Hi

A different week for me as I am on the receiving end of teaching for a couple of days and this gives me an opportunity to learn and mix with like-minded fitness professionals. I always feel re-energised when I have spent time with other health and wellbeing professionals as they inspire me to continue to improve and develop. And then of course I bring this back with me to your sessions… So it's a win-win situation all round!

I have also felt the need to bring something different to the newsletter this week.

I am going to talk to you about the psoas (Iliopsoas/psoas major) muscle as this plays such an important part in our ‘core’ stability and our movement. Firstly as you will see from the graphic below, the psoas major originates from the lumbar spine and passes down in front of the pelvic girdle and inserts into the top of the femur (the big thigh bone). This muscle is an essential part of flexing the hip — it is the most powerful of our flexors of the thigh, and is therefore used continuously as we walk and run. Also the psoas muscles of both legs work together to flex the trunk at the hip whilst other muscles hold the legs steady — as in sitting up from a supine (lying on your back) position.

The psoas muscles can also laterally rotate the thigh at the hip joint resulting in the leg and foot moving so that the kneecap ends up pointing away from the opposite leg. So you can see that this muscle is responsible for a heck of a lot of movement.

Problems start to happen with the body if this muscle is not functioning, and we end up with other muscles — and these can be anywhere from the lower leg and ankle, lower back, mid back, right up to the shoulder and neck — and because these muscles are not really designed to do what the psoas does, that is when we start to get problems and injuries in those other areas.

Here is the psoas, as an animation. If you can't actually see it moving (it's because your email app doesn't support it) just click on the fixed image you can see, and you'll be taken to a website page where you should see the animation.

Finally in this news section, I wanted to share a bit of Caroline's news this week, as she's now the proud owner of a new campervan. Caroline and Mike will be spending many weekends away in the new campervan, as soon as the weather improves a little. We wish them much happiness in it.

As the psoas is part of your core, then my aim is to get it activated and make it function for you — particularly if you spend a lot of time sitting at a desk or driving — as this weakens the psoas and shortens it.

Poor posture can also affect the psoas, particularly if the pelvis is in an anterior tilt, as this can over-stretch the psoas…

So here is a simple exercise to start working on psoas strength, and this is your Exercise Of The Week:

Here is the link.

Each week I give you an exercise to practise for your physical wellbeing, but health and fitness is all about the whole circle of life and therefore should include our emotional self. So this week’s exercise for the whole self is practising positive affirmations — a classic example of this for me is that I can worry, and when I worry it affects everything; I can’t make decisions, I can’t concentrate, I eat poorly, I don’t exercise, I become negative, I lose confidence… So if I find myself in this spiral of worry my positive affirmation is:

I might write it down on a post-it note and put it on my mirror, or on the steering wheel of my car. Or I might put it on my phone and look at it throughout the day.

It stops me from sabotaging my day when I am getting bogged down by whatever it is that I am worrying about, and often this then brings clarity, and often clarity resolves the worry. Just as I have given you a physical exercise for the psoas in order to eliminate problems elsewhere in the body, I am giving you a positive emotional exercise to eliminate the negative emotional effect of worrying.

Try this for yourself and see how it works…

Have a great week folks, stay fit, happy and healthy and keep moving and thinking freely!!

JT and team xxx