Treatment of the antebrachial fascia according to Ida Rolf
Patient Lying supine, both legs flexed, arms resting next to the torso.
Therapist Standing at the level of the patient’s upper arm.
Contact With the fingertips of one hand below the medial epicondyle and surrounding the medial edge of the ulna.
At the same time, with the fingertips of the other hand alternating on the surrounding fascial layer of various
extensors.
Action We surround the ulna from the medial direction by reaching through the fascia of the forearm and the
aponeurosis of the biceps brachii into the flexor carpi ulnaris. Figuratively speaking, we anchor our fingertips deep
in the tissue like a flexible hook. With our other hand, we also use our fingertips to make contact with the layer of
fascia surrounding the level of the midsection of the brachioradialis. While we are then pushing the tissue of the
ulna, i.e. the flexors in the elbow joint, strongly in the cranial direction, we stretch the fascial layer of the extensors
farther into extension. While the contact in the region of the flexors remains the same, the strong contact in the
region of the extensors ranges from the brachioradialis to the extensor carpi radialis longus and brevis.
In order to achieve a truly three-dimensional deep effect on the fascial network in the entire area of the forearm, it is
helpful to enlist the aid of the flexion and extension movements. While we maintain an “anchor” point in the flexors
and actively stretch the layers of the extensors, we ask the patient first to extend the hand flatly along the treatment
surface, then to stretch the fingers up toward the ceiling, and finally to allow the hand to follow the fingers in the
stretch. In the countermovement, the palm returns first from the extension and then the fingers follow. Then we ask
the patient to slowly make a fist and then open the fist again.
The patient’s active movement allows us access to very different areas of the fascial network. In so doing, we take
into account that there are three fascial chambers in the forearm: one for the ventral muscle group of the extensors,
one for the dorsal group of the flexors, and finally one for the group that is displaced in the ventral direction and
innervated by the radial nerve, and which has an intermediate position between the flexors and extensors. Contact by
the therapist with both hands is strongly maintained on the flexor side, while the therapist’s fingertips very slowly
slide in the fascia of the extensors.