Our upper & mid back rotation stretch will help loosen tightness in your upper back, mid back and shoulders. This can help improve your golf swing, tennis swing, or baseball throw and swing.
Hi this is Dana Ranahan at Body Works Physiotherapy. Today I’m going to show you a stretch for your upper & mid back, allowing you to rotate better for golf season, gardening, or doing a throwing or swinging sport like tennis or baseball.
The Exercise
- Lie down onto your back, starting with your knees together, feet together, and spine centred on the floor.
- Open your toes and heels to be in alignment with your hips
- Bring your arms out to the side with your palms towards the floor.
- Now we’re going to work on a rotation, so be careful if you have problems with your lower back. There shouldn’t be any lower back pain with this.
- As you breathe in, rotate your legs to one side and take your head to the opposite side.
- You should be getting a stretch through your chest or through your mid back, depending on where you’re tight.
- When you reach this position, I don’t want you to force rotation any further.
- From here you’re going to work on breathing into where the tension is.
- Come back up to neutral then work the opposite way.
For me, I feel the tension in through here. As I breathe out, I am thinking about lengthening my waist on the right side. So basically from my armpit towards my waist I want to lengthen, thinking about my arm getting longer and my knee getting longer. So lengthening one side rather than creating more of a twist. I would about 3 to 4 breathes here.
Come back up to neutral then work the opposite way. Breathing in as I rotate, as I breathe out lengthening my arm and my waist on this left side, breathing in to where it’s tight, breathe out lengthening. Again for 3 or 4 breathes each side coming back to neutral. And after that you should feel a bit better.
If you have any other questions, check out our website at body-works.ca