Shoulder & Thoracic Spine Guide

Place a foam roller perpendicular to your spine at mid-back level (roughly at the shoulder blade line). Support your head with your hands behind your neck. Allow your upper back to drape back over the roller into extension, breathing out as you do. Hold for 3–4 breaths, then shift the roller up or down one segment and repeat. Work through the mid and upper thoracic spine — avoid rolling the lower back. This creates a segmental extension mobilisation that most people feel immediately.

💡 Do not push on the top of the head to force the range. Let gravity do the work — patience produces better results than force here.

Kneel and sit back towards your heels, extending your arms forward on the floor. Walk both hands to one side to create a lateral bias, which opens the thoracic spine on the opposite side in a way that a centred child's pose does not. Breathe into the back ribs — imagining them expanding outward — to use the breath as an internal mobilisation tool. Repeat on both sides. Child's pose reduces lumbar compression and puts the thoracic spine in a position where gravity-assisted extension is gentle and accessible.

💡 If sitting back on your heels is uncomfortable, place a folded blanket between your thighs and calves.

On hands and knees with wrists under shoulders and knees under hips. For Cat: exhale and round your entire spine upward, tucking the pelvis and drawing the chin to the chest. For Cow: inhale and allow the spine to sag, lifting the tailbone and head. Move between these positions slowly, spending time at each end range. The goal is to actively move as much of the spine as possible — particularly the thoracic segments that tend to move as one rigid block rather than individual vertebrae.

💡 Try to 'wave' the movement from the tailbone to the neck rather than moving the whole spine at once. Segmental control is the goal.

Start on hands and knees. Slide one arm underneath your body along the floor — 'threading' it through — allowing the shoulder to drop towards the floor and the thoracic spine to rotate. Hold at the end range and breathe. To deepen: on the exhale, try to rotate the thoracic spine further without moving the arm. Then on the inhale, use your top arm to press the floor and create a little resistance as you unwind. This combined passive-active approach is highly effective for thoracic rotation in a position that eliminates lumbar compensation.

💡 Keep the hips level and directly over the knees throughout. The movement should all come from the thoracic spine.

On hands and knees, place one hand behind your head. Rotate your thoracic spine to bring the elbow towards the floor, then rotate back up to aim the elbow at the ceiling. This dynamic rotation under a stable base of support is ideal for restoring active thoracic rotation range. The key is to allow the movement to come from the spine — not the shoulder or the hip. Keep the lower back still by maintaining a neutral lumbar position throughout.

💡 If your lower back rotates with the movement, slow down and focus on initiating the rotation from the mid-back, not the hip.

Sit upright on the floor or a chair, ideally with your back away from a backrest. Cross your arms over your chest. Rotate your torso to one side as far as possible, then return and rotate to the other. The seated position fixes the pelvis and makes thoracic rotation the only option — you cannot compensate through the hips as you can in a standing rotation. Focus on rotating from just below the shoulder blades and breathe out as you reach the end range of rotation.

💡 Sit on a folded blanket to tilt the pelvis slightly forward — this makes it significantly easier to sit upright and rotate more freely.

Stand in a doorway and place your forearm vertically against the frame with the elbow at 90 degrees. Step forward with one foot to apply a gentle stretch across the pectoral and anterior shoulder. Three positions are important: elbow at 90 degrees (targets the sternal head of the pec), elbow at 120 degrees (targets the clavicular head), and arm more horizontal (targets pec minor). Hold each for 15 seconds per side. Breathe and do not lean aggressively — pec stretching with excessive force can irritate the shoulder joint.

💡 The stretch should be felt in the chest, not the front of the shoulder joint. If you feel it in the shoulder, lower the arm position slightly.

Lie on your back with knees bent. Bring both elbows to 90 degrees with upper arms against the sides of the torso. Externally rotate both forearms to lower the backs of the hands towards the floor. Most people cannot get the forearms flat — hold where the restriction is felt (in the front of the shoulder), breathe, and allow the weight of the forearms to gently increase the range over time. This is one of the few exercises that reliably targets the posterior capsule and subscapularis simultaneously.

💡 Do not force the forearms to the floor. The passive weight of the arm held at end range is sufficient stimulus — additional force is counterproductive.

Stand with your back flat against a wall, feet slightly forward, lower back and head in contact with the wall. Bring both arms up against the wall in a goalpost position (elbows at 90 degrees, upper arms parallel to the floor). Slowly slide both arms up the wall as if making a snow angel, trying to keep the back of your hands, forearms, and upper arms in contact with the wall throughout. Most people find that the back arches away from the wall as the arms go overhead — this is thoracic restriction. Maintain wall contact and work through the restriction consciously.

💡 Move at a pace where you can feel every restriction and respond to it rather than compensating. One centimetre of true range improvement is worth more than a full rep through compensation.

Hold a resistance band with both hands at shoulder width, arms extended straight in front of you at chest height. Pull the band apart by driving both hands outward and backward until the band touches your chest, squeezing the shoulder blades together and down at the end range. Control the return. The band pull-apart trains the middle and lower trapezius and the rear deltoid — the muscles responsible for scapular retraction and posterior tilt that are chronically weak and inhibited in people with poor posture. Substitute with a folded towel if no band is available.

💡 Perform with the arms at 30 degrees above horizontal (a Y-shape) to shift more emphasis onto the lower trapezius, which is typically the most important muscle to strengthen for shoulder health.

In a push-up position (or on knees), keep your arms completely straight throughout. Allow your shoulder blades to collapse together (protraction), then push the floor away to spread the shoulder blades wide (retraction). This small, controlled movement isolates the serratus anterior — the primary scapular protractor and upward rotator — which is essential for overhead reach. A weak serratus anterior is one of the most common findings in people with shoulder pain. The movement range is only a few centimetres; the quality of muscle contraction is what matters.

💡 At the top of the push-up position (scapulae spread wide), hold for 2 seconds and really feel the serratus anterior working — the engagement sensation is on the sides of the ribcage, not the chest.