HOW: Start in a sitting position with your knees bent, feet flat on the ground and a foam roller lying on the ground behind you at about shoulder level. You can either interlock your hands behind your neck or cross your arms across your chest. Keep your hips on the ground as you lean gently back into the roller bringing your shoulders, head, and neck down over the roller. Carefully work up and down the length of your mid back by lifting your hips up, rolling back, and extending over the foam roll.

 

FEEL: You should feel some pressure and stretch in the middle portion of your spine. 

 

COMPENSATION: Don’t go too fast, go slow and controlled over the foam roller.

HOW: Start on your hands in knees.  Your hands should be under your shoulders with your palms down. Your knees should be under your hips. Keep your elbows locked, and rotate your shoulder blades down, up, forward, and back down.  Do this in a slow circular motion. 

 

FEEL: You should feel a stretch in your shoulder blade muscles. 

 

COMPENSATION: Don’t arch your back.  Keep your elbows locked out.

HOW: Start in a quadruped position with your hands and knees on the ground. Slowly rotate to one side by bringing your arm under your body and through to the other side. To increase the stretch, you can “crawl your fingers” and exhale at the end of the stretch.

 

FEEL: You should feel a nice and gentle stretch in the middle region of your back when you perform this exercise.

 

COMPENSATION: Make sure to keep your hips on top of your knees, or even sink your hips back more towards your ankles. Do not let your hips come forward like in a modified plank position. 

HOW: Follow the instructions in this video to perform circles with your mid-back. Start small and slowly increase the size of the circles.

 

FEEL: You will feel the mid back stretching throughout this movement.

 

COMPENSATION: Avoid moving the lower back and neck with this movement. This is designed to move the mid-back region.

HOW: Begin in a half kneeling position with the leg away from the wall stabilized against the wall with a ball. With both hands directly in front of you, rotate one arm open attempting to reach the wall behind you. Exhale as you rotate, inhale as you return to neutral and repeat.

 

FEEL: You will feel the mid back and shoulder open with his exercise.

 

COMPENSATION: Avoid rotating from your lower back. The motion should primarily be occurring at your mid back.

HOW: Begin the exercise by positioning yourself on your hands and knees in a quadruped position, shoulders stacked over hands and hips over knees. Perform a chin tuck and push-up plus and maintain that head/neck/shoulder blade position the entire time. While keeping the chin tuck, rotate your head side-to-side as far as you can, think about drawing a smiley face with your chin.

 

FEEL: This should feel like a coordination exercise as you’re focused on maintaining head and neck position while simultaneously rotating your head. You will also feel a stretch in your neck and at the base of your skull. You may feel the stretch on either side at the base of your skull depending on your situation. You may also feel your neck muscles working to maintain head position.

 

COMPENSATION: Do not move the rest of your body, do not lose the chin tuck