Is there a difference in symptoms between Iliopsoas Syndrome and Pelvic Torsion?

Iliopsoas Syndrome and Pelvic Torsion often occur simultaneously and therefore there’s often a confusing overlap of their symptoms.

In fact, these two conditions can cause or reinforce one another. Iliopsoas Syndrome can cause or reinforce Pelvic Torsion, and Pelvic Torsion cause or reinforce Iliopsoas Syndrome.

The key to both problems is the primary hip flexors, the iliopsoas muscles.

Iliopsoas muscle, front view.

If we look at each condition individually it’s easier to consider their close relationship with one another.

Iliopsoas Syndrome

Iliopsoas Syndrome can be broadly defined as dysfunction of the iliopsoas muscles, also known as the primary hip flexors.

Dysfunction of the primary hip flexor muscles means that one of these muscles — right iliacus, right psoas, left iliacus, left psoas — has become locked short (stuck, chronically tight) or locked long (strained) to the point of causing pain.

Symptoms from Iliopsoas Syndrome can arise:

1) in the muscle itself or

2) in another body region caused by a referral from an active trigger point in the muscle or

3) in both the muscle itself and another body region

Pelvic Torsion

Pelvic Torsion is a condition in which a torsion in the pelvis results in a functional leg-length discrepancy.

The leg-length discrepancy knocks the body out of equipoise, or balance, and that can result in a chain reaction of locked short and locked long muscles throughout the body, any of which might become painful.

Symptoms from Pelvic Torsion, then, can arise in virtually any muscle in the body.

But what’s crucial to understand is that both Pelvic Torsion and Iliopsoas Syndrome involve dysfunction of the primary hip flexors.

The immediate trigger for Pelvic Torsion is a particular type of hip flexor dysfunction where the iliacus on one side and the psoas on the other both become locked short.

Locked short right iliacus and left psoas

Immediate trigger for pelvic torsion: the iliacus on one side and psoas on the other side both locked short.

A frequent trigger for Iliopsoas Syndrome is the pelvis getting fixed into a torsion pattern.

Symptoms, then, can overlap and it can be difficult to distinguish which condition is causing what symptom.

But what’s also true is that, because of this interrelationship, when one condition is resolved, the other condition can often also resolve.

Methods for Resolving These Problems

I started releasing course work for the tackling these problems back in 2013. At the time, I was regularly treating both Iliopsoas Syndrome and Pelvic Torsion in my private practice.

That year I released my course for relieving Iliopsoas Syndrome — Healing the Hidden Root of Pain — because I had developed a methodology for this problem that I knew the lay public could readily learn and apply.

But teaching the lay public how to resolve Pelvic Torsion was another matter and in 2013 I was still researching and refining my understanding of the RALF Pattern (the dominant Pelvic Torsion pattern) and I was still developing a clear system for resolving it.

It would be nearly ten years before I would be develop that system into the self-guided course that has become the Postural Blueprint For Correcting Pelvic Torsion (2022), my most recent offering.

In between these two courses I released the Stretching Blueprint For Pain Relief and Better Flexibility (2020), which utilizes the power of global flexibility for resolving pain and symptoms using Active Isolated Stretching.

While these courses can each be taken individually, they form a continuum, each one building on the others.