Joe: 00:20

Welcome back to another episode of the Freedom Talks podcast, everybody. This is your host, Joe Ogden. Today, what we're gonna be going through in this week's podcast episode is we're going to be talking about the thoracic spine and the importance of thoracic spine mobility and making sure that things are moving appropriately and talk about kind of its connection between the cervical spine, which is our neck, the lumbar spine, which is our low back. I think the thoracic spine is a underthought piece of the body, but it is super important and it can lead to a lot of dysfunction as well as kind of be the bridge between a lot of different dysfunction as well. So let's start by basic definition.

Joe: 01:02

What is thoracic mobility? And that refers to the thoracic spine, which is our mid back to move through its full range of motion, including flexion, extension, rotation, and side bending. The thoracic spine itself consists of 12 vertebrae connecting the cervical spine, which is our neck, as I said, and our lumbar spine, which are which is our low back with ribs attached that provide stability. I think the thoracic spine itself is really a stability standpoint in the body. It's not really known for having a ton of mobility.

Joe: 01:34

But as I always say to people, that little bit of mobility that it has is vital to opening up the bridge between our neck, shoulder, low back. It's so important. So you're not gonna see it, you know, move like a knee or an ankle with that much range of motion, but the little bit of motion it does have is so important. So as I've kind of said, it's important because it acts as a bridge between the low back and shoulders. It allows fluid and controlled movement.

Joe: 02:02

A mobile thoracic spine reduces compensations from the neck, shoulder, lower back, which if your thoracic spine isn't moving as well, it can create overuse injuries because your body's compensating using other areas that it shouldn't. Also, breathing is super important. Obviously, you have to breathe to live, right? But it's something that isn't talked about enough with a lot of patients. And having proper thoracic mobility supports optimal rib movement and diaphragm function, which enhances your efficiency while breathing.

Joe: 02:35

So whether you're sedentary right now or you're a super active person, being able to breathe better and just move better, I mean, I don't see a negative to that. Right? It's also really important for posture. So it's vital for maintaining upright posture and combating the effects of prolonged sitting or poor ergonomics, which in 2025, we're in a technological age, which is not good or bad. It's just the reality.

Joe: 02:59

We have a ton of screen time, so we need to make sure that our posture is really good because what we do on a daily basis just is not good for our posture. So making sure our thoracic spine moves really nicely is just gonna help us move better and just feel better. So for example, I'm gonna talk about the thoracic mobility and how it relates to functional activities. So it really helps you whether you're a golfer swinging a golf club, sitting at a desk, throwing a ball. Limited thoracic rotation forces the lumbar spine or shoulders to compensate, which increases your injury risk.

Joe: 03:38

Poor mobility can even make simple tasks like looking behind your back while driving, checking your blind spot, reaching overhead, or even just putting your clothes on. It can make it a lot more difficult than it needs to be. So let's move into signs that you have poor thoracic mobility or signs maybe even what we look for as physical therapists or if you and your own life resonate with what I'm talking about, maybe you need to come see a physical therapist. So if you're having stiffness at the upper or the mid back, so that's like between your shoulder blades. It's a really hard to reach area.

Joe: 04:11

A lot of people will come in and say, well, I'm just having stiffness. I just feel like I can't touch it in the middle of my back. If you also are noticing that you've got rounded shoulders or forward head posture, if you have difficulty with overhead movements or rotation, such as twisting to one side, if you're compensating for pain in your low back, shoulders or neck, all of those areas can lead to looking at your thoracic spine and maybe you have poor thoracic mobility. As I just said, prolonged sitting or slouching is really a big cause of thoracic mobility restrictions. It's just our lifestyle.

Joe: 04:46

We also can have weakness or imbalances in our chest muscles that pull our shoulders forward. For example, people that go to the gym, chest stays a day that most people don't miss because you can see it, right? However, if we get really strong in our chest that also internally rotates our shoulders and brings everything forward. Most people don't do enough pulling workouts. So what that does is if we have a super strong chest and not a strong enough back, everything's just going to be pulled forward, which limits the mobility of the thoracic spine.

Joe: 05:16

So some self tests to make sure that you have a good thoracic mobility or even just like a check-in where you don't know. A seated trunk rotation test where you just have your arms crossed against your chest and you just rotate. Can you see over the other shoulder? Can you get good rotation? Or doing a wall angel test.

Joe: 05:36

Can you trace your arm against a wall or your hand against the wall without lifting? I do it on the floor. Mine stinks personally. I have no problem saying that. My thoracic mobility stinks.

Joe: 05:45

I've really been trying to work on it after quite honestly seeing it in a video recording it for work and marketing purposes, seeing how bad my thoracic mobility was objectively. Okay, we got to work on it. I do recommend though always seeing a professional such as a physical therapist to make sure that we go through things specifically and find specific and safe interventions to help with any limitations that we see. So if you feel like you need to improve your thoracic mobility and even if you don't feel like it, I do think it is a nice thing to incorporate into an active recovery day because it only helps. It can't hurt you.

Joe: 06:23

Really only helps. It's like adding sprinkles on ice cream, right? It's just a nice addition. So stretch and mobility drill, our cat cow stretch for spine flexibility. Open book stretch is really good for thoracic rotation or just laying on a foam roller.

Joe: 06:41

Put a foam roller in the middle of your spine, put your arms to the side, and just let gravity take over, just sit and breathe. Strengthening exercises that are really nice, so it's one thing to stretch it, then we do have to strengthen that area as well. We do a row or reverse fly strengthens the upper back. We can do some low trap activation to keep the shoulder blade more stable. And just good general core stability.

Joe: 07:02

Right? The core is a three-dimensional muscle group. Everyone, you know, when we say core, we just think of abs. Well, we also have core on the backside of our trunk. We also have core me, core muscles below our trunk at our pelvic floor region.

Joe: 07:17

So if we're strong in our core from the front, back, top, and bottom, we're just gonna feel better. We also can adjust some lifestyle changes, which that would include addressing the restrictions that we find to relieve pain. We can adjust our posture, we can take breaks from sitting, and we can do some of the work that I just talked about with our daily routine and warm up with both stretch and strengthening stuff. So if we're improving our thoracic mobility that can increase, excuse me, not increase, it'll decrease our back pain and decrease our neck and shoulder pain. What it will increase is our function.

Joe: 07:55

So pain goes down, function goes up. In a stereotypical nutshell, very general, that's what we want in physical therapy, right? Or chiropractic or any medical care is we want pain to go down and function to go up. That means we're doing our job. Obviously, there's going to be some specific pinpoints in there that we really need to work on, but in general, we're trying to decrease pain and increase function.

Joe: 08:20

The reason the thoracic spine is often overlooked is because we're focused on treating pain where it is rather than addressing the root cause. I like to follow the thought process a lot of times that pain lies. Just because we're having neck pain doesn't always mean that it's just coming from the neck. I think it's vital. And I always do this.

Joe: 08:42

If you come in for back pain, I'm looking at your thoracic spine. I'm looking at your hip. I'm looking at your knee. I'm looking at your ankle. And I get some pushback from people.

Joe: 08:50

They're like, why are working on my hip? It's my back that hurts. I'm like, I know. Everything moves on one another. If we have a limitation up top or below, pain can come on the low back.

Joe: 09:00

No. That doesn't mean I'm not doing intervention on the low back. But we have to look at the body whole picture and really, again, address everything that's going on. So, again, with the thoracic spine, you're not gonna get the mobility that you get out of your low back, but that doesn't mean it has to be stiff. It still has to have some mobility.

Joe: 09:24

Once we get that mobility, we have to really focus on staying functional with that mobility to help things move. As long as things are moving better and feeling better, we're doing really good. So making sure that you regularly check-in with your thoracic mobility through simple stretches and movements. You seek professional guidance if you experience pain or find significant restrictions. And something just to remember is a healthy thoracic spine improves not only performance but your quality of life.

Joe: 09:54

It's something that's overlooked and something that can really take you a long way. So if you're having thoracic spine pain or having neck or back pain and nobody's looked at your thoracic spine, come on and see us here at Freedom Physical Therapy. We'd love to help you and we'd love to improve your function and let you enjoy more freedom. Thanks again for listening to yet another episode of the Freedom Talks podcast, everybody. We remember, we have four locations here in Southeast Wisconsin, in Fox Point, Grafton, Brookfield, and Mukwonago.

Joe: 10:24

Again, thanks for listening, and we'll see everybody in the next episode.