Barre with Justine

Did you know that certain parts of your spine have more natural flexibility? Your cervical spine (neck) and your lumbar spine (low back) are able to flex and extend MUCH more easily than your thoracic spine or T-Spine (your mid-upper back). When I learned this in yoga teacher training, it was a huge aha moment for me since I finally understood why it was easy to drop my head back in poses like fish but more difficult to find the openness through my chest.

We don’t talk a lot about the T-Spine but it’s helpful to understand the structure and how it relates to the rest of our back. The mobility and health of our T-Spine can relate to pain in our necks, shoulders, and low back PLUS have an effect on how well we can do other exercises like overhead presses or even just lift a child up into the car.

When you consider all the important organs that are surrounded by our ribcage* (the heart, lungs, liver & small intestines), it makes sense that we have limited mobility in our thoracic spine. That being said, we want to preserve the mobility we do have and avoid becoming chronically tight in this part of the back. Tightness in the thoracic spine has an impact on:

*each thoracic vertabra attaches to a pair of ribs*

• neck pain
• increased risk of injury in the elbow & shoulder (Heneghan et al.)
• posture
• upper body power for sports that require upper body strength like golf, football and baseball

In the 2015 article “Understanding why the thoracic region is the ‘Cinderella’ region of the spine.” authors Heneghan and Rushton note that it is an “under-explored region” that affects “functional movement” and “chronic pain”.

Here are some fun facts about the thoracic spine and its impact on the rest of our body:

• the T-spine contributes 55% of the total force and kinetic energy generated during a throw (Heneghan et al.)
• because of its rigidity, you are less likely to injure your thoracic spine
• the least mobile vertebra in the entire spine is T6 in the thorax – directly behind the heart (Leal 132)
• we tend to train the muscles in our T-spine (lats, rhomboids, traps) to become weak and fatigued through our postural habits of slouching and jutting the head forward (*creating a vicious cycle where we don’t have the strength to hold ourselves up tall!)

Exercises and Stretches to help your T-Spine

Mobility Exercises:

• Cat/Cow from kneeling
• Cat/Cow from Tabletop
• Thread the needle
• side-lying windmill stretch (sweep arm in circle or open and fold arm like a book to side)

Stretches

• puppy pose
• reclined twist
• kneeling windmill stretch against the wall
• reclined stretch over swiss ball

Strength

• Bird/Dog (is there anything this move CAN’T do?!)
• Y-lift on swiss-ball
• Superman or Pilates swimming (prone)

At the end of the day, take time to mobilize, stretch and strengthen your t-spine since it is an essential part of posture and athletic power!

References

Heneghan, N. R., and A. Rushton. ‘Understanding Why the Thoracic Region Is the “Cinderella” Region of the Spine’. Manual Therapy, vol. 21, Feb. 2016, pp. 274–76. ScienceDirect, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.math.2015.06.010.

Heneghan, Nicola R., et al. ‘Clinical Reasoning Framework for Thoracic Spine Exercise Prescription in Sport: A Systematic Review and Narrative Synthesis’. BMJ Open Sport & Exercise Medicine, vol. 6, no. 1, Mar. 2020, p. e000713. bmjopensem.bmj.com, https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjsem-2019-000713.

In this systematic review, the researchers looked at 2348 sources (social media, database searches, etc) that provided thoracic spine exercises aimed at athletes. They identified 38 exercises (with variants) and then classified them as static or dynamic within the sections mobility, motor control, work capacity, and strength.

Leal, Kristin. MetaAnatomy: A Modern Yogi’s Practical Guide to the Physical and Energetic Anatomy of Your Amazing Body. Sounds True, 2021.

Joe Yoon. ‘Stretches for the Mid- and Upper Back’. Better Stretching, St. Martin’s, 2020.