Issue link: https://www.massageandbodyworkdigital.com/i/1512873
W When teaching muscle palpation, there is often a rubric that is followed. We begin by learning the attachments of the target muscle so we know where to place our palpating fingers. We then ask the client to contract the muscle so it hardens, thereby becoming more easily palpable. And if we can find a joint action of the target muscle that is different from the joint actions of adjacent musculature, our target muscle will be the only muscle that contracts and becomes hard, soft tissue amidst a sea of soft, soft tissues. This way, we can not only palpate it, but palpate and discern it from adjacent musculature. Once found, we can palpate the entirety of the muscle so we can then assess it. Finding the Difference When we ask the client to contract the target muscle by doing one of its joint actions (given that most muscles have more than one joint action), the art of muscle palpation is determining which action to choose. Or, perhaps better put, which oblique-plane joint function to choose, given that muscle function does not always fall neatly into cardinal-plane joint actions. For our example, when palpating the hip fl exor muscles, given that all hip fl exors do hip joint fl exion, it is not useful to ask the client to try to do hip fl exion because all the hip fl exors will likely engage, making it diffi cult to discern our target muscle from the adjacent musculature. What we need is to have the target muscle be the only hard, soft tissue, amidst a sea of soft, soft tissues. Having the target muscle and the adjacent muscles all contract will not accomplish this. Therefore, we need to fi nd a difference between our target muscle and the adjacent muscles. For this reason, we ask for medial rotation when palpating the tensor fasciae latae (TFL), for knee extension when palpating the rectus femoris, and for trunk fl exion when palpating the psoas major, to cite a few examples. The art of muscle palpation when asking the client to engage the target muscle is learning how to choose the best joint action/oblique-plane function of the target muscle that is most different from the adjacent musculature.