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BODYREADING THE MERIDIANS Enjoy free ABMP webinars with Thomas Myers as he details his BodyReading the Meridians series. Visit ABMP.com to access past webinars in the archives. THE CLAVICLE The clavicle holds our shoulder out away from the midline, and is thus fairly well anchored to the top of the sternum medially and must follow the scapula laterally. There is a small disc in the sternoclavicular joint, which tells us this joint must glide a little, which is a necessary movement for good shoulder function. When you ask a client to open his arms wide (as if about to enfold a grandchild) and you see the scapulae rise in back, the cause is often not a too-tight levator scapulae or trapezius, but a sternoclavicular joint that cannot glide laterally, causing this compensation in the back. When you see this pattern, release the subclavius under the medial third of the clavicle. When this heavily-fascial muscle relents, the clavicle can glide, and proper arm carriage returns. THE SHOULDER IN BREATHING An easy but telling assessment for the shoulders is to watch their response to the breath. Watch first with the client's normal tidal breath, but if that is too small to produce any shoulder movement, have him increase the depth of the breath gradually until you see some movement response in the shoulder girdle. Generally, you will see one of three patterns: • The shoulder girdle moves straight up with the in- breath and back down on the exhale. In this case, look to the muscles that hold the shoulder to the ribs— serratus anterior and pectoralis minor principally. • The shoulder girdle hardly moves, even with a deeper breath. In this case, the shoulder is hanging off the neck and head, and you should look to the trapezius and levator scapulae that hold the shoulder girdle from above. Interestingly, release of the scalenes, which are not normally listed as shoulder muscles, but do attach fascially to the arms, can often bring good results for this pattern. • The shoulder girdle moves up and out on the inhale; down and in on the exhale. This, in my opinion, is the Goldilocks movement—just right. The shoulder is loose enough to ride and glide on the rib cage in response to the breath. THE RELAXED ARM From the hand up, one can read more or less flexion in the fingers (everybody flexes a little), ulnar or (rarely) radial deviation at the wrist, chronic pronation or supination of the forearm, or excessive flexion at the elbow—come to class for these details. For space reasons, the last issue we will deal with for the arms is where the humerus lies in terms of medial and lateral rotation. Various measures have been proposed for where neutral lies for the humerus. Ida Rolf urged us to go for a balance where the olecranon of the elbow pointed laterally, but I have never been able to make sense of this, either anatomically or functionally. Some yoga teachers have suggested that the elbow should point straight back behind us, and I have never been able to make sense of that measure either. The conclusion I have come to is that there is a broad range of neutral in humeral rotation. It is, after all, the most moveable joint in our body. The humeral position that makes the difference is not relative to the torso, but relative to the scapula, and that in turn depends on the balance of tension in the rotator cuff—the SITS muscles. The subscapularis is a medial rotator; the supraspinatus, infraspinatus, and teres minor all contribute to lateral rotation—or more often, stabilizing during medial rotation. For an easy way to BodyRead where the humerus lies, put the index finger of one hand along the top of the spine of the scapula with your fingertip near the acromion, and another finger to bisect the olecranon. A 90-degree angle between Celebrate ABMP's 25th anniversary and you may win a refund on your membership. ABMP.com. 103