I recently was lucky enough to be involved with a Functional Anatomy Course at the UTSA Health Science Center. It was a clinical applications course with cadaver prosections with the Department of Physical Therapy, and it was awesome!
The last few major continuing education courses that I have taken have been focused on the anatomy, more so than techniques, so that I can have a stronger understanding of what is happening structurally underneath my toes as I work on you. The Kinesiology and Anatomy classes way back in my massage school were my most dreaded and favorite classes, since I kind of obsessed about learning everything about everything. (Darn you cursed Corachobrachialis! You were the brain fart muscle I missed on my final – so simple, so frustrating, but now I know you like the back of my hand… err foot!) The only books I’ve ever been able to stay awake long enough to finish reading has been anatomy books (ok, and Harry Potter), and I geek out on any online webinar that talks about fascia, even if I’ve already heard it a hundred times!
The Myofascial Meridians course that I took late last year focused on the fascial sheets and bags surrounding each and every muscle, fiber, and cell in the body, showing the interconnectivity of everything. Even though I had already read the book related to that course, seen the video and sat in on countless Anatomy Trains webinars, the hands on experience in that class really helped validate in my head why I do what I do when I massage you. Some say it’s intuition, but the geek in me likes to think that I have xray vision and I’m following the fascial pathways along your muscles – so that class helped me realize that I really am feeling what I thought I was feeling, I’m not crazy! The group that I trained with, Anatomy Trains, has a 500 hour training program that I am foaming at the mouth to take one day. (Keep your toes crossed)
This weekend’s cadaver course at UTSA gave me the chance to actually touch those structures with no skin or layers of other tissues clouding up its detail. To actually see their relationship to each other, to physically move a layer of muscle away and truelly feel what lays below it was so….. AWESOME! I can’t say it enough. Just awesome.
Do you know how tiny the Piriformis actually is!? It feels so much bigger under my feet and hands. The Sciatic Nerve? They weren’t kidding, it really is big. I got to actually see the Nucleus Pulposis – the fluid inside your vertebral discs! Push on it and watch the bubble move – so neat! The IT Band?! So very thin and so strong! I felt the entire length of Iliacus and Psoas – those muscles that make you want to cry when I work on them? Yep – I went there, and if only I could massage your muscles like I was able to on that lovely donated body. I touched the underside of muscles that I could normally never really get to, and was able to hold its circumference in my hand, tug it a tad, and make it recreate the movement on the bone it is attached to.
Thank you thank you, a thousand times to the donors and their families, your contribution has really made positive impression on me.
The faculty and attending Physical Therapists in the class were so amazingly educational in every way as well. They were fascinated by the nerves and their pathways and quizzed each other on what goes where and which innervates what – I was just wowed that so many of the nerves are so thin and tiny like a strand of hair! The PT’s were so investigative about the pathologies and condition of the joints – we felt the inside of the knee, a smooth healthy joint as well as another with significant wear and tear – I understand better the inside view of knee pain now. It was so inspiring to be around such a smart group of professionals that dug right into the subject matter. What’s even more amazing? They were impervious to the smell of formaldehyde! My stomach ballooned up – TMI, but the gas was worth it!
Anyways, long story short, I love anatomy, and I love that I’m in a profession where I can never stop learning.
Heeling Sole 