Putting A Spring In Your Step

Last week we talked about your ribcage and how slightly altering it’s position can improve your breathing, lightness of movement and relaxation in your body. You can see how this region of the body can have a massive influence on other regions of the body with it’s domino effect.

We used to view the ribcage as a stiff box that protected your heart and lungs and from a Physio point of view considered the vertebra separate to the ribs. The latest research actually indicates this region, called your “thorax”, behaves as a series of 10 thoracic rings stacked on one another. It is a more flexible, moving region which plays a big role in rotation, shock absorbing and taking weight to the side.

Your ribcage is a slinky in your body!

Each ring in your ribcage has 13 joints in it and as you know, joints are moved by muscles that are controlled and co-ordinated by your brain. When thinking optimal in this region think of Rory McIlroy’s golf swing or the Strictly professional’s dancing (NOT Ed Balls!). Don’t you want to move like that! These guys have great activation and balance of muscles that control their rings leading them to beautiful optimal fluid movement throughout their body that feels GOOD!

You can also see that co-ordinating the movement at 13 joints so the whole ring moves in an optimal way and co-ordinates with adjacent regions can be a challenge! If you have had problems in your body for example from a bunion, ankle sprain, a frozen shoulder, an arthritic knee or hip or a sore back, you know you moved differently because things hurt. Consciously or subconsciously you tried to take load off the sore bit and, to keep moving, you used your body differently. This doesn’t need to happen for long for your brain maps to change and these altered movement patterns become wired in and that is how you now move!

Your ribcage, because it is such a big region with lots of options to move sideways and rotate adapt’s to this altered loading too. It isn’t a stiff static box. It has lots of moveable joints remember.  Likewise, when this region isn’t moving optimally it can have a HUGE impact on other regions of the body, causing low back pain, incontinence and prolapse,  groin pain, anterior hip pain, knee, neck and shoulder pain, headaches etc and the classic belief of poor “core stability”! Remember “shoulders back, head up” cues and how that negatively impacts on your ribcage (last weeks blog).

Training more optimal control, balance, movement and strength in the ribcage is totally possible if it is the region that truly “drives” or causes the problems you are experiencing in your body. Identifying which area(s) are causing the problem is the key to optimising your whole body movement to make you move and feel better. This is where the Thoracic Ring Approach™ and ConnectTherapy™ can give you freedom of movement in your body you only dreamed about. There is Physiotherapy intervention that can help you with your pain and movement problems you have had for years and are so used to living with you don’t even tell us about them!

It isn’t too late to train changes in how you move. You can teach old dogs new tricks. You can improve your fitness level. You can feel more confidently again in yourself,trust your body and know it is robust enough to do the things you love with no payback.

Have belief and hope as they are powerful things! Give us a call if you would like to find out where your Driver is and how to open up your world to better and new movement. Call 01548 852355 or email [email protected].

Originally posted March 2017