- Welcome back massage nerds,
I am here with our new beautiful model, Laura
and today we're gonna be doing the quads,
which is the counterpart to the hamstrings.
So if you haven't checked out that video,
make sure you check it out, okay?
I'm gonna be doing a little bit of anatomy and physiology
and some technique and then some pathologies,
a couple of pathologies.
So let's get right on in and these are the quads.
Quads means four, it's got four muscles,
the vastus lateralis, the vastus medialis,
and the vastus intermedius and the rectus femoris.
The origin of the rectus femoris is a real sensitive area,
so you wanna make sure that when you tuck in the sheet
you tuck in at the waist and at the thigh on the inner part,
and then you roll it up, you know,
so to palpate for her,
AIIS which is the origin of the rectus femoris.
Remember the highest part
is the anterior superior iliac spine,
and that's where the sartorius originates.
Okay, so the sartorius originates like right up here,
and you go down about two inches at this bony landmark,
and that's the AIIS,
the anterior inferior iliac spine,
and that's where the rectus femoris originates.
So you can palpate that, you know,
and then here it comes down,
and it's actually not as big as people think
it's a little bit thinner.
The one that's the biggest one of the four
is actually the vastus lateralis.
You know, if she flexes you can really see
look at how beautiful her muscle shows up here.
So this is the vastus lateralis
because it's on the lateral side
and the tibial band, the IT band is over it.
And on the medial side
you've got the one that looks like a teardrop.
So this is the vastus medialis.
And obviously the intermedius meaning in between
is underneath the rectus femoris.
Okay, so, all four of them,
insert right here at the tibial tuberosity
through the patellar ligament.
So the quads tendon ends right here
and then you've got your patellar you know,
tendon right here and it is right here
at the tuberosity of the tibia.
So, you wanna go ahead and work all this area out.
And the origin of the vastus lateralis
is at the gluteal tuberosity of the trochanter tube
and the linea aspera of the femur.
The medial originates in the linear aspera
of the medial side.
And then the,
vastus intermedius is right here underneath
also on the femur.
So as you can see right here is where it's at.
So you wanna go ahead and start
remember all your dry work first.
So you wanna do a little bit of skin rolling.
You can do some skin rolling before
you start applying lotions, potions and oils,
just to kind of get the fibers
a little bit warmed up and stretched.
I like to do a little bit of stretching
by holding down with my right hand
I hold on to the top of the patella which is the knee.
I kind of brace it here
and kind of stretch it out a little bit.
You know, you can start at the top
and start coming down and pull.
What I'm doing is pulling away,
from both of my hands.
You know, this will really kind of give you
a little bit of a stretch.
You always wanna brace the knee.
Just kind of give it like a little little stretch, you know,
both sides you can see the fibers stretching out.
And after you've done,
you cross fiber skin rolling and your stretches,
now you're ready to use lotions and potions
or whatever it is you like to use.
I like to use a little bit of oil.
And unless I'm doing very specific work
then I use the Lacuna Botanicals like for trigger points
if they have pain anywhere.
So you wanna go ahead and there's nothing wrong
with doing just some good old fashioned effleurage,
you know, you do about three to four strokes of effleurage
get that blood flowing the vasodilation
and then you can do some with your flat fist.
Right here, you know, just kind of do inside,
you know, over the rectus femoris
on the sides to get the sides the vastus and the medius.
Another technique that you wanna do to break up the fibers
is I like to lift,
I like to lift the muscle tissues,
because remember, they're kind of in layers.
So you wanna go ahead and lift them up
all the way to the origin,
and just come down and lift up,
lift up to separate the muscle fibers.
Okay, another one will be cross section
with a little bit of oil,
you wanna do the cross section
because that really separates the fibers.
So you wanna go ahead,
and remember you're using your legs for strength.
You don't wanna do too much with your upper arms
because then you start hurting your shoulders,
so you don't wanna stay in one place
you wanna be, you know, interactive,
you wanna use your legs to move,
you don't wanna do just this, you know.
So, you can do as a rule of thumb
I like to do three to four effleurages,
you know, three to four times
to do some good old fashioned petrissage.
Get in here.
And then if you wanna start now doing after it's warmed up
you start doing some specific work.
One of the things that I like to do
is really get the ligament right here
and the tendon of the quadriceps
is I like to use the bottom part of my hand
and just go across right here.
You can do this for about one or two minutes,
it really gets that tendon here.
And that's, you know,
I don't wanna use my thumbs too much,
that's why I use this part of my hand.
But you could also do some stripping.
And this is one way to do stripping guys,
like if you don't wanna overuse your thumbs,
you put one hand over the other
and just go up and with this hand support it.
So if you're going up with your right hand
and you support with your left hand
and just go up all the way to the insertion.
And this one inch stripping
I always feel that the one inch stripping really works,
because it lets me feel the tissue underneath my fingers.
And I can feel where there's a little tension.
And when there's a little tension,
that means that it's ischemic,
and ischemia means that there's not enough blood flow
and when there's not enough blood flow,
the muscles are like starving because there's no oxygen,
no nutrients coming to them.
So it means like, it's really tight.
And you can really feel it
when you're doing your one inch stripping.
You can do it all the way up
in each little muscle fiber here.
So, it's important to do right here,
especially along the IT band.
And I also like to do with my fist.
Like really go up all the way like hold on here by the knee,
and go all the way up and I'm,
what I'm doing is I'm pressing my elbow against my body,
so I'm just pushing with my whole body.
So I have it here,
and then I just go all the way up to the origin.
So I'm going from insertion to origin.
And so this is another stripping,
but you're doing it one inch at a time
until you get through the whole quad.
And I'm pushing with my legs.
You can also do your forearm,
you know, you can do forearm.
And these are all, you're going against,
I mean you're going along the muscle fibers here.
And then after, let's see
I've done already several,
going along the muscle fibers
so now I wanna do against some cross section here.
This is, like I said, this is really important
to kind of break up the muscle tissues
and then again, maybe some lifting.
The muscles are really warmed up now
and I can do some lifting.
And I wanna make sure and do the patella around the patella,
remember these tendons here are really,
you know, sometimes what causes the knee.
So now I'll talk a little bit about the pathologies.
Tendinitis usually happens right here where the tendons are,
people have knee pain
sometimes when the vastus lateralis is so big,
because it is more powerful than the other three,
it pulls your kneecap laterally.
So this one is hypertonic and it's always pulling this way
and people start having knee pain
and a lot of times it's just the tendon attachment.
So you wanna make sure, and hold, support the patella here
and then go with your fingers.
You can do it one finger over the other,
or I just use three of my fingers
going around the patella right here
really getting to this tendon attachments.
And don't forget you have your pes anserinus
or pes anserinus depending on who you're talking to,
which is an insertion right here,
below the, by the tibia here on the medial side
where you have your sartorius,
your gracilis and the semitendinosus,
they all insert right here.
So you wanna make sure while you're here,
you might as well, those are not part of the quads,
don't get confused guys.
But you do wanna work it while you're here.
And that's what I tell my students,
when in doubt, just work everything,
you don't even need to know the names of them.
Just work everything.
So make sure you work the patella,
you know, and that you get all the tendons
right here along the knee, down here at the tibial.
You know, you can do some cross-friction here.
And if you have somebody coming in with a strain,
remember there's three types of strains
and strain with a T means that has to do with a tendon,
sprain has to do with a ligament.
So if somebody comes in with a you know,
with a strain then, you know,
it could be a type one, type two, type three.
Type one is usually when they're just like really bruised
and you know, they pulled the tendon a little bit.
Type two is where some of the fibers are torn,
like, let's say that three of these little fibers,
you know, torn off from the bone.
A type three is the tendon tore off completely.
You definitely do not wanna do any stretches
when they have a type three strain.
Okay, so if they're bruised,
usually type three strains, they have bruises,
so make sure that you, you know,
you don't do any stretches,
if they have a type three strain.
But you can do it with a type one or a type two,
you can work it.
One of the things that you wanna address too
is the tendinitis, you have a lot of clients that come in,
you know, with tendonitis, specially like runners,
It's very common with people that obviously overuse it.
Which would be lifting weights, runners,
so tendinitis has to do with a tendon, you can ice it,
and you can also make sure and work you know,
the tendons all around here.
And where there insert tendons,
remember are at the insertions,
it's the origins and then insertions.
So you wanna make sure and work the tendon like I said,
you can do the fingers over each other
or cross fiber like this,
or with the palms of your hands right here.
You know, I like to do both of the palms of my hands here.
Okay, and I am gonna show you now another stretch.
You start with your client, with her leg straight
and then you ask her to flex slowly,
flex for me slowly as much as you can.
And just go up slowly,
and this really stretches the rectus femoris.
That's the one I'm working on.
So she starts with her leg straight,
and then again, bend your knee slowly.
You can do this up to three to four times on each muscle.
So again,
bend your knee slowly,
and its really engaging,
she's doing the engaging the muscle there okay bend.
And really the hardest one to stretch
is the vastus lateralis,
because the IT band is over it.
So this is underneath the IT band
and as you all know the IT band is like really difficult
to stretch out and to work on so it's very,
you know, I like to do this one to like,
make sure their knee is straight.
I brace again, the elbow against my hip
and then start bending it slowly.
This is what also gets in there
to the IT band really really good.
Okay, so then she can relax.
Another one that I like to do is cross fiber right here
for the IT band, is just with knuckles going down.
I start like, right above the vastus lateralis,
and I'm also separating the vastus intermedius
and the vastus lateralis, and the IT band.
So you start here, and then you go down.
And all I'm doing is bending my knees.
That's gonna be another video guys
where I show you Tai Chi, how I use the Tai Chi,
how i use my horse stance and my archer stance,
you know where I use my legs
so that you guys don't hurt your body.
But as you can see,
it's really separating the rectus femoris,
the vastus intermedius and the vastus lateralis.
You know, and if you can do that on this side too.
It separates the muscle fibers.
And then you go back like if she had some specific pain,
then I would use the Lacuna Botanicals with CBD oil,
especially like right around where she would have
like if she had tendinitis or a trigger point,
then I would use the CBD cream.
And just really, you know,
hold the trigger point there, like this.
This is a very common one right here.
Number eight, right here is a common one.
So I would hold that you know,
anywhere from 10 to 20 seconds,
get her to breathe.
And so that's when you get to the specific work.
But don't forget, at the end,
you always wanna take the muscles back to relaxation,
let them know that you're done and be nice.
You wanna set the nervous system to relax again.
So after you've kind of like went really specific
and I don't mean beat them up and made them cry
but you always wanna make sure
and get the muscles to relax again.
So you wanna do some effleurage,
some long strokes, some petrissage again, some cross fiber.
And then at the end you wanna make sure
and do your nerve endings strokes
just to let the nervous system relax again.
And that is it for the quads.
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Till the next time, create a great day.