when most people with hunchback posture tried to stand up straight they end up
recruiting superficial muscles like the rhomboids the middle trapezius and the
erector spinae group and they don't activate this deep muscle that is of the
utmost importance for being able to get to a good neutral posture and maintain
it and in this video we're gonna talk about how to activate this muscle so
that you can stand up straight and maintain it throughout the day hey
what's up coach here from precision movement and in this video we're gonna
talk about hunchback posture so hunchback posture is when you basically
look like that okay what we're specifically referring to is excessive
thoracic kyphosis so the thoracic spine is in kyphosis naturally and hunchback
posture is just an excessive amount of rounding or kyphosis of the thoracic
spine okay so today I'm gonna bust out spining here because it'll allow you to
visualize exactly what I'm talking about so those of you without a degree in
kinesiology or an understanding of the anatomy and where muscles originate and
insert will be able to really get what is happening here what I'm describing
and why the exercise that I'm going to show you is so critical and it's so
powerful okay so this is the spine and this is the thoracic region right from
about here to here and this is an example of hunchback or excessive
kyphosis okay this is neutral that's looking decent
and then excessive kyphosis looks to be about there now the superficial muscles
include scapular muscles like the rhomboids and the middle traps and the
scapula are on your back right about here and these muscles
attached from the scapula the medial border of the scapula to the spine and
when they contract they pinch the shoulder blades back together so the
scapula retract but also it helps to extend the thoracic spine the problem
with this is the scapular muscles are phasic muscles
now the phasic and tonic muscle concept was first brought about by
Czechoslovakian physiotherapist named vladimir Yonder very popular guy and
he's most well known for upper and lower cross syndrome
now the phasic muscles as described by yonder our muscles that are designed for
movement powerful movement they tend to be fast twitch muscle fibers so that
they're not really well-suited for posture because posture we need to be
able to maintain alignment and posture all day whether we're doing exercises
whether we're standing or we're walking we need those muscles on at a low level
all day and the phasic muscles aren't suited for that so when we're told to
stand up straight or when we think about standing up straight kind of hike up
like that squeeze the shoulder blades back together and we can maintain that
for a minute two minutes but once our awareness is gone we go back to whatever
our default resting postures so that's one reason why just standing up straight
without activating this other muscle is not gonna work for using recruiting the
rhomboids and the middle traps not gonna happen okay next up let me show you a
little example so this cable represents the erector spinae group now the erector
spinae group run all the way down the spine from the pelvis and all the fascia
around the lumbar area and then they insert into various different regions of
the spine the thing with the erector spinae group is they cross many
vertebrae so all the way from pelvis up into the t spine that's at least eight
vertebrae that these muscles cross and they're long and thin muscles now these
muscles are tonic muscles however let me show you what happens let's say we've
got hunchback right here the muscle is originating in the sacrum
it can be the iliocostalis or the longest miss Asher would originate in
the sacrum and then it inserts somewhere around the thoracic spine now if you've
got a hunchback and this muscle contracts it's gonna pull everything
into extension but what joints it pulls into extension
depends on what joints are most mobile so where the joints are most mobile
let's say the joints most mobile right here at the TL Junction thoracic in the
lumbar Junction what's gonna happen is all the movement is gonna occur there
what the joints that might be a little bit more stuck in the thoracic spine you
might not get any movement there so what it looks like is we got a hinge point so
we'll hinge at the TL Junction like that and you give to get the appearance of
standing up straight but the excessive rounding of the thoracic spine is still
there and we've just changed the orientation of the spine so that it
looks like we're standing up straight we're really not extending the spine in
attaining a nice neutral posture okay so that's what happens when you work these
long muscles the movement is gonna occur out one of these joints whatever joint
intervertebral joint is most mobile and that's gonna be where the hinge happens
but the other joints that might be a little more stuck which is very common
in the thoracic spine those are their joints you won't get any movement and
you're not gonna fix this long term they might be able to stand there but then
you'll get a lot of tension in the low back and the lumbar muscles the erector
spinae and then when they fatigue you'll go back to normal okay so what's the
solution the solution is working the deep spinal muscles the extensors of the
spine the ones deep to the rhomboids deep the trapezius deep to the rector
spinae okay what are these muscles well one group just below just deep to the
erector spinae group is the semi spinalis and these muscles traverse
anywhere from four to six Berger so let's count here I'll start here at
the bottom of the cervical spine 1 2 3 4 5 6 so I've got this little last event
and they basically go like that so you can see how this right there let me show
you see that there you can see how this is going to better do a better job than
the erector spinae group what we can do even better than that and what's even
more important to train the multifidus multifidus and the multifidus goes all
the way up the spine and they connect anywhere from 2 to 4 joints so let's
assume this one right here is 2 joints 2 vertebrae so it'll look like that ok see
right there the red elastic band so when this muscle contracts where's the
movement going to come it's going to come from just this area just this joint
okay and the same thing happens let's say the next one spans three vertebrae
it's different for every body but two to four vertebrae is the norm so that's
three vertebrae this multi fitness segment contracts it's just going to
cause extension at these vertebrae so it's very localized and very specific
these muscles and that's why when we get these muscles working and they go all
the way down the spine when we get these muscles working we create extension at
every joint and that's how we're going to fix hunchback posture it's not just a
temporary 2-minute cure for when somebody's walking by that you want to
make it look like your pecs look big no this is long-term this is gonna allow
you to walk around all day to exercise with good neutral alignment okay so
that's the anatomy of the multi-feed eye and all the extensor muscles of the
spine and why we need to work and focus on the multifidus but how can we get in
there and make sure that we're localizing these muscles and we're not
using the muscles that cause extension so
global extension of the spine versus local extension of the spine where each
vertebrae is extending this is where a technique that I have developed called
the 4.2 rasp spine yari or end range expansion sequence
comes into play okay so let me demonstrate this to you right now with
the four point t spine extension the irie I'm gonna start with a little bit
of warming up so the standard old cat camel okay we
were going from flexion and to extension I like to do a few cycles of that
anywhere from three to five sight cycles and this helps to warm up activate the
muscles and warm up the spine get him moving okay not trying to push really
push the end range but kind of push it a little bit all right so there now let's
talk about the setup first because the setup position is a position that you
want to maintain throughout the technique the important points are
elbows stay locked out you're not bending the elbows at all so you lock
out the elbows and your scapula are protracted so you're pushing away from
the floor this is retracting the scapula see how much closer my body is to the
floor this is protraction it's your maintain
Pro trash this is to get those rhomboids out of this movement next start off in
neutral alignment of the spine so find neutral not too much extension not too
much flexion good neutral position and from here we're going to start so the
first thing we're gonna do is go into extension of the spine so anterior tilt
to the pelvis extension of the spine but keep the chin pulled in don't have to
look up look straight down to the floor but pull the chin up into your neck so
we've got the extension locked out make sure your elbows are straight scapula
are protracted and from here you're gonna maintain and really focus on the
muscles the multifidus muscles your shoulder blades in the thoracic
spine so during this extension just fire up that whole area get as much extension
of the thoracic spine as you can other muscles will be on that's fine now from
here what we're gonna do is go into posterior tilt and lumbar flexion only
stop flexing the spine at the thoracic area so straight posterior tilt lumbar
flexion and right about there it's very subtle
I'm gonna hold it but I'm still extending the lumbar or the thoracic
spine so I'm flexing the lumbar and extending the thoracic both of those I'm
trying to activate as hard as I can keep the elbows straight keep protraction
push away from the floor and hold it and breathe you're trying to fire those
muscles up as hard as you can flexion of the lumbar extension of the thoracic
maintaining your set up position okay so hold that keep those activation patterns
on Wow relax the cervical so keep extending the thoracic flex the lumbar
plexus cervical now we've isolated the thoracic spine into extension
everything above and below is in flexion so we're specifically targeting the
multifidus hold it breathe keep activating and then relax into neutral
and that's one cycle so that's how we get to isolate those extensors of the
thoracic spine which include multifidus semies pinellas and even some of the
deeper muscles the smaller muscles like rotatory x' and inner transverse ray
it's impossible to know what muscle is exactly are on but when we flex the
lumbar and flex the cervical while maintaining extension of the thoracic
those muscles have to be on and the flexion first of the lumbar and then
of the cervical cause reflexive contractions to increase the intensity
of contraction of the extensors of the thoracic spine which strengthens them
okay so we're strengthening them we'll do that was just one cycle but you want
to do at least to start with two three four build up to five cycles now with
these types of exercises especially when we're working areas if you've got really
bad hunched back and you've had it for a long time these muscles might be very
atrophied and it's going to be difficult and it'll take you a while to develop
that mind-muscle connection but they're there and they could be walking up yeah
I'm always reminded of that movie Kill Bill with where you know Thurman uma
thurman's character is in the coffin for a while and when she gets out she can't
move and she's just looking at her toe and then eventually that toe twitches
that's what it might take for those of you have had this poor hunchback posture
for a long time but keep working at it okay don't get discouraged keep working
at it because just this one technique once you do it once you activated you'll
feel you'll be like aw that's you know there's tension and there's fatigue in
areas that I've never felt before that's those muscles firing up and once
you've got them fired up then it's just a matter of putting in the work putting
in the reps and building their endurance so that standing up straight is it using
these superficial muscles and making you look like this but it's a natural easy
position to maintain and it's one that you can maintain throughout your
day-to-day activities and throughout exercise there you have that's the one
hidden muscle that you wake up and work to fix hunchback posture for good as
long as you keep working this muscle and being aware of your posture hunchback
posture will no longer afflict you now if you enjoyed this you think you need
some work on in your spine and your spine control if got a low back pain or
poor posture there's other compensations that might be affecting you and I
suggest you check out my spine control course which is been used by over
hundreds over a thousand people by now and it's something that you can use to
ensure that your spine all the muscles are working the way they're supposed to
and you've got the proper mobility in the spine throughout from lumbar to
cervical because the spine is not designed just to stand ramrod straight
but if it golf you're rotating if you play tennis if you're doing any sports
there's some degree of rotation flexion and extension in those sports and you
need to train it if you want it to be there for you for life so check out
spine control it will be a link in the description of the video or at the end
of this video otherwise if you enjoyed this video
thanks for watching it hope it helps you and I will talk to you next time peace