330 | Our Top Tips to Improve Upper Back Health & Reduce Pain

[00:00:00] Welcome to the Optimal Body Podcast.

[00:00:08] I'm Doc Jen.

[00:00:09] And I'm Dr. Dom.

[00:00:10] And we are doctors of physical therapy, bringing you the body tips and physical therapy pearls

[00:00:13] of wisdom to help you begin to understand your body, relieve your pains and restrictions,

[00:00:18] and answer your questions.

[00:00:19] Along with expert guests, our goal of the Optimal Body Podcast is really to help you

[00:00:24] discover what optimal means within your own body.

[00:00:27] Let's dive in! pluma so they have all different types of options for anyone in the family and they're built in a way that are meant to help your feet grow and develop and work for themselves to improve the mobility in our toes and our arch and midfoot to grow the strength of our arch all the way through. There are studies and research that show that wearing Vivo Barefoot shoes help improve

[00:01:41] your foot strength which is so vital and we're going to be talking about. I think when people think about upper back, one of the first things that comes to mind is posture and is that rounded shoulders. We are specifically leaving that to last. We'll kind of touch on throughout how to adapt posture. Can we change posture? and how do we optimize maintaining the curve, but maintaining the mobility of that upper back. And so we want good rotation of this upper back, especially when we walk, like we don't want to be stiff and rigid when we walk. And this is where we pull most of our mobility is from that upper back. And then that translates into the hips and

[00:04:23] how we're moving through the pelvis. So if we because it's such a stable structure, namely because of the ribcage that protects all of our thoracic organs and really creates a stable cage, but we do want

[00:05:40] to maintain mobility in this area. That have friends and one of my friends is like, you know, my wife just always gets this back pain when we're doing deadlift. She was specifically talking about and knowing how that friend of ours moves. I'm just like, well, and this was a few years ago. So I probably have better terminology to explain this to him

[00:07:01] now, but I said, well, she's probably not

[00:07:04] like using her core or she probably needs to use her core more system that we use by creating a little bit more pressure and stability for our own body within that lower canister. So around that low back and kind of around that neck area. Well, then I help so that I'm not just moving where I have more mobility through my upper back, right? So if I bend over to pick something up and I hinge, I'm not just going to automatically

[00:08:24] round from my upper back in that hinge. I'm going to understand how to maintain a little It takes time to build this awareness within your own body. It takes time and practice and continuing to do it every day over and over again. Yeah, I mean, Jen would tell you, and some of our friends would tell you that like, when I initially met her, I did not have a lot of awareness at all, especially like kettlebell swings

[00:09:40] is one of the first things I think about.

[00:09:41] We had a friend trying to help me with my kettlebell swing.

[00:09:45] And I was just so unaware that I was rounding more stable in my core, but you don't want me to be too rigid. You still want me to move a little bit. I know. And yes, it's all of these things. It's because we don't want you to be afraid of rounding the low back. We don't want you to be afraid of movement. Essentially, it comes down to like, we don't want you to move into the extreme ranges in a way that your body's not prepared for.

[00:11:00] Right.

[00:11:01] You know, there are people that we know that kind of lifts and opens and extends that upper back, right? And I'm creating tension into that core. Well, now I'm going to just barely bend from my knees,

[00:12:25] but really sit my hips back almost like I'm closing a door or I'm,

[00:13:42] I'm a foot away from the wall and I almost felt like I was a little hunched forward when I would squeeze and get to the top of a dead lift because it was so foreign for me to not overextend in that low back.

[00:14:42] to stand up quick and lift your arms over your head. Pause there now, don't change anything.

[00:14:45] What did your low back do?

[00:14:47] What did your neck or your head do?

[00:14:49] And that's unloaded.

[00:14:51] That's with no load or resistance applied.

[00:14:54] Now, imagine it or try if you have dumbbells

[00:14:58] that you feel like would be a relatively heavy

[00:15:01] shoulder press for you.

[00:15:02] Maybe you could do five or eight reps of it.

[00:15:04] Now try to press that overhead.

[00:15:06] What do you feel on that feels like to have your core or your low back more in a neutral position. Do you struggle to get all the way overhead without feeling like you might fall back yourself? Yeah. Because especially if you have limitations in thoracic extension or shoulder flexion, you know, it might start pointing out some of the

[00:16:24] places that we need to work on that get better ankle mobility, better foot mobility, better trunk control. And obviously this looks different for different people,

[00:17:42] but that is the goal of a squat.

[00:17:44] It's going down and up different from a deadlift from that low back, it kind of locks me from being able to do that. So I hug this thing and I take a deep breath in letting my knees go forward and out as I squat as far as I can and then take a breath out as I come right back up and it's gonna help to kind of engage that intra-abdominal pressure to help stack that spine and whatever alignment is natural for me and

[00:19:01] and keeps your body a little bit more of that thoracic spine, but mobility isn't just passive, so we want to progress from that.

[00:20:20] But to start passively, this is going to look kind of like an open book, but it's almost

[00:20:25] an exercise that is just going to help you relax into it. being on all fours in a quadrup head position. And you can, sometimes I like to find rotation first and inflection by kind of getting your elbow down toward the ground. And so you let your body relax down, kind of exhale, drop that elbow to the floor. And then inhale as I drive my bottom hand that's on the ground down and then drive, start

[00:21:43] to drive my elbow up to the ceiling with a of pointing up and away over that right shoulder. And then you pull the band down to the opposite hip.

[00:23:01] So if you're going from your right shoulder, you're going to kind of go to the left hip

[00:23:04] as you rotate through that thoracic spine. always, always when it comes to optimizing the health of your body is how we're breathing, where we're breathing from. If I can start to just down-regulate my system and change my pattern into my parasympathetic, my rest relaxed, I just, instead of my sympathetic and always having my shoulders up into my

[00:24:23] ears, then I help to relax tension around my body so that my ribcage can move a little

[00:24:28] better. exercise like in the thoracic spine, it's associated with breath. That's because when we're consciously breathing, when we're breathing with more of a calm, parasympathetic manner, it's going to help us relax into movements and be that much more effective with our mobility anyway. Right. And when you start, so everyone right now, like to put your hands on that low

[00:25:41] kind of rib cage and take a deep breath into your hands.

[00:26:45] to develop or how long have you been in that type of posture?

[00:26:48] And that, and that's where I say, it's gonna take years to probably start to reverse.

[00:26:51] And don't get discouraged by that.

[00:26:53] I hope you get motivated to say there's so many more years

[00:26:57] left of your life, even if you're older,

[00:26:59] that can still create change,

[00:27:03] change for your body so that you could feel

[00:27:05] something different, right?

[00:27:06] And there's no, we've talked about in these past two full body optimization episodes about being really strong as we push and we pull and we do it from above and hanging to right in front of us in that row, push-up position. So, how can we improve our strength overall, double arm, single arm, different planes of movement while we work on improving our mobility and our breath?

[00:29:42] Which in the membership, once you're done with the neck and upper back plan, you'll

[00:29:45] just go over to the full body low impact plan, which is the strength plan.