's body when immersed and moved in water - the following could be helpful:
- turning towards the torques, twists and turbulence being expressed
- putting someone into tight flexion, until they release like a compressed spring
- pushing someone's feet against the poolside, until they push away
I have found the following placements to be effective in eliciting psoas release:
- front or back of the lower torso - often produced a solar plexus jerk or bodywave
- shoulder or neck area - may initiate a strong leg kick (one or both legs)
Note: 'Chi', the Chinese word for life energy, is considered to be the force within our bodies and within the universe that engenders life. The word itself has many translations, such as energy, air, breath, wind, or vital essence. There are 49 cultures around the world that understand the concept of chi in one form or another; examples include Ki (Japanese), Prana (Sanskrit), Lung (Tibetan), Neyatoneyah (Lakota Sioux), Num (Kalahari Kung), Ruach (Hebrew), and Ch'ulel (Maya).
Western or conventional medicine, is one of the few cultures that does not have a similar concept, although it recognizes the role of energy at the molecular level. That directing the flow of our life force, our chi, can improve our health and vitality, is something that many who have experienced it find easy to accept. Aquatic bodywork, especially for those with compromised chi following some kind of trauma, seems to provide an excellent demonstration of this flow, its blockage and release.
Part 1: Personal experience of psoas trauma
Part 2: How aquatic bodywork can help with psoas trauma recovery
Part 3: Some ways of working with the psoas on land and in water
Also see:
Deepening core awareness: Maya healing
Aquatic bodywork and trauma healing
New treatments for trauma: a review with special reference to aquatics
Special note: Liz Koch is an international educator, author, and creator of Core Awareness (TM) focusing on conscious awareness for developing human potential. With 30 years experience working with and specializing in the iliopsoas, she is recognized in the somatic, bodywork and fitness professions as an authority on the core muscle.
