The Interossei, Lumbricales and Abductor digiti minimi are muscles of your hand and often trigger pain when they are tense or carry trigger points.
However, you can do something about these muscular problems. You can eliminate them with a self-massage.
I’ll show you how to do it on this page. You will also learn …
Please don’t be afraid of the Latin muscle names. They sound a bit confusing at first, but you will quickly feel familiar with them.
Furthermore, it is not important to know these names or to be able to pronounce them. It’s more about being able to massage them, and that’s exactly what I’m teaching you on this page!
It’s worth staying on this page!
The interosseous muscles can be divided into posterior (dorsal) and anterior (palmar) parts.
However, the pains triggered are largely identical.
The first two interossei (between thumb and index finger) can cause pain in the following places of the hand.
Note: If you have pain in your palm, you should also look at the Palmaris longus. This muscle is almost always involved in such pain, if it is muscular in nature.
The interossei and lumbricales between the other four fingers have almost identical pain zones, so I won’t distinguish them.
Pain caused by trigger points in these muscles always occurs on the side of the finger to which they are attached.
Trigger points in the Abductor digiti minimi can cause pain on the upper and outer side of the little finger.
Besides the pain, trigger points in the muscles can lead to stiff fingers and disturb (fine) motor function of the hand. This means that you may have problems with …
Your finger joints can also hurt. In this case, the pain does not originate from the joint but from the muscle.
Simply put, the Interossei and Lumbricales lie between your metacarpal bones.
The Abductor digiti minimi lies on the outside of your hand.
Interossei & Lumbricales
Abductor digiti minimi
The functional interaction of these muscles is complicated. Therefore, I list only the individual functions of these muscles.
This is enough for your basic understanding, which is why we are content with it.
The interossei bend the base joints of the fingers and stretch the distal finger joints. They also spread the fingers apart and press them against each other. Last but not least, they rotate your fingers to a small extent.
Neutral position
Flexion or flexion in the metacarpophalangeal joint of the finger
Spreading the fingers
The lumbricales bend the metacarpophalangeal joints while simultaneously stretching the distal joints of the hand.
This muscle spreads the little finger away (abduction) from the hand.
Trigger points in these muscles are mainly caused by active overload.
These can be found above all in sports or during strenuous work.
All activities in which you exercise a strong pincer grip or perform such a grip repetitively can overload these muscles.
Some examples:
To feel the muscles, you need to feel different areas.
Feel the metacarpal bones on the back of your hand.
Use your thumb and index finger to grasp the area between these bones.
Bend your fingers at the metacarpophalangeal joint.
Also try to feel the course of the muscle, from your little finger down to your wrist.
For the self-massage you can use your fingers or a very small massage ball. The Massage with a ball has the advantage that you will protect your fingers and that you can massage yourself longer and more often.
In addition, a very intensive work is possible without tiring your fingers.
As a massage technique you can use the following techniques:
On this page I show you the precise massage strokes with the fingers.
