Superficial Front Arm Line

In our previous two posts, we talked about the deep arm lines. These muscle chains both included smaller muscles that were designed to help position our elbow and orient our hand. This week we’re going to build on those muscles by looking at the larger more superficial muscles that lay on top of them. If you think of the deep lines as our stabilizers, the superficial lines are the real power behind reaching overhead, pushing, and pulling.

The Superficial Front Arm Line

 

In terms of function, this muscle chain is responsible for controlling the movement of our arm out in front of us as well as to the side. To do that we need larger muscles which we get in the Pectoralis Major and the Latissimus Dorsi. While one muscle is found on the front of the body and the other on the back, both share a common attachment point on the inside front of the humerus. This makes them powerful adductors and internal rotators as they pull the arm back to our side. From that common connection on the humerus, this muscle chain then follows the intermuscular septum (green in picture above) down to the medial epicondyle where it attaches to the forearm flexors (aka the muscles responsible for flexing our wrists and fingers).

Here’s a video to walk you through the muscles in this chain and to show you how to stretch them: