A Guide To Abdominal Muscles
A Guide To Abdominal Muscles. The expert masseurs at www.massagenerd.com present a six minute video on how to properly massage the abdominal muscles. Professional massage tips and techniques so you can relax twenty four hours a day!
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Step 1:
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Your six pack muscle:
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Rectus abdominis is your six pack muscle, the actual origin is the crest of the pubis and the pubic symphysis. It actually goes way down to here to the bone, right here. That's where it actually starts. And insertion, xiphoid process, right up here, and the fifth, sixth, and seventh rib, so it actually connects over here then. The major action of the rectus abdominis is the flexion of the trunk, kinda sitting forward and it compresses the contents of the abdominal region, so those are the major actions.
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Step 2:
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Trigger points:
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So with the rectus abdominis there are many trigger points, but the trick about this region is you really don't want to push straight down here, you actually want to push more into that region. I'll just show you some of the trigger points for the rectus abdominis. The first one is, you want to actually find the xiphoid process right here and just go down a little bit, then you can actually push in, there are a couple here and here. Those can just refer around to this region. You can actually have them do a little crunch, do a little sit up to actually feel the rectus abdominis a lot of times, you can actually place your hand there, have them do a little crunch to locate that region. Also, for the lower ones, you want to find the navel and you just locate it out here. These typically will go down to the inguinal region for the referral. That's a typical region for the referral for the rectus abdominis trigger points, so that's why somebody comes in with groin injuries, it's not always in the groin region. it could be in the rectus abdominis or other muscles we'll be getting into for the typical referral. For the lowest one, this one's a little bit tricky, you have to actually kind of push down, push down, push down, push down, push down, until you feel the anterior pubis region and directly not right on the center because that is on the bladder region, just a little bit lateral and kind of hook underneath of it. But that referral could actually go to the low back region. Just explain to the client what you are actually doing before you actually start palpating in this region just to be safe. For one that will actually go to the mid back region, there's not many of them that will actually go to the other side of the body but you feel the xiphoid process, like an inch down, an inch over you got to kind of hook underneath the ribs of this region. That can actually go to the mid part of the back then, the typical referral.
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Step 3:
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For the internal obliques:
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For the internal obliques, that's in the inguinal ligament, iliac crest area, so it's right in this area. That's where the typical origin is. And the insertion, abdominal region, is actually the lower four ribs. So the action is bilaterally in flexion of the trunk and unilaterally, lateral flexion and rotation to same side, kind of a rotation of the trunk region, so that is for the internal obliques. And for the external obliques, that's the external surface of the lower eight ribs, right in here. The insertion is linea alba and the iliac crest so it will actually go down to this region here. Bilaterally in flexion of the trunk, unilaterally in lateral flexion and rotation to the same side, so those were that. For the external obliques, you want to feel the rectus abdominis, again you can have them do a crunch to actually locate that. And just off of that, you want to kind of push into that but just make sure you're not pushing into the rectus abdominis, but you really, anything above the navel region, you never want to really push straight down, just because the liver, gallbladder, spleen, all those areas you just don't want to injure the organs, so that's why it's actually better to go at an angle in the abdominal region. But this is very underused in the massage field, so try to locate these trigger points here then.
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Step 4:
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For the transverse abdominis:
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For the transverse abdominis the origin is the inguinal ligaments, iliac crest, and the lower six ribs. And the insertion is the abdominal aponeurosis to the linea alba and the iliac crest, right in this region, it's kind of transverse. And it actually wraps around the internal organs and it's actually the deepest abdominal muscle. So the rectus abdominis is the most superficial abdominal muscle, so again that's the six pack region. For the external obliques you want to feel the hip. So the iliac crest region, you can just go up a little bit, push into this area so it can refer to around here and it can actually refer around the inguinal region too. Those are the typical referrals for that. But a lot of times these muscles are kind of lumped together for the trigger points but that's why you use the navel as the landmark too.
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Step 5:
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For the rectus abdominus:
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For the rectus abdominus again there's one just off the navel, just a little below it too for the rectus abdominis and there's also, you remember, there's one right above the pubis symphysis, that one will actually refer to the low back region. Again, a lot of people have low back problems so you might want to try that one out if you don't get any benefit from massaging the back.