Best Exercise In Ever: Half Kneeling Active T-Spine Thingamajig

For a few years now I’ve been working thoracic spine mobility drills into clients programs, and they’ve been working really well. One problem I’ve had with them however, is that most of them tend to exist on the ground, in a quadruped position, or in a very stabilized and supported realm. This is fine and good for those who need some low level mobilization work to help them move better and work into a new range of motion, but once they’ve developed that range, they then have to be able to use it.

Outside of some of the basic thoracic spine mobility drills, I’ve had clients play with row and pull variations to get some more active mobility, as well as exercises like pull overs, cable rotations, and a bunch of other things, but haven’t really found anything that involved extension and rotation in a more dynamic environment that would require some core stabilization and breathing work.

A few months ago I decided to play around with an elastic and some frontal plane resistance to do some arm movements. The initial goal was to look at finding some new shoulder mobility drills I would be able to work into a program for a client who just had shoulder surgery. I essentially stumbled on this one and liked how it felt through the ribs and shoulders, but also really liked the challenge to balance and breathing it gives, especially at the top of the movement.

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Some key considerations with this movement:

• kneel on the leg that’s farthest from the cable attachment, and use the outside hand to hold the band. This helps get a deeper stretch along the lateral chain through the movement and really helps to get some movement from the hip flexors on that side
• keep the elbow straight and think about going straight up without arching outside of the vertical line of action.
• think of rubbing your biceps against your ear and shrug your shoulder up and back through the movement.
• rotate the hips, but don’t let the knee on the forward leg collapse towards the midline of your body.
• Breathe, for the love of god BREATHE!!!

This is a simple exercise to set up and run through, so give it a try and let me know what you think.