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Manual Pectoralis Major Stretch

This video provides step-by-step instructions on how to properly execute a Manual Pectoralis Major Stretch. Learn how to target your pectoral muscles and stretch them for injury prevention and muscular development.

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Transcript

00:00 - 00:03This is Brent, coming at you with another one of our manual stretching videos. In
00:03 - 00:06this video we're doing the pectoralis major. We're going to talk about body
00:06 - 00:10position, technique, we're going to talk about handling, we're going to talk about
00:10 - 00:13your body position, and then we're going to talk about some of the modifications
00:13 - 00:16or preliminary exercises we're going to have to do to ensure that other
00:16 - 00:21structures don't compromise the effectiveness of this stretch. I'm going
00:21 - 00:25to have my friend, Leanne, come out and help me demonstrate this technique. Now,
00:25 - 00:28let's talk about body position first, specifically, patient or client body
00:28 - 00:32position. I want Leanne as close to me as she possibly can be, so I'm going to use
00:32 - 00:36my hip to block her out, make sure she's right at the edge of the table, and then
00:36 - 00:40I'm going to make sure that her scapula is stabilized by the table, but her
00:40 - 00:44shoulder is hanging off. If I'm going to pull Leanne back into this position, you
00:44 - 00:48have seen a chest stretch before, the last thing I want is the table to be in
00:48 - 00:54the way of the humerus. From here, talking about how we're actually
00:54 - 00:58going to stabilize the shoulder and get Leanne into this position for the stretch.
00:58 - 01:02I'm going to use a grip like so. This is your traditional PNF lumbrical grip,
01:02 - 01:07bending at the first MCPs, and keeping my forefingers together. I'm
01:07 - 01:12going to brace her acromion down. The tendency for people as they go into a
01:12 - 01:16chest stretch is to get into this position which is our anterior tipping
01:16 - 01:21and a little bit of elevation of this acromion shelf. We don't really want that.
01:21 - 01:24That could lead to some impingement pain while we're doing this stretch. The nice
01:24 - 01:29thing about this hand position as well, is I can use my palm to stabilize her
01:29 - 01:34humeral head. Now, the tendency is, as I pull this way, her humeral head
01:34 - 01:38actually tries to pop this way. It's not a good thing. A lot of people have, or I
01:38 - 01:42should say most people have a little bit of anterior capsule laxity, and a little
01:42 - 01:47bit of posterior capsule tightness, so if I allow her humeral head to keep popping
01:47 - 01:53forward that's going to contribute to that movement impairment pattern, rather
01:53 - 01:56than helping to fix it and it's definitely not going to be beneficial
01:56 - 01:59long-term to getting her a good chest stretch and fixing any upper body
01:59 - 02:05dysfunction that we may have. So, once again, acromion shelf down, and then right
02:05 - 02:10over her humeral head with my my palm. I'm then going to go right below her wrist
02:10 - 02:14with a lumbrical grip here, and then all I'm going to do is pull Leanne
02:14 - 02:23back into horizontal abduction, external rotation just above shoulder height
02:23 - 02:29until I feel that first resistance barrier. Feel a good stretch? Now, you
02:29 - 02:32should notice that my body position is pretty much straight up and down. My arms
02:32 - 02:37are pretty much nice and long, so I don't have any unnecessary stretch. I could
02:37 - 02:42hold this position all day. Leanne feels comfortable. Remember, if we're doing our
02:42 - 02:45static stretching techniques you may have to hold this position for up to 2
02:45 - 02:50minutes to get that desired release. Now, let's talk about some of the things that
02:50 - 02:53could happen during the stretch and tend to happen depending on which patient
02:53 - 02:58clientele population we're working with that could impact the effectiveness of
02:58 - 03:02this stretch. First things first, every once in a while I'll see somebody get to
03:02 - 03:07here and they start feeling a little tingly in their hand. Well, a little
03:07 - 03:11tingly may not be damaging, it's definitely not going to help us with our
03:11 - 03:14stretch, as soon as they feel tingly they're probably going to start guarding
03:14 - 03:19on us and we're not going to get that release. So, to back off on a nerve
03:19 - 03:22stretch, which is not a good idea anyway, all I'm going to do is I'm going to take
03:22 - 03:27Leanne's elbow, I'm going to bend it like so, I'm going to move this hand over her
03:27 - 03:31humeral condyles, but kind of cupping her elbow, and now I'm just going to control
03:31 - 03:35from the elbow, go through the same motions, horizontal abduction and
03:35 - 03:43external rotation, acromion shelf depressed, humeral head depressed, pull
03:43 - 03:47her back into that stretch. So this is still a pec stretch, our pec doesn't
03:47 - 03:52cross our elbow. Leanne feels good in this position, and if she had any nerve-ness
03:52 - 03:57in her hand it would probably subside after doing something like this.
03:57 - 04:01Now, let's talk about some of the other things that could affect this stretch.
04:01 - 04:08Generally, if I were to ask Leanne, 'where did you feel that stretch', her chest area,
04:08 - 04:14right, we want her to feel it in her pecs. So, if I don't have pec feeling,
04:14 - 04:16instead they're feeling it somewhere else, like, let's say, they're feeling it
04:16 - 04:21in their armpit, or they're feeling it in their posterior shoulder, we can go
04:21 - 04:23back to some of those commonly over active structures that we know are
04:23 - 04:28involved in this upper body dysfunction, and start trying to figure out how are
04:28 - 04:32we going to get those out. Now, when it comes to the back of the shoulder the
04:32 - 04:35pinching is usually posterior deltoid involvement, we need to
04:35 - 04:39go ahead and do our release techniques before we start this stretch. If it's
04:39 - 04:43armpit, chances are it's subscapularis or teres major and once again, we're
04:43 - 04:47probably going to want to go ahead and release first. For my personal trainers
04:47 - 04:50out there you can use your foam rolls, and we have videos on those
04:50 - 04:54self-administered techniques. For all of my licensed professionals out there, you
04:54 - 04:58can go ahead and do that manually and then go ahead and retry the stretch.
04:58 - 05:03Chances are, if you release those structures, stretch if necessary, that
05:03 - 05:07when you come back to this chest stretch her humeral head will be able to glide in
05:07 - 05:11the glenoid fossa the way it needs to to ensure that those structures don't
05:11 - 05:16become overactive while we're doing this. The last one, and this one tends to be
05:16 - 05:21a little tricky, there tends to be a little bit of a feel to this, is some
05:21 - 05:26individuals, when you're bracing with this hand, acromion shelf down, humeral
05:26 - 05:30head down, you'll get them to here and they just get kind of stuck on you.
05:30 - 05:34They just won't go down, they tend to have a very intense feeling in the
05:34 - 05:38lateral aspect of their chest but not across their whole chest, this is
05:38 - 05:44probably pec minor involvement. So, if my pec minor is really, really short, really,
05:44 - 05:49really overactive, it's not going to allow my scapula to posteriorly tilt,
05:49 - 05:53and I'm not going to be able to pull her far enough into horizontal abduction and
05:53 - 05:58external rotation to get a stretch in her pectoralis major. So, once again, I can go
05:58 - 06:02back and release that muscle, and I'll show you in a separate video a
06:02 - 06:07specific stretch for the pectoralis minor. So a really quick review of
06:07 - 06:11what we just went through because I know that was a lot of information and we
06:11 - 06:13need to get back to the primary technique, which is a pectoralis major
06:13 - 06:17stretch. I have Leanne right up against my hip here, so she's all the way to the
06:17 - 06:22edge of the table, that's going to save my body mechanics. Her humeral head is
06:22 - 06:27off the table, scapula is stabilized on the table. I'm going to use this hand to
06:27 - 06:31wrap my fingers over the top of the acromion shelf and press it down,
06:31 - 06:36stabilize a little bit. I'm then using my palm to stabilize the humeral head
06:36 - 06:43that way. So acromion shelf this way, humeral head that way, and then
06:43 - 06:46I can go ahead and if you really want to get fancy, you can give a little
06:46 - 06:51distraction to this stretch, and then pull down into horizontal abduction and
06:51 - 06:56external rotation. How does that feel? -Good. We're going to hold that until
06:56 - 07:00we get that release, once again 30 seconds to 2 minutes. I hope you enjoy
07:00 - 07:04this technique, get good practice in it, the better you get at your technique, the
07:04 - 07:08better results you're going to get. I'll talk with you soon.

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