If you picked up your favourite anatomy text book and looked up the anatomy of the biceps your book would most likely tell you that the biceps is a muscle on the anterior part of the humerus with a main action to flex the elbow and supinate the forearm. The new models of movement such as anatomy trains and contractile fields highlight that looking at muscles in isolation is “old school”. Muscles only exist in isolation when they are surgically removed with a scalpel. Although traditional science still mostly thinks in isolation, this isn’t the way that the body thinks.

The biceps has nerves, blood supply, and has direct connective tissue connections with other muscles such as pectoralis minor. Muscles are not independent pieces like blocks of lego stuck together to make the shape of a body. Muscles interact, communicate tension, and physically connect with each other through connective tissue – the fascia. The bones float in a web of tension. This tension structure is incredibly strong and has the amazing ability to dissipate forces throughout the soft tissues. The fascial system also is the fastest communication system in the body. The nervous system can send signals at speeds up to a 270 km/hr. The fascial system communicates tension at speeds of up to 1000 km/hr. It seems crazy that traditional science has largely ignored the existence and properties of this amazing system until recently.

In the anatomy trains model the biceps is part of the deep front arm line, a myofascial line that runs from the outside of the thumb up the ventral surface of the arm to the pectoralis minor ending at the rib cage – Figure 1. This line shows how the biceps is part of the chain of tissue that connects to the rib cage and to the hand. The positioning of the thumb, grip strength, positioning of the rib cage and the scapula is therefore related to the biceps and the other tissue in the deep front arm line. Figure 2 shows a nifty method of assessing the deep front arm line. Try this out and feel where your fascial restrictions are along this arm line.

Figure 1. Front arm lines - Anatomy Trains Figure 2. Assessment of restrictions in the deep front arm line

The contractile fields model places the biceps in the ventral muscles of the upper limb contractile field. This field connects the ventral muscles of the palm, forearm and biceps in the arm in oblique line across the torso to the opposite hip and beyond - Figure 3. In this model, the limbs are seen as amplifiers of the forces generated from the torso. The biceps is part of the chain that passes forces generated from the torso through to the hand.

Figure 3. The limb contractile fields linked through the torso - Muscles and Meridians (Phillip Beach, 2010)

Both of these models give us the theoretical understanding of how treating one site can affect another far away. The days of treating an injury/pain only at the site of symptoms are let’s say it again...“ old school” Using anatomy trains and/or the contractile fields model to treat an injury massively opens up your options. For example, in a biceps strain as well as treating the painful area, you could work on the entire deep front arm line, the rib cage, the opposite obliques or hip muscles. The earlier article on the superficial back line also demonstrates how the body can be treated by using control points far from the site of pain. Therapists experienced in using these models get to understand the “feel and look” of bodies when moving or being moved. Phillip Beach has an amazing feel of how the body should move and look in his archetypal postures, and along the different contractile fields. He has developed a powerful body work system and a system of recovery for bodies. Ian O’Dwyer is able to observe movement and provide self mobilizers and hands on tissue work on myofascial lines to get people to move better right away. I have seen many cases and also have been on the receiving end of some amazing treatments at the hands of these experienced therapists.