The Muscle Nobody Talks About (That’s Probably The Root Cause of Your Low Back Pain)
Most conversations about low back pain focus on the back itself. The muscles along the spine, the discs, the sacroiliac joint.
But one of the most common drivers of low back pain sits in the front of your body, not the back. It’s called the psoas muscle. The primary conductor of the hip flexor. Think of picking your foot up and off the ground, this motion is the psoas muscle activating. Given it’s roles and responsibilities, it is chronically shortened in almost everyone who sits for a living.
What the Hip Flexors Are and Why They Matter
The hip flexors are a group of muscles that connect the front of the lumbar spine to the top of the femur bone. It closes the distance between the mid and lower extremities. Their job is to lift the thigh towards the torso – the movement you make with every step and every time you go up the stairs, go walk, or just sitting down.
The psoas specifically attaches directly to the lumbar vertebrae. As it shortens – which happens whenever you’re seated – it pulls the lumbar spine forward into an exaggerated arch. That increased lumbar curve compresses the posterior elements of the spine and puts more load on the lumbar discs and facet joints with every movement of our day.
Over time, that constant anterior pull becomes the resting state. The muscles adapt to its shortened position and stays there even as you stand up. Your lower back ends up in permanent compression, not because anything is structurally wrong, but because a chronically tight muscle is pulling it out of neutral alignment.
Who This Affects Most
If you sit for six or more hours a day, your hip flexors are almost certainly contributing to your lower back pain without a doubt. That includes desk workers, drivers, people who work from home, and anyone whose job involves extended periods in a chair.
It also affects people who exercise regularly but spend most of the day seated. A morning run doesn’t undo eight hours of hip flexor shortening. The muscle spends far more time in the shortened position than the lengthened one, and it adapts accordingly. Exercise is incredible, we highly encourage having some brief intermission exercises throughout the workday to add some variety to encourage better ergonomics.
Colorado Springs is well known for their significant population of desk-based workers:
Engineers near the Research Parkway corridor
Defense and tech workers
Administrative staff throughout the medical and military communities.
This pattern shows up consistently in this population surrounding the military bases.
Why Stretching Alone Often Isn’t Enough
The standard advice for tight hip flexors is to stretch them. A low lunge, a hip flexor stretch held for 30 seconds. Done consistently, that helps.
But stretching a muscle that is also holding chronic trigger points – spots of hyperirritability within the muscle tissue that refer pain into the low back and hip – doesn’t fully address the problem. The trigger points need direct manual work to release their holding pattern before stretching can actually change the tissue length.
This is where therapeutic massage becomes the missing piece. Addressing the psoas and hip flexors with targeted soft tissue work, combined with the posterior chain work ashiatsu delivers on the low back and glutes, treats both sides of the pattern at once.
What Sessions Look Like for This Pattern
If hip flexor tightness is part of what’s driving your low back pain, the session addresses the anterior hip and thigh alongside the lumbar spine, glutes, and hamstrings. The two sides of the pattern are connected, and treating only the back while ignoring the front of the hip consistently produces incomplete results.
It’s also worth noting that this pattern responds well to consistency. A single session can release acute holding and reduce pain noticeably. But a psoas that has been chronically shortened for years takes repeated work over time to fully retrain – the same logic that applies to all chronic soft tissue patterns.
If your low back pain is worst when you first stand up from sitting, or if it eases somewhat with walking but returns as soon as you sit down again, tight hip flexors are high on the list of likely contributors. Sitting for a living doesn’t help this matter.
Ready to address the full pattern, front and back? Book your appointment online or call/text 719-459-0780. Inspire Movements Massage Therapy is located at 1295 Kelly Johnson Blvd, Suite 250 in Briargate, Colorado Springs 80920. Open Monday, Tuesday, Friday, and Saturday 9am-7:30pm.
By appointment only.