Hey everybody, it’s Doctor Jo.
As you can see, Bailey had a late night last night.
But anyways, I've had a lot of questions asking about some more upper back exercises fro stretching
and strengthening.
I have a video of Ys , Ts and Is on a Swiss Ball, but if you don't have a Swiss ball,
here's some exercises and stretches for you.
Let's get started.
The first stretch is just gonna be a thoracic upper back stretch with a chair.
This one might be slightly too high, you might want something a little lower, it's gonna
work ok for me, but just put your hands kind of behind your back, and lean back.
Just kind of stretching it out.
Try to relax it if you can and hold it for about 30 seconds.
Once you get that 30 seconds in, come on back up.
ANd do that 3 more times.
Just stretching out and coming back up.
The next ones are gonna be on the floor.
So next you're gonna stretch out your chest or your peck muscles.
If you have a foam roll, that works great.
You can get it at probably Walmart, Amazon anything like that.
Just kind of get it underneath your back just right along your spine.
Come down a little bit so you can rest your head.
And if they're really tight, just doing this you might feel your stretch.
If you don't feel much stretch with that, you can kind of straighten your arms all the
way out.
And don't let Bailey jump on you.
Aww she's coming in for a kiss... now that Bailey's gone we will proceed.
So as I was starting to do, if just the elbows aren't enough, then you can straighten your
arms all the way out.
And just let it stretch.
Hold it there for about 30 seconds.
If that's still not quite enough for you, bring your arms up behind your head and then
just let your elbows drop down.
This is a pretty big stretch, so if it's actually painful, don't quite go to this step yet.
If it's not painful and it just feels really good, then you can hold it here for 30 seconds
and then come back up and then drop it back down again.
Next you're gonna roll over onto your tummy.
If you have a towel or something, this is good to kind of protect your forehead so you
don't get "carpet forehead" when you're lying down.
This is just gonna be a Ts in prone, this is the one where I have a video on the Swiss
Ball.
So if you wanna be a little more advanced than this, you can get a Swiss ball and check
out that video.
Just put this right here on your forehead and put your arms straight out.
And then bring them up, squeezing your shoulder blades together.
Hold it there for about 2-3 seconds and then slowly come back down.
Try not to go quick and just drop them down, but come slowly up, hold it there, and then
come back down.
So just doing about 10 or 15 of those, hold, hold, hold.
Come back down.
And then work your way up to 2 to 3 sets.
And the next one, like to call the snow angels.
This was shown to me from a PT friend named Phil when I was rehabbing my shoulder.
So what you want to do, is you want to have your elbows bent just a little bit.
Lying out flat, almost like you;re getting ready to make a snow angel.
You can put your legs all the way down, or bend them up, but try and push your elbows
and your hands down into the ground, and you're just gonna slide while you're pushing down,
up as far as you comfortably can without either one of them coming up.
Once they start to feel like they're trying to come up, then come on back down.
So pushing down, trying to keep your back down and everything nice and flat against
the floor.
Only do about 10 of these, maybe 2 sets of ten, but don't push these too much.
The next one, another stretch.
We call this long sit, with your legs out in front of you and straight.
Your gonna roll your chest in and down, and then just punch your shoulders forward.
Taking the fists and reaching as far as you can, and curling, you want there to be a curl
in your back.
So dropping everything down, stretching, holding it for about 30 seconds, and then coming back
up.
The last exercise is bird dog or quadruped.
A lot of people call these bird dogs because it looks like a dog pointing at the bird.
So basically you're just gonna do your opposite arm and opposite leg, keep your back nice
and flat here.
No arching down or up, and bring one arm out and one leg out so opposite sides.
Nice and slow.
Try and keep it controlled.
Going out, and coming back in.
If you have to, if you feel like you're coming down, and dropping really quickly, or having
to move quick to come back down, you're probably not quite ready for these yet.
So just start with about 5-10 on each side and then work your way up from there.
So there you have it.
As you can see again, Bailey's worn out from all the exercises we just did.
If you have any questions, leave them in the comments section, and if you'd like to check
out some other videos, and more pictures of cute Bailey, go to AskDoctorJo.com.
Don't forget to follow me on Facebook and Twitter, and remember be safe, have fun.
and I hope you feel better soon!