♪ Bob and Brad ♪
♪ The two most famous ♪
♪ Physical therapists ♪
♪ On the internet ♪
- Hi there folks, I'm Bob Schrupp physical therapist.
- Brad Heineck, physical therapist.
- We are the most famous physical therapist on the internet.
- In our opinion, of course,
Bob. - I agree.
Today we're gonna talk about
how to heal bicep pain with massage.
So this could be tendonitis, a tear or a muscle strain.
So we're talking about the bicep.
The bicep actually has two heads.
That's why the "Bi" is in there.
The long head attaches
to the upper part of this fossa.
- Right.
- The supraglenoid fossa.
The shorter head attaches to the coracoid process.
They come together.
They go all the way down the arm here
and they attach in to the radius.
- So the upper head they're deep.
They're deep under the deltoids.
- Yeah.
- Pretty much, but this one, everyone
can see this where they, it comes down.
- Yeah. We'll show you a test real quick.
- Sure.
- You can actually get pain
up at the tendon where it attaches up here.
You can get pain on the tendon where attaches here
or you can get pain in the muscle belly itself.
- Right.
- So we'll look at all three of those.
Now, if you the muscle, what it does, it flexes the elbow
but it also supinates.
- Right.
- So it turns your Palm up.
- Yup.
- And that's important to know that
because if you're testing, in fact,
you'd want to check both.
- You bet.
- But you know, that's Why a lot of people,
when they do weights to go like this
they actually throw the tendon there.
- Well, it looks better too.
- Yeah, it looks better too all right.
All right first thing, there's,
you know, three grades of a tear.
And if you grade three would be a complete avulsion.
Like tore away from the bone.
- Yeah so it's talking about the tendon.
- And that a way to show that boy, your arm is red.
- Yeah. That's because you know, that's what my skin is.
I'm a hyper sensitive.
- Okay. So anyway, we're gonna do the hook test,
where all you need to do is actually take your finger.
Yep. And you can hook
right into the lower part of the bicep.
Now, if you're able to hook it, that means it's intact.
- Sure.
- If you can't hook it,
it might mean that it's tore off.
If it's tore or you're gonna see a big bulge.
- Your bicep is gonna be all bulged up in your arm.
- But it could be tore here
or it could also be tore here
or it could also be torn in there so.
- I think it's more common--
- Up here.
- Up here
- By far.
This is rare down here.
So the other thing is, if you do see that bulge in there
it could be that you tore the tendon up here.
Now, if you tore one of the tendons up here
long head or the short head, they may not do surgery.
That's gonna be up to you.
You can function with it.
You got pretty good strength with it yet,
if you do tear this one down here
you're gonna have surgery.
- You've got to get that reconnected.
But you could have just have the muscle strain
or muscle fibers, partially tore, micro tears
or some aggressive ones.
- In general you're gonna find point tenderness
when do that.
And you might see bruising, you might see a dent there.
You know, there's all sorts of things
definitely hurts when you lose the arm.
- Yeah.
If it's a minor, when you can just feel in there
you may feel a tender and I'm knotty area where
it's all tightened up trying to protect itself.
And then next time we're gonna get to the massage.
- Lets first the massage for the tendons.
- Sure.
- If you do tendon here
you're gonna go right over the tendon
and find a tender spot.
So Brad's lower and I'm up higher
on the high bicep tendon here.
I can actually feel right that I'm on it.
Now this might be a little difficult for you to know
but if you feel around
you should be able to find a tendon spot.
- Yeah. Usually it'll be
if you go back and forth, you'll run into it.
- Right
- Oh, there it is.
- And you can use finger on top of finger
or fingers side by side,
and you're gonna really rub it in that area,
quite aggressively across the fibers.
You're gonna do it for like 30 seconds.
If after 30 seconds
it's getting worse, worse, worse, you stop.
And then you might have to ice or you, you know
by the way I was just reading
they're not recommending any ice anymore.
- Yeah I've heard stories about that.
- Did you see that? - Yeah.
- So I don't know if we should either.
We'll have to look into that.
But anyway you can let it calm down
for a day and then try it again.
If you are able to do this
and after a 30 seconds to a minute actually feels numb
or kind of plateaued or better
then you keep doing it.
You're getting blood flow to the area,
you're realigning the fibers,
you're breaking up scar tissue, all those good things.
- It's a good idea to put a pillow up.
- Keep yourself to the point.
- That just takes the stress off
and you're able to work it better.
Just a little thing that makes a big difference.
Oh yeah.
- Sleep provisional Brad.
- Yep. Can't go wrong.
- All right.
So if it is not the tendons
it might be right in the muscle belly itself.
That's probably more common,
trying to show off somebody
and you're lifting something heavy.
Same thing we're having have you start the same way
across fiber massage and you can go ahead
and do the 30 seconds and see if it gets worse.
And if it does again, you're gonna hold off for a while.
Now, the problem with cross fiber massage
as it's recommended, they're talking about 15 minutes or so
which is way too long on your fingertips.
- It's not gonna happen.
- So you can do it throughout the day.
You can do it five minutes here, five minutes there.
A better answer is to actually use a massage gun.
We got quite an array of massage guns here.
And you may want to watch our video
how to choose the correct massage gun
for your pain, muscles relief.
- Right.
- All those things.
- Depends on which 'cause you don't wanna
you're not gonna buy a massage gun
and just use it on your bicep.
You're gonna end up using it
throughout. - You're gonna use it
all over you body.
- It's amazing because they really work well.
- But this one you could probably get...
I don't think you need the athletic one.
This is the heavy duty one.
- That's for big strong people,
- Yeah that's big strong people
with their big muscles.
Or if you're gonna use it on your thigh or your buttock.
- Large muscle mass.
- Calf muscles, even.
I used on my calf a lot, but otherwise you can go
with even one of the smaller ones, the tiny ones here
that we have,
- These are much stronger than they look.
And they're nice to hold on to
if you have a grip problem.
- Yeah you can really apply a good pressure with it.
Though you wanna show Brad
how you do the cross fiber with that.
- Yep. So on all of these guns,
the head traverses are traveling back and forth.
- It percusses.
- So we're not gonna go straight into that against the bone,
that's going to hurt like crazy on the sore muscle
but we're gonna get in there.
- So he's going side to side.
- Side to side.
If let's say the strain was right here
in the middle of the bicep.
- The fibers run this way
so you gonna cross the fibers.
- And I've been using this myself
on my infraspinatus tendon, same concept there.
I haven't actually injured my bicep for
I don't know if I ever have, actually.
- I have my try.
My calves are just sore.
I've been working them and ah, God, let's just sit here.
- So with this, you can go you're, you know
longer than five minutes, but you'll know
'cause it's gonna start feeling numbish.
It feels good.
If it doesn't--
- You can do 15 minutes if you wanna.
- Sure.
But when you're done, it'll feel all tingly.
It should feel good.
And you can just tell you've worked it, it's relaxed.
The blood flow
- The blood perfuses to the area.
If you're on a budget, this is really your man here.
This is your massage gun because it doesn't work as well
at trans versus fire, but it does enough.
And it's a very inexpensive one.
- I see the price between this one and that one
isn't that much.
- The one that comes without a case. Right?
- Right.
Yeah. It comes with a box and everything was a bottle.
It doesn't have a fancy case.
- These all come with different heads.
So we can try out.
- That one in particular for your older person,
you, you know or a real thin person.
Oftentimes that one's adequate.
- This one's plenty of for ya.
So, all right, Brad.
Well, my massage, I mean, I don't have an injury.
My bicep feels quite a bit better.
It just feels relaxed.
It's good.
Better.
- Why don't you get a tattoo by the way?
- I'm thinking about it, but you know,
- A tank.
No, a bull you'd be,
- Oh yeah Wow!
Bull riding right across my whole chest maybe.
- Thanks for watching. - My wife would kill me.
- Oh God.
(upbeat music)