The dreaded words no one wants to hear, “you’ve got a rotator cuff tear,” but what is that and what can be done about it? You don’t have to hurt. What is the Rotator Cuff? The rotator cuff is comprised of four muscles that help the shoulder turn on various axises as well stabilize the ball and socket that is the glenohumeral joint. the four muscles are: These densely textured muscles provide the majority of…
When we think about the hips, the muscles we most often thing of are the glutes, hamstrings, and quads, right? But there’s an other group of hip muscles we often overlook – the hip adductors. The five muscles that make up the adductors – Adductor brevis, adductor longus, adductor magnus, gracilis, and pectineus are responsible for bring the hip into adduction – that is, moving the femur medially (toward the centerline of the body) But…
The Wizard of Pain – the Mighty Infraspinatus “it feels like a deep ache in my shoulder joint.” If you are an anatomy nerd like me, hearing a client say that is both empathetic and exciting. Empathy, because I’ve had that particular shoulder pain before, and exciting, because it’s very often caused by easily accessible trigger points in the back of the shoulder. Let’s begin: The infraspinatus muscle (IS) is one of the four rotator…
Subscapularis – The Deep Trickster Pitching a ball, writing your name, playing tennis, skiing, using a shovel, typing on the keyboard, anything that brings the arm in front of the body engages with the subscapularis. This deep rotator cuff muscle is often overlooked as a source of shoulder, elbow, wrist and hand pain. But getting to know this tricky muscle can be a great help dealing with and eliminating your pain! You can see the…