Ruth Werner's Page

Hi, Ruth. 

The 4th edition of your textbook gave me a good grounding in pathology for massage textbooks.  Thank you for providing students with such a great resource. 

I have a question I am having trouble finding an answer to, however.  A new client, treated yesterday, presented with a severely rounded ribcage.  When prone with his shoulders flat on the table, his ribcage is round as a beer keg, inches higher than his shoulders and his scapula.  Other than a trigger point in serratus posterior superior, and another in one teres minor, no pain is involved. 

At 60 after a lifetime of sedentary living, he has been training with the weights and is dieting.  He does several sets of barbell bench presses twice per week; his pec major were slightly hypertonic, his anterior delts were not well developed and his rear delts were almost nonexistent.  I advised him to begin (cautioning against overwork) working rear delts and rhomboids, etc. 

I know how to treat rounded shoulders. But this rounded ribcage seems degrees worse than that.  Might this be a symptom of a potentially serious medical condition? Your advice?