Thank you for joining me again this evening for our nightly podcasts. I perform these podcasts in the hopes that you will be able to education yourself on the topics discussed so you can make better informed medical decisions regarding your health in the future. I am doctor Harrison Campbell of Restoration Health a premier sugar land chiropractors office. Previously we discussed the hand or more accurately the importance of each finer. Tonight, we will be discussing the muscles of the hand.
The first distinction we need to make for the muscles of the hand is the muscle groups. We have previously used the term flexors and extensors when describing muscles. The hand will be no different. We have the flexors group of muscles which reside on the anterior forearm, the side the palms of the hand are facing and we have the extensors on the posterior forearm or the side the back of the hand is facing. This might seem strange, but as sugar land chiropractors know there are very few muscles which control the hands or digits that are in the actual hand.
Let us first look at the flexor group of muscles. Most of these muscles originate from what sugar land chiropractors call the common flexor tendon. Now this is not a single tendon, but a group of tendons which comes from the medial epicondyle on the humerus, which if you remember is the main bone of the upper arm. Now the muscles which form this common flexor tendon have a few different function depending on how far down the muscle runs. What I mean by this is if the muscle passes the wrist but does not extend down to the digits it will affect the wrist. If the muscle runs down to the digits depending on how far down the digit it runs will depend on which part of the finger it flexes.
For the finger flexors specifically there are two primary muscles which we need to concern ourselves with. These are the flexor digitorum and the flexor digitorum profundus. If we break down the names we have flexor which implies the muscle flexes something. We have digitorum which is the Latin term for fingers and where we get the term digit. Finally we have the term profundus for the second muscle which means deep. The reason this is important as sugar land chiropractors know, is the flexor digitorum profundus is the deep muscle of the forearm and this particular muscle runs all the way to the finger tips. This is the muscle which flexes the finger tips, not the fingers, but the finger tips. The flexor digitorum is more superficial than the flexor digitorum profundus and this muscle only goes part way down the finger. This flexes the main art of the finger.
There are also specific muscles which flex the thumb. These follow a similar naming format as the finger flexors. The flexor pollicis longus and brevis. To break down these muscle names we again have flexor. Pollicis means thumb, and the longus means long and brevis means short. Therefore, the flexor pollicis longus runs all the way to the tip of the thumb while the flexor pollicis brevis runs part way down the thumb. As you can see by having more than a single muscle control the fingers we can have more functionality than a single bone moving for them.
Now there are additional muscles on the flexor side of the forearm, but lets switch to cover the main muscles for the extensor side as well. If we have time, we will fill in the gaps for the other muscles.
Similar to the flexors having the common flexor tendon there is a common extensor tendon. This tendon as sugar land chiropractors know runs from the lateral epicondyle of the humerus to different part of the wrist and or hand depending on the function. This tendon is also the major issue with people suffering from elbow pain from overuse injuries. I am sure you have seen someone with the band wrapped around their upper forearm when they have tendinitis. For sugar land chiropractors this condition is called lateral epicondylitis, and what the band is doing is applying pressure to the tendon which eliminates the pull on the tendon at the epicondyle allowing it to heal.
The extensor tendons are named differently than the flexors. We have the extensor carpi radialis longus and brevis. We have the extensor digitorum longus and brevis. We also have the extensor carpi ulnaris as well the the extensor pollicis longus and brevis. Now the longus and brevis in these terms means the same thing as the longus and brevis for the flexors of the thumb. The main difference here is the terms carpi, radialis, and ulnaris.
For sugar land chiropractors the term carpi refers to the carpal bones of the wrist. This means these muscles extend the wrist. There are flexor carpi muscles which we did not discuss. Now the term radialis and ulnaris refer to the bones of the forearm, the radius and the ulna if you recall our discussion of the forearm. These terms locate which side of the forearm they are on. This means the muscle called extensor carpi ulnaris is located on the ulna side of the forearm.
Now unlike the flexors there are virtually no muscles outside of the extensors in the forearm which affect the hand or wrists. To sugar land chiropractors this makes since as we have much more control with the palmar side of our hands than the backside of our hands.
Thank you for joining me again this evening for another great podcast. I hope you enjoyed the discussion on the musculature of the hand. As always should you or someone you know require a sugar land chiropractors services or simply have more questions on what was discussed please call Restoration Health today. We would love to schedule you an appointment and get you on the path to better health today. Thank you once again for joining us. Have a good night.