♪ Bob and Brad ♪
♪ The Two Most Famous ♪
♪ Physical Therapists ♪
♪ On the Internet ♪
- Hi folks, I'm Bob Schrupp, Physical Therapist.
- Brad Heineck, Physical Therapist.
- Together we are the most famous
physical therapists on the internet.
- In our opinion, of course, Bob.
- Today we're going to show you how
to self massage the chest muscles.
That'd be the pectoralis major and minor.
Let's get into it Brad. - That's right Bob.
- All right, let's talk about the pec major first.
So here we have it depicted using
actually tape, Kinesio tape.
- Well, this is Sam.
- This is Sam. Hi Sam.
So anyway, the muscle goes along the entire sternum, here,
and half of the clavicle, or the collarbone,
and comes over and attaches into a bump on your shoulder,
the greater tubercle if I remember right, Brad?
- [Brad] Of the humerus, yeah. - Yeah.
So it helps pull the arm across like this.
And it's nice to know which way the fibers are oriented
because we're going to actually have you go
against the fibers... - [Brad] Sure, right.
- a little bit when you massage it.
So I think I'll talk about the pec minor too
right away here, Brad.
The pec minor comes from the fourth,
fifth and six ribs, I believe.
Let's see, I'm sure it's fourth...
third, fourth, and fifth!
- [Brad] This isn't anatomy, Teach, they'll be all right.
(laughs)
- So it comes up, and it actually attaches
to the shoulder blades, the coracoid process.
If this is tight, it can pull the shoulder blade down
and cause impingement.
- Yup, it causes them a problem
with that mechanics of the shoulder.
And this, just so you understand,
we have lifted up the whole pec major; the major covers it.
- Right, right.
- So that's underneath the major, so this is deeper.
And when you massage it, we have to keep that in mind.
- Yeah, it's a deeper muscle,
and you gotta get through the skin too, obviously.
And if you have any fat there.
But so first we're gonna talk about how you know
if your pec major is tight.
When you stand, just stand and let your arms relax.
If your palms are actually facing back
because your your pec major is tight
and you're internally rotated at the shoulder,
you're going to actually, the palms are going to face back.
If you're in somewhat good posture,
they should face towards each other.
- Yup, thumbs forward.
- I definitely have this tendency.
- Well, many of us do. - Yes.
- Especially if you do a lot of sitting,
working at a desk, looking on your phone.
- Well, if you live life, basically.
- Yeah, nowadays.
- Do you mind moving this out of the way, Brad?
- Oh, absolutely. Here, let me have that, Bob.
- So another way to show...
This is from an old Kendall book, Brad.
- Kendall?
- Yeah. Florence Kendall, do you remember her?
- Oh, I thought you meant the digital books.
- No.
She would show this, if you wanted to check
to see whether the pec major is tight,
you just put your arms in a T position here.
If you can't get your arms all the way down,
it raises up a little bit here, it's tight obviously.
And also you can do it in the Y position.
And now on the Y position I feel mine is a little bit tight.
You know what I mean?
Especially this one doesn't pull down quite as well.
- And that changes the fibers of that pec muscle.
- Right.
- So we're probably looking more down here
versus the fibers that go horizontal.
- Yeah. Definitely tighter on my left side.
Final one you can do is you can actually
put your hands underneath your neck, like this,
clasp them together, and see if you can bring
your elbows down to the bed.
- So there may be be, this touch is good,
but it looks like this one's a little bit higher.
- Yeah. I've had trouble with this shoulder.
It's because I had trouble with my serratus anterior.
You guys don't need to know that.
- The old serratus. - Yeah.
- But mine, my left side is even much tighter.
Remember we did that test a few weeks ago.
- Right, yeah, exactly.
So there's a lot of different ways you can massage it.
You could just take a massage ball.
Do you have a lacrosse ball?
- Yeah, use one of these.
- So you can actually even just start by doing this, Brad.
You can actually just take it and twist it.
- I like this idea.
We've got that other device that we just...
- Yeah, that works good.
- Yeah. We don't have it handy.
- The little bumpy, you mean? - Yup.
- That's what I use at home, I have one.
- And actually, if I get through...
- On the skin?
- On the skin, it grips in there better.
- Yeah, it's even better.
- But I'm not taking my shirt off to show you this.
You just have to use your imagination.
- All right, next...
(laughter)
You can actually lie on the ball, too.
And, and you want to do it on a hard floor.
You don't want to do it on a bed like this.
But I'm just doing it here
just so I don't have to be on the floor.
But you can just, you can work right onto that area.
Especially a lacrosse ball.
And you can do it on the wall to start off with,
if you feel like it's too much.
- You gotta to work that.
- You can definitely hit the tender spots.
And if it's tender, it needs work.
Now the, the easiest and best solution that we think
is to actually was a massage gun.
- Yeah. It, you know, it is.
It's just much easier.
- It's much easier on you
if you're going to use your own hands,
you don't even have to use your hands.
- Which you gonna use? - I like the big one.
- Now I've had a shoulder chronic problem from swimming,
and it lasted a whole year.
Part of it was because six months of it with COVID,
I couldn't swim, it kind of made it longer.
But it only bothered me when I swim.
But it was definitely a minor strain.
And I believe it was in the pec minor.
- Sure.
- And this, should I show how I got into it?
- Sure. Yeah, why don't you just show 'em, Brad?
- Yeah. Just you'll have to move, Bob.
- Sure.
- This is on the fly, by the way.
But this is, I would lay down.
I'm not in bed, I would do it on a carpet floor.
- [Bob] You'd lie down, Brad.
- Lie down. And I would get in here and I would work,
and I could get underneath the pec major
and I could feel it hit that pec minor.
It's gonna, my voice is weird because of the gun.
And this is much better.
At one point I would get in here and it was like, whoa,
I would get right on it. But now it feels good.
So things are much better, now.
- [Bob] Brad, stay in that position for a second.
I want to show how to tell
whether the pec minor is tight.
- Oh yeah, that's a good idea.
- So when you're lying down like this
and your hands are at your side,
if this shoulder is raised up a little bit
that's a sign that the pec minor may be tight.
Especially like here, you know,
this one's flat and this one's up a little bit.
That pec minor's pulling that shoulder blade up.
- Yep. You know, you have to have two people
to assess that, obviously.
- This is more of an athletic massage gun.
This is for... - The bigger one.
- Yeah, the bigger one.
This one really does the job.
I mean, these all work really well.
- If you're an older person, or you're thin,
you don't have a lot of muscle bulk, I like this.
- Yeah, I do too. - Or this one.
But that one...
- I really thought this one was very powerful,
especially for its size.
But then I got this one, and it's like, oh my gosh.
This thing will knock your... blow your head off.
- Well, I wouldn't use it on my head, Bob.
- Yeah.
- Yeah, they are nice.
So, yep. And I'll work it, I still work it,
and I'll do different angles so I can get in.
- Yeah, he likes to, Brad likes to go side by side
across the fibers on the sideway like this.
- Right. Cause you know, the fibers are like this
and you're going to go across them.
And you'll feel, you'll definitely feel that tender,
that tight spot, where there's some scar tissue,
because it's a little bit painful.
So, you know, you don't have to get really aggressive.
You have to use your judgment on that.
- Yeah. I think, you know, on this, Brad,
you need to feel a little bit of pain.
- Right, I agree.
- I mean, if you don't feel pain, actually not at all,
it probably doesn't need massage.
- With the exception if you're going over a bone.
- Right, right.
- You never want to massage a bone.
- Right.
- So just to make that clear,
'cause some people may not understand.
- Right. That's a good point.
All right, this video, by the way,
is part of series of videos on massage.
If you want to check out the series
go to bobandbrad.com, go to the program section.
We have a whole bunch of programs there.
Sciatica, shoulder, hip.
We're doing a new one on the knee.
- Right. Tens. - Tens, yup. Right.
- So find the problem that you have.
If it happens to be working a massage gun
under the shoulder, look at that.
There'll be a number of videos.
Different titles, they're about 10 minutes long each.
You can go to the specific problem you're having.
So you don't have to watch all of them.
Look at it, and then there's a PDF printout button
you can click on.
Prints out review and exercises,
pictures of the exercises of the video.
And it's all right there for you.
Don't have to search the internet.
- And it's all free.
- Free. Not even your email.
- Right. - Yup.
- We ask nothing of you but you're thinking kindly of us.
- Yup. And get better.
- Yup, there we go.
- Take care.
(upbeat outro)