The Enlightened Body Blog

Anatomy Review: Massage for the Scalenes

The scalenes are actually the uppermost of the intercostals muscles, those muscles lying between your ribs that assist inhalation and exhalation. However, big surprise, there are no ribs in the neck! Actually a number of books say the scalenes attach to the vestigial ribs of the cervical vertebrae. That is, little buds appear on the cervical vertebrae that in fish, for instance, would develop into ribs, but in humans they end up being just little bumps to which the scalene muscles attach.

Who ordinarily thinks about breathing with their neck? Yet scalenes do have a very important respiratory function. They may indeed be, next to the diaphragm, the second most important muscles of respiration. The scalenes move the ribcage from above, while the thoracic diaphragm moves it from below.

The anterior scalene runs from the side of the second cervical vertebrae down to the first rib beneath the clavicle. Because it attaches to the front of that rib, the chronic contraction of the anterior scalene is one of the muscles that pulls our head forward; in chronic head-forward posture it is useful to address this muscle among others. The medial and posterior scalenes are more along the side of the neck and therefore have more to do with tilting the head to one side or the other.

It is common in whiplash that the scalenes are injured as the head is whipped forward then forcefully back, slightly tearing some of these muscle fibers through a sudden excessive stretch.

Energetically, the scalenes can be connected with all the virtues and challenges of the neck. The head forward posture can signify sadness, self-esteem issues, reactions to recent or long-held defeats. General neck tension will also manifest in the scalenes. That tension points to all the various reasons for inhibitions or tensions people may have about expressing themselves.

Try this Massage Technique

Here is a very helpful Deep Massage fulcrum which affects the scalenes as well as the superficial posterior neck muscles.

• Therapist: seated at the head of the table
  
• Client: supine
  
• Center yourself

Working on the left side of the scalenes, place your middle finger, assisted by your other fingers, near the origin of the sternocleidomastoid, just above the sternal end of the clavicle. Take out the looseness.

THROUGHOUT THIS TECHNIQUE IT WILL BE BETTER TO USE LESS, RATHER THAN MORE PRESSURE. HONOR THE DELICACY OF THE MUSCLES AND VESSELS HERE!

This fulcrum utilizes the active movement of the client. Ask the client to lift the chin as if looking up. This will take up the slack, stretching the anterior scalenes particularly. Now let us add additional vectors, again in a movement partnership. Ask the client to slowly turn the head to their right, as if to look over the right shoulder. As they move draw your fingers horizontally through the tissues on the left side of the neck. For this whole pass you are at the level of C6 and 7.

You may continue with your tractioning of the fascia all the way back as far as the spinous processes at the center of the neck. In this case, you will have gone considerably past the scalenes, but you will more completely address the soft tissues of the neck pulling them back and with them the head comes back more of top of the body instead of being projected out in front of it.

Now ask your client to bring their head back to center. Begin a second fulcrum, now at the level of the middle of the neck, around C3-5. Repeat each of the steps above. Finally, asking your client to return to center again, begin a third fulcrum at the level of C1-2.

You should repeat these steps on the other side - with the client turning their head to the left, drawing your fingers through the right side of the neck in three passes with movement as described above.

Massage and the Nervous System: Part Three

Part three of Massage and the Nervous System. (See parts two and one.)

As massage therapists we know how to get our hands on muscles and connective tissues. But now we see somehow we have to get our hands on the nervous system because otherwise it’s a bit like flipping light switches with no electricity – some action but no deeper change.

So how do we get our hands on the nervous system?

Autonomic Nervous System

The diencephalon houses among other amazing objects, the hypothalamus. The hypothalamus is the primary orienter in our lives toward pleasure and away from pain. A pea-sized structure, it nonetheless is in charge of the endocrine system and the autonomic nervous system. The autonomic nervous system is a full spectrum system which goes to glands, smooth and cardiac muscles, and other organs. It is largely responsible for our most profound reactions to the world. Its experiential spectrum inclines us to the deepest relaxations, to everyday balance, and at its most extreme, to emergency reactions.

A high level of massage therapy can affect the autonomic system in dramatic ways: 

•  Change the set point – most people are too highly strung and under stress. Massage, especially repeated applications, will change the “set point” of the autonomic nervous system. We slowly begin to feel that more relaxed is more our normal and preferred state rather than being more tense.
• Inhabit the full spectrum – some people have difficulty relaxing; others fully experiencing their excitement. By relieving tension from the muscles and the nervous system, massage facilitates the autonomic “range of motion” so that the person can more fluidly move from one energy state to another.
• Cultivate the fertile mid-ground – “Between living and dreaming there is a third thing.” the poet Machado wrote. Edison used to go to sleep with a rock in his hand. When he fell asleep it would drop and wake him up. He persisted until he could be almost asleep and yet not drop the rock. Why? That was the state, he found, out of which all his inventions flowed. When our unconscious and conscious minds are in communication with each other in this fertile midground of awareness, we are at our most creative.

Massage, inducing more balanced states of mind, emotion and body, allows for the creative utilization of the fertile mid-ground in problem-solving and growth.

Some Controversy

Lately, there has been some controversy over whether the energy-based approach has the same legitimacy as the orthopedic approach to massage.

“Energy” is a commonsense word we all use to describe, among other things, the nervous system and the role of emotion, mind, and electrical intelligence in our lives. We could reduce our understanding of energy to chemistry, but who would rather for example want to give up the term “love”, preferring to tell those you care about that you have a predominance of phenylethylamines in their presence? The language of energy comes closer to capturing and understanding experience, than does that of chemistry.

When we consider the critical role of energy and the nervous system, we see that the myofascial system constitutes just one part of what we need to affect as therapists. To fully support health we need to address both energy and structure.

Let us honor both of these wondrous human worlds. Let us see their unity; affirm that good science takes the whole into account, not just the part; and that good art - and massage is undoubtedly an art as well as a science – empowers peace and promotes harmony in our whole being. That touch which knows how to contact our deepest energy and structure bears the promise of a better life for one and all.

Anatomy Review: Basics of the Back

This article was originally published as Back to the Basics: Basics of the Back in Heartland Journal in the summer of 1984.

Our culture over-emphasizes image, appearances, "fronts." The cosmetics and the clothes we wear, even some of the psycho-spiritual trainings around are oriented especially toward the fronts we present. However, the more we focus on the front, the more we neglect backs. The more we ignore our backs, the more  thoughtlessness may translate into back pain and/or cowardice, i.e. spinelessness.

Tipping the Scales Backward

The back is a little like chickens crossing roads. It's not that the chicken needs to get to the other side - it is the other side. The chicken is Side B to the front's Side A. Or is it?

Usually, we identify the back with the "backbone," the vertebral column. I once watched a dissection of a man's abdomen and was amazed - slit open the skin of the gut, remove a bit of intestine and what you see there, not deep at all below the surface of the abdomen - the front of the lumbar vertebrae! The spine runs up through the middle of the body. This is an incredibly important corrective to the usual misconception - we ordinarily then the backbone is located at the surface of the back. The reason for this is that the rational mind, naive for all its hight-powered reason, sing those little protrusions running down the middle of the back, concludes those must be the backbone. Actually, they are just the tips of bony tails extending back a considerable distance from the cylindrical bodies of the vertebrae. If the main weight-bearing parts of the spine were all the way in the back, we would be imbalanced, under constant strain not to fall over backward. Now, if you think about it, it's obvious - the backbone's gotta be running up through the center of the body just as the centrality of the main pole in circus tent assures the symmetry, grace and lift of the whole structure. 

Leonardo's famous sketch underscores this point. For me it is fascination lies in his depiction of the human as a five-limbed creature, each limb radiating out from the center ("hara" or "tan tein" in the East). Each limb, in it turn, is a long series of bones ending with a structure used at varying stages of evolution for grasping and/or expression. The leg bones end with feet, the arm bones with hands, and the back bones with the head. With this in mind, begin to feel the evolved gesture of the spine - it's really our fifth limb thrusting up through the center of our being, elevating the head so that we may survey the distance from the highest possible vantage point.

The skeletal structure of the back consists of the spinal column and the ribcage. The rear of the ribcage obviously underlies most of the back's surface, but that too seldom is recognized as people identify ribs and notice their movement in the front of the body, but rarely think about or feel the back of the ribcage and its graceful response to breathing. 

Five Divisions of the Spine

1. The coccyx or tailbone.
   
2. The sacrum, five fused vertebrae lying between the rear wings or ilia of the pelvis.
   
3. The five lumbar vertebrae, running through the center of the waist.
   
4. The 12 thorasic vertebrae, each of which has joints with a rib to either side.
   
5. The seven cervical vertebrae or neck ones. 

Although our cervical as well as lumbar vertebrae have no ribs attaching to them now they did at the fishy point of evolution. Therefore these areas are the most free, but by the same token, the most open to distortion. Through injury, postural ignorance or chronic muscle tension, the cervical and/or lumbar vertebrae will often become compressed excessively curved or twisted. 

Owning Your Back

To re-own the freedom of your back, remember to appreciate with your self-image and in your movement:

1. Your rear ribcage rising and falling, expanding and contracting with each inhale and exhale:
2. The beautiful open span of the waist between the ribcage and the pelvis:
3. Your neck as a continuation of the back bone gently rising up through he body and up through the middle of your head.

Truly, nature displays her genius in the way our backs work if we will move from malignant neglect to benign appreciation, the back will become a source of beauty, pleasure and strength in our lives.

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Get back to your back: Randy Cummins will be teaching a massage continuing education class Thai-Shiatsu Techniques for the Low Back and Hip in February 2010.

Massage and The Nervous System: Part Two

Part two of Massage and the Nervous System. (See part one.)

As massage therapists we know how to get our hands on muscles and connective tissues. But now we see somehow we have to get our hands on the nervous system because otherwise it’s a bit like flipping light switches with no electricity – some action but no deeper change.

So how do we get our hands on the nervous system?

Diencephalon

This area in the center of the brain is the seat of emotion, memory, and our “drives”. It is, in spite of the vanity of the cerebral cortex’s verbal narrations, largely what moves us in our lives. The diencephalon lives deeper than words - housing hunger, thirst, anger, sexual desire, sleep-wake cycle, anxiety, all our memories, our deepest convictions, desires, our pleasure, our pain, and our dreams.

The diencephalon is the residence of the “unconscious” of which the great psychotherapist Milton Erickson provocatively said, “The conscious mind is brilliant but the unconscious mind is a hell of a lot smarter.”

The first sense to develop in the embryo is the sense of touch. Touch forms our earliest sensory experiences of the world - these in turn shape the unconscious world of the diencephalon. So, the art and science of touch therapy, at its best, is an ideal medium for communicating with the diencephalon.

Moishe Feldenkrais said a person can’t change without new experience. Expert massage and bodywork is new experience. Our world, initially formed by the ways we are touched, undergoes new, awakening experiences through bodywork which go immediately deeper than the conscious mind and influence our deepest beliefs, motivations, and dreams.

Cerebrum

The cerebrum gives rise to language, self-reflection, conscious thoughts, plans, decisions, and the synthesizing of imagination and logic. With the cerebrum we find the words for what we are feeling. We find support for bringing the tool of language to bear in our problem-solving. Often changes initiated by bodywork at the level of the diencephalon bubble up into cerebral, conscious rememberings, re-examined beliefs, changes of plans, and new insights about one’s body, emotion, mind and spirit.

Subscribe to the Enlightened Body for the next installments of this article by submitting your email address on the form on this page. (We promise never to share your email.) To receive monthly Anatomy Reviews for LMTs, we encourage you subscribe to the TLC Times, our school newsletter newsletter.

Massage and the Nervous System: Part One

This is the first part of a three-part series on Massage and the Nervous System.

When we first learn massage therapy, we naturally visualize that we are working on muscles. Memorizing muscles and seeing their kinesiological relations to each other is a task!

Then we can add to that the wonderful insights drawn from Rolfing and other structurally-oriented manual therapies. Muscles and fascia, when chronically shortened, misalign or compromise the body’s posture and balanced movement. The “tensegrity” model of human structure observes that in natural structural systems, the “hard members,” namely the bones in the body, are aligned and moved by the “soft members”, the muscles and fascia.

I have taught this for years. Yet, some years ago, another light bulb lit up for me. What “tells” the soft tissues to relax or to contract? The nervous system - the body is not only aligned by muscles, but also by the nervous system.

As massage therapists we know how to get our hands on muscles and connective tissues.  But now we see somehow we have to get our hands on the nervous system because otherwise it’s a bit like flipping light switches with no electricity – some action but no deeper change.

So how do we get our hands on the nervous system?

Muscles are Sense Organs

Interwoven in our muscles and tendons are nerves called proprioceptors (golgi tendon organs, muscle spindles, etc.). Proprioceptors tell our brain how tense or stretched each muscle is. Through that information the brain constructs the image of our whole body. Then, with a clear picture of the body, we can initiate coherent, coordinated movements. Without proprioception the body “goes to sleep”. Most people - through lack of varied activity, sedentary work, and lack of somatic education - suffer from what Thomas Hanna called “sensori-motor amnesia”. Massage brings enhanced circulation and awareness to our bodies and literally wakes us up.

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Subscribe to the Enlightened Body for the next installments of this article by submitting your email address on the form on this page. (We promise never to share your email.) To receive monthly Anatomy Reviews for LMTs, we encourage you subscribe to the TLC Times, our school newsletter newsletter.

Zero Balancing with David Lauterstein

An interview of David Lauterstein by Karen Barth, therapist and certified Zero Balancer from Kentucky.

KB: What is Zero Balancing and what are its strongest applications?

DL: Zero Balancing is the art and skill of balancing body energy and body structure. It could be called structural and energetic integration. As such it has a fascinating variety of effects. Zero Balancing dramatically enhances one’s posture because it focuses on balancing the skeletal armature deep within us. It is also spiritually profound because it consciously contacts the deepest energy flowing through us - what we call the “universal life flow”, which flows through the bones. It is also deeply calming because underneath the turbulence of our lives, as under the sometimes-turbulent surface of the ocean, there is actually a calm and uncomplicated experience of oneself which we can access. Zero Balancing is deeply relieving of chronic pain because oftentimes-chronic pain is related to energy issues, as well as structural ones. Because Zero Balancing creates balance in the very foundations of our being-- the bones, joints, and deep soft tissues associated with them -- it is an ideal health amplification modality.

KB: One of the unique things about your work is your focus on its artistic aspect. Please talk about Zero Balancing as an art.

DL: The human body is a masterpiece - greater in its evolved wisdom of body, mind and spirit than the Taj Mahal, the Beethoven 9th, or a Leonardo painting. We forget this - we think the miracles, the masterpieces of our world are “out there”, not “in here”. Actually, there are miracles equally “in here” - in the miracle of human biology, psyche and spirit.

A therapist who really knows this will awaken the client’s awareness of their own miraculous nature. This is the task of great art -- to evoke in us experiences of such wonder that we transform as a result. Great art puts us in touch with the miracle that each one of us is. Bodywork, because it is performed not via the “distal” senses of hearing or sight but through the very sinews of our bodies, is a far more direct and viscerally experienced art form. And Zero Balancing is an embodied art form and health modality which enlightens our innermost nature by working with the innermost core of our bodies’ structure and energy - the bones and deepest layer of our connective tissues.

KB: Is ZERO BALANCING energy work? How does it differ from other forms of energy work?

DL: Zero Balancing is not primarily energy work. It is primarily work which focuses simultaneously and consciously on both the physical structure and on one’s energy. This is an enormously important point. As most of us in alternative health know, a merely structural approach to problems is too one-sided. People are more than just their physical bodies, they have minds, feelings, sensations, and spirit. Any healthcare modality that ignores that is simply unscientific. However, exclusively energy work, on the other hand, often doesn’t address the very real and complex challenges which arise within our anatomy.

Zero Balancing, by having a theory and practice which emphasizes the simultaneous and conscious contact of both energy and structure, has an incredible therapeutic leverage.

KB: What is your approach to teaching in general, and more specifically to teaching Zero Balancing?

DL: The philosopher Martin Buber said, “It is not the educational intention, but it is the meeting which is educationally fruitful.” I believe the most important things as a teacher are not what I know; they are what you know already in your body, as well as in your mind and spirit. And it’s my job to evoke your highest knowing and being through fully meeting. This is basically identical to my work as a therapist and Zero Balancer. My hope in teaching and in practicing Zero Balancing is to help you wake up to your highest dreams and to facilitate as much as possible those dreams coming true.

And isn’t this coming together one of the greatest dreams for us as individuals and a society -- can we get to the place where we all meet in harmony? To the place where we can accept and meet all that is within us and all that is around us? This is true “kind-ness” -- to meet and know that, however different any thing may be, there is a kinship to all life.

It reminds me of words from a poem, “Love after Love,” by Derek Walcott

The Time will come
when, with elation,
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror,
and each will smile at the other’s welcome,
and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.

Now that, beautifully put, is very much what Zero Balancing is -- with elation greeting yourself at your own door.

The only basic Zero Balancing class to be taught in Texas in 2010 will be in Austin January 28-31.

7 Deep Marketing Tips for Massage Therapists

The more you learn about massage and bodywork, the more you learn about life as a whole. I have been a therapist now for 32 years and a teacher for 27. I’ve learned that the same principles that apply in every bodywork session apply equally to every aspect of our lives. As a matter of fact, it seems we can only have both success and satisfaction when we attend to these things. Some of these principles are: to be centered: to meet people openly; to really get to know our clients through their tissues, nervous system, history; to take actions that will profoundly help them; to monitor and make sure we are helping; and to periodically disengage, re-examine how things are going and celebrate our successes.

Principles of Deep Marketing

The beginning, middle and end of Deep Marketing is centering yourself. Without being centered you can’t do anything well! It is the precondition for all success in the practice and in the business of bodywork. For instance, we all know if your heart is not in what you are doing, there is little satisfaction. The same holds true for the rest of the body!

Marketing with your body means attending to the following with respect to being centered. Often when I sit down at work, I will center myself before I initiate any other work. And I connect with these seven levels of body/mind.

1. Are you grounded? Do you feel literally and figuratively supported by the earth underneath you? Realize that however high your aspirations, you are each just another animal inhabiting the earth. Feel supported by your legs and feet. What do you really stand for? Who and what principles do you stand by?
   
2. Are you excited? If you can’t contact your excitement for growing your business, you will not mobilize the energy required. This is associated with so-called second chakra. Awkward to say but the successful therapist cultivates an irresistible attraction to his or her massage practice. Get excited!
   
3. Do you use your gut in helping you make decisions? Freud said all important decisions are based on insufficient information – the mind alone is an insufficient tool. It is your gut, the feeling in the pit of your stomach, that you also must listen to. And we have to have “guts.” To be successful and to maintain it over time, takes courage, takes guts, inner resolve. Do you support yourself through your lumbar vertebrae and through sufficient breath to give you the energy and determination you need to succeed?
   
4. Is your heart into what you are doing? Is your heart passionately connected to where you are working? to the clients that you have? Let your heart do the talking and listen to what you truly love and want to do. There is nothing more lovely than seeing someone and being someone whose heart is totally into their work and business. The person who loves their work is an irresistible force.
   
5. Do you feel confident in what you say about your work? When people ask you what you do, do you have words that you feel great and honest about? Word-of-mouth is most important in business-building and most importantly, your mouth, your words! I like to think that the best marketing is like a song sung because you really mean it. Take the time to let your mind and your heart participate in the co-creation of statements you make about your work that optimize people becoming and staying your clients.
6. For all the time we spending thinking, the mind is often underappreciated. Use your incredible mind, both its logical and imaginative sides, to slow down and make well-considered decisions about how you want to grow your business. And, as the previous five points have indicated, don’t let your mind try to run the show in isolation. Make all decisions asking yourself – is this grounded, am I excited about it, does my gut tell me it’s right, does my heart say yes, do the words ring true? 7) Be open to inspirations from beyond your usual self. The best ideas seem to come out of nowhere or from “on high”. Cultivate your openness to your “higher self”. Sometimes, facing a difficult decision, I will just sit with the problem, until by just being receptive, a solution just appears in my mind that is perfect. Some of the greatest successes and satisfactions arise from an amazing place of inspiration. Many great art and science discoveries tell us this.

Massage and bodywork have their power by never forgetting to honor the role the body plays in lives well lived. So your success as a massage professional must arise from this same grounded place. Take refuge in the wisdom in your body and watch your great work grow and grow!

Anatomy Review: Pregnancy Massage and the Migration of Fascia

Did you know it is basically a law of structure that under compression fascia will "migrate" laterally? Think of pressing down on a beach ball. The more you press, the further out each of its color segments would get.

This is exactly what happens to the pregnant woman under the compression of the extra weight carried during pregnancy. The muscles and fascia under compression particularly in the abdomen and waist migrate laterally. 

This means, particularly with back work with this special population, you may need to change the directions of some of your strokes. Particularly many therapists have the habit, which ordinarily feels good, of taking their thumbs and, starting medially near the spinous processes pushing out laterally stretching and spreading the back muscles out.

Ordinarily this can feel quite good. But in the case of pregnancy where these muscles often are already stretched beyond their normal limits and, migrating laterally, the last thing you want to do is make their lives harder.

Instead concentrate on gently pushing the muscles on the lower and mid-back in toward the center.  We have a technique in Deep Massage that we teach here that is really effective with these lower back muscles.

Nine Points: Erector Spinae, Multifidus, Quadratus Lumborum

With the client side-lying with pillows supporting the "upper arm" and comfortably between the legs, and the massage therapist along client's right side, facing head (reverse direction for other side).

Gently encourage client to breathe and bring their awareness to the lumbar region.  Then place your hand alongside the lateral margin of the lumbar muscles on the side of the body. It is useful to start gently focusing first into the lateral margin of iliocostalis (the lateral-most of the erector spinae muscles).

With the finger pads of your middle finger supported by the first and ring fingers (or with the middle phalange of the first finger supported by the thumb), gently melt down into the lateral margins of the lumbar muscles at three levels in the side: just under the 12th rib, halfway between the 12th rib and the iliac crest, and just above the iliac crest. Your pressure is medial-ward, toward the spine.

First work into the erector spinae, then the multifidus, and finally, the quadratus lumborum. Where you find tension, work  gently into it and spend more time melting into these areas with gently curved fingers (or supported middle phalange of first  finger).

Regularly check in with client regarding appropriate pressure and movement. Always err on the side of conservativeness, using too little pressure rather than too much. Less is more!

Repeat on the opposite side. 

 

Kate Jordan's 4-day pregnancy massage certification course Bodywork for the Childbearing Year begins in October. 

7 Reasons: Deep Massage vs. Deep Tissue

 By David Lauterstein

1. Massage therapists performing Deep Massage generally work without lubricant (unless there is a painful feeling of stretching the skin). Using lubricant causes the therapist to slip over the tension and, to compensate, they have to use tremendous pressure not to slip. This often causes overwork syndromes for the therapist and sometimes excessive pain or bruising for the client. 
   
2. Deep Massage recognizes the scientific fact that muscles don’t relax! It is the nervous system that relaxes the muscles! So the Deep Massage therapist learns how to contact the nervous system through extremely high touch quality. Deep tissue works from outside in and is therefore more temporary in its effect. Deep Massage works from insideout, stimulating the client’s nervous system’s ability to relax. Therefore it results in more thoroughand longer-lasting relaxation as well as deeper postural benefit. 
   
3. Deep Massage treats the whole person. We recognize that some of our body’s tension is a reflection of stress in our everyday life. So in Deep Massage we look not only at the physical sources of tension but at the “energetic” sources of tension andstress in our anatomy and physiology. Deep Massage teaches a way to contact and benefit energy and structure simultaneously.
   
4. Deep Massage also involves the therapist being educated to make optimal pressure and contact.  Students of deep massage learn to recognize specific signs to indicate how deep to go, when it’s too much, how long to hold a certain trigger point, etc.  These involve training in paying closer attention to the client’s breath, eyes, facial expression, and other important indicators. 
   
5. Deep Massage classes include training on how to be more balanced in one’s body and mind in thetherapy setting. Because deep massage training helps the therapist avoid unnecessarily stressing their body and mind, the therapy not only works betterfor the client, it also greatly enhances the longevity of the therapist!
   
6. Deep Massage involves training in customizing the session uniquely for each individual client, rather than being an approach applied similarly to all clients. Students are trained to individually assess the client’s posture, movement, stress sources, expressed health goals and to come up with a unique plan for each individual session.
   
7. Deep Massage feels better!  Because it is more individualized, by a therapist educated with respect to body mechanics and self-care, who is trained to observe and refine the touch to be optimal, who addresses tension in nervous system as well as in the muscles, and who knows just how best to contact the actual places of tension - it just feels better!

Anatomy Review: Latissimus Dorsi

by David Lauterstein

Origin: sacrum, iliac crest, L5-T7, R 10-12, inferior angle of scapula, Insertion: Intertubercular grove of humerus, Action: Extension,medial rotation of humerus, adduction of humerus, depression of shoulder girdle, lower fibers depress ribcage, especially in coughing.

Just as it may be said that we reach out from our guts –insofar as pectoralis major flows up to the arm from its interdigitations with the rectus abdomininis – so even more literally do we bring the arm down and back all the way from its basis on the lumbar vertebra and sacrum. For the sacrum is the most inferior point of origin of the latissimus dorsi, the foremost “down presser” of the arm. This is one subtle muscle, I tell you!

The latissimus dorsi begins its life around the sacrum as a thin slice of roast beef. It swells, west of the armpit, into a little sausage whose skin then continues alone attaching as a mere tendinous flap to the upper front surface of the humerus.

Reach for the stars…but not without the cooperation of latissimus dorsi. For in its graceful letting go, it allows the fullest reach of which we are capable. Since most of the latissimus is so thin, it may be difficult to palpate. Therefore, I often use movements – specifically “down-pressing” and reaching to enhance its awareness, strength and length.

Have the client lying prone gently reaching above his/her head, simultaneously effleurage deeply along the latissimus from sacrum toarmpit. At farthest reach, then have the client reverse direction and bring thearm slowly back down his/her side, eventually depressing the shoulder girdle itself. Support is move with deep effleurage from armpit to sacrum.

After supporting the clients alternately lengthening and contracting a few times, reverse your direction – while they’re reaching up, effleurage down to sacrum; while they’re pressing down, go up toward the shoulder. This resistance will accentuate their awareness.

Lastly repeat the upward stroking with the reach and go down with the press. This is often an excellent way to get awareness, movement and life into this all-important first layer of the back and prime mover of the arm. 

 

Learn techniques like the ones above in our massage continuing education workshop Movin' and Groovin' with Gretchen Cole happening this Spring 2009.