The psoas muscles are located in the hip and travel up to the spine, they are very important for the vitality and upright and robust posture where we feel full of life and stand tall.

At the same time so many of you will be sitting in the office for hours by your screens, laptops and mobile phones and some of you will be sitting with your children and family on couches watching tv or having dinners together for a few hours and then there is travel time in trains, planes and cars where again we are sitting down in a mixed and non bio-mechanical positions e.g. a position which is not functional to movement. With clients, I want muscles to be flexible and strong and activated and triggered. For a healthy psoas and a healthy body there are a few ideas and angles I’ll give you to a healthy body even if you do sit for hours which is the biggest enemy of being upright and bio-mechanical performance machines that you all truly are!

Do an elongated lunge which is either movement or stretch based and then go into a standing position where one knee is lifted and balanced above the hip and do that 10 times each leg and then progress to 15, 20 and beyond so that this exercise gives you balance dynamism, strength and flexibility. You can use an athletics lunge or hip flexor stretch or perhaps a yoga or capoeira version of a lunge as long as it feels its stretching and elongating and lengthening the tightness of your hips pushing blood into that area, healing it and releasing anxieties and tensions from the body. The other thing to consider is the blood flow and the opening up of the strengthening, stretching and balancing and the effect on expanding your mind and vision and taking you away from day to day single minded closed thoughts as the body affects the mind and vice versa, which is why I like to give movement exercises which require focus, balance and activation.

The next step is to do a stability exercises for both of the above exercises except doing them as a single exercise each so you can focus on strengthening them individually. So do the capoeira lunge from the ginga move if you know it or if you do athletics do a hip flexor stretch where you hold it for a minute or a yoga lunge for 60 seconds and then do separately a one straight leg hold where the other knee is held above and maintained above hip height with your eyes closed this will improve your concentration, you balance and coordination of muscles and you will activate your feet the core, the spine and great posture of the shoulders so in strengthening your psoas in movement, stability, elongation and balance you will feel a healthier, vital, energetic posture and notice it when among other people and I’m certain people will comment that theres something difference about the way you look, hold yourself or walk. You will be more upright and more uplifted as its a physiological fact that a person with great posture experience a great state simply from his or her physical stance or gait.