Iliacus pain? Do these 4 exercises for instant relief.

It’s not quite the psoas that is giving you trouble, but a sneaky muscle right next to it – the iliacus.

Before you dive too deep into a Google and YouTube research hole, can you promise me something? Please do not lay on some plastic apparatus to “release” this muscle.

Maybe you’ll feel something happening the first few times you do it but eventually, you’ll likely cause more harm than good since you’re aggravating an already sensitive area.

But what should you do instead? Well dear hipster, that’s what I will teach you in this article. I will show you how to work with your body, not against it.

The exercises in the below routine target the iliacus in their shortening function (flexion) and lengthening action (extension). Improve the way a muscle functions and you’ll improve the way it feels.

What is the Iliacus Muscle?

The Iliacus is part of the hip flexor muscle group and is located in your pelvic region. Other muscles in the hip flexor muscle group include the psoas, sartorius and rectus femoris.

Collectively, this muscle group is responsible for hip flexion, where the femur comes toward the torso. In other words, whenever you bring your leg up or compress your upper body and lower body together, your hip flexors will engage.

It is important to understand that the iliacus works alongside all the other hip flexors. You don’t need to isolate the iliacus in exercise because that is not how the body operates.

Muscles don’t engage one at a time. Instead, they work together in a complex but effortless way to perform movements that originated millions of years ago.

Nature doesn’t isolate the iliacus and neither should you. This is why all the exercises in this article focus on the hip flexors generally rather than the iliacus specifically.

An Iliacus Stretch to Open your Hip Flexors

The kneeling hip flexor stretch is one you’ve probably seen before. But I am going to ask you to do it a bit differently.

Instead of simply going into the stretch, I want you to start the stretch with a strong glute contraction on the kneeling leg. Try tucking the pelvis along with the contraction to get more of a stretch.

Once you feel a nice stretch, try to get a little more range of motion. But make sure to keep your chest up so you don’t round your spine and shoulders.

I encourage you to think of this exercise more of a movement rather than a stretch. Explore how it feels for you as you come in and out of the position.

Once you start feeling strong in the kneeling position, experiment with the same cues in a lunge. Keep thinking about contracting the glute and tucking the pelvis before taking on more range. This will be difficult but your hips will thank you.

The above two exercises work the iliacus and hip flexors in a lengthened position. But you also want to work the muscle in a shortened and contracted position.

Strengthening the Iliacus

When I program exercises, I always try to get the most functional value out of them. In other words, which exercise will have the most carry-over into full-body movement.

For engaging the iliacus, I like the All-4s because it is a way to get the full-body involved while you work on hip flexor engagement.

To get more out of your hip flexors, think about sitting your butt further down while maintaining that low back arch (i.e., anterior pelvic tilt). If you round your low back, the work will be done by the low back, and not the hip flexors.

Like the lengthening sequence above, you can eventually progress to a more challenging movement, the assisted squat. The key here is to bring what you felt and learned in the All-4s position to the squat.

Same cue applies here – you don’t want to just round your low back to get deeper in your squat. Instead, see if you can keep a little bit of an anterior pelvic tilt to exaggerate the hip flexor engagement.

The goal is not to squat this way forever. Instead, using the cue above is a way to exaggerate the role of the hip flexors in the position to help you understand how well they function.

Experiment to see how things feel for you. If you notice some new sensations and contractions in your hips, that’s great. Explore them more to see if it helps reduce the discomfort you experience in this area.

Programming

You can do all the above exercises as a sequence or just pick one from each section. For example, if you’re not ready for the squat or lunge yet, you can do the kneeling hip flexor stretch for 1 minute per side and the All 4s for a minute or two.

Once your hips get more conditioned, you can add in the lunge and squat.  Experiment with both the lengthening exercises and the strengthening exercises in the beginning while you’re still troubleshooting.

Once it becomes clear where you need more work, spend more time on the movements that give you the most trouble.

Spend anywhere from 30 seconds to 2 minutes in each exercise. And of course, if it’s a 1-sided exercise like the lunge, spend this amount of time on each side.