♪ Bob and Brad ♪
♪ the two most famous ♪
♪ physical therapists ♪
♪ on the internet. ♪
- Hi, folks, Bob Schrupp, physical therapist.
- Brad Heineck, physical therapists.
- And we're the most famous physical therapists
on the internet.
- In our opinion, of course, Bob.
- Today, we're gonna show you
how to heal your tricep pain with massage.
So let's get into it, Brad.
So first let's talk about the tricep,
the muscle on the back here.
It's actually 'try' means it's got three heads.
- Right. Three different muscles.
And you know, this is the kind of pain
you're probably gonna get from overuse or a strain,
or you've injured it some way that way.
- Well, a lot of times if you're pushing something heavy,
that would do it.
- Sure.
- You could also fall on it.
- Yeah.
- If you fall on outstretched hand, bench pressing, you know
do too much weight.
- Sure.
Too much, too many or something.
- Just real quickly.
The long head attaches right
to the scapula here on the bottom of the glenoid.
- Sure.
- That little indent there
- [Brad] That's the fossa, isn't it?
- That's the fossa.
So it comes down, they all come together and attach.
The lateral head attaches up here on the bone
on the side and the back.
And it merges in with the other head.
And the medial head attaches down here.
- [Brad] Sure.
- [Bob] And they all attach onto your olecranon,
which is the bump you feel on your elbow.
- The elbow bump.
Yeah. I don't have much for triceps,
but you can see, that's the medial one.
- Ah, you got, you're showing off.
You want to have the opportunity, I saw.
Alright, so mainly extends the elbow,
that's the main thing it does.
But also, it could actually extend the shoulder too
because, extend and duck the shoulder a little bit.
- Sure, yeah.
- But the main thing we usually think about
is extending the elbow.
- Yeah.
- Now, one thing I wanna make sure, is this pain
really coming from the muscle itself
or is it coming from your neck?
- Ah!
- So let's go over some of the signs
of where it might be from your neck.
- Sure, yeah.
- One, if you have neck pain present
also along with this pain.
- Yeah.
- It's a possibility.
Another one is Spurling's Test.
It's pretty easy to do.
We're gonna have you do it right now.
Let's say the pain is on my right side.
I'm gonna have you
turn your head to the right
and then extend back at the same time
and then apply a little pressure.
[Brad] Straight down?
- Compression.
And if that increases the pain down the arm,
it possibly could be from the neck instead
of a pinched nerve in the neck.
The final thing is if you're gonna find a tender spot
on the muscle, generally if you have a tear there.
- Yeah. Sometimes if it is a pinched nerve,
the pain oftentimes is different than a muscle strain.
You might feel numbness, or tingling, or pulling.
It's different than a muscle strain.
- Right.
- You may not know that
if you haven't experienced it already
or work with it like we do.
- Now you have a higher chance of a tricep tear
if you've had a prior tear.
And I know this all too well Brad, I had tore it
when I was doing dips.
- Ah, yeah.
- And I'd go back and do dips and I'd re-tear it,
and I'd go back.
Also, if your tricep is tight,
if you haven't stretched it out.
- Sure.
- You didn't warm up.
- Yes.
- Or you're just pushing too much weight.
I mean, that's gonna do it.
And like I said, if you fall on an outstretched arm.
- Yeah. Some kind of trauma.
- You could see swelling
and bruising possibly there from a tear,
there might be muscle spasms, if it's bad enough.
Again, you're gonna point tenderness.
That's definitely the thing.
And you might see an indent or a lump.
- Right, right.
That would be kinda sore, I think.
- Yeah, and you're gonna feel weakness.
- The point tender.
So we're gonna work with this.
- Yeah, we're gonna do some massage.
So the first thing, let's say, there's basically
two areas where it possibly could give you trouble.
It could give you trouble right where the tendon
attaches to the olecranon or that bone right there.
And with that I would get a pillow and I would actually...
Brad, do you wanna pillow too?
- Oh yeah. Give me one, I'll take a nap, perhaps.
- So you're gonna go ahead and work on that elbow there.
Right above it you're gonna find the tender spot,
if this is where it hurts and you're gonna cross fiber.
So you're gonna go across the fibers with the fingers.
You can go one finger on top of another
or you go two fingers side-by-side.
Whichever way you can get some pressure on that area.
- [Brad] So this is actually working the tendon.
- This is working the tendon, not the muscle.
- Yeah, this could be a tendonitis
of the triceps that connects to the olecranon.
And then you wanna have the muscle relaxed.
- Muscles relaxed.
You wanna do this
for about 30 seconds or so, maybe a minute.
And if the pain gets worse, it's too early to do it.
- Right.
- You just gotta back off and try it another day.
Maybe ice it.
But if it feels okay, you can go up,
well (indistinct) 20 minutes a day, every other day.
- Right.
- But nobody can do 20 minutes on this.
- Your fingers were out.
- Right, so if you're gonna use your fingers,
I'd go ahead and do it like maybe five minutes
and do it four times a day, every other day.
- Sure, yeah.
- Now, if that is the tender spot,
normally where you tear the muscle is gonna be
a mid-muscle belly or a little bit lower.
You can do cross fiber right on that area.
Again, you're going across the fibers
and you can get pretty aggressive with it.
Same guidelines.
If it hurts after 30 seconds to a minute,
then you're gonna go and back off
and probably just let it rest for a day.
- Sure.
- But if it feels alright,
you're gonna go ahead and get aggressive with it,
and you can go up to 20 minutes.
Now, if it's in the muscle, Brad, I guess even
if it's a tendon, a massage gun is really gonna help.
- It saves on your fingers.
- Right.
- For sure.
And it's just kinda, hard to reach over and do this.
- We have quite an array of massage guns here.
We did a video on how to choose
the correct massage gun for your pain.
And so you can check that out,
we'll have it linked below
so that you can see what gun you should use.
- [Brad] Sure.
- In this case, for example, I don't think you need
the heavy duty athletic massage gun.
- No, I think that would be way overkill.
- Unless you're a monster, like you, Brad.
- Yeah, right.
- But these smaller guns
really actually do quite a good job.
- I really am impressed with these.
They've got good stall force.
They don't have as much amplitude or a travel,
but I would say for this, it'd be really good.
- Yeah. And you wanna show also how Brad,
you do it for the tendon?
- Yep. So this is going back and forth
this way and you can clearly see it.
I don't know if you can on camera,
but if you're doing that tendon,
I'll get back with the pillow.
We're gonna not go straight into it,
that is gonna hurt like a bugger
because you're near bone, you're on a tendon.
We wanna go sideway so we get that cross friction.
- [Bob] Yeah, it's going cross the fibers then.
- [Brad] Yeah, and it's not near so aggressive.
And then you could just push some pressure.
You can angle it
if you wanna get a little more aggressive.
But again, I probably do not see
you going straight in on it at all.
- [Bob] The ball works really well for this.
- Yeah, the ball does.
- They all come with different heads.
A lot of them are similar
but there's different things which are appropriate.
In this case, the ball seems to work the best.
- Yeah. So if it was up in the muscle belly,
you would just work it there,
you may get a little more aggressive on the muscle belly.
Again, after you do this for 30 seconds to a minute,
it should start to feel good or numbish.
But again, if it's making it hurt like crazy,
it's too early, it needs time to settle down,
maybe a cold pack or something of that nature.
But, and then the other thing I noticed when I get done
with these after a few minutes, it just feels good, tingly.
You can tell the circulation has been definitely improved.
It's a good, good sensation.
You know, you did some good.
- After a while you might actually go to a head like this,
a real pointer head because you're starting to heal,
there's not as much scar tissue.
And now you really wanna get in there.
This is a little bit larger gun too,
this might be a nice size for this one too.
- Sure.
- This isn't too much, but it's enough.
- Yep. Same thing.
You gotta follow the rules.
You're not trying to beat it up,
you're just trying to massage it and get in deep.
Actually this one for someone
who doesn't have a lot of mass.
- Right.
- This doesn't have as much travel
or amplitude, but it can be really nice.
- And this one actually is fairly inexpensive.
- Yeah.
- This is definitely the economy model.
- And this one is really nice for getting on the traps
and then the back.
- Looks like you're taking a shower,
like you're cleaning your back.
- Yeah, either that or backscratcher.
We should put a backscratcher on it.
- That's what I think. Could send it to my wife,
she always wants her back scratched.
Alright, Brad, this video
if you didn't catch that, when we were talking earlier,
it's part of a series of videos on massage.
So again, you may want to check out the video
How to Choose the Correct Massager for Your Pain.
Also, if you wanna see the other videos,
go to bobandbrad.com, go to the Programs section,
we have a whole bunch of programs there on different topics.
Go to the massage one and
you can watch the ones that appeal to you.
- Right, you're not gonna obviously watch the tricep one
if your calf muscle hurts.
We have one for the calf, for the hamstring, body parts.
- Yep.
- Then we have a PDF printout, Bob!
- Yes!
So you can print out the instructions that we have
as far as if you can't remember,
you don't have to go back to the video, look at it, review.
- Pretty much everything we said here today.
- Exactly.
- And what's the cost, Brad?
- Well, that's the wonderful thing.
It's absolutely free.
Not even an email.
Yep. It's just out there for you.
- Our gift to you.
Thanks for watching.
(cheerful music)