0:00 This is Brent coming at you with another release video. In this video we're going 0:03 after an often forgotten muscle, the gluteus minimus. The gluteus minimus is 0:07 an internal rotator of the hip, plays a very similar role in postural 0:10 dysfunction as the TFL, which is it's very close neighbor. They both get tight 0:15 and overactive, or short and overactive in lower leg dysfunction, the feet 0:20 flatten and turn out, as well as lumbo-pelvic hip complex dysfunction 0:24 where we have an anterior pelvic tilt. I'm going to have my friend Leanne come 0:28 out, she's going to help me demonstrate this exercise. To get into just a little 0:32 functional anatomy, so we know where everything is, I think you have 0:36 probably been on this muscle before, have felt tenderness in this area before, but 0:40 maybe thought it was part of your TFL, or your piriformis. So, if I find Leanne's 0:44 ASIS, or anterior superior iliac spine, right here we know that the TFL is just 0:50 posterior to that. So right about where Leanne's front pocket would be, we have the 0:54 TFL. We know that the piriformis goes from sacrum to greater trochanter, that 0:59 big bony notch right here. Kind of in between those two, sandwiched in between 1:05 those two, so this is her piriformis, this is her TFL, we can kind of hit the 1:10 gluteus minimus, especially where those trigger points lie, right in between. So 1:14 it's going to be on the side, but the posterior side of her hip. Leanne's going to 1:20 get in the same position she would get in for a TFL foam roll. She can roll up 1:30 and down a little bit between her greater trochanter and her iliac crest. 1:33 She can go forward and back just a little bit to to get over the full 1:38 distance of that area, good. Once she finds the most tender spot I'm going to 1:44 make sure that she's not muscle guarding. The way we would do that in this case is 1:48 either have her press her foot into the floor, showing her where that tension is, 1:53 and then having her let go. If that increased in discomfort, we know she was 1:58 muscle guarding. You could also have somebody try to lift up their foot a 2:01 little bit, and then relax, using reciprocal inhibition to try to tone 2:06 down her gluteus minimus and make sure she's not muscle guarding. She would 2:09 then hold this technique for 30 seconds to 2 minutes, as we do all of 2:13 our static release techniques. Now, if this wasn't enough pressure for her, 2:18 we could use our little physics formula: pressure equals force over area, 2:23 which means if I decrease area, I increase pressure. I could do that by 2:30 just going from a foam roll, which has a big surface area, to this softball. Now, 2:35 this isn't a normal softball, this isn't a hard softball, this is a softie, or a 2:39 training softball. They have quite a bit of give, so it's a little nicer for 2:44 Leanne's hip than, like, a baseball or something, or a lacrosse ball I've seen 2:48 used, or a normal softball. But, it'll still be quite an increase in intensity 2:55 as we can see. The other advantage for somebody Leanne's size as well is, 3:00 sometimes foam rolls, for both the TFL and the gluteus minimus, are just too big. 3:06 So if this is her iliac crest, and this is her greater trochanter, what 3:13 sometimes happens with a foam roll is it creates a bridge over those two bony 3:17 notches, and she can't get deep into these tissues that lie between. So 3:21 sometimes we have to move to a softball with some of our smaller individuals. 3:25 Once again, 30 seconds to 2 minutes until you feel a 3:30 release. Hopefully you will get a change in your movement patterns and an 3:34 increase in performance. I hope you enjoyed the video!
