Posts

Muscle Of The Week...Adductor Brevis

Image
Hi There These last weeks we have started our journey learning the muscles. This is a HUGE under taking. There are +- 600 muscles in the body... So we will be at this for a while... We are also doing this alphabetically to follow logically .Let us do a quick review on what we have learnt these past weeks.  Right off the bat we have learnt some terminology to understand movement patterns and some functions of the muscles. Terminology  From last week we also learnt why  professionals need a language that can be understood internationally. It makes sense no matter where you are a doctor needs to be able to understand the body and communicate what he has done to the body and where it has been done.  I mean can you think of what might go wrong it there is a language barrier between a surgeon and the diagnosis doctor? You might lose a kidney or undergo a wrong procedure. Also Latin is a "dead" language.Meaning it does not change and evolve because we do not use it anymore as

Muscle Of The Week... Abductor Pollicis Longus

Image
Hi There We are busy with all the ABductor muscles. This means muscles that pulls movement away from the mid line of the body! Abduct- The smart way to clarify any movement that is done away from the mid line of the body or extremity. Easy way to remember is that aliens abduct humans FROM earth TO space. So the movement we are carrying out moves away FROM the midline TO where the movement takes place.  I also think of a Jumping Jack to explain this movement. As we jump out with out legs and swing arm open and over we are abducting the legs and arms. Proximal means  nearest point the joint  Distal means furthers point from the joint This week we add Brevis to the list of descriptive words in anatomy. Brevis is the Latin word that means "short" and this brings us to Longus, which ; you've guessed it..."long". Our list so far: Abduction,Proximal,Distal,Brevis...and Longus!!  Remember professionals need a language that can be understood internationall

Sport Science Testing

Image
Hi There  We are undergoing testing these upcoming weeks. This is the time I love to hate. I still love what I do, but the athletes are angsty about how they perform and what the results would mean for them and the team. The training also get influenced by this, because some try and gain all the components of fitness in that one single session before we test the next day!!  For me personally It means setting up the test and a whole lot of data that needs to be taken, processed, analyzed and reported. In other words a lot of paper work!!!! This is the part I don't like, but is the fundamental part I need to design programmes that really make a difference in my athletes' training. This is also how I not only evaluate them but also my quality of work. So the Pressure is on!! Testing is so important, because the feedback tells us where the programs weakness as well as strength lies and we as supporting staff can brainstorm to produce the best training strategy for our athlete

Muscle Of The Week... Abductor Pollicis Brevis

Image
Hi There We are busy with all the ABductor muscles. This means muscles that pulls movement away from the mid line of the body! Abduct- The smart way to clarify any movement that is done away from the mid line of the body or extremity. Easy way to remember is that aliens abduct humans FROM earth TO space. So the movement we are carrying out moves away FROM the midline TO where the movement takes place.  I also think of a Jumping Jack to explain this movement. As we jump out with out legs and swing arm open and over we are abducting the legs and arms. Proximal means  nearest point the joint  Distal means furthers point from the joint Abductor Pollicis Brevis KenHub explains the Abductor Pollicis Brevis as follows ":This muscle arises from the tubercles of the scaphoid and trapezium, and from the flexor retinaculum. Its short tendon courses to the base of the proximal phalanx and the dorsal aponeurosis of the thumb via the radial sesamoid bone. The abductor pollicis brevis

Muscle Of The Week... Abductor Hallucis

Image
Hi There We are busy with all the ABductor muscles. This means muscles that pulls movement away from the mid line of the body! Just a recap on last week:  Abduct- The smart way to clarify any movement that is done away from the mid line of the body or extremity. Easy way to remember is that aliens abduct humans FROM earth TO space. So the movement we are carrying out moves away FROM the midline TO where the movement takes place.  I also think of a Jumping Jack to explain this movement. As we jump out with out legs and swing arm open and over we are abducting the legs and arms. Make sense?  Abductor Hallucis A lot of the videos and articles groups the muscles of the hand. I am only focussing on the one! KenHub explains the Abductor Hallucis as follows ":The Abductor Hallucis originates at the calcaneal tuberosity, plantar aponeurosis and the superficial layer of the flexor retinaculum. Abductor Hallucis tendon runs distal to the medial sesamoid bone of the great toe and it

Muscle Of The Week... Abductor Digiti Minimi Of The Hand

Image
Hi There So this week's muscle has the exactact name as last week's muscle!! How cool and confusing is that!!! This time its location is in the hand! So that is the best distinction .They both abduct the fifth digit.  Their function is to "pull/move" the fifth digit away from the the body.Abductor Digiti Minimi helps us make the Vulcan Salute   Abduct- The smart way to clarify any movement that is done away from the mid line of the body or extremity. Easy way to remember is that aliens abduct humans FROM earth TO space. So the movement we are carrying out moves away FROM the midline TO where the movement takes place.  I also think of a Jumping Jack to explain this movement. As we jump out with out legs and swing arm open and over we are abducting the legs and arms. Make sense?  Abductor Digiti Minimi A lot of the videos and articles groups the muscles of the hand. I am only focussing on the one! KenHub explains the Abductor Digiti Minimi of the Hand as f

Muscle Of The Week... Abductor Digiti Minimi of the Foot

Image
Hi There I want to apologize for missing last week's Muscle Of The Week (again...), but we have a lot of muscles to cover and I would like to go through all of them! This is an overwhelming ask!! We have so many muscles and ALL of them play a role in our movement! I have decided that working alphabetically might be a better way of navigating the muscles! For the brain and body to talk to one another. They need to speak the same language.  For this to happen we need to be conscious  of where the movement originates and what needs to be done. During my time with clients and athletes I have realized that most of them have little to none body awareness.  Now let me be clear. You do not need to understand or have in- depth knowledge to have good body awareness, but it helps tremendously when you at least know where the muscle is and how it works.  So during this series I am going to try and keep it simple. I will provide you with what I deem credible sources that I use/d during my stud