0:00 This is Brent coming at you with another one of our manual stretching videos. In 0:03 this video we're going to go after our pectoralis minor, a muscle that has a 0:06 propensity to get very overactive, very short in all of those individuals with 0:10 upper body dysfunction. I'm going to have my friend, Yvette, come out and help me 0:13 demonstrate this technique. Now, first things first, we always want to talk 0:16 about body position. So I'm going to make sure that Yvette scoots down her hips right next 0:21 to mine so that I don't have to reach across the table, I can save my own low 0:24 back and my own mechanics. Next thing we have to think about is our kenesis, so 0:29 what is it that my pectoralis minor does, and with attachments that ribs three, 0:33 four, five, and my coracoid process, it is going to protract, downwardly rotate, 0:41 depress, and anteriorly tip my scapula. Now, the problem that comes in, is most people will 0:47 go, 'okay, great, got the pectoralis minor joint actions 0:51 going.' Understand how to stretch it, you put the person in position and you do 0:56 this and what do you feel? Nothing. This isn't enough of a stretch, 1:03 this doesn't take the pectoralis minor through enough lengthening for us to get 1:09 any sort of result. So we've got to use a little bit of a secret here, or a little 1:13 bit of a trick, very fancy piece of equipment also known as a gym hand towel. 1:17 I'm going to have Yvette go ahead and curl up, I'm going to place this towel out of 1:22 the level of the inferior angles of her scapula, and then have her lay back over 1:27 it. Now you will have to experiment with the size of the towel a little bit. 1:31 I find that the hand towels that we have here work very well, a bath towel 1:35 would probably be way too big. Now, I'm going to take Yvette through these joint actions 1:41 of elevation and upward rotation, and then I push her back into retraction, I 1:48 have that towel pressing on her inferior angle this way, and pressing her thoracic 1:53 spine into extension which is going to promote 1:56 a lot of posterior tipping. So now, when I go to press down, now how does that feel 2:02 Yvette? She can feel it in the lateral portion of her pec, and I can actually 2:07 feel that first resistance barrier. Now, why would I want to stretch the pec 2:12 minor? I think some of you are probably thinking, 'you just showed us a 2:15 pec stretch on that video on pectoralis major', and that's true, however, the pec 2:21 minor can be hidden in that stretch. These big stretches, these big motion 2:27 stretches, latissimus dorsi and pectoralis major specifically, there's a 2:31 lot of structures that could be involved. We could have pec major, we could 2:36 have lat, teres major, subscapularis. If I know that the pec minor is bound down, 2:41 and I want to hit that structure specifically, this is probably 2:45 the best thing I can do. Further, if I want to hit pec major, and I want to make 2:50 sure I'm hitting pec major, I'm sure some of you guys have already experienced 2:54 where you take somebody into a pectoralis major stretch, and they're not 2:57 really feeling it throughout their entire pec, they just keep pointing at 3:00 their pec minor. Well, if you want to get this stretch better, you might have to do 3:05 a PEC minor stretch first. Now, all that set aside, how can we make 3:12 my pectoralis minor stretch a little bit better. I'm sure you will run into 3:16 people whose pectoralis minor is like a leather strap, and it just won't let go. 3:19 You can't get that release you're looking for. I have found a couple of tricks. 3:24 Number one, pectoralis minor, for whatever reason, seems to be very related to 3:31 stiffness in the thoracic spine. I don't know if there's some sort of arthro 3:35 kinematic reflex happening there that tones up the pec minor, but doing any 3:40 sort of release work for your thoracic spine, you can see that video on 3:43 thoracic spine self-administered mobilization from my videos, my manual 3:47 therapists can do your mobilizations, I think you'll find if you 3:51 do that first it's a lot easier to get a release in the pec minor. Further, the pec 3:56 minor has a propensity to really get laden down with trigger points. It might 4:02 also be much more effective for you to do your self-administered release 4:05 with a softball like I had on previous videos, or my manual therapist can do this manually. 4:09 So, once again, to just kind of repeat here, to improve the lengthening ability 4:16 to get the most out of a stretch for my pec minor, it is probably best to do my 4:21 thoracic spine release, and my pectoralis minor release first. And, if you are 4:27 having problems with somebody with upper-body dysfunction, doing these 4:30 techniques before you do some of your bigger structures like pec major 4:34 and latissimus dorsi is probably going to also increase the effectiveness of 4:39 your technique. So just going through the technique one more time here, 4:42 I have that towel set at her inferior angles, I'm going to set her arm 4:48 into slight flexion here, that's going to help promote the 4:51 posterior tipping. I'm going to put my hand over the lateral third of her 4:57 clavicle and her acromion process, not the humeral head, remember my pectoralis 5:02 minor does not cross my shoulder. So I want to be here. I'm then going to take 5:07 her into elevation or upward rotation, and push her back into retraction and 5:13 posterior tipping. I hope you got all of that. So that's elevation, upward 5:18 rotation, push back on the lateral third of the clavicle in the acromion process. 5:23 It's actually a really easy technique once you practice it a couple of times. I 5:27 hope you get great results from this technique. I think your clients will 5:30 definitely appreciate the specificity of this technique and what they can get out 5:34 of it for their posture. I'll talk with you soon.
