Thoracic Spine Mobility [Forum Archive]

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Thoracic Spine Mobility

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Posted by: danzik17

Quick backstory:

During my last bulk, I ended up impinging a nerve in my shoulder due to a lack of shoulder mobility combined with the added fat/muscle putting pressure on the nerves. That causes pain that shoots down mostly in my hand/wrist area now.

Part of the solution to the problem here is increasing my flexibility/mobility in my thoracic spine --> lats --> shoulders (seemingly in that order). Since recovery seems to begin with mobility in the thoracic spine, I'd like to see if anyone has any ideas in addition to what I'm currently doing.

Thoracic Spine:

Thoracic Extensions over a foam roller
Foam rolling while in the extended position
Trying to bring a rod straight overhead while flat up against a wall (not sure what these are called)
Same as above but in a seated butterfly position

Lats

Various lat stretches
Foam rolling

This isn't counting the soft tissue work that I do with a PT, these are all things that I do both in my sessions and on my own to try and heal as quickly as possible. Although we are doing some shoulder mobility work, we're holding off until the rest of those areas are loosened up as apparently I will never get the full ROM with my shoulders until those other 2 are handled.

Any ideas?

Posted by: danzik17

Also just using this thread for notes as I find stuff in case anyone else uses this as a reference in the future.

New Exercises to try

Thoracic Spine Roll/Rotation:

Articles - PhysicalTherapist.com

About halfway down the page

Posted by: Dale Mabry

Tape 2 tennis balls together instead of using a foam roll for your extensions

YouTube - Optimal Performance - Thoracic Mobility

Lateral bending as in here

YouTube - Seated T-Spine Rotation

Posted by: P-funk

Here is one of my amateur golfer clients doing a t-spine rotation drill - Click Here.

You may find restrictions on one side or the other, depending on your limitations and mobility issues.

patrick

Posted by: danzik17

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dale Mabry

Tape 2 tennis balls together instead of using a foam roll for your extensions

YouTube - Optimal Performance - Thoracic Mobility

Lateral bending as in here

YouTube - Seated T-Spine Rotation

Cool, I'll give that a shot tomorrow - no tennis balls on hand and stores are closed today.

*Edit* Actually according to some sites, Walmart is open. Be back in a bit!

Posted by: danzik17

Quote:

Originally Posted by P-funk

Here is one of my amateur golfer clients doing a t-spine rotation drill - Click Here.

You may find restrictions on one side or the other, depending on your limitations and mobility issues.

patrick

Oh definitely. I don't know if you recall but you had given me some thoracic spine stuff to do when you were trying to help with my hamstring. At the time I didn't really understand why, but I've been grilling my PT guy every session (I make him WORK!) so I have a lot better understanding now.

Posted by: P-funk

Quote:

Originally Posted by danzik17

That is good. You should make him work! So many fly by on the "I am a PT so do this" bullshit and so many of them suck because there is no incentive for them to get any better - they get paid by the insurance company whether you get better or not....so grill away! Ask them their opinions. What their treatment plan is going to be. What the goals are for the sessions. What their outcome has been dealing with others who have had this issue. How long they think you will be out for....they will usually answer, "it depends on the person as everyone heals at different rates".....this is a fair and true statement, but the really good ones will say..."you should know that what we are doing is moving you in the right direction in 1-3 visits."

patrick

Posted by: danzik17

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dale Mabry

Tape 2 tennis balls together instead of using a foam roll for your extensions

YouTube - Optimal Performance - Thoracic Mobility

Lateral bending as in here

YouTube - Seated T-Spine Rotation

Wow - doing that with the tennis balls is like the foam roller on crack. They dig right the hell in there. Hurts like a bitch but in a good way ala foam rolling/trigger point pain.

I will say that my upper back was aching before from working all day, immediately disappeared after I did a bit of foam rolling followed by the tennis balls.

Posted by: CowPimp

This is a drill I use with some of my clients:

YouTube - Quadruped Extension and Rotation - Thoracic Mobility

Posted by: danzik17

Quote:

Originally Posted by CowPimp

This is a drill I use with some of my clients:

YouTube - Quadruped Extension and Rotation - Thoracic Mobility

My PT has me doing that actually. I thought it was for the lats, doh!

Posted by: danzik17

So my upper back has been getting fairly sore recently when I'm doing work (comp stuff of course).

Nothing that a little stretching and like 15-20 seconds of foam rolling can't fix, but is that a sign of increased mobility? I figured that since it's not used to being mobile (stiff as a board previously) that I'm putting it in a position it's not used to / not ideal which I probably need to fix.

In any case, I'm running through a few of those stretches every day - half at lunch, half at night, so we'll see how it works out.

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