This is Dana Ranahan with Body Works Sports Physiotherapy. Today we’re going to be doing a video on demonstrating some shoulder mobility on the foam roller, which is an unstable base. We’ve done a video like this before, but this will be a bit more challenging for maintaining spinal stability while we’re trying to get more mobility through the shoulders while maintaining neck and spine neutral.

Positioning on the roller

Lie on the roller where your head and tailbone are supported on the roller, maintaining your spine in neutral.
Set up the pup position by taking your toes wide and now opening the heels to try to find a neutral hip position, also positioning your knees to match your feet
Bring both arms up to a 90 degree position, palms facing in like your holding a big beach ball, keeping the shoulders centred in the socket
Now before we move, we’re going to work on engaging our breath.

Working with Breath

So thinking about breathing in laterally through the rib cage
As you breathe out, softening your chest
Get into that pattern, figuring out your breath
Now add a movement where you think about bringing your arms up over head.
So breathing in, then as we breathe out we’re going to soften through our chest to engage our core, reaching arms up
breathing in, come back down to 90.
Breathing out, soften your chest, keep your neck long, bringing the arms up overhead to work on stretching your lats
Breathing in, coming back to 90.

We’ll repeat this about 10 or 20 repetitions until we start to feel like we’re getting better mobility through the shoulders, more spinal stability, and better coordination with our breath.

For more information check out our website www.body-works.ca or call 604-983-6616