NAVINA

Education • Community

EDUCATION · COMMUNITY
Toll Free: 1.855.206.2434
Local: 416.529.2549
  • Student Login
  • Training
    • In-Person Courses
    • Online Courses
    • Virtual Studio
  • About
    • Navina Approach
    • Navina Team
    • Policies
  • Curriculum
    • Curriculum Design
    • Certification Requirements
  • Reading
  • Shop
  • Community
    • Certified Practitioners
    • Partnerships
  • Contact
loading...

Your Forearm’s Connected to The… Headaches You Get

December 6, 2015 By: Drew Hume1 Comment

tension headaches anatomy

Do you get tension headaches often? Do you work on a computer a lot? And did you know that the tension in your forearms is quite often partially responsible for the tension headaches you get. How, you ask? I like it when you indulge me with such questions.

I recently ran a free webinar about Thai Massage (can be found here) and one of the questions that came through after I talked everyone through 3 really useful self-massage techniques was “how is forearm discomfort connected to headaches?”.

And it was a great question, because you might not ordinarily think the two are linked, but I’d like to tell you a little story about how the arm-bone is connected to the head-bone. Well, not really in such a childhood chant-kind-of-way – but the same basic idea.

As part of the work that the muscles of our forearm perform, one primary job they have to do when typing, is to hold your fingers up and away from the keyboard when you pause for thought – or hover above the mouse before you click or scroll. Those periods of hovering a some decent work for the extrinsic extensors of your fingers – this means the muscles that create extension of the fingers but have the muscle belly outside of the hand.

These extrinsic extensors are an inseparable part of what some anatomists call the “Superficial Back Arm Line” pr the SBAL for short. The SBAL is not only a fascial continuation but also a kinetic chain. When we think of kinetic chains, I’d like you to think about muscles that fire together commonly to create actions. These muscles of the SBAL include the trapezius muscle, and it just so happens that the “traps” are attached to the base of your skull.

At this point I’d also like you to think about kinetic chains or myofascial meridians as a taught string. When you place a load anywhere on a taught string it distributes that force along it’s full length, and usually more of the load gets sent to the ends of the string. When we look at the body then, placing a load anywhere on the SBAL is going to have an impact on the upper trapezius as well.

When we combine those little extra forces of contraction in the forearm with a bunch of other factors, including not moving your shoulders whilst sitting at a desk, we start to see how tension can be passed up the forearms to the trapezius and can ultimately irritate a whole bunch of those nerve endings that are located at the base of our skull. With that constant irritation, I’d be upset too – and now you can see how your head gets a little upset with you.

So now that you know how they are linked, what can you do about it to prevent those tension headaches? Well, firstly – watch the webinar recording, because I give you three great techniques there, and secondly read this blog on how to reduce neck and shoulder tension at work with regular movement.

Enjoy getting rid of those tension headaches for good.

Trackbacks

  1. 3 Strength Exercises to Reduce Neck Pain - NAVINA says:
    December 2, 2016 at 2:08 am

    […] If you’re concerned that your posture is contributing to discomfort, you might also like to read “How Did You Get Such Good Posture?“. And if you get tension headaches, you will want to see this: “Your Forearm’s Connected to The… Headaches You Get“. […]

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Most Popular Reads:

Touching Trauma - Image source: everydayhealth.com For most of my life I lived in a suspended cycle of fear initiated by childhood sexual abuse. I continuously wondered when the next abuse might happen. Living this way, in fear and with trauma lurking in the recesses of my body… [...]
deep tissue massage Just Because It Hurts Doesn’t Make It A “Deep Tissue Massage”. - When you think of a "deep tissue massage" you're typically led to believe that this is going to be an inherently painful experience. This misconception is a widely believed notion. Not only should deep tissue massage NOT be painful, I'm going to tell you that… [...]
tight iliotibial (it) band Yes, Your IT-Band Is Tight…But It Should Be. - The iliotibial band gets a bad rap - and it's not it's fault! It's meant to be tight. There are a bunch of other things though that aren't meant to be and are making your IT band feel tighter. [...]
plantar fasciitis pain Thai Massage & Plantar Fasciitis - Plantar fasciitis is a very common condition that results in pain and in some cases forced immobility due to the level of discomfort. What can we do about it? We're here to talk about the influence a Thai Massage treatment can have on plantar fasciitis. [...]

Student login

Host Us

Press

Copyright © 2021 · Navina.ca