Dr. Jessie of Chain Reaction Physical Therapy demonstrates the Open Books exercise for shoulder and lumbar spine mobility. Start with knees bent, head on the floor, arms extended forward, then lift your top hand over your body to touch the ground. Rotating your head and hand direction emphasizes shoulder mobility, while raising your legs higher targets the lower back.
Dr. Jessie for Chain Reaction Physical Therapy, and today we're going to go over open books. I like open books because they're a great mobility exercise all the way from shoulder all the way down to lumbar spine, and they feel pretty good too. So we're going to start in a position where knees are curled up a little bit, head is on the ground, arms are straight out in front of us. From here, all you're doing is you're taking top hand, you're coming up and over And trying to reach all the way to the ground and then coming on back, back and forth. This can do a couple different things. If we're looking to get more of a shoulder stretch, play with your head. Sometimes you'll feel more of a stretch if you keep your head pointed away. Sometimes you'll feel more if you're going with your hand as well too. If we're looking for more low back, the further you bring your legs up, the more we're getting higher and higher up the back. So the lower we come down here, the more lower back we're also getting involved in here. Play around with it, see what places feel like they need some more mobility and where it feels best to do this. Give it a try, and as always, head over to ChainReactionPT.com with any questions.
