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- Hello massage nerds.
Today we're going to be doing the triceps.
We're going to be doing a little bit of anatomy,
some technique, and a few pathologies.
I'm so grateful.
This is Leo our model.
Thank you very much Leo for volunteering, and I want
to tell you about the triceps.
Look at the beautiful painting; it's really
looking good today!
So triceps means ...
tri means three heads.
It's got three origins.
The longest origin is at the infraglenoid tubercle
of the scapula.
So this is the longest part of the muscle.
It originates right here.
The lateral one is a little bit more ...
It's on the humerus.
It's a little bit lower, and the medial head is more like
around here, originates around here, and this is part of it.
It goes up but it originates here in the medial part
and all three heads insert at the olecranon process
of the ulna.
So this is the largest tendon right here and this causes
a lot of times the tennis elbow.
So let me go ahead and start with some technique.
Remember that you always start by warming up
the muscle first.
You want to go ahead and do a little bit of traction.
You know just doing some stimulation, some elongating
the muscle, some stretching it out, some myofascial.
You can kind of hold it here and with the palm of your hand
move up, just kinda giving it a little bit of a stretch.
Oh, remember that the ulnar nerve goes through the medial
part right here so you wanna stay away from the ulnar nerve.
If you've ever hit your funny bone on the medial part,
then you know it really hurts and also goes to your pinky
and your second finger so you wanna stay away
from the ulnar nerve.
The triceps is the radial nerve.
This is the radial nerve, goes through the triceps.
Musculocutaneous is the anterior part.
Posterior part is the radial nerve.
Medial nerve goes to the palm.
Radial nerve goes to the top of your hand and the axillary
nerve also to the axilla.
So the five nerves that come through your neck right here,
it feeds the arm.
So it's the musculocutaneous, radial, ulnar,
median, and axillary.
So make sure you stay away from the nerves.
If they feel any numbness or tingling, stay away from it,
just kinda like the arteries.
If you feel a pulse, you stay off of it.
So once you've done some warming up kinda stretching,
you can also do some skin rolling, you know, do a little bit
of cross fiber skin rolling.
You go from the lateral side all the way to the, you know,
to the medial, but stay away right from the ulnar nerve.
So once you've done that and you've warmed up the tissue,
you can even do a little bit of friction here and you see
the muscle start getting a little bit of red,
creating vessel dilation.
Remember also that dry work goes first when you're
doing the warmups.
You don't apply any oil or anything when you're doing
the skin rolling or the myofascial, you know, where you just
kinda stretch a little bit.
You don't want to apply any oil yet.
Then you can apply a little bit of oil or if they have
specific trigger points then you can go ahead and use,
you know, I use the Lacuna Botanicals, I've told you guys
about this, with the CBD oil, like to get
certain trigger points.
So now you can go ahead and do
some effleurage, your petrissage.
You want to get to the origin all the way up here.
So once you've done a few effleurages and petrissages,
you can also extend the arm laterally and remember that
the triceps extend.
The biceps flex and the opposite will be extension.
So when you're doing flexion, the triceps are long, but when
you're extending, the triceps tighten and the biceps relax.
So if you want to make sure that you can see the outline
of the triceps, you ask your client to extend against you,
hold it with your hand and to extend.
Once he pushes against my arm extending, I can really see
his triceps pop up right here.
You can really see the lateral head.
The medial head is right here and then this
is the long head.
So it's crossing this joint right here, okay?
Like the other two heads, the lateral and medial head,
they don't cross, you know, to the shoulder.
It's just all to the humerus onto the olecranon process
of the ulna.
So the long head does cross the joint here.
So you wanna make sure you address all of it.
You can do your stripping.
Remember when you're gonna use your thumbs, you can push
your thumbs together up.
Don't go like this with your thumbs 'cause then you're going
against the joint pushing.
So you wanna make sure, if you're gonna do some stripping
with your thumbs, go all the way up one inch at a time.
I always teach that: go one inch at a time.
You can also use your flat fist, really get everything
up here, you know, with a flat fist.
Get the origin.
Remember origins are more medial to the body.
The insertions are distal to the body.
Origins are always closer to the medial part of the body.
So you can use your knuckles.
You can also use form and take it easy on the client.
You know, like, if you have a big bulky person that might
need a little bit more pressure, you could use
your forearm, you know.
I'm pushing with my legs, okay?
You might be able to do this and really get, if they have
a trigger point right here, a lot of times you have
trigger points right here between the infraspinatus,
teres major, teres minor, there are trigger points here.
So this is what I like to do to get more specific.
So right here at the tendon attachment, there's usually
trigger points here.
So you wanna make sure to get this trigger point.
You hold it ...
Like, I find one right here.
I felt it.
So I can ...
Remember you can hold it from anywhere, from eight
to 20 seconds, and see if it lets up.
If your client says that it feels better, then you can
let it go and if it doesn't, you can come back to it,
you know, later, but this also has to do with tennis elbow.
Tennis elbow is on the lateral side.
Golfer's elbow is on the medial side.
So right here, sometimes the tricep really is tight
and affects the lateral part of the ulna right there where
you get tennis elbow.
So you wanna make sure and get each little part
of the muscle.
Here's the medial head.
It shows right here.
It's underneath the bigger part of the triceps and here's
the lateral head.
Originates like on the part of the shaft
of the humerus here.
So you wanna get it ...
You can use your fingers.
I use my fingers now a lot more than I do my thumbs.
So you wanna make sure and work one inch strips just doing
circular motions all the way down.
You can also do the praying hands where you squeeze
the triceps all the way up.
Again you can do your effleurage, your petrissage,
and another thing that I like to do is extend their arm
all the way to the front 'cause it really opens up
right here, especially where the nerves come through
and these are tight.
There's a lot of trigger points sometimes right around here,
right at the origin.
You also have your deltoid right here on top so you want
to make sure that you work through the deltoid, you know.
The deltoid, part of the origin of the deltoid
is right here.
So you wanna make sure to get to the spine of the scapula,
the lateral side a little bit, all the way down.
Feel, feel where the scapula is at.
So you wanna make sure and work all of these muscle
attachments here, all these insertions of the supraspinatus,
infraspinatus, teres major, teres minor.
A lot of times they have trigger points that go
into the triceps.
Some of the pathologies from the triceps are very common.
You know, they get really really tight.
People that do pushups, bikers, you know, 10-speed, they put
a lot of pressure, you know, on their triceps, people that
are using canes, so all of these can have a lot
of trigger points.
So once you're done, you always assist the arm
to come back, okay?
And remember that in order to find out where the origins
of the triceps are, you ask your client to extend.
So even from this position, you can ask them to try
to extend the arm and it really ...
See?
He's pushing against my arm and you can really see
the different heads here, how nice they look,
how they pop up.
This medial part right here really pops up really nice.
So you can really tell.
When you're working you wanna get the tennis elbow.
Might as well get the golfer's elbow on the medial side.
Get the tendon.
There's always trigger points right along
this long tendon here.
All the way up, try to separate it also.
I like to do a little bit of separation here of the fibers.
Do a little bit of friction between the palms of my hands,
kinda just really trying to release this.
I like to do the koi fish.
This is the koi fish.
It's just your wrist moving.
Now if they have some specific pain, specific trigger
points, then you can go ahead and, you know,
put a little bit more lotion and address them
more specifically, but usually right around here, there's
a lot of trigger points here that you can find
and just hold them.
You know, one inch strips, you can do your stripping,
one inch stripping, all the way up as far as you can.
You can do it with the palm of your hand.
Sometimes people that have big triceps, I'd rather use
the whole palm of my hand and I can feel for the trigger
points and I kinda hold the triceps right here.
Remember anytime that there's, you know, arthritis or any
type of an -itis means inflammation, so there's swelling.
You can also use ice.
You can get your styrofoam cup with ice and just ice it down
before you work on it so it'll numb it.
You know, if you have the ice you can put it directly,
have a towel underneath so it doesn't drip all over
the table, but you can use the ice and numb it, especially
over the tendon 'cause it'll bring down the swelling
of the tendonitis.
You know, the lateral tendonitis right here is very common.
So again you wanna go back to your petrissage,
get the tendon origin again and the lateral origin
on the humerus, the medial origin.
Now if they feel tingling or a shock, you might be
on the radial nerve so you stay off of it, okay?
And then you can just do some with your fingers pushing
towards each other, you can just manipulate
the fibers really.
Cross fiber is really good.
You know, you can do the Indian burn too.
I don't know if you guys remember that, but this is another
really good way to stimulate the muscle and of course
at the end, don't forget to do your nerve ending strokes
or your feather strokes just to kinda let the muscle know
that it can relax again, but remember that we have
three origins: the long head, the lateral head,
and the medial head.
The lateral and medial head are on the humerus and they all
insert at the olecranon process.
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So when they're in the supine position, you know, you can
still work on the triceps.
You know, you can lift it up.
Always assist the arm, you know, from the wrist and bring it
across to the other shoulder so it's bent a little bit.
When somebody has torn their tendon completely, they won't
be able to extend at all.
They'll be in a lot of pain so you know,
be careful about that.
That's one of the ways that you can tell.
So from this side, you can really expose the whole triceps
here and again, you can do your petrissage, your effleurage.
You can use your flat palm to do some effleurage.
You can do some cross fiber.
So you're getting the arm from a different angle right here,
but you are still working the triceps.
You can really work the tendon attachment right here
at the olecranon process.
You can do cross fiber and I'm not using a lot of pressure
with this one because I know I told you guys not to put
your thumbs like this, but for cross fiber, you don't use
a lot of pressure.
You're just moving back and forth a little bit here.
You know, you can also use your forearm and this kinda
gives it a nice stretch too.
So I'm trying to stretch the muscle at the same time.
So you can address the muscle from prone
and supine position.
You can also do it, you know, side lying, but this
is a good way too to get to the origin right here using
their own body weight.
It hyper-extends it a little bit.
It extends it a little bit more and you can really
feel the fibers.
You remember that right here you're working over the deltoid
and hypertonic triceps usually happens with people that do
repetitive motions, you know, people that use drills,
people that, I think I mentioned earlier, you know, people
that walk on crutches, people that are on 10-speeds,
you know, putting a lot of pressure, you know,
on the tricep, people that do pushups.
Sometimes power-lifting can tear the tendon.
That's usually in sports, you know, that tears that tendon,
the major tendon right there.
So there's different ways that you can figure out if there's
swelling, if it's purple, if it's just a strain.
So you just make sure that you check for everything.
Stay away from the nerves.
You treat it by doing some effleurage.
You can even do the Indian burn from here, just cross fiber,
just really helping the muscles to relax.
You can't do as many trigger points from this angle.
It's better to do them when they're prone.
You can do the trigger points.
From this, you just kinda do some stretching,
some effleurage and petrissage, but doing the trigger points
is better when they are prone.
So you always assist the arm and bring it back when you're
done and another way to do it too is to let the weight
of their arm, you put your hands, you cup your hands
and put it underneath and work the triceps with your fingers
because the weight of his arm is helping me.
What I'm doing is I'm pushing up on the triceps, and as you
can see, when he was flexing and extending earlier,
his triceps go all the way to here.
You know, you can see them still so you can even do some
manipulating with the palm of your hand massaging it
all the way up from the distal end to the proximal end.
Remember we use proximal and distal only on the appendages.
So there's three different ways to get to the triceps:
prone, supine, and using the weight of their own arm.
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So remember guys that on the posterior part of the arm,
you only have your triceps and in the anterior part
you have your biceps, your coracobrachialis,
and your brachialis, but in the back is only triceps.
So I hope this really helps you, gives you some more
information and tips on how to treat the arm and please
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