手五里 Shouwuli
“Arm Five Miles” · LI13
Hand Yangming · 13 of 20
Where. On the outer upper arm, four finger-widths above LI11, on the line up to the shoulder.
For. A cramping, aching elbow and arm.
Press. Firm thumb pressure, about a minute each arm.
Shouwuli, the Hand’s Five Li, stands midway up the outer arm on the line joining Quchi and Jianyu, three cun above the elbow hollow. Classical practice reached for it when elbow and arm gripped with spasm, and old records link it to swellings of the neck. This guide walks you to it by touch, then shows how to press it gently and safely.
按 · Press with me
Six slow breaths
About a minute. Press as you breathe out, ease as you breathe in.
鄰 · Neighbouring leaves
Where Shouwuli Sits on the Outer Arm
On the outer aspect of the arm, Shouwuli occupies the line connecting Quchi (LI11) and Jianyu (LI15), three cun above Quchi. Unpacked, the dataset sentence describes an imagined plumb line drawn straight up the outside of the limb, beginning in the hollow at the outer end of the flexed-elbow crease — home turf of Quchi — and ending at the front of the shoulder where Jianyu waits beside the deltoid. Three cun along that climb places Shouwuli roughly a third of the way from elbow to shoulder. A cun, the traditional measuring unit of Chinese point-location, is proportional rather than absolute: lengths taken from the person being examined, with one cun sitting close to the width of your own thumb at its knuckle. Because the yardstick travels on the body itself, the same three cun measures differently on a slight teenager and a broad-shouldered worker, and the point always answers to the body it lives on.
The catalogue records companions along the same ascent, which makes the geography easier to trust. One cun above Quchi sits Zhouliao (LI12) on the border of the humerus; seven cun above Quchi lies Binao (LI14), arriving near the shoulder mass. Shouwuli therefore holds the middle station of this ladder, on the fleshy outer arm where the forearm muscles give way to the upper-arm ones. Under the fingertip the terrain is forgiving: firm muscle bellies rise on either side of the shallow groove that runs toward the shoulder, with the long bone resting deeper still. Nothing delicate rides just beneath the skin here, which is one reason the spot welcomes unhurried self-palpation — though gentleness remains the house style everywhere on these pages.
Reading the point against its neighbours sharpens the placement. If your finger rests low, near the elbow crease itself, you have slipped back into Quchi country; if you feel the rounded shelf where the deltoid takes over the shoulder, you have climbed past Binao almost to Jianyu’s door. The level stretch between them — neither bone nor tendon dominating, the arm quietly widening as it approaches the shoulder — is Shouwuli territory. Locating it as one station among four turns a bare coordinate into a walk you can repeat from memory: start at the elbow hollow, climb the outer arm, and pause a third of the way up.
A Self-Palpation Walkthrough
Begin seated or standing, working arm relaxed and the elbow bent to roughly a right angle, so the outer elbow softens and the crease shows clearly. Find Quchi first: follow the elbow crease outward until it ends in a small hollow at the outer end of the bend — that hollow is your anchor. From there, walk your index and middle fingers straight up the outer arm toward the tip of the shoulder, keeping to the midline of the limb’s flank. Measure three thumb-widths of your own hand upward — thumb pressed edge to edge, three deliberate moves — and settle your fingertips where the third width ends. That spot, on the straight line between the elbow hollow and the front-of-shoulder point, is the location the dataset describes.
A few confirmations help before any pressing begins. Touch feather-light first and compare sides: many people notice a faint, dull awareness at the true point and little sensation a thumb-width away. Check the vertical line-up: the spot should sit directly above the elbow hollow and directly below the shoulder prominence — an honest plumb line down the side of the arm. Then let the forearm rotate slowly while your fingers rest in place; the muscles under the pads should slide and shift around a fixed landmark rather than carrying your fingertip off with them. If the finger keeps sliding forward onto the inner-facing slope or backward onto the triceps bulk, return to the elbow hollow and restart the climb.
Common slips have simple fixes. The most frequent is measuring with somebody else’s thumb or with an abstract ruler length; cun live on the person, so use your own hand against your own arm. Another is trying to cover the distance in one long guess — three separate thumb-steps land far more truly than one leap. A third is searching with a tense arm, which hides the landmarks under guarding muscle; shake the arm loose and begin again. None of this wants force or speed. Two calm minutes usually find the point more surely than ten impatient ones, and once one side is learned, the mirrored search on the other arm comes quickly.
Reading the Name: Five Li of the Hand
The name arrives as three small characters: Shou Wu Li, 手五里. Shou 手 is the hand, standing here for the whole arm-and-hand territory of this channel — the large intestine pathway spends its entire surface journey on the upper limb, so its points wear the hand prefix to mark their ground. Wu 五 is simply five. Li 里 is the richest of the three: an ancient unit of walking distance, and by extension a sense of belonging, the village ward a household calls home. Read plainly, the name says “five li of the hand” — a distance-measure worn as a place-name.
Why five, and measured from where? Classical commentators offered more than one reading, and honesty favours presenting them as readings rather than settling the question on the tradition’s behalf. Some connect the figure to distances along the channel; others treat the number as the kind of symbolic bookkeeping that recurs throughout classical point-names. What is secure is the pairing across the body: the classical atlas also records a Zu Wuli — foot five li — far down on the inner thigh, and the matched names sort the two stations cleanly, one belonging to the arm, one to the leg. Number-and-measure names like this stand alongside the gates, valleys and courtyards of the channel atlas: plain labels that helped students remember where a point stood and what neighbourhood it served.
Pinyin renders the name Shǒuwǔlǐ — all three syllables carry the dipping third tone in dictionary form, though in flowing speech neighbouring third tones lean on one another and the pitch glides naturally. The hanzi 手五里 are easy to hold at a glance: a hand, a small tally meaning five, and the little enclosure character for the village mile. Names like this reward slow reading, because they record how the tradition thought about the body: as landscape, measured in human strides, threaded by channels that turn the limb into a road with named stops. Once the metaphor lands, the point becomes harder to misplace — you are no longer hunting a coordinate but visiting an address you know.
Traditional Indications, Explained
The dataset records two traditional indication groups: spastic pain of the elbow and arm, and cervical scrofula. Take the first on its own terms. Spastic pain in the classical vocabulary is not the dull throb of a bruise but the gripping, cramping kind — the elbow or forearm seizing, clenching, unwilling to lengthen comfortably. Traditional reasoning followed the channel map: the large intestine pathway descends the outer arm precisely through this territory, so when the limb along its course cramped and ached, classical practice traditionally reached for stations along that same road. Shouwuli stood among them, midway up the climb, and complaints of the elbow and arm dominate its recorded portfolio.
Cervical scrofula asks for a longer gloss. In the old records, scrofula named swellings and nodular lumps in the sides of the neck — glandular enlargements that pre-modern medicine grouped under a single heading. Why would an arm point enter that discussion? The classical answer ran along the channel: after climbing the arm and crossing the shoulder, the large intestine pathway continues up the neck toward the jaw and nose, so points along its whole length were drawn into discussions of head-and-neck complaints. That is traditional channel logic, documented here as context. Modern readers should hear the safety note inside it plainly: any unexplained lump or persistent swelling in the neck belongs with a doctor first, whatever else you may choose to consider afterwards.
It bears repeating without varnish: these are the traditional uses recorded in a licensed dataset and discussed in classical literature, offered for cultural and historical understanding. They are not claims that pressing this point treats disease, and nothing here replaces assessment by a qualified clinician. Where modern research touches self-applied pressure at all, reviews suggest effects are modest and heavily dependent on context, and evidence gathered around any single point remains thin. Hold the tradition warmly and hold the boundaries firmly; the two attitudes are not in conflict — together they are the whole craft of reading pages like this well.
Self-Care Acupressure at Home
With the point found by the walkthrough above, set up comfortably: seated is easiest, working arm loose, elbow softly bent so the outer-arm muscles stay quiet. Rest the pads of your index and middle fingers — never the tips, never a knuckle — on the spot. Begin with plain contact for a few slow breaths, then add small, patient circles, letting the skin travel over the tissue beneath rather than grinding against the arm. Aim for a pleasant, spreading dullness or mild warmth; anything sharper means lighten off. A common home rhythm is one to three minutes per side, once or twice daily, swapping arms so both sides receive the same unhurried attention.
Quality outweighs duration every time. Light, regular, well-aimed contact is the whole register of self-acupressure as these pages practise it; hard jabbing teaches the body nothing and risks bruising, especially over muscle that has already worked hard in the garden or the gym. Warm your hands first on cold days — chilled fingers press clumsily, and cold muscle guards. Pair the minute of pressing with something you already do daily: the morning stretch, the afternoon tea, the pause after closing the laptop. Consistency, not intensity, is what self-care traditions actually request, and a habit anchored to an existing ritual survives weeks that good intentions alone do not.
Treat the practice as a short ceremony of attention rather than a treatment session. Over weeks you may notice the outer arm feeling less gripped, or simply come to value the pause itself; perhaps nothing measurable changes except that you spent two minutes looking after your own arm. Every one of those outcomes fits the honest scope of self-acupressure. What does not fit is escalation — pressing harder or longer to force a result, or continuing through pain out of stubbornness. When curiosity pulls toward force, return to gentleness, or set the practice down for the day. The point will still be there tomorrow, five li along the road, exactly where the map left it.
Cautions and Safe Practice
Start with the record itself: the licensed dataset registers no special cautions for this point, and this module echoes that empty list faithfully. But no caution recorded is not the same as no limits existing. The general rules that govern all self-directed acupressure apply here in full, and the mid-arm setting adds one courtesy of its own: the outer arm of keen cooks, climbers, desk workers and parents carries muscle that labours daily and deserves the same patience as anywhere else on the body.
Practical boundaries, plainly stated. Keep contact light and strictly at the surface; finger pads only, no tools, devices, elbows or knuckles. Skip the point entirely over broken, irritated or bruised skin, and never press on any lump, swelling or enlarged gland wherever you find one — including the neck swellings the classical record mentions, which belong on a clinician’s examination table, not under a fingertip. Stop at once on sharp, electric or radiating sensation, and leave the point alone for the rest of the day. Anyone pregnant, or living with a condition affecting the nerves or circulation of the arms, should ask a qualified practitioner before adding new point work; the same invitation extends to anyone unsure whether their situation suits self-care at all.
And the wider frame stands over everything. This page is educational; acupressure is self-care, not diagnosis and not therapy. Seek proper medical care — not a longer pressing session — for elbow or arm pain that persists beyond a couple of weeks, follows an injury, arrives with numbness or weakness, or worsens steadily; the same promptness applies to any neck swelling, fever, or symptom that frightens you. Persistent complaints belong with a licensed practitioner, Western or East Asian medical as the complaint suggests. The safest gift this modest midpoint offers most people is a better acquaintance with their own arm, treated kindly and kept within bounds.
Self-care limits
Frequently asked
- How do I find Shouwuli if cun measurements mean nothing to me?
- Anchor on the elbow hollow. Bend the elbow, find the hollow at the outer end of the crease — Quchi’s home — then walk your own thumb up the outer arm three times, edge to edge. Where the third thumb-width ends, on the straight line toward the front of the shoulder, is the spot the dataset describes. The cun system simply writes that thumb-walk in proportional language.
- Is it safe to press this point on myself?
- For healthy adults, gentle surface pressure with the finger pads is generally reasonable self-care here, and the dataset records no special cautions for the point. Reasonable is not unlimited: keep it light, skip broken skin, avoid any lump or swelling entirely, and treat sharp or radiating sensation as an immediate stop signal. Persistent pain or any worrying symptom goes to a professional, not to a firmer thumb.
- What did classical practice use Shouwuli for?
- The traditional record lists spastic pain of the elbow and arm — cramping, gripping discomfort along the outer limb — and cervical scrofula, the old heading for nodular neck swellings. Channel logic ties both to the large intestine pathway, which travels the outer arm and climbs toward the jaw. These are traditional frameworks recorded for context, not modern treatment claims.
- Why would an arm point appear in discussions of neck problems?
- Because the channel map connects them. Classical texts describe the large intestine pathway rising from the hand along the outer arm, crossing the shoulder, and travelling up the neck toward the jaw and nose. Within that geography, practitioners read complaints along the road alongside stations along the whole route — so an arm midpoint entered conversations about the neck. It is traditional reasoning: interesting as history, unproven as mechanism.
- When should I stop self-care and see a practitioner instead?
- Promptly, for any unexplained neck lump, fever, or swelling that keeps growing — those need medical eyes, not massage. Give the same promptness to arm or elbow pain that follows an injury, brings numbness, tingling or weakness, or refuses to settle after a couple of weeks. Self-acupressure is a comfort practice layered on top of ordinary good sense; it never replaces diagnosis.
Sources
- 01WHO Standard Acupuncture Point Locations in the Western Pacific Region (2008), World Health Organization — nomenclature conventions.
- 02A Manual of Acupuncture, Peter Deadman, Mazin Al-Khafaji and Kevin Baker — point-name tradition and channel context.
- 03aijiu-mpvue (MIT License) licensed dataset, entry for LI13 Shouwuli — location, actions, and indication record.
Last reviewed
牌記This leaf, for machines
Old books ended with a colophon saying who printed them. Every leaf here carries the same facts as structured data for agents and search, with no layout in the way.
- GET /en/points/li13/leaf.json
- GET /zh-hant/points/li13/leaf.json
- GET /zh-cn/points/li13/leaf.json
- /llms.txt — the index of every leaf
- JSON-LD in the page: MedicalWebPage, MedicalEntity and FAQPage
{
"id": "LI13",
"name": {
"en": "Shouwuli",
"gloss": "Arm Five Miles",
"zh-Hant": "手五里",
"zh-Hans": "手五里"
},
"channel": {
"id": "LI",
"order": 13,
"of": 20
},
"location": {
"text": "On the outer upper arm, four finger-widths above LI11, on the line up to the shoulder."
},
"for": [
"A cramping",
"aching elbow and arm"
],
"press": {
"text": "Firm thumb pressure, about a minute each arm.",
"seconds": 60,
"sides": "both"
},
"cautions": [],
"url": "https://acupoints.com/en/points/li13",
"lastReviewed": "2026-08-24"
}