Are you working to maintain or improve your thoracic spine mobility?

I hope so.  It seems with all the assessments that I do in my PT clinics and at IFAST, I’m seeing more and more mobility issues with the thoracic spine on my patients and clients.

Most of these people with limited thoracic spine mobility also present with either neck pain or shoulder pain.  This isn’t really a big surprise as we’ve known for quite some time that reduced thoracic spine mobility limits scapular mobility which, in turn, limits shoulder and cervical range of motion.  As these joints typically require a great deal of mobility for normal function, it’s common to see compensations that lead to pain and injury.

Mobilizing the thoracic spine with a foam roller has become quite common in fitness and sports training fields, and while this is a great contribution to improving mobility, even the foam roller has limitations.  When mobilizing your thoracic spine, you need to mobilize not just in the sagittal plane with extension mobilizations.  You also need to mobilize in rotation and sidebending to optimize mobility.

For those of you who are using the Assess and Correct program, you’ve already experienced the benefits of approaching thoracic spine mobility from multiple planes.

At IFAST, we’ll also reinforce thoracic spine mobility during horizontally loaded cable exercises, like horizontal pushes and pulls, as well as unilateral shoulder exercises such as PNF diagonals, and total body exercises like chops and lifts.

What else can you do to positively influence your thoracic spine mobility?

You need to reinforce it throughout the day.  There’s a concept called competitive adaptation in fitness and rehab fields.  Basically, it means that what you do most often or with the strongest stimulus will result in the greatest adaptation.

For instance, you’re most likely sitting in front of a computer as you read this.  If you spend a great deal of time doing computer work or playing video games, break the postural cycle every 15 minutes by sitting up as tall as possible to reduce the slouching influence.  Make sure you stand up and squeeze your buttocks together every 50 minutes or so.  If you drive long distances on a regular basis, stop every hour to stand and stretch. 

The real fix is a matter of breaking those patterns that negatively influence thoracic spine mobility and then doing enough progressive mobility work to assure optimal thoracic spine mobility.

Other Stuff…

Congratulations to Mike the Intern on the completion of his IFAST Internship and his graduation from Western Michigan.

My good friend and fitness director at Men’s Health Magazine has a brand new book combo out for Christmas.

The Men’s Health Big Book of Exercises

The Women’s Heatlh Big Book of Exercises

Order it now and you can have 619 new exercises for your best body in 2010.  Oh, and you’ll also get some cool workouts from yours truly in there too.

Bill