Our hands connect us to the world. It’s how we experience the world, feel people and manipulate things. The radius is connected to the hand, so it’s connected to the world too. The ulna is connected to us. The interface between the radius and the ulna is called the forearms. They are like no man’s land. It’s a zone that’s neither us nor them and we are feeling across it constantly - I heard Til Luchau say this in an advanced myofascial course. He heard it from a Rolfer named Hubert Godard.

Look at how the radius bone connects to the wrist and hand. See how thick it is? Like I mentioned in the pelvis post on February 4th, thick bones bear weight. When you put weight on your hands, the radius takes it on first. Follow the radius up to the elbow and you’ll see the ulna is now the thicker bone. The tissue that connects these two bones is called the interosseous membrane. It transfers weight across the radius to the ulna into the stable part of the elbow.

The interosseous membrane isn’t shown here, but you can imagine.

This transfer of weight between the two bones allows the forearm to rotate and maintain its adaptability during weight bearing activities. Can you imagine how different we would move if it were any other way? Tensegrity at its finest folks!

Now that we have a decent understanding of the forearm, let’s look at how it connects to the wrist.