Many years ago, as a skinny ten-year old, I remember pinching the flesh under my armpit only to accidentally locate a muscle. When I moved my arm in a certain way, the flesh would harden and sup into my fingers. “Wow,” I thought “I didn’t think I had any muscles!” I told my parents about my discovery, and they sug-gested that I check the encyclopedia to see which muscle I had found. The Latin names I encountered only confused me, but for months I showed everyone I met my one and only muscle. I continued to be fascinated with the parts and pieces of the body and with how these all seemed to work together to produce movement, breath, even life itself. During my training as a bodyworker, I learned that the mysterious muscle of my armpit was the latissimus dorsi. Soon I learned how to palpate other muscles as well as the various tendons, bones and tissues located through-out the body. I also realized the importance of palpation for tissue assessment and for performing safe and effec-tive manual therapy techniques.
NEW Third Edition! This acclaimed book teaches readers to palpate the body’s structures with ease and precision. The beautifully illustrated, user-friendly guide to the muscular and skeletal systems makes learning the necessary bodywork skills interesting, memorable and easy. With 420 pages and 1,100 illustrations, this 3rd edition covers more than 125 muscles, 206 bones, 30 ligaments and 110 bony landmarks. It provides an invaluable map of the body.New to this edition: Synergists: Muscles Working Together – 75 new illustrations showing the muscles that perform a movement “in action”. 40 new illustrations showing ligaments and deeper structures of the joints. Palpation information for 10 muscles new to Trail Guide. Basic information for 25 additional muscles, most of which are unpalpable but fill out a reader’s knowledge and understanding. 200 revised 2nd Edition illustrations Palpatory Journal Page – encouraging readers to create their own “palpation diary” based on their hands-on experiences.