Rhomboid muscles?

[kcfman]

I had a cramp in the Rhomboid muscles that affected my lats, traps, deltoid and tricep muscles. I never had that before(ever) in my life. I was wondering if anyone knew what the function of the rhomboid muscles were?

[Curly Howard]

RHOMBOID MUSCLE

Definition: [n] any of several muscles of the upper back that help move the shoulder blade

GREATER RHOMBOID MUSCLE

Definition: [n] rhomboid muscle that draws the scapula toward the spinal column


To understand the role and significance of rhomboid (rho), is to grasp development in a microcosm. rhomboid is involved at the very earliest stage in morphogenesis, prior to fertilization, when the dorsoventral axis in the oocyte is determined. Rho protein is detected on the apical surface of dorsal-anterior follicle cells during stage 9, and in egg chambers during stage 10. rho expression correlates with the function of gurken and the Epidermal growth factor receptor. Interference with rho function results in ventralization of the embryo. Thus rho is required maternally in conjunction with gurken and Egf-r for the induction of dorso-ventral polarity. In this case Rhomboid seems to function in cells receiving the Gurken signal, that is in cells bearing the Egf-r (Ruohola-Baker, 1993).

The polytopic membrane protein Rhomboid-1 promotes the cleavage of the membrane-anchored TGFalpha-like growth factor Spitz, allowing it to activate the Drosophila EGF receptor. Until now, the mechanism of this key signaling regulator has remained obscure, but this analysis suggests that Rhomboid-1 is a novel intramembrane serine protease that directly cleaves Spitz. In accordance with the putative Rhomboid active site being in the membrane bilayer, Spitz is cleaved within its transmembrane domain, and thus is the first example of a growth factor activated by regulated intramembrane proteolysis. Rhomboid-1 is conserved throughout evolution from archaea to humans, and these results show that a human Rhomboid promotes Spitz cleavage by a similar mechanism. This growth factor activation mechanism may therefore be widespread (Urban, 2001).

[TheMachine]

I'm no expert but the rhomboids are worked during scapular adduction and also during scapular depression. In short, most back exercises and they also stabilize in many delt exercises.