Our spine is divided into three main sections: the cervical spine (neck, first 7 vertebrae), thoracic spine (upper/mid-back, next 12 vertebrae) and lumbar spine (lower back, last 5 vertebrae). If you think of your skeleton as a series of chain links, there are certain links or regions that are designed for either stability or mobility. This is known as joint stacking. The three sections of our spine going from cervical to lumbar are designed for stability, mobility and stability respectively.
Unfortunately, it’s very common that we lose the mobility characteristic of our thoracic spine (t-spine). While overall thoracic spine mobility can be dictated partially by individual differences in anatomical structure, loss of mobility can be caused by poor work ergonomics, poor posture, long hours at your computer and an incorrect training programme.
We either aren’t active enough and don’t move through our t-spine, or as athletes it’s an area that is neglected in training. Regardless of how the mobility was lost, if we can’t rely on your t-spine to rotate, bend forward or backward, or side to side, we will ‘borrow’ the mobility from somewhere else in the chain to get the job done.
And quite often, the area that will lend mobility is the lumbar spine. We already know that the lumbar spine is designed to be a more stable region, so trying to use it for mobility can cause problems. (This is not to say that the lumbar spine should NEVER move, but we don’t want to use it as the main mobility section of the spine).
Unfortunately, the main problem that results from poor t-spine mobility is lower back pain and tightness. The amount of t-spine mobility you need is dependent on the demands of daily life or your sport. However, if you’re dealing with lower back pain or tightness, or if you are a hard training athlete, there’s a high chance that you will need to spend some time maintaining or regaining t-spine mobility. Please see links below for tsp mobility exercises.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=15&v=LRPXD-ci_uA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RX21NOL61OE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3YRDkhvVls
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71qEKutWw18
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=42&v=ssATmMQOz6s
