SaveYourself.ca helps you solve pain problems

published 6/23/04, updated 5/02/06

Massage Therapy for Your Pectorals

Perfect Spot No. 9, in the pectoralis major muscle of the chest

by Paul Ingraham, Vancouver, Canada MORE

Credentials and qualifications

I am a writer and retired Registered Massage Therapist (unusually well-trained for a massage therapist, a 3000-hour program). I’m almost done with a Bachelor of Health Sciences degree. I am a peer reviewer for The Natural Standard, and a copyeditor for Science-Based Medicine. My most important qualification is more than a decade of workaholic post-graduate study, clinical experience, and constant conversations with readers from around the world, including many experts who have provided countless suggestions and criticisms.

For more information, see: Who Am I to Say? More information about my qualifications, credentials and professional experiences for my readers and customers.


Trigger points (muscle knots) are the world’s most common cause of aches and pains. The Perfect Spots series of articles teaches you how to self massage the most satisfying and therapeutically significant places on the human body to apply pressure. Each Perfect Spot article focuses on a specific location. For a complete, advanced tutorial that walks you through every possible self-treatment option for muscle pain, see Save Yourself from Trigger Points & Myofascial Pain Syndrome!

The “pecs” are popular muscles. Of the 700+ muscles1 in the human body, pectoralis major is one of the dozen or so that most people can name and point to. It also harbours one of the most inevitable and significant — yet little known — trigger points in the human body.

Pectoralis major covers the entire top half of your chest. It is mostly an arm mover, although it also stabilizes the joint between your sternum and collar bone. Specifically, it is the hugging muscle: it powerfully pulls and rotates the arms towards the center of your body. Like all the big flexors, it’s incredibly strong. The pectoralis major is so large, spreading out like a fan across the entire chest, that no matter what position the shoulder is in, the pectoralis major can do its job with at least some of its fibers.

(Pectoralis minor, by the way, is quite a different muscle. As its name suggest, it is much smaller. It is completely covered by the pectoralis major, and does not move the arm at all!)

The pectoralis major is also, interestingly, one of the only muscles in the human body that is almost always much larger in men than it is in women, which accounts for much of the difference in upper body strength between the genders. I’ve massaged thousands of people, and even the strongest women usually have relatively thin pectoralis major muscles. Regardless, Perfect Spot No. 9 is a good massage location for both men and women.

No. 9 is easy to find by feel, because it is on the edge of a distinctive pocket or hollow directly underneath your collarbone. The pocket is a small, umuscled space between the deltoid and the pectoralis major. If you explore right below your collarbone, it is easy to find the soft spot between these two large muscles. Once you’ve found it, press towards the sternum against the edge of the hollow — that’s pectoralis major you’re pressing — and you’ve found Perfect Spot No. 9.

Thumb pressure is often adequate to stimulate this spot, but many people — especially men, with their larger pectorals — may need knuckles or even an elbow to get a clear signal.

Pressure on Spot No. 9 tends to relieve that uncomfortable sense of constriction and stagnancy in the chest.

This spot feels good because the pectoralis major is partly responsible for the common problem of a collapsed chest, the shoulders rolled forward and inward. Almost everyone feels tight in the chest because of this, particularly people who work with computers routinely. Pressure on Spot No. 9 tends to relieve that uncomfortable sense of constriction and stagnancy in the chest, creating a sense of having more space to breathe in, which is quite pleasant.

Although No. 9 is a specific spot on the edge of the pectoralis major, it’s also quite effective to use the big knuckles to massage the entire space underneath the clavicle. You would need some oil or lotion for this, of course, and it’s best to glide towards the centre, catching Spot No. 9 along the way.

Bonus pectoralis major tip

A lot of men would like to have better developed pectoralis major muscles for aesthetic reasons, because “huge pecs” are pretty much definitive of a masculine appearance. Unfortunately, few men understand which exercises will achieve this effect! The confusion arises from the fact that the bottom half of the pectoralis major has some different function than the top half. To define the pectoralis major, you primarily need to exercise the bottom half of the muscle. While all pectoralis major fibres adduct and internally rotate the shoulder, only the lower fibres extend the shoulder. Therefore, the best pectoralis major training include some resistance to shoulder extension. Those exercises are:

Note that standard wide-position push ups are a good general pectoralis major exercise, but do not isolate any part of the pectoralis major.


Further Reading

All The Perfect Spots for Trigger Point Massage

Choose your
perfect spot!

Or, for general information and advanced tips about trigger point therapy, see Save Yourself from Trigger Points!

and …


Return to top of page

Is trigger point therapy too good to be true?

Trigger point therapy isn’t too good to be true: it’s just ordinary good. It can relieve some pain cheaply and safely in many cases. The existence of trigger points is not controversial. You can measure their electrical activity, take samples of their highly acidic tissue chemistry, and now a new MRI-like technology can now show them as well.

The Perfect Spots are based on a decade of my own clinical experience, and on the research and writing of Drs. Janet Travell and David Simons, pioneers of myofascial pain syndrome research. They produced “the Big Red Books” (a massive pair of texts).

Trigger points are clinically significant, but unfortunately obscure. As Dr. Simons wrote, “Muscle is an orphan organ. No medical speciality claims it.”

Notes

  1. See How Many Muscles? Return to text.
  2. Signorile et al. Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research. 2002. Return to text.