If you’re a student of anatomy, you have possibly the best advantage of any scientific field.
You literally cannot separate yourself from the best study tool of all time:
your own body.
So one technique that you’ll always be able to use, whether it’s studying, during
the test, or in the clinical setting is palpation, using your sense of touch to identify pieces
of anatomy.
It’s something that clinicians do every single day, from poking on pain points to
taking a radial pulse, finding your way around the body is like, the most important
skill for people who work in the medical field.
But in my opinion, palpation is also a great way of just /studying/ anatomy.
So in this video, we’re going to go over some ways that we can use palpation
to learn both surface level and deeper anatomy, and give you some examples so you can bring
it into your study as well.
Cool, so even if you’re just starting out, you’ve already done some palpation.
As a kid, you probably had some variation of the heads shoulder knees and toes dance,
or you touched your leg and said this hurts, or, if you’re a sophisticated intellectual,
you learned the Hannah Montana bones song.
You named a body part and put a hand on it.
Congrats, that’s palpation.
But of course, palpation itself is a skill that you have to develop.
You’ll get some of those easy pieces of anatomy right away, but don’t be discouraged if you can’t
feel some of those fine tuned, deeper muscles.
You’ll get there.
But that brings us to the first way palpation can be valuable — touch itself is three dimensional
while your study guide is just a flat piece of paper, and this does a few things.
The first is that it gives you a more complete, kinesthetic picture.
By definition, you’ll learn the relative size and density from your sense of touch
so you can literally feel shapes on your body and match them to pictures on a paper.
So if you get really dialed at skeletal anatomy — which i recommend starting with — you’ll
that'll give you a bunch of firm, bony landmarks to reference for when you start palpating the muscular
system.
For example, find your olecranon process.
It’s the bony tip of your elbow.
That’s the proximal end of your ulna, so you can press firmly and trace it all the
way to your wrist.
And using that olecranon as an easy reference point, i can touch a little higher and palpate
something squishy, which ends up being my triceps muscle.
Yeah, I could’ve just palpated the belly of my tricep muscle, but I like having something
to touch. I feel like it gives my brain something to anchor on to.
And that really helps, especially when it comes to smaller anatomy.
Now, that example is still pretty surface level but palpation allows you poke deeper,
which is another advantage when it comes to learning structures that might be obscured
on a 2D diagram.
For example, your trapezius muscle covers up the superior part of your scapula, so on
a chart, you might not see tinier muscles as easily like the supraspinatus or rhomboids.
But on palpation, I could use obvious bony landmarks like the spine of the scapula as
a reference point to feel the supraspinatus.
This is especially helpful once you add motion.
I know the supraspinatus is going to abduct my arm, or raise my arm out to the side,
so if i put my hand on the muscle and perform the action, the supraspinatus tightens up
makes itself known.
This is especially useful when it comes to some of those muscles of the hand and forearm.
They can get kinda disorienting when staring at pictures, but remember, anatomists are
terrible namers.
So these muscles are named after what they do, not after like, anything /cool/.
You wanna find the flexor carpi ulnaris?
Well, as the boring name suggests, it probably going be on the ulnar side and help flex the
carpal region, or hand.
Sure enough, I put my hand around where I think it’ll be and it pops up.
So far, we've learned that palpation can be useful because it gives you
reference points, it allows you to use
depth, and it allows you to integrate motion.
Now wait, let me blow your mind.
What if we combined ALL OF THOSE THINGS.
I know that when I was in school, I had toruble differentiating muscles that had
similar locations and actions but were still completely different.
So I used their motion and their depth with palpation.
Do this one with me.
If you flex your elbow with the palm down and palpate your arm, you’ll notice a layer
of squish and then a harder muscle if you palpate deeper.
That firm one you feel is the brachialis muscle.
But then if you do the same thing with your palm up, it’s reversed.
You feel tense muscle right away, which is your biceps brachii.
By working some motion into my study, I was able to take a more isolated view.
The final advantage is that palpation and motion allow you to take a different view,
or look at the body from a different angle compared to whatever study material you're stuck with.
Like you /never/ see your medial or lateral ankle on those traditional anatomic position
charts, and palpating your shin muscles while moving your ankle makes you realize just how
much is down there.
I know personally that when I worked in physical therapy, I was working on structures it seemed
like I’d never heard of in anatomy class but that actually makes sense.
Large scale diagrams aren’t meant to get into fine detail, but when you incorporate
the sensitivity of your hands, you start to appreciate those tinier structures.
While anatomic position will always be the reference point, you may just want to kick
your shoes off and wiggle your toes to see some shin muscles.
Just make sure you’re not too stinky.
Now, if you want to go practice palpation on others, remember above all that you need
to respect their body and boundaries.
Always get permission before touching and be very clear with what you’re trying to
do.
If you want to palpate some rotator cuff muscles, you could ask "Hey, I'm trying to find some muscles
in the shoulder blade.
Is it alright if I touch your shoulder?"
Communication and respect are the most important things in any partnership.
You give that to your partner and you’ll build trust and it’s good times going forward.
Starting to sound like relationship advice.
If you want to get start with some palpation, I recommend this book “the Trail
Guide to the Body”.
It was the book I used during a massage therapy class back in undergrad
and it was without a doubt the best
anatomy text book I ever had.
I included a link down in the description for the updated version of this book since
this one came out in 2005.
And now I feel old.
Otherwise, have fun, be good, and respect your partner’s boundaries.
See you next time.