Deep Six!

You may have heard of the piriformis muscle, and you may know that it is deep in your hip area and it's a real pain in the butt when it's angry, but did you know that the piriformis is actually only one of the six small muscles that make up your hip's external rotators AKA "the deep six".

The deep six are the piriformis, superior gemellus, inferior gemellus, obturator internus, obturator externus, and quadratus femoris. There wont be a quiz on those names, but it's important to your hip joint that these muscle are functioning properly.

They all externally rotate the hip like when you turn your foot out. They are also a big stabilizer for the hip joint itself. I find a lot of times the deep six have to stabilize extra when the much larger glute max is lazy. This can cause tightness and pain in the hip as well as range of motion problems and even worse, irritate the sciatic nerve.

Our bodies are very adaptable. When one muscle gets lazy a different muscle or set of muscles will try to take over the work in order to keep you upright and moving. It's like at your job when one employee with a special work project gets sick, two of his co workers have to take over this project. Though these two employees may get the job done, odds are it wont be done as well as if the specialized sick employee had done it. In this case these two muscles have completely different jobs, but if they don't step in, how will your body function?

It's important to not only address the symptoms but also the "why" of your pain. Your body works hard for you! Take care of it!