上巨虛 Shangjuxu
“Upper Great Hollow” · ST37
Foot Yangming · 37 of 45 · lower-he-sea of the large intestine
Where. Eight finger-widths below the kneecap, one finger out from the shin.
For. Belly ache, loose stools, constipation.
Press. Firm thumb pressure, about a minute each leg.
上廉二穴，一名上巨虛，在三里下三寸，當舉足取之按 · Press with me
Six slow breaths
About a minute. Press as you breathe out, ease as you breathe in.
鄰 · Neighbouring leaves
Where Shangjuxu Sits on the Shin
This station stands partway along the stomach channel’s long road, which the meridian registry summarises as running down the front of the body from the face to the second toe. Its address comes in the dataset’s own words: on the anterolateral aspect of the lower leg, six cun below Dubi (ST35), one finger-breadth lateral to the anterior crest of the tibia. Unpacked, anterolateral means the front-outer slope of the shin — the territory caught between the sharp front ridge of the larger shin bone and the muscular bulk toward the outer edge of the leg. Dubi is the measuring zero: its own record places it in the lateral depression between the kneecap and the strong cord running to the shin, the spot many people know as the outer knee eye. Six cun straight down from there is Shangjuxu; the same position reads as three cun below Zusanli (ST36), the famous station above it.
A cun, as everywhere on these pages, is the proportional unit of traditional location — about one thumb-width of the person being examined — so absolute distances vary from body to body even though the landmarks hold steady. Under the fingertips the terrain is generous. Skin and a thin layer of fascia give onto the tibialis anterior, the strap of muscle along the outer-front of the shin that lifts the top of the foot; draw your toes upward and it rises plainly under your palm. Beside and beneath that muscle runs the feature that named this family of points: a long, narrow hollow where the two bones of the shin — the tibia in front, the fibula behind and outside — leave a groove-like gap between them. Few territories could be more forgiving for gentle surface contact: thick muscle rides over bone here, and nothing delicate lies near the surface. Forgiving ground still deserves manners, and the rules later on this page keep the visit courteous.
Neighbors make the address easier to trust, because four stomach-channel stations share one line down the shin. Zusanli (ST36) stands three cun below the knee eye; Shangjuxu follows at six; Tiaokou (ST38) continues at eight; and Xiajuxu (ST39) completes the run at nine cun, tucked between the two bones. Read downward, the ladder drops in even, memorable counts, each stop a little lower and each serving, by tradition, a different office. Every station exists twice — once on each leg, mirror images holding the same heights — and the search on either side begins the same way: find the knee eye, commit its height to memory, and walk the line slowly downward. If the fingers lose the thread, nothing is lost; return to the knee eye and begin the count again.
A Self-Palpation Walkthrough
Sit upright with the left foot resting flat, knee bent about a right angle, so the shin muscles soften without going slack. Find the outer knee eye first: slide a fingertip down from the kneecap’s lower edge until it settles into the soft depression just outside the strong cord that runs from kneecap to shin — that hollow is Dubi, the measuring zero. Now measure downward. Stack the four fingers of one hand together; their combined breadth is the traditional three-cun span. Lay the stack against the leg at the knee eye and remember where its lower edge falls, then lay it again from that mark: two stacks bring you six cun down the shin. At that height, step one finger-breadth outward from the sharp front ridge of the shin bone, onto the fleshy roll of muscle you find there. That rise is Shangjuxu’s home.
A few quiet tests confirm the placement. Draw the toes of the resting foot upward toward the shin: the muscle band under your fingertips should visibly tense and firm — the tibialis anterior announcing itself. Release, and feel the same spot soften. Press feather-light and compare sides: many people notice a faint dull ache or heaviness at the true point and almost nothing a thumb-width away, a difference worth trusting more than any ruler. Check the relationship to the ridge, too — the spot should lie clearly off the bone’s front edge, on muscle, never perched atop the crest itself. If everything feels wrong at once, abandon the count and restart from the knee eye; the landmarks are patient, and repeat visits cost nothing.
Three classic slips account for most misfindings. The first is landing on the ridge itself: the sharp front edge of the tibia is unmissable, and untrained thumbs tend to hug it, but the dataset’s one-finger-breadth offset puts the point clear of bone, on the slope outside. The second is crossing to the wrong side — wandering past the crest toward the inner shin, where a very different landscape begins; the point stays on the front-outer aspect throughout. The third is overshooting downward into the territory of Tiaokou or Xiajuxu, whose own records place them eight and nine cun below the knee eye. Recount from the top whenever in doubt. With a little repetition the whole sequence compresses into seconds: knee eye, two hand-widths down, one finger out, settle onto the muscle.
Reading the Name: Upper Great Hollow
The name arrives as three compact characters. Shang 上 means above or upper; ju 巨 means great, huge, immense; xu 虛 means empty, hollow, void. Read together they give the Upper Great Hollow, and the name earns its keep by pointing at a partner: further down the same line stands Xiajuxu, the Lower Great Hollow, whose own record places it nine cun below the knee eye. Upper and lower, the pair brackets the muscular middle stretch of the shin like two signposts marking one long valley. Classical nomenclature loved this kind of paired geography — gates facing gates, valleys answering valleys — and learning one name quietly teaches the location of its twin.
What is the great hollow itself? Classical explanations usually read ju-xu as the long, channel-like emptiness between the two bones of the shin, where tibia and fibula run parallel with muscle filling much of the gap and a groove-like sense of vacancy persisting beneath. On that reading the name is pure cartography: stand a fingertip on either of these two stations and you stand at the upper or lower reach of the same anatomical valley. Whether the ancient namers intended exactly that, or something subtler besides, the sources preserve only in outline; what survives plainly is the pairing, and the fact that generations of practitioners found the image useful enough to carry it forward intact. A name that doubles as a map is a practical kind of poetry.
Pinyin renders the name Shàngjùxū. Checked character by character against the dictionary: shàng is the falling fourth tone, jù likewise the fourth tone, and xū rides the flat, high first tone — a falling, falling, level contour that gives the name its clipped, deliberate cadence. The hanzi 上巨虛 are a satisfying set to memorise, each character pulling its weight: direction, scale, terrain. Like the gates, ridges, and valleys scattered along every channel, the hollow here is more than scenery. Traditional teaching treats such places as spots where things collect and settle, and a point named for a gathering-hollow invites exactly that reading: less a doorway things pass through than a basin where the busy traffic of the channel pauses. The name, again, is a small set of instructions — arrive, look down, notice where the land dips.
Traditional Indications, Explained
The dataset’s recorded indications read: borborygmus, abdominal pain, diarrhoea, constipation, appendicitis, atrophy and paralysis of the lower limbs, and nausea with vomiting of food. Borborygmus is the old, honest word for a rumbling gut — the audible churn of gas and fluid moving through intestine. Framed as tradition rather than promise, classical practice reached for this station across the whole spread of ordinary bowel complaints, and notably in both directions at once: looseness (diarrhoea) and sluggishness (constipation) sit on the same list. Tradition explains the breadth with its idea of regulation — that the point helps restore orderly movement to intestinal qi and fluids whatever direction they had lost — a framework for thinking, documented for cultural understanding rather than offered as a treatment claim.
The key to the list’s shape is the point’s recorded category: lower-he-sea of the large intestine. Classical theory assigns each of the six fu organs a second gathering place on a channel of the leg, called its lower-he-sea point — a leg-side office where that organ’s activity pools and may be addressed. The large intestine’s office falls not on its own arm channel but here, on the stomach channel’s descent along the shin; its small-intestine counterpart, by the same scheme, is Xiajuxu just below. Classical teaching generalized the arrangement into a working principle: disorders of the bowels are traditionally discussed at these leg stations. That is why a point on a stomach channel anchors so many intestine-centred conversations, and why the name of this station appears wherever classical authors took up bowel complaints.
One recorded indication deserves separate, serious handling: appendicitis. Later compilers added this modern disease name to the old list, and classical literature discussed related grave abdominal conditions under its own older vocabulary; the historical interest is real, but the modern situation admits no ambiguity. Suspected appendicitis — abdominal pain that deepens or settles in the lower right belly, especially with fever, nausea, vomiting, or a belly that resists touch or movement — is a surgical emergency, and it belongs in an emergency department, immediately. Self-applied pressure plays no role in it, ever, and delaying care to try some is the one mistake this page most wants its readers never to make. Beyond that single hard boundary, the usual honesty applies: these are traditional uses recorded in a licensed dataset, not claims of effect, and reviews of modern research on self-applied pressure suggest modest, context-dependent results, with evidence specific to any single point remaining thin.
Self-Care Acupressure at Home
With the point located, settle in: seated with the foot flat, or half-reclined with a cushion under the knee — whichever lets the lower leg go soft. Rest the pad of a thumb, or the joined pads of index and middle fingers, on the muscle roll just outside the shin’s front ridge. Begin with contact alone for a few breaths, then add small, slow circles, letting the skin travel gently over the muscle rather than grinding against the bone ridge nearby. Aim the sensation toward pleasant dullness, mild warmth, or that spreading heaviness traditional accounts value; sharpness is a signal to lighten or stop. A common home rhythm is one to three minutes per side, once or twice daily, matched to slow exhales where possible. Swap hands afterward, repeat on the other leg, and keep the two sessions symmetrical.
Quality outranks duration. Light, patient, regularly repeated contact is the whole art this page practises; force teaches nothing and only bruises comfort. Choose a quiet moment rather than a distracted one, because the exercise works twice over — as pressure and as pause. Some people fold it into an afternoon break; some attach it to the evening wind-down, pairing circles on each leg with the day’s last slow breaths. Whichever anchor you choose, consistency matters more than enthusiasm: five unhurried minutes daily across weeks fits the spirit of self-care traditions far better than a single heroic session. Cold hands, a clenched jaw, held breath — all signs to reset, soften, and begin the circle again smaller.
Hold the practice to its honest scope. Across a few weeks you may notice the area feeling less guarded, digestion sitting easier on the days you practice, or simply the pleasure of having attended to yourself; every one of those outcomes fits self-acupressure, and none of them is a promise. Escalation — harder, longer, deeper — is the habit to refuse. Certain readers should invite a clinician into the loop before beginning at all: anyone with significant circulation problems in the legs, varicose veins in the area, recent lower-leg surgery or fracture, reduced sensation in the feet or shins (as can accompany diabetes), or pregnancy. Reduced sensation deserves particular respect, because the discomfort that normally polices pressure is quieter or absent, and gentleness must supply what sensation cannot.
Cautions and Safe Practice
The licensed record carries one caution for this station, and it is worth reading slowly: deep work here is to be undertaken with care, and the artery traveling nearby is to be avoided. The anatomy explains it. Deep to the muscle corridor of the outer-front shin runs the main arterial supply of the lower leg, and professional technique manages that proximity with trained knowledge of layers and direction. Home self-care manages it by a simpler geometry: the fingertips never leave the surface at all. Gentle pressure through skin into the top of the muscle engages tissue far removed from the structures the caution concerns — which is why surface-level acupressure and professional deep work are not merely different intensities of the same act, but different acts altogether, governed by different training and different rules.
The practical rules follow. Keep pressure light and strictly superficial, delivered through finger pads — never elbows, knuckles, or tools — and never directed down toward the bone or inward between muscle planes. Skip the point entirely during acute abdominal illness, fever, or episodes of severe vomiting or diarrhoea; avoid broken skin, rashes, prominent varicose veins, and any patch of calf that is swollen, hot, or tender to the touch. After recent lower-leg surgery or fracture, wait for a clinician’s clearance before adding any new pressure practice. Sharp, electric, or radiating sensation means stop at once and not again that day. Pregnant readers, and anyone living with chronic illness, should consult a qualified practitioner before starting. And the standing rule from the indications section bears repeating: anything suggesting appendicitis goes straight to emergency care — pressure is not merely useless there but dangerously delaying.
Over everything stands the wider rule. This page is education, not diagnosis or therapy, and acupressure is a comfort practice, not a substitute for assessment. Prompt medical care — not a pressure routine — is the right response to severe or worsening abdominal pain, blood in the stool, high fever, signs of dehydration after bowel illness, a change in bowel habit lasting beyond a few weeks, or one calf becoming swollen, warm, and painful, which warrants urgent evaluation on its own. Persistent complaints belong with a licensed practitioner, medical or East Asian medical as suits the complaint. Held lightly, the tradition offers a fine inheritance here: a map of the shin’s long hollow, a name that teaches its own location, and a reminder that the oldest self-care advice is also the newest — pay attention, be gentle, and know when the matter has outgrown the kitchen table.
Shangjuxu, the Upper Great Hollow, sits partway down the front-outside of the shin, on the stomach channel’s long descent toward the second toe. Classical practice reached here chiefly for intestinal complaints — rumbling, griping pain, loose bowels — for tradition gives this station a special office for the large intestine. This guide walks through finding it by touch and pressing it gently.
Cautions from the classical sources
- Take care with deep insertion and keep clear of the artery.
Self-care limits
Frequently asked
- How do I find Shangjuxu without knowing anything about cun?
- Start from the outer knee eye, the soft hollow just outside the cord below the kneecap. Stack four fingers together — that breadth is the traditional three-cun span — and lay the stack down the front-outside of the shin twice, one stack after another. Two stacks bring you to the right height; then step one finger-breadth outward from the sharp front ridge of the shin bone and settle onto the muscle roll you find there. Confirm by tensing: draw the toes upward and the muscle under your fingers should firm. Cun measurements simply encode this same landmark walk in proportional language.
- Is Shangjuxu the same thing as Zusanli?
- No — they are neighbors on one line, three cun apart, with distinct offices in the classical scheme. Zusanli is recorded as the he-sea gathering point of the stomach channel itself, traditionally associated with stomach-centred concerns; Shangjuxu holds the lower-he-sea office of the large intestine, which is why its historic portfolio centres on the bowels. Because both live on the same muscle road down the shin, beginners mix them up constantly. The fix is counting from the knee eye: Zusanli at three cun, Shangjuxu at six — measure twice, press once.
- What did classical practice use Shangjuxu for?
- The traditional record gathers intestinal complaints: rumbling borborygmus, abdominal pain, diarrhoea, constipation, and nausea with vomiting of food, alongside weakness, atrophy, and paralysis of the lower limbs. Its recorded rank as the large intestine’s lower-he-sea point explains the emphasis — classical texts treat these leg stations as the bowels’ places of gathering. All of it is offered as cultural and historical understanding of how the tradition mapped the body, not as evidence-backed treatment claims.
- Why does a large-intestine point sit on the stomach channel?
- Because of the lower-he-sea arrangement. Classical theory gives each of the six fu organs a second gathering place on a leg channel, and the large intestine’s happens to fall on the stomach channel’s descent along the shin — this very station. Think of it as a branch office: the organ’s principal territory lies elsewhere, but its affairs are traditionally handled at this leg-side address. The small intestine keeps a matching office just below at Xiajuxu, and the pairing made this stretch of shin the classical district for bowel discussions.
- When should I skip the pressure and see a doctor instead?
- Immediately and completely if appendicitis is conceivable — deepening abdominal pain settling in the lower right belly, fever, vomiting, a belly that resists touch: that is emergency-department territory, and acupressure has no role there. See a clinician promptly rather than continuing to press for blood in the stool, high fever, dehydration after bowel illness, a bowel-habit change lasting weeks, or one calf that becomes swollen, warm, and painful. For everyday rumbling and irregularity without red flags, gentle self-care and patience remain reasonable company — alongside, never instead of, medical judgment when something feels wrong.
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, lower-he-sea theory, and channel context.
- 03aijiu-mpvue (MIT License) licensed dataset, entry for ST37 Shangjuxu — location, actions, and caution 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/st37/leaf.json
- GET /zh-hant/points/st37/leaf.json
- GET /zh-cn/points/st37/leaf.json
- /llms.txt — the index of every leaf
- JSON-LD in the page: MedicalWebPage, MedicalEntity and FAQPage
{
"id": "ST37",
"name": {
"en": "Shangjuxu",
"gloss": "Upper Great Hollow",
"zh-Hant": "上巨虛",
"zh-Hans": "上巨虚"
},
"channel": {
"id": "ST",
"order": 37,
"of": 45
},
"location": {
"text": "Eight finger-widths below the kneecap, one finger out from the shin."
},
"for": [
"belly ache",
"loose stools",
"constipation"
],
"press": {
"text": "Firm thumb pressure, about a minute each leg.",
"seconds": 60,
"sides": "both"
},
"cautions": [],
"source": "Tongren Shuxue Zhenjiu Tujing, book 5",
"url": "https://acupoints.com/en/points/st37",
"lastReviewed": "2026-08-24"
}