Hi everyone! Sorry for the massive m.i.a but it has been a tough few weeks in the Boyle household between an epic battle with the flu and more recently 50 fire ant bites on my hands. Lesson learned the hard way on that one! 🙂 Anyhow..

This week we dive back into the treatment portion of our shoulder series. To recap: in part one we really focused on the large stabilizer muscles to build some slack down into arm, as well as, up into the trunk muscles. In part two, we then added in some more aggressive mobilization techniques to target the busy intersections in the front and back of the shoulder where the biceps and triceps attach.

This week we’re shifting to the other side of the biceps and triceps into the elbow, forearm, and hand. While that may seem far away from where you’re symptoms are, remember- there are four fascial chains of muscles in the arm. The two deep/stabilizing lines run from the biceps and triceps all the way to our hands. On top of them, the superficial lines connect the power muscles of the chest and back to the ones in our forearms. Whichever way you look at it, restrictions here will impact your shoulders ability to function normally. If you’ve been battling shoulder symptoms for any length of time, you can also guarantee that your elbows and wrists have been doing a hefty amount of the compensating.

Here’s the breakdown:

• Roller: forearm + hand (1 minute each of flexors, extensors, drinking muscles, thumb and pinky finger)
• Stretches: 30 seconds x 1 of each (flexors, extensors, thumb + hand)

• Total time = 6-8 minutes

Forearm and wrist massage from Athletes Treating Athletes on Vimeo.