Do you have pain in the same area as Jesse? You know, this whole area that's really hard to get
to. I'm going to help you today and literally just a few minutes, I'm going to give you something to
do to get rid of this once and for all. And the big thing is all this pain that you're feeling
right now, you never have to worry about it again. So, what I know about you is you fall
into either one of two categories. Either you're doing something about it right now, in which case,
if you're using one of these, please stop or you aren't doing anything right now to fix this. And
in that case, please start. However, make sure you're doing the right things, because to target
this, you likely are probably trying to target the muscles when that's not going to get to the
bottom of the issue. It's the underlying joints that aren't moving properly that's causing these
muscles to lock up. We've got to fix that. And we're going to start right here on the floor.
And the focus of your effort has to be at least on feeling the fact that you don't have this mobility
that you need. So, I have to get down on this position on all fours. You're on your forearms
flat on the floor and on your knees. Your butt could be up here in the air. And what we do is we
basically allow ourselves to drop straight down to where the shoulder blades pinch together.
And this should actually happen pretty naturally for you because gravity's helping you to fall
straight down towards the ground. But when you come back out of this, you try to leave your
elbows down and push through the floor as you lift your chest as high as you can. That's protraction.
You'll be surprised to see how much of this mobility you actually have you ever actually
really even experienced because you stopped moving a long time ago. All you have to do is
just get the sense of what it's supposed to feel like to move that way. Because let's be honest,
it's probably been a long time since it has now. Of course, in the last exercise, you may not have
a whole hell of a lot of range of motion to move through, but that's where we do this,
which is going to help you with that. We call this a wall splat. It's so easy to do on any
wall. You want to put your hands up and out wide. You don't want to have them too narrow
because people with shoulder issues might find that to be uncomfortable. But when you open them
up to about 2:00 in 10:00 on a clock, you're good to go. Now you step back with one leg. And what
we're going to do here is try to just allow our hips to sink and our chest to move towards the
wall. And the knee is actually attempting to sort of touch the wall as we go in.
What this is doing is working really nicely on getting more of that thoracic extension, which
is just one of the main planes of motion that we have to restore if we want to get rid of that pain
through your back once and for all. So use that chest and knee as a target for the wall and allow
yourself to just simply sink closer and closer every single time you're going to feel yourself
extending more through that locked up area. You can do it on both the right and left leg here,
even though it's not that important. But we don't want to create a muscle imbalances along the way.
So even an out in the process. Now if we work that sagittal plane of motion that front to
back LAC that you're having right now through the thoracic spine, what can we do about the rotation
that you're missing? Because it needs to rotate and you're not doing enough of it. What we can do
a can opener, what you do is you put one forearm down here flat and pointing straight ahead towards
you and the other one is going to go and put your hand on the back of your head. Now all I want you
to do is open this arm up, rotate up towards the ceiling as high as you can, and push down
through this elbow and forearm to allow you to get some more of that height. And you should try
to get at least to this 45 degree angle, if possible, keep working on opening up further
and further in successive attempts here. And I promise you the reintroduction of some
rotation to a spine that's sorely lacking. It is going to feel really, really damn good. And now,
just like we did on the first series of thoracic extension exercises, we can do the same thing here
and we could do what we call the 1115 stretch we want to do is lay flat on the floor and then
put your arms straight out up over your head. Now, even this could be step one of making you
feel a hell of a lot better, because what you're gonna do is just try to drop your chest straight
down to the floor, try to reach your sternum, to touch the floor. Because I can guarantee
you when your arms are up overhead, it's not touching right now. So if you reach further,
you're going to start to feel a little stretch right through this. X marks the spot. Now we've
got to take it to the next level. So I want you to start rotating to the other side,
keeping this side of your body down on the ground. In other words, this hip and outer
thigh have to stay down. And when you reach your reach for the 3:00 position on the clock,
hence the 1115 of the left arm and right arm. And if you're in this position now,
don't just hang out there actively try to pull your shoulder blade back so you get
some activation of the muscles that you're now starting to loosen up and waking up.
The back foot is there just to prevent that over rotation. You never want to allow yourself to go
completely flat on the ground. You should always have that butt cheek up in the air on the side.
You're rotating two and the one again on this side. You want to make sure you keep in contact
throughout the entire stretch and with your newfound range into extension and rotation,
this would be a great thing to follow up with and tie it all together. We call this a bridge
and reach over. Not only are you getting that rotation and extension, but you're also getting
the glutes to participate too. So it's sort of that kinetic chain from the bottom to the top
through your feet to your fingertips, everything working the way it should. Now, when it comes to
keeping that pain away, strength is always going to be part of the equation. And to make sure that
this video is comprehensive and gives you all the tools you need. Here's to exercise. That
you can do regardless of what equipment you have access to. And the first one requires actually
zero equipment at all. And what you have to do is just lay flat on your stomach and put
those arms back overhead like we were in that other exercise. Because remember, just getting
your chest down to the ground is going to help to get some of that thoracic extension mobility.
But again, this is about strength. So all you have to do is just slide your hands back along
the floor at the same time, lifting your chest off the ground by getting through lumbar extension
here in the low back. You're going to actually facilitate that thoracic extension that we're
looking for. But the strength component comes from the fact that your hands aren't in contact with
the ground pushing your chest up. They have to actually be off the ground by just about an inch
by the time they get back down next to your side. So you'll feel all these muscles here in the back,
the ones that we're trying to get strong to keep you in this improved position. And
with just 2 to 3 sets of 10 to 12 high quality repetitions done about two or three times a week,
you have everything you need to do to make sure this stays strong and keeps that pain away for
good. And for those of you who are training at a gym or want that next level strength exercise,
when you've gotten to the point where you need more resistance, this is a way that one you
could do with a cable machine at your local gym. And what you do is grab the left handle
with the right hand and the right handle with the left hand, and you round out the thoracic spine
exactly the opposite we've been talking about this whole time, but it's setting you up for the proper
exercise execution, because from here, we're going to pull our hands close to our chest and extend to
that lumbar spine and lean back, giving us that good combination of thoracic extension again,
facilitated by that lumbar extension, and keeping those elbows tight and driving back behind your
body to strengthen all those muscles. You can see that area that we've been
targeting all along really effectively being hit on the exercise. And again, it doesn't take much
one exercise a couple of times a week, two, two, three sets with well executed repetitions is all
you're going to need to do to strengthen this area to make sure that that pain doesn't come back. And
so with this targeted attack, you're going to be able to focus on that area that's causing
problems right now. But if you're one of the many that has a problem down here in the low back,
I've got a video for you as well to help that out. You can find that one right here. 30 million other
people have found that to be helpful. I think you will, too, guys, if you're looking for
the science based way to train, make sure you head to Athleanx.com. If you haven't done so,
click Subscribe to our Notification Center and never miss a video we point out. Guys,
I hope you find this helpful. Leave your comments to let me know how it is. See you.