Name: Upper Trapezius, Levator Scapulae, Splenii and Rhomboid Vibration Release
Uploaded: 2023-04-23T07:03:38.000Z
Duration: 13 min 1 s
Description: Learn how to target the upper trapezius, levator scapulae, splenii, and rhomboids to relieve neck and shoulder tension. This technique covers best seated body position, how to safely navigate bony landmarks like the acromion and occiput, and where to locate common trigger points for lasting mobility and pain relief.

English captions

https://stream.mux.com/4rk02QkLMRynWS5601P01fjU3NW1wsqDyitTB0001qFbiVeI.m3u8

Learn how to target the upper trapezius, levator scapulae, splenii, and rhomboids to relieve neck and shoulder tension. This technique covers best seated body position, how to safely navigate bony landmarks like the acromion and occiput, and where to locate common trigger points for lasting mobility and pain relief.

Introduction to Percussive Release Techniques for Upper Body

Systematic Approach to Releasing Upper Trapezius and Related Muscles

Deep Tissue Techniques for Targeting Dense Areas

Positioning and Adjustments for Effective Tissue Access

Close-Up Recap on Techniques and Tools Used

Upper Trapezius, Levator Scapulae, Splenii and Rhomboid Vibration Release

This is Brother The brookbush Institute. And in this video, we're going over vibration or percussive release for the upper. Trapezius levator scapulae spleni and rhomboids. I'm gonna have my friend Mike come out. He's gonna help me demonstrate not just because this is a really cool modality and Mike really likes this and it feels really good doesn't mean you get away with not doing assessment. So make sure that you are working towards good objective outcomes. If I was doing these particular muscles chances are I saw maybe arms fall forward or shoulders Elevate during the overhead squat assessment or maybe I did a cervical evaluation or cervical assessment and I noticed flexion and extension restriction or maybe some rotation restriction or it did gone anyometry and I was going to measure before and after for lateral flexion. So with all these techniques we start superficially try to get all of the muscle tissue with a larger piece. So either the flat round piece or The the foam ball piece here. I tend to like the flat round piece a little bit better for these particular tissues not to mention it'll slide over Mike's shirt here a little easier. This stuff does work better over clothing, right? So having a nice t-shirt that goes up nice and high on the neck is actually an advantage for these particular techniques and then we're gonna start a little counterintuitively on the higher setting which is going to be two in the case of the upper body and then we'll go back and get like the trigger points and the denser spots with the lower setting and a smaller tool so that we can drive a little deeper. All right. So here's what this is going to look like. I'm just going to start in a way that I know I'm gonna systematically get all of the tissue. So maybe I want to start with the upper trap here. Right? So I'll start up at the base of his neck and kind of work my way down this way. Making sure I palpate the acromion Shelf. I don't want to I don't want this thing over bone. That's gonna hurt actually really bad. All right, so maybe even do it this way first. How's that feeling like? all right, once we get it's a kind of nowhere is a chromian shelf is I can kind of move my hand back here. and you guys can see When I said systematically I really I'm just kind of creating almost like like if any of you guys have mowed a lawn you just kind of go back and forth making sure you hit every bit of tissue and while I'm doing it, I'm kind of noticing how much push back I get and maybe noticing Mike's face. I have a mirror here that I can see that you guys can't see off camera, but noticing Mike's face. Is there any place where he kind of tenses up a little bit like things are more sensitive. Just kind of keeping mental note. Now, of course as I get down towards the spine of the scapula, I might want to use my thumb to mark off that border again. Kind of go right above that border. And through here, so that's that's a lot of the upper trap right there. And then I can kind of come up closer to the spine now and maybe I want to keep a thumb over the spinous processes. So I don't hit those kind of go up towards the levator scapulae. Now I know some of you guys are thinking well how far up the net. Can you go? And I think you could probably do a lot of the the posterior neck here. What I can tell you is it's not particularly comfortable to get close to the ossiput as I get higher up on his neck. He's gonna feel more and more rattling and I don't think this thing has the The amplitude to be able to do any damage or anything like you're not shaking the brain so to speak. It's just not a very comfortable feeling. So I'll go up the neck a little bit, but you know once I get passed about halfway here, I usually just kind of drop back down. I can always address those tissues with a different technique. Like for example, I could use that massage blocks on the upper part. All right on the sub occipital muscles or I could manually release those those tissues if you're a licensed manual therapist now as I get off the levator scapula here and I come even closer to the spine. I'm on my splini eye muscles And he does have a little increase in tissue density here. I noticed some up here, too. And then you guys saw a video already of as I get down here. I start getting into the rhomboids. And again, I'm gonna use my thumb to mark off that vertebral border of the scapula so I don't just start. pressing this thing into bone He's a little bit more tender in here. Not not tender is the wrong word dense the tissues just a little bit more dense gives me a little bit more kick back. Now once I've gone over all this tissue and I've Gotten Good releases and you can see I'm just very slow and methodical. As I feel like I love it. Feels good. It does feel really good. I have to admit, you know, I think if you let clients this would be all they wanted all our just make sure you are again driving towards an objective outcomes. So now what we're gonna do is we're gonna go back over those denser tissues with the smaller piece here. So this is the bullet piece and I'm gonna show you guys a little trick a couple little tricks to get deeper into the tissue. So now I'm going to go on a lower setting. I know that's counterintuitive. We're going to go more intense by getting on a lower setting. A lower setting is going to allow you to get deeper into the tissue because when the frequency is real high, you just get kicked out. If I want to get into his trap a little deeper I can start here just like we did. All right. but what I can also do now is I can increase the tension in this traps, and maybe that'll bring some of that tissue density a little bit more superficial or if I think the trigger point is deeper. I can actually shorten the traps and press in a little bit more right? So now I'm putting slack into the trapezius. I can do the same trick with the levator scapula. So more tension. less tension and so you guys got to remember your joint actions there but like my upper trap will do lateral flexion. It'll do some extension and then it'll do some contralateral rotation. Right? So if I go this way, I stretch it if I go this way, I shorten it and then the only difference with the levator scapula is it rotates in the opposite way? So this is stretching the levator scapula. This is shortening elevator scapula. And so you guys can just kind of see I just kind of control Mike's head and he's still very comfortable. And just try to get it all these denser areas. Now if I wanted to get at those rhomboid trigger points, and I wanted maybe to get them a little bit more superficial what I can have Mike do. Is I can have him take his arm? Hold it across his chest like this. He can actually use his other hand to just kind of hold his elbow. There you go. And then now all of this is really nice and superficial for me and I can even see the vertebral border of his scapula and I can just get right in here. And do that vertebral border? The density there. I'm going to hold that a little bit. Hold that a little bit. Of course, the hypervolt is pretty light. So if I wanted to use a hand to like palpate that tissue for all my manual therapists out there you definitely could I could come back up here. You can go ahead and put your arm down. And if I wanted to get a spleenia, maybe I haven't just go into a little bit of contralateral. rotation and flexion All right. Now that's gonna put some more tension in the spleenia and kind of bring that density to you. How's that feeling like it's all in good so far? Yeah. This is gonna. This is definitely gonna help Mike with a little bit of this mobility issues on this side. Now the last thing I want to show you guys before we go to our close-up recap is Mike could lay face down. Go ahead and leave face down for me. now you can't do all the fancy tricks that I just showed you guys with the neck and lengthening out tissues and all that stuff, but If by chance you had somebody who just they didn't like the sitting position you couldn't get a lot of control you had a hard time keeping them stable as you were putting the tool down like they kept leaning forward. You could just have them lay down this way and more or less. You can access all the same tissues. So here's this rhomboids. Here's a spleenia. Yours is levator scapulae and here's his upper trap. Like I said use your same tricks of bordering out those bony protrudences, but you have access to all the same tissue. The only disadvantage with this position is it's harder to control how much tension is in those tissues. I think Mike's loving this position because he has to do even less than he did before. But as patient as important as patient Comfort is our outcomes are even more important guys stay tuned for the close-up recap. Just a quick close-up recap. I wanted to show you guys where I was playing the hypervolt tool here. So I'm gonna go ahead and I'm using the flat round piece. I'm gonna start on that higher setting. And we're just going to go over. Trap which is kind of this area in here. And so I can draw a little triangle for you guys. So I want to cover all of that all the way down to the spine of the scapula. So there's the spine of my scapula I can put my thumb. Go over all of this here. We know that levator scapula goes from the superior angle up the side of the neck here. So I could switch hands. Put my thumb over the spinous process so I don't. put the percussive tool right into his bony prominences there Then of course I could do Sweeney eye which are gonna be a long. the side of his spine kind of in that cervical thoracic Junction area and then we talked about doing the rhomboids, which if I put my fingers here on his vertebral border. I can just kind of come down this way. And go along all that muscle from vertebral border to the spine of the scapula here. Now we also talked about how to add a little tension into these muscles or take tension off the Trap. So if I was gonna add tension to the Trap I go into some flexion contralateral flexion and ipsilateral rotation. That's going to add tension now if I Do the opposite that's going to give me some slack so that I could potentially get deeper into that muscle especially if I'm using that other bulleted piece. I could stretch out the levator scapulae by going contralateral flexion flexion and contralateral rotation. And again the same thing if I wanted to feel like I needed to get deeper into that muscle I could do just the opposite. For the spleeny eye. It might be helpful to go into some flexion. and contralateral rotation All right, so that'll lengthen those muscles out. And then of course with the rhomboids, I just had Mike give himself a hug right so we brought that arm across. Pull it across and then I could use my fingertips here to mark off the border and get right in there with. With the tool here, of course, I'm gonna do that chances are special with the wrong blades. I'm going to go ahead. with that smaller bullet piece I think Mike likes this one. Right into that vertebral border where those trigger points tend to. Tend to be very prolific lots of trigger points in this area. So there you guys have it. Enjoy using these percussive devices. They are hand Savers clients tend to love them. If you have any questions leave them in the comments box below.

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Integrated functional anatomy of the levator scapulae. Attachments, nerves, palpation, joint actions, arthrokinematics, fascia, triggerpoints, and behavior in postural dysfunction. Common exercises, foam rolling, neck releases, and stretches for the levator scapulae.

Levator Scapulae

Vibration release techniques for the upper trapezius, levator scapulae, splenii, rhomboids, pectoralis major, pectoralis minor, latissimus dorsi, teres major, posterior deltoid, upper extremity (arms), and erector spinae. Manual therapy using vibration massage tools (massage guns and percussion instruments), what is vibration, vibration massage benefits, side effects, and comparing vibration to foam rollers. What receptors are stimulated, vibration effect on reflexes, how to reduce muscle soreness (DOMS), muscle pain, performance, and strength.

Vibration Release Techniques: Upper Body

Pre-exercise local vibration reduces functional signs and chemical markers of delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS) and may improve performance in subsequent frequent workouts.

Local vibration is effective for reducing acute muscle pain (and can be added to a home program via the devices like the Hypervolt by Hyperice® or similar devices).

Local vibration alone may be sufficient to increase strength in deconditioned muscles/individuals.

Current research implies that adding vibration to self-administered release techniques (SMR) (e.g. foam rolling) enhances benefits for DOMS, pain pressure sensitivity, and increasing proprioception. Further research is needed to refine protocols and determine whether adding vibration to SMR enhances benefits for increasing range of motion and improving power performance when used as a warm-up.

Protocol for Using Percussion Massage Device

Start with a higher setting and superficially (with gentle pressure) trace the entire surface of the muscle.

Setting 3 is likely appropriate for the lower body.

Take a mental note of dense or sensitive points. Manual therapists may use the opposite hand to palpate for taut bands and nodules (trigger points).

Stay away from areas where the bone is superficial. Using percussion massage devices over bone may be uncomfortable, painful, and/or cause bruising. Placing a finger or thumb over bony protuberances will prevent accidental contact.

Using a piece with a smaller surface area and lower setting (setting 1), return to the dense/sensitive points using deeper compression.

It may be helpful to add tension or slack by shortening or lengthening the target tissue

The Brookbush Institute recommends 30 seconds to 2 minutes per muscle group, and 5 minutes as an upper limit even in the case of multiple trigger points.

Seated with scapula protracted (hands in lap) and cervical spine flexed (head down)

 (Block with a thumb or finger when approaching these areas)

 runs laterally from the spinous process of the cervical spine and external occipital protuberance to the spine of the scapula, acromion, and distal third of the clavicle.

Common Trigger Point: Posterior aspect of the superior portion of the middle of the muscle.

 , coursing from the insertion at the superior angle of the scapula to the transverse process of the upper cervical spine

Common trigger point: Near the insertion on the superior angle of the scapula

 can be visualized as two columns bulging under the 

 , just lateral the spinous process, during resisted extension, running from the upper thoracic spine to the mastoid process.

Common Trigger Point: At the levels of C7 and C2

 in an area boxed in-between the muscles origin from the C7 to T5 spinous processes, to the muscle's insertion along the vertebral border of the scapula.

Common Trigger Point: Along the vertebral border of the scapula

Upper Trapezius, Levator Scapulae, Splenii and Rhomboid Vibration Release

Adductor Vibration Release

Biceps Femoris Vibration Release

Latissimus Dorsi, Rhomboids, Teres Major and Posterior Deltoid Vibration Release

Pectoralis Major and Pectoralis Minor Vibration Release

Erector Spinae Vibration Release

Spine Mobilization with the Hypervolt

Arm (Biceps, Triceps, and Wrist Extensors) Vibration Release

Sternocostal Mobilization with the Hypervolt

Transverse Tarsal Joint Mobilization with the Hypervolt

Quadriceps and Rectus Femoris Vibration Release

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