Exercises to Maximize your Mid-Back Mobility!

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT

Here are two great exercises to help mobilize that tight mid-back or thoracic spine. Now, the thoracic spine or the mid-back has 12 thoracic vertebrae that run from the C7, or the seventh cervical vertebrae down to the first lumbar vertebrae, or L1. And it’s mostly responsible for flexing and extending your back, as well as rotating or moving side to side. Now, these two exercises are great because for most of the day we are in that forward flexed either typing, sitting or on the phone driving type of positions. And so these two exercises will be really helpful to help you mobilize that mid-back area. So the first exercise that we’ll be talking about is called a cat camel or a cat cow. And this is a great exercise where you’re on all fours. So two knees down and two feet out in front of you. I’ll just move back a little bit so we can capture this, and we’ll bring the hands out in front. And what you’re going to do first is just flex your mid-back like so just trying to engage in through the mid-back. So a nice deep breath in flexing that mid-back and then breathing out letting your chest fall towards the towards the floor and extending your head up like so. I like to extend the head up to engage as much of the mid-back as I can. Now I’m flexing forward. Breathing in, flexing that mid-back and breathing out, extending the mid-back and bringing the head up. It’s not about the number of repetitions for this exercise. It’s more about the control that you have from your mid-back and really taking your time, moving and mobilizing those joints so you can really feel it. The second exercise that we’re going to talk about is called threading the needle or mid-back thoracic rotation.

And we’ll be performing this two different ways. One with the arm extended and one with the arm flexed. Now if you doing this exercise with your arm extended you’ll be engaging more of your shoulder blade and mid-back. Whereas if you’re doing this exercise with your arm flexed, you’ll be engaging more so the mid-back and less so your shoulder blade – for those of you who might have a rotator cuff issue or just a really bad shoulder blade. So this exercise again is in the quadruped position. So two knees down, two hands down. And what you’re going to want to do is bring that arm all the way through the other side. Just like so. Mobilizing through that mid-back. And then you’ll bring the arm back through and all the way up to the ceiling. Now I’m getting really nice rotation in through my mid-back with this exercise here. I can feel a nice deep pull and through the muscles of the back and rotating through. Now, if we want to perform this the second way, all we need to do is flex the elbow, put the hand against the head and you’ll bring the elbow down towards the opposite side and rotating through right back up. Closing the chest and opening the chest in through the front. So those are two great exercises that you can perform at home after a long day at work, either sitting on the phone or driving all day to help mobilize that tight mid-back and get some extension in through your chest and through the thoracic spine. Perform this 2 to 3 times a day. Again, it’s not about the number of repetitions that you’re doing this. It’s more so about the frequency and the control that you have over performing this exercise. Hope this helps.