This is how you study for massage therapy.
Riding on a pedal bike if asked a year ago
I would have said my body’s sore from head to tiny toe
And since Rosa kept her promise waving hands into the air
I know the anatomical term is named glutes– not derriere.
It’s called a calf my friend exclaims quite loud and obnoxiously
So I plant a pun between my lobes of temporality
Shouting back with elevated ribs 1,2,3,4,5
“You done stirred the pot, the honey bee is now alive”
Nostrils flare, stingers extend like arrector pili
I’m sure you’ve had the stare as if you’re a contagious anomaly.
I can do without her questions and her accusatory stare
She’s reckless in her ignorance– has no clue I’m talking hair
And where does anyone get off judging how I walk
As I talk and balk and it’s nonchalant
How easily she’s dismissed.
So I’m pissed, my fur is standing strong, I’m ready for a fight
Fright ignites the calm pale light
So we’ll save this crap for some other night.
My nose now buried deep within the pages of anatomy
What do you mean more bony landmarks?
You just gave me one hundred and thirty?!
Study study study just like a busy bee
But that shouldn’t be a problem
Because my friend’s face is making me
Laugh on the inside, I’m sure you can relate
She can take that attitude and circumnavigate
Herself into the corner
Like little Jack Horner
And eat some pie while I lie on this table and become wiser than can be.
We give the nerdy verbs a deserving serving of our time
So I figured I would do a review in a crazy kind of rhyme
Muscles, actions, landmarks– the good stuff that we must know
Superior to inferior is the direction that we’ll go
Angles angles everywhere that I’m sure you all can see
Have greyed a few of my hairs (or was that the arrector pili?)
Scapular sling lifts me up and then brings me down
Levator scapulae attaches to my crown
Serratus anterior slices through my ribs
No fibs the rhomboids are superficial
And attaching to my spine in line with trapezius
See this is easy enough if you make it fun
The weight of ten tons off our backs
Which would lack a considerable amount of tenacity without a tuberosity
Or two
Don’t come unglued
We’ll get there yet
Moving forward to the clavical
Not much is here to disturb us
Except the smallish subclavius
Pectoralis minor throws signs in the night
And helps you breathing hard at the inevitable gang fight
Rotating now into a cuff or two
Not the ones on the wrist
But the list continues strong and here to aid us
Is the supraspinatus
When we elbow a friend in confidence
To share a secret or a joke
It’s humerus!
Who spoke of infraspinatus?
Rotating lateral, it’s practical
And factual that slightly to the side
Teres minor originates in a common place.
Speaking of margins on the back
A shoulder’s strength will primarily lack
When subscapularis takes a break.
The ITG– oh god, please no, seriously.
Someone shoot me, these Latin words are aggravatingly
Compressing my latissimus dorsi
So I’m reaching back for clarity
And placing my head between my knees
Why can’t I freakin’ remember, you see
That pectoralis major is a major axillary wall.
No time to stall lest I fall prey to the day I find a way... wait...
What’s that you say? I forgot something? Oi vey!
Oh that’s right– in all the excitement
Of throwing my hands up
The teres major gravitated
And contemplated and grounded our minds into a pulp.
I cannot quit now, there’s only 3 groups
So let’s recoup and recap and then move on to the shoulder cap.
One muscle, one mind– many heads that you can see
If you work those deltoids then you can abduct me quite easily.
Brachium, o’ brachium
Without you artists would stumble and fall
Did you know the coracobrachialis forms the lateral wall?
The brachialis crosses the elbow and the elbow alone
But biceps brachii doubles the score and does more -
It helps you find the time in these rhymes on the posterior surface’s face.
Of the wristwatch.
Fleshy flexors, hairy extensors
Hypothenar glee
Thenar hitchhiking ghouls
And fools in metacarpal carnivals.
It tarnishes the soul to be ignorant of all
The notches & the grooves
Smooth sailing, smooth hailing
Another lightning round– begin
The spine, a line, of the scapulae
Supra/infra fossa both
Coracoid is null & void
The angles superior inferior
Another margin call is lateral
Acromion a flowing gun
Clavicle will stun 'em all
No greater than the epichondyle
Epicenter to anterior & posterior
Inferior but no lesser than
That tubercle
And lateral
Last but not least is perhaps the greatest tool of all.
It’s known as the olecranon
Found upon?
The ulna posteriorly.
Attaching to a cavity is a great guy– the triceps brachii.
Extending all the elbows in all the massages of the world.
This man must be wise for he does not despise
The three heads of Cerberus
Protecting our wallets, protecting our bills
For without this deep tissue master
We’d all fall ill
To mediocrity.
Can it be that this review feverishly
Took moments but eternity?
Christopher Loflin
April 22, 2013
