Sport & the Mid Back

One of the major problems as a sportsperson in the modern world is maintaining health and fitness while undergoing intense training regimes. Even minor injuries can prevent training and affect the long-term goals laid out for the season ahead. We know the body is complex but the underlying causes of many of these muscle, tendon, nerve, joint or even disc problems may lie in a simple postural dysfunction. We need to address the stress/strain relationship within the body to avoid many of these problems arising.

The most essential of these, through its effect on various other regions, is the mid-back or thoracic spine, both in terms of injury prevention and recovery. By keeping your mid-back mobile, along with an appropriate strengthening programme (Pilates, Swiss ball workouts, core stability exercises to name a few options) you can significantly decrease the load on your lower back, neck and shoulder regions. If you take this a step further into the sporting arena then the importance of good thoracic mobility increases the chances of success in the sporting environment twofold, one by lowering the risk of injury therefore keeping you in action and secondly with improve thoracic function you can improve your general spinal strength and so obtain maximum efficiency from your body. The sports that we feel would most benefit from this are listed below:

Improve your game

• Throwing events (javelin, discus, hammer) - where good thoracic mobility adds to shoulder compliance through improved scapular function and therefore shoulder range of movement
• Rowing - avoids overloading of the lumbar spine and neck regions
• Tennis & Squash - avoids overloading of the rotator cuff and shoulder region particularly in the serve phase
• Cycling - preventing neck overload due to positioning over long periods of time
• Swimming - essential for both good shoulder flexibility along with prevention of low back overloading, particularly in breaststroke and butterfly, can assist in improving stroke length and the bodies dynamics through the water
• Golf - assists in spreading the load of the swing phase, shoulder compliance
• Cricket & Baseball - both bowling and throwing actions can increase the loads into the shoulder and lower back regions while batting requires good neck rotation and thoracic extension
• Triathlons - involving both swimming and cycling a healthy thoracic spine is essential to this grueling sport, especially with factors such as fatigue setting in and affecting body function and posture
• Breathing & General fitness - the most essential to any sporting activity, if you have a tight thoracic spine then obtaining maximum lung function is impossible therefore limiting sporting achievement

The Thoracic Wedge is to be used strictly under the recommendation of a professional practitioner (e.g. Chiropractor, Physiotherapist, Doctor, Osteopath, etc).

Shoulder flexibility

Golfer's back