By Sharon Truelove
Been setting on the couch cross legged for too long only to get up and feel like you’ve done something seriously wrong to you inner knees? Read on if you’d like to know if it’s the deceptive Sartorius muscle or truly a bad knee.
Sartorius is a muscle in your inner thigh. Twisting movements or falls can cause trigger points in Sartorius, as well as maintaining extreme sitting or sleeping positions. So, it’s important to avoid unusually long strides (hyperextension) as well as extreme athletic efforts when out of shape.
The longest muscle in the body, the Sartorius may sometime deceive us. Because of how it attaches at the medial proximal tibial shaft (the inside of the knee) through the tendinous expansion of the Pes Anserinus (it shares this expansion with Semitendinosus and Gracilis), trigger points may make the inner knee so sensitive that many mistake the hypersensitivity to be a problem with the knee itself.
You can feel Sartorius contract when you lift the knee forward and turn it outward (and even more so when you move the whole leg to the outside).
1. Locate your anterior superior iliac spine (ASIS)
2. Palpate the entire length of the muscle from ASIS to inner knee.
3. With supported thumbs, massage the tender spots in slow, deep circles.
1. Another very effective way to self massage is rolling on foam.
2. Lie face down on the floor and support your upper body on your elbows.
3. Laterally rotate one leg and place the foam roller under that thigh.
4. Using your body and elbows, roll your thigh over the foam roller. It may feel VERY tender.
5. Roll until the soreness lets up or goes away.
Try these techniques and let us know what you thing!
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