Iliopsoas

叉腰肌 (chāyāo jī): iliopsoas

Xie Yalong as a roadside quack, telling a woman that her awkward gait is caused by a weak iliopsoas. “You're the one with an iliopsoas problem,” she replies. “Haven’t you seen a pregnant woman walk before?”

The inner hip muscles; an obscure and negligible flaw.

Xie Yalong, Deputy Chairman of the Chinese Football Association (China's national soccer association) sternly reprimanded the Chinese women’s team for its loss at the 2008 Olympics, mentioning that the women needed to build their iliopsoas muscles. Netizens lampooned Xie—“iliopsoas” isn’t exactly a household term. While the Football Association has been blamed for China’s infamously poor performance in men’s soccer, the woman’s soccer team has a much better overall record.

Netizens found it hypocritical that the Football Association could criticize the relatively successful women’s team for such an odd shortcoming when the Football Association itself was guilty of many greater failings. This obscure muscle group is used today to refer to instances in which someone with major faults is quick to point out the faults of others.

In 2012, Xie Yalong was sentenced to ten-and-a-half years in jail on corruption charges.

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