Hi and welcome to pelvic exercises, I’m Michelle, and I’m here with Frane today,
and we're going to be showing you some exercises that release your upper middle back. So if you're
experiencing tension in your neck and your middle back, these exercises are for you at home. So
Frane works over a computer all day been or don't your, Frane, and you get tension through your neck
and through the upper middle back? All right, so the exercise technique we're going to show you,
I’m going to do for you at home, is an exercise involving a towel, and you're going to be lying
down using the towel to help to mobilize those joints in your middle back. Okay?
Okay, Frane, so what you're going to do is use a towel. So get your normal bath towel,
and you can fold it in half. You can see how, I've folded that in half, and then fold it in
half again. All right, then roll up your towel to about a hand circumference. All right, now that
towel is going to be positioned a long way, so I should put it this way, so at home you can see
that I’ve put that long ways, I’ve got a cushion there at the top. If you're going to use a pillow,
don't position the pillow sideways, put it long ways. So your head's going to go there, your spine
is going to go on top of the towel. So if you're at home, you might want to start with the towel
fairly flat it fit - it feels a bit uncomfortable under your spine, so you're best to start with a
little bit less rather than more. You're going to be lying with that top part of your back
from that neck to the middle back lying across there and your legs down with your knees bent.
Okay, so let's do that now. So if you don't mind lying yourself down here, so that's it,
so come back down, position yourself so your bra strap's at about the middle of the towel,
that's exactly right, and coming down. All right, that's great. Now, let's bend your legs up,
all right, and your arms are down, all right. Does that feel comfortable? Yeah, it's in the middle of
your spine. Right. All right, so we're going to start. So bringing your hands up, Frane, arms
up and, at home, if you're doing this, you take your arms up. It should be feeling comfortable
under your spine at this stage. Now, I want you to breathe out as you take your arms backwards,
as far as it feels comfortable for your body. So breathing in here and now breathe out and take
your arms over and back, so it feels comfortable, lovely. And you should feel a really nice stretch
for your spine there, yep, that's great. And coming back up, so if you're doing this at home,
it's really important that you exhale or breathe out as you take your arms over
and back. Let's go again, breathing in and breathing out. So by deflating the lungs,
you allow some more mobility through the spine. That's it. Right out. Great. And bring it back up.
And take your rest, just bring your hands down for a moment. So you could do that at home up
to ten times or you could take breaks from the computer during the day and you could do
that regularly throughout the day, just to mobilize that section of your spine.
The second one we're going to do, I'm going to do this at home as well, if you'd like to do this
along with it is elbows out to the side and back, still with the towel roll along the midline of
your spine. So bring the hands up again, so again, palms facing each other just like we did the last
time. Actually, no, we can do palms facing down towards your feet, and let's bring it down out to
the side slowly and breathing out, sorry, I forgot to remind you there, and come back up. All right,
ease your breathing now, so exhale as you take your arms down. Feeling comfortable? Gives a
lovely stretch in the middle back, doesn't it? And coming back up. And so you can see at home
that all the action's coming through the shoulders here, breathing out and taking it down and Frane's
also getting a stretch through her chest as she takes her arms down too, and bring the
hands back up, and then taking the hands right down inside. Okay, and let's finish up there.
So you can see we've done two nice little exercises there,
and you can do those regularly throughout the day. First of all,
we got the towel roll, rolled it up to about a hand's circumference, maybe even less. You
could even use a hand towel at home. Pillow underneath your head, and we started up with
your exercise over the top during your arms breathing out as you took the arms over,
and then we do the second with palms facing your feet and elbows out to the side and back, and you
might start with five to 10 repetitions of each, whatever feels comfortable for you to do at home.
So I hope you enjoyed that spinal mobility exercise at home, important too to do it on
a firm surface and not in the bed. It won't work as well if you're doing it on a bed. So
they're great little exercises you can do to release through your upper middle back
if you experience back stiffness. So for more exercise videos, please visit us at
pelvicexercises.com.au or subscribe now, and you'll get some more exercises for your little
back next week. That's it from me today, I hope you enjoyed that today. Bye for now.