Today, we’re going to be looking a little bit at the liver channel. In particular, we’re going to look at the internal pathway, talk a little bit about some of the anatomy, and we’re going to then look at a therapeutic exercise that’ll help work rotation, liver channel primarily,
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Thanks for tuning in today. I’m Brian Lau. I’m with Jingjin Movement Training. I also teach with Sports Medicine Acupuncture certification program. I want to thank American Acupuncture Council for having me back. Today, we’re going to be looking a little bit at the liver channel. In particular, we’re going to look at the internal pathway, talk a little bit about some of the anatomy, and we’re going to then look at a therapeutic exercise that’ll help work rotation, liver channel primarily, but really all of the Jueyin channels and the Xiaoyang channels.
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That would also include, obviously, gallbladder, Sanjiao, pericardium, and liver, but we’ll highlight the liver channel, that’ll be the focus of the webinar. So let’s go ahead and go to the PowerPoint, and we’ll jump into some anatomy, and then we’ll look at a movement that will work some of this anatomy.
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So this image right here is showing my interpretation of the liver sinew channel. We’ll maybe talk a little bit about the sinews, but I want to go into the next slide, and we’ll go right into the liver channel itself. So many of you are familiar with this image from Dedman’s Manual of Acupuncture, or you’re familiar with other images possibly.
So just to highlight the internal pathway here we have the external pathway, acupuncturists are all very familiar with that, probably familiar with the internal pathway, but the external pathway, we have points. So we have a little better sense of the anatomy. Liver 13 would be actually a motor point, motor innervation for the external obliques.
Liver 14 would also be on the region of the external obliques, more at the attachment site. But let’s look at this little internal pathway. and discuss some of the potential anatomy for that. These internal pathways can be a little bit more vague. So I’m going to go to an image, a couple images actually from Netter’s Atlas of Anatomy, fantastic anatomy atlas.
So in Netter’s Atlas, here we have inside the abdominal cavity. So peritoneum’s removed. What we’re seeing is the liver reflected back. So you can see the little hook here, grabbing the liver, pulling the liver back. And what they’re trying to highlight. What Nutter is highlighting in this image is the lesser omentum between the liver and the stomach.
It’s a ligament that holds the liver to the stomach, allows for a particular amount of movement, but keeps some positioning of those organs intact. So I see that this lesser omentum is part of that internal pathway of the liver. Topography wise, it makes sense. It matches the topography fine, but if you open up in dissection and go inside of that Lesser Omentum, then I think it really gives a clear indication or at least a hint at what Deliver Channel is all about.
And that’s what we’re looking at here. We have the contents of the Lesser Omentum. We have the Hepatic vein, we have the portal vein, and then we also have what I think is really important to understanding the liver pathway and the liver channel itself, is we have a branch of the vagus nerve. In my view, and probably others the liver, Being a general, directing where the blood goes, is really about autonomic nervous system functioning.
Particularly, you could argue that it’s about the parasympathetic rest and digest portion of the autonomic nervous system. Very active at night, the blood returns to the liver at night, it returns to all these vessels inside the liver, these capacitance vessels that holds and stores a whole lot of blood.
Blood moves very slowly through that, they’re more full. At night, when we’re not moving, it’s more under the control of the parasympathetic nervous system. But it’s also really autonomic nervous system regulation, telling the body to give blood to the digestive organs, or do I want to give blood to the skeletal muscles because I’m out playing football or doing martial arts or something like that?
It’s where am I in my phase of activity? So it’s really about regulation between those. Now, we think of the liver oftentimes from pathology, which is more sympathetic overload, but in its health and most obvious function, it’s really more about that rest and digest, the most yin, the quietest portion of the nervous system.
And lo and behold, inside this lesser omentum, we have the branch of the vagus nerve. I would posit that this gives us a hint that internal pathway is following the vagus nerve or has something to do with the vagus nerve. I’m not saying it’s necessarily the entirety of the pathway, but it has something to do with that pathway.
So we’re going to look at a movement in a little bit, and I want to be able to move this region, or at least over time of practice of this movement. I want that to move the liver. and move the liver in relationship to the stomach to be able to exercise the contents in the lesser omentum. So just a real brief summary of movement of the liver.
The liver itself has movement in context of these ligamentous structures like the lesser omentum, in context with the diaphragm, of course, also. So the liver moves in the frontal plane. It moves up and down, follow, I’m gonna turn it over to Jim to talk about the the BAPT program.
The original BAPT program was designed in response to the COVID 19 pandemic to provide a way for the medical population to provide the needs of their bystanders to provide the necessary medical care. back and forth. We’ll look at that when I’m standing in a bit. And then it kind of moves in the sagittal plane, a tucking under type motion and a tilting motion.
So those are the motions we’re going to be really highlighting in this rotation exercise. So if you’re doing rotation and you’re letting that rotation wind through the body, it’s going to start to mobilize the liver, mobilize structures like the lesser momentum, and it’ll really complement Both for your own health, but if you’re treating patients and giving them exercises, it’ll really complement any treatments you’re doing for the liver channel, whether it’s musculoskeletal or internal type work, it’s good to have them be able to exercise these internal portions of the channels.
All right. So when we’re doing these rotations, like I mentioned, it’s sometimes you have movements that work a channel, but by and large, functional movements. We’re looking at networks, and when we’re looking at side bending and rotation, we’re looking at the Zhui Yin, Xiao Yang network. So all of these channels have something to do with rotation, and if that rotation is going through the pelvis, through the spine, through the shoulder girdle then we’re having both the arm channels and the leg channels of these Zhui Yin and Xiao Yang channels exercised.
So it’s really more of a functional network that we’re going to be exercising, but I’m highlighting the internal pathway of the liver channel. So just a couple images here, all of these are showing some aspect of either rotation or side bending with the exception of the middle image, which is really more about extension.
I put this one in here for a particular reason, because even when we’re doing activities like Tai Chi, like this is showing push hands or Tai Chi movement we’re stabilizing the lateral side of the body and the medial sides of the body. So to be able to have this nice posture and express the strength that would come from engaging the back and pushing forward we need to be stable, as the weight drops into the front leg, we don’t want that front, in this case, the left hip to rock up, or we don’t want the other hip to rock down.
We want to have a certain amount of stability from side to side. So this one is using the stabilizers and it is using this Joanne Xiaoyang Network. But to do it, it’s not an active movement that you see like you do in this gymnastics ring movement where you can see an obvious side bending or any of these rotational type movements.
So that’s why I put that one in there, but all of them feature some aspect of rotation or side bending, all featuring that Zhui Yin Shao Yong network. So we’re going to be looking at some pelvic movement, so using the liver channel, at least the sinews, pectineus would be one of those muscles, using the Shao Yong channels, piriformis and the lateral hip rotators.
To create and guide rotation of the pelvis, we’re going to be using the external obliques on the liver channel to help with torso rotation. Internal pathway of the, or at least internal portions of the liver sinew channel, QL, and the psoas will be active. Pericardium channel creates a sling around the body, that’s going to be active.
So really gallbladder channel is going to be active. We’re using those channels primarily, but I want to come back to that idea of exercising the internal pathway to complement treatments or to complement and help our own health. So this is showing some of the complex movements that happen between the two sides of the innominate bone, the pelvic bones.
Those also, when you’re walking, they’re going through a rotational type movement. And this is from a study that kind of highlighted those movements. We don’t need to get in the weeds with that. That’s very complex. That could be its own 20 minutes. Might not even be enough time, but its own its own webinar.
But just to highlight that when we’re doing types of movements like walking or turning, that there’s a discrepancy from side to side as one side does something, the other side does something different, we’ll look at that when I’m standing. All right, and that’s an image highlighting some of the, not just the pelvic movement, but how what happens in the pelvis relates to what happens in the ribcage.
So you can see in this boy running, the pelvis has a rotational and twisting type motion. The rib cage in this case has an opposing opposite action. So what’s happening on the right side of the pelvis is mirrored on the left side of the rib cage, but sometimes you can do rotation and have it mirrored on the same side.
The important thing to highlight is that lower rib cage and where the liver is, where the diaphragm is going to relate. It’s going to respond to what’s happening in the pelvis. So when we’re doing this rotation exercise. I want to look at how that winds from the pelvis up into the lower rib cage out into the shoulder girdle.
If you want to learn more about this, you can check out my YouTube channel. I have a lot of movement from a channel perspective movement exercises on there, Tai Chi, Qi Gong, some other types of calisthenic exercises, all from the lens of the channel perspectives, looking at it from the channel movements.
It’s called Jing Jin Movement Training. You can also check out my Instagram page. There’s a link or at least a QR code for each of those. All right, so I’m going to step back and we’re going to start looking at some of the exercises now. So I’ll get a little more back so you can see me more fully.
Let me just get something else out of the way. All right, so this is one exercise that I use a lot for myself. I give to patients also. It’s going to highlight that rotation in the pelvic girdle. It’s going to highlight that rotation In the lower rib cage, it’s going to highlight that rotation in the shoulder girdle, almost like a towel that’s being wrung out.
I want to have a wringing type motion that works throughout the whole body, so I can exercise that entire channel. I want to start with my stance about shoulder width. Maybe almost pelvis would be a really, a good marker. Maybe the outside of my pelvis could almost fit to the inside of my feet. So about a pelvic width stance would be good.
You can make it a little narrower, you can make it a little wider, but somewhere, I don’t want it to be super wide in this particular exercise. So somewhere about pelvis width, right? So I’m going to start with just a pelvis, so you can highlight that. I’m going to put my hands on my ASIS. This is not the motion, I just want to set the stage for it.
And I want to turn. Just to about 45, turn. As I turn, the pelvis is going to pull on the thighs, so there might be a little rotation, but I don’t want to lose form in my thighs. I don’t want my knees to cave in. I want to keep a certain amount of architecture in the knees. It’s okay if the legs move, it’s okay if the knees move a little bit, but I want to keep somewhat of an openness between the two knees.
I’m just turning, almost as if I’m a playing card at this point. So my ASIS facing 45, my shoulders are facing 45. So I’m not really moving yet in the torso, I’m just moving the pelvis. So even from the get go, there’s a little bit of movement in the pelvis. One side pulls back into a posterior tilt. One side moves into an anterior tilt.
You don’t have to do that. Should just happen once the pelvis loosens up. If you’re working with patients, sometimes they’re stiff and that has to take some time to manifest. But if they’re just getting a genital turn, they’re starting to exercise that movement from side to side, that contralateral movement of the pelvis.
All right, next phase, once I turn 45, I want to continue to turn, pulling through with the rib cage. So pelvis goes, Ribcage continues, as if I’m bringing my chest towards the side wall. Okay, so now let’s look at the full movement with that in mind. One arm up, one hand down, turn,
open the chest. So this hand pulls back to the tailbone.
Relax the torso, turn, open the chest. Relax the torso, turn, open the chest. Real briefly, I’m going to turn to the side so you can see from a different angle. So as I turn This hand, I want to let it pull back, turn my chest. So my chest is almost facing forward now. That’s going to depend on flexibility. I don’t want to torque myself past where I can comfortably move, but that’s the idea is I want to turn past where my pelvis can turn, open the chest, shoulder girdle moves,
soft, gentle. It’s not a real big deal with this exercise, but it can be very useful to do on a regular basis.
Okay. So facing forward again. I want to highlight a couple more things, and then maybe show it, and then I think we’ll be good. So as I turn, opening the chest, it’s as if somebody’s reaching through, pulling, So I want to turn fully to where this area moves. When I come to the other side, turn, move. So I want that whole lower ribcage to pull through so somebody’s reaching through.
See if you can see that as I’m doing the motion.
Might help with it is it might seem like there’s a little bit of a stand up at the end. Chest is bowed and soft. As I turn through, I get taller. Turn, move. Get taller, turn, get taller. So that getting taller is where you start working the lower rib cage and start working the internal pathway of the liver channel.
So that’s it. It’s a simple exercise. I want to get a full turn, but I don’t want to tense my body up and make a big to do with it. I’m just turning the hips, turning and opening the chest. That’s going to help my shoulder girdle open and just the gentle Once I get comfortable with it, then I can speed it up a little bit if I want to go faster.
But I would start small and start slow and get the pathway. Down, get the feeling down before trying to add speed.
I will get a video up on my channel for this. I might go from different angles, you can see it a little bit more. But I think from just that, it’s something to get started with. This is an easy exercise, easy for patients to do. It’s a little bit of coordination with it. It can take a little practice for people a little guidance.
You just want to watch them and see that they’re doing it in a very balanced way. But it offers a lot without too much difficulty, so I think it’s very applicable for a lot of people. You can do it seated also. Just keep in mind when you’re seated that you wouldn’t have access to as much turning of the pelvis.
So if I, if this area was fixed, I wouldn’t want to pull myself around. I wouldn’t want to pull my shoulder girdle around. You get the movement. I would still want it to be small ribcage turning in relationship to the pelvis so you don’t have as far to go in a chair, but it is applicable, it is something you can modify into a seated position.
It’s a good chance to work the liver channel, and it’s helpful for a lot of musculoskeletal, back pain, that kind of stuff, but really anything that’s involving that channel. Yeah. Thanks to American Acupuncture Council. It’s really enjoyable for me to come out and show some of these exercises, look at the pathways, to get a chance for us to feel movement in those channels.
And maybe we’ll check out side bending next time in the next webinar, and we’ll go over some some applications for patient exercises there for your own therapeutic benefit. So thanks again, and I look forward to seeing you guys next time.