5-Minute Thoracic Mobility Flow (Upper Back Mobility)

Hi, I'm Lindsay Baumgren of Nourish Move Love, and this is your thoracic mobility routine. If you love at home workouts, hit subscribe to my YouTube channel. Or better yet, click that join button and become part of my YouTube community for more accountability and support. All right, you guys, today I'm guiding you through five of my favorite exercises for thoracic mobility, which is my mid to upper back. Alright, so we are gonna hit that middle back. It runs from about T1 to T12 if you're a spine expert. But tightness in the thoracic spine is. Can limit our ability to take those arms up overhead and can potentially lead to kyphosis or that humpback or that tech hump that we are familiar with, since we're on our phones and our computers all the time. And just going through these mobility exercises is just gonna make sure our shoulders are in the right place, our scapula's in the right place, we're sitting up with good, healthy posture and that we're feeling good in the neck, shoulders and spine area. So I'm gonna walk you through these exercises. You, you can flow through them. Spend more time on anyone that feels particularly good for you. But we're going to start by taking a foam roller, placing it right underneath my shoulder blades, placing my hands behind my back. I'm just going to extend and open and then come back. A little bit of just flexion and extension for the spine. Now, when I roll back, I don't want my ribs to flare open. I want to keep my ribs tucked down towards my hips, pull my shoulder blades down and back and then come back up again. Just opening up and coming back up right there. Just using the foam roller for thoracic extension. Opening up, getting those shoulders nice and open, coming back up, not letting my ribs flare, coming back up, keeping my shoulders driving down and coming back up. That's a great way to start. And you can continue to flow through those exercises if that feels good for you. Next, we're just coming up and over into the classic tabletop position for cat cow. So I'll show you from the side, just so you can see, but you're going to be on all fours, dropping the belly, lifting the chin, and then arching that spine up towards the ceiling. As you tuck your chin towards your chest. I like to stare down at my belly button again, dropping the belly, lifting the chin. As I'm flowing through this, I really want you to focus on the mid back. Focus on the mid back. So really pulling that Mid back right up towards the ceiling and then letting that mid back drop and then pulling that mid back right up towards the ceiling and letting that mid back drop again. So just continuing to flow through this cat cow. Getting good mobility in the spine. A really great way to start. And now we're going to go into some, some thoracic rotation. So I'm going to take my right hand behind my head again. I'm in all fours, I'm going to drop my elbow down and then I'm going to open, get my hair out of my face, open up. And I like to think of this like wringing out a towel. You know how you wring out a towel? You are wringing out your mid back twist. You're trying to wring it out, get all the water out. Squeeze, squeeze, squeeze. Use your breath. Can you get a little bit further? Wring it out, ringing out your mid back. Take it down, open it up and wring out that mid back. Now if it feels better for you can take it down into a lumber lock position where this forms on the ground. You're going to get less rotation potentially, but you're coming back down again. Just wringing out that mid upper back. If it doesn't feel good to take your hand behind your head, you can just hold it out here at a 45 degree and wring it out. And then you're going to go right into doing that same thing on the other side. So you're just opening up. I feel like that ringing is just such a good visual for me. I'm a very visual learner. I'm thinking about just squeezing one more drip of water out of that rag. Continuing to open up my back. Squeeze. One more drip of water out. Can you rotate just a little further and try and get through that big full range of motion and then we're going to just make it a little bit bigger this time. You're going to open up into and then you're going to thread the needle. Right ear and right shoulder are going to come to the mat and then you're going to open up again and drop down. Right ear and right shoulder are going to come down to the mat. Now you can stay right here or if you want to take this into a little bit more of an advanced stretch, you can bring your right foot outside your right hand, open up and then thread that needle again. You're going to get the hips a little bit more involved here. Open up and then thread that needle again and then you just do the exact same thing on the Other side. This time, left arm is going to reach up, thread that needle. Right ear, right shoulder to mat again, continuing to breathe through all of these exercises. Big reach, gaze follows fingertips. And then thread that needle, ear and shoulder to mat again. Again. If you wanted to advance this, simply step left foot outside, left hand, big reach and thread that needle. Do it again. Big reach up and thread that needle. All focusing on that mid back and mobility within that mid back rotation. And then from there, we're going to come into back to the wall, actually. So I'm going to take it back to a wall. I'm going to grab a nice little knee pad for my knee here. So you'd want to find a wall. Whatever knee is against the wall is the hand that's going to move. So my hands going to face out, just going to push my other hand on it. And I'm going to do a half windmill, or you could call it a clock, whatever you want to call it. Sweeps right here. So I'm keeping this back hand connected to the wall, rotating it open, palm down, palm away. The palm's facing you now. Palm is facing the wall. Hand is staying connected to the wall the entire time as I slide through this. If you wanted the advanced version of this, you could take your hands behind your head. Elbow would be connected to the wall, sweeping all the way up into extension and flexion. And then you're just going to do the same thing on the other side. So I'm going to take a knee right here. Inside hand is closest. It is going to sweep all the way around and come all the way back. Just flowing through this. Finding a wall, really great stretch to break up your day. Really great stretch, especially if you're working at a computer all day. Again, the advanced version of this is to place the hands here down, keep that elbow connected and go all the way through that rotation right there. And those are my favorite thoracic spine mobility exercises. Again, you can spend more time on anyone that felt particularly good for you. I hope you found that helpful and I hope your back is feeling much better after doing these exercises. Thanks and have a great day. I hope you enjoyed that mobility routine. If so, hit subscribe to my channel and I've cued up another mobility routine you might enjoy here. Or you can find all of my mobility workouts in this playlist right here. Have a great day.