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