0:02 This is Brent, President of B2C Fitness and on this video we're doing our static 0:06 release techniques for our piriformis. Now, your piriformis isn't a muscle that 0:10 everybody's going to need to release. I know a lot of people like to go ahead and 0:13 roll that because it's a fairly easy technique to do, but we need to ensure 0:16 that we go back to our assessment, and this muscle is actually short and 0:21 overactive. Remember if we do flexibility techniques we want to make sure that 0:26 we're lengthening and toning down a muscle that is overactive and short. So, 0:33 if you are doing the overhead squad assessment, really the major sign that 0:36 leads you to believe that the piriformis might be overactive is going to be the knees 0:41 bow out. So, this isn't a totally common thing that we see all the time. For those 0:47 of you guys doing goniometric assessment, the piriformis can restrict 0:51 both internal and external rotation. So, if you've released a couple other 0:55 structures like the TFL, you've done some adductor release, you've done some psoas release, 1:00 and you're still having problems getting getting rotation back to normal it might 1:04 be worth going to the piriformis, releasing and stretching to see if you can 1:07 return normal hip rotation. If somebody complains of SI joint 1:13 discomfort or pain, there's another reason why you might have to do some 1:16 piriformis release before looking at the SI joint dysfunction specifically. I'm 1:21 going to have my friend Leanne come out, help me demonstrate this exercise. First, 1:26 just a little anatomy lesson so we know where we're releasing. Your 1:30 piriformis runs from anterior sacrum, to greater trochanter. So, the sacrum is the 1:35 tailbone, greater trochanter is that big bony thing we feel on the outside of our 1:41 hips, so it creates a little bit of like a horizontal and slightly diagonal band 1:45 across the top of our glute complex. Now, there are other deep rotators of the 1:50 hips, our gemella and obturators, which lie a little bit lower, but we're still going 1:54 to be on the top portion of our glute complex, so when Leanne goes ahead and 1:59 sits down on this foam roll, that's where I want her to focus. So, Leanne, go ahead 2:06 and have a seat here. She's going to go ahead and throw her hands back behind her so 2:11 she's nice and comfortable. If it's this piriformis I want her to do, I'm going to 2:15 go ahead and have her put that in a slightly stretched position by putting 2:19 this ankle and this knee, and then leaning onto her right cheek. So the 2:25 leg that's crossed is the side that you're doing. Now, first things first, I 2:29 want to make sure Leanne is not muscle guarding, she's not tensing up to 2:33 try to protect a very tender spot, so what I might have Leanne do is either 2:38 pull her knee in and then relax, or might have her push her knee out kind of, 2:45 contracting her glute and piriformis and then relax completely. Do you feel a bit more? -Yeah. If 2:52 somebody goes from a contracted position and then relaxes, melts, then they feel a 2:56 lot more, chances are they were contracting a little bit in their 2:58 piriformis and glute complex to try to protect. So we want to make sure she's 3:02 nice and relaxed on the most tender spot. You got the most tender spot? 3:16 Good. Now, contraindication here, if Leanne starts feeling numbness or 3:22 tingling there's a good chance she's on her sciatic nerve. Your sciatic nerve 3:27 runs just underneath your piriformis. We don't want to pinch down on nerves, not that 3:33 I've ever heard of anybody doing damage with a foam roll, but it's going to be 3:36 uncomfortable, it's going to create a sensation that people are not going to 3:40 want to stick with, and we're probably not going to get a good release. So, if by 3:44 chance she starts feeling tingling or numbness, just have her move a little bit. You can 3:49 either have them rock this way, remembering that that piriformis is a horizontal band, 3:53 or just go up and down a little bit. 3:58 Now, if this was so painful that she couldn't relax, I could regress this a 4:05 little bit but just having her stick this leg out, and totally relax. We want to 4:11 stay slightly externally rotated to make sure she stays on that piriformis and 4:15 those deep rotators. Leanne wasn't having a problem with the other way, so we're 4:20 going to go ahead and take her back to that original position. If I wanted to 4:24 progress this a little bit, I could put these muscles more on stretch so that 4:28 there's less bulk in the way of that trigger point by having her stretch, and hold 4:33 her knee up towards her opposite shoulder. Now, release techniques aren't 4:40 anything really all that fancy, it all comes down to putting pressure and 4:44 squishing a muscle between some bone and some hard object. If we want to increase 4:49 the intensity all we have to do is either decrease the surface area of the 4:53 object we're using, or increase force. Since Leanne is using almost all of 4:57 her body weight on the piriformis at this point, if this was not intense 5:01 enough for her, we'd go to a smaller object, at which point I might switch to a softball. 5:09 Now, I will warn you, this isn't quite the normal softball, this isn't a solid 5:13 softball, there's actually a lot of give, this is one of those training 5:15 softballs. I find these work really, really well, and also happen to be very portable 5:19 for those of you who treat in home. 5:24 She's going to do the same technique, she can search for the most tender spot, 5:28 make sure there's no numbness or tingling, she can make sure she's not muscle 5:31 guarding again by either pushing her knee out that way and then relaxing, or 5:35 pulling her knee in and then relaxing. How is it feeling? 5:40 -It's intense. It's intense, alright! Once she's found that spot, it's intense, we know 5:45 she's relaxed, she's just going to hold until she gets a release. That's going to 5:49 take about 30 seconds, all the way up to 2 minutes, so she's going to need to be 5:54 in a nice, comfortable position. If she doesn't get a release, that's okay. It's 5:59 not ideal, but it's okay. Remember that this is a skill that is going to take 6:03 some practice, and it may take several sessions for somebody to learn how to 6:06 do this. Ideally in the end, we want to get people feeling those 6:10 releases so we know those trigger points have been reduced to next to nothing so 6:15 that we get a huge increase in the quality of their movement patterns over 6:18 time. I hope you enjoy this video, hope you enjoy the technique. Thank you 6:23 Leanne, very much.
