Issue link: https://www.massageandbodyworkdigital.com/i/738894
LOOKING IN THE RIGHT PLACE There is a corny but apt joke about a mother who comes home to find her 12-year-old son on his hands and knees in the dining room, seemingly searching for something. When she asks him if he lost something, he says he lost a quarter. She asks him if he lost it in the dining room, and he answers no; he lost it in the living room. A bit perplexed, she asks him why he is looking in the dining room. He responds, "The light's better in here." This may seem like a silly story, but there is a lesson to be learned here. If we are not looking in the right place, we will never find what we are looking for. We shouldn't look just where it is easy to look, where the light is better, so to speak; rather, we also need to look in the more obscure, less well-lit places. If we only check the usual suspect muscles, we will never discover how involved and important some of the other, lesser- known, unusual suspect muscles are. There are more than 100 muscles in the human body, yet it is interesting to see how often the same few muscles are discussed, written about, and assessed as the causes of our clients' problems. I like to describe these muscles as the usual suspects. When a client has pain in the gluteal region, we look for it to be the piriformis. If the pain is in the anterior hip, the psoas major is first on our radar. If there is pain in the back of the neck, it must be the upper trapezius. But what about all the other muscles in the body? I am not trying to say that the usual suspect muscles are not important. They are. Because of their unique role in movement and stabilization patterns, they probably are more important on average than any one of their neighbors; that is why they have earned the status of being the usual suspects. A usual suspect is not always the guilty party, however. Sometimes it is an unusual suspect, a lesser-known muscle, that is the underlying cause of our client's pain and dysfunction pattern. Following are examples of some of these lesser-known unusual suspect muscles that I believe are worthy of our attention. For each muscle, we will review its attachments and actions, how to palpate and stretch it, and then discuss a brief case study of a client for whom this muscle was the key to unlocking their condition and restoring their health. An unusual suspect muscle may not often prove to be the cause of our client's condition; but when it is, our awareness and knowledge of the muscle, along with our willingness to look for and assess it, can make all the difference, not only in our client's health, but also in the success of our practice.