Anatomy 101, by Professor LilBitch

This, my friends, is the psoas. We're having this little lesson because it seems that this pesky muscle group, which reaches from the hip , wrapping around the thigh and up the lower back, can be horribly and terribly painful when aggravated.

While I was visiting my sister and the new bambolina, I thought I had thrown my back out. I wasn't doing anything weird or strenuous. I was, in fact, simply bending over to grab my purse off the floor so we could leave the house. Suddenly, there was a shooting pain that literally knocked the wind out of me. The lower right part of my back was screaming and every time I took a step, it just wasn't very fun. This happened last Saturday, and it hasn't been right since. Today was the first day I sat up from bed without the familiar pain in the small of my back. You see, whenever you bend at the hips to sit up or lie down, that's your psoas making it all happen.

So, feeling a bit better, I decided I'd go to yoga and try to work whatever was going on out of my system. Mind you, I still thought that it was a back issue, so I just figured I'd stay away from the back bending sort of stuff and take it easy and I'd be fine. Besides, I knew that the instructor tonight was this very cool chick with a more-than-necessary knowledge of anatomy. Just before Christmas, I had gone to a class she was teaching and she helped me with what I thought was a hamstring pull. After poking at me a bit, she TOLD me it wasn't my hamstring, but she gave me a stretch to do, and it made it feel better and I pretty much went on with my life. Turns out that other thing it was, was the psoas. And because I stopped paying any attention to it after if felt better, it decided to move its way up further into my back. The lesson here, kids, is that when your body is trying to tell you something, listen. When someone who knows more about the body than you will ever know (unless you're a surgeon or an undertaker or other such thing where you carve people up) tells you that you need to get something in your body massaged, do it. Otherwise, your body will get pissed off at you and make you listen. Bonus: I totally have a guilt-free, valid reason to have someone rub on me for an hour and a half. It's not that I'm a spoiled princess, it's therapy. It will be such a happy Tuesday.