{"id":43200,"date":"2018-06-30T14:32:00","date_gmt":"2018-06-30T12:32:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/leilaspilates.nl\/things-to-consider-about-the-thoracic-spine\/"},"modified":"2026-04-19T08:57:56","modified_gmt":"2026-04-19T06:57:56","slug":"things-to-consider-about-the-thoracic-spine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/leilaspilates.nl\/en\/things-to-consider-about-the-thoracic-spine\/","title":{"rendered":"Things to consider about the Thoracic spine"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The thoracic spine is the area of the spine connected to the ribs. Each rib has its own joint to connect to its own vertebra. The ribcage reaches around the heart and lungs towards the front of the body where it connects to the sternum, with carti\u00adlage, making move\u00adment avail\u00adable for the ribs. <\/p>\n\n

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As a struc\u00adture of protec\u00adtion for our vital organs heart and lungs, the ribcage needs to be strong, but not rigid. The breath initi\u00adates move\u00adment of the ribs, trunk muscles, and organs, all the way up to the shoulder girdle and down to the pelvic floor. When the shoul\u00adders are pressed down, or the ribs are \u2018over\u2019 closed, this move\u00adment becomes restricted. This will influ\u00adence move\u00adment along the whole spine. <\/p>\n\n

If you look at the spine, and observe how the verte\u00adbrae at different levels of the spine have different shapes, you can imagine that the different areas allow for different move\u00adment ranges. The cervical spine is most mobile, and in all direc\u00adtions. The thoracic is far less mobile ( because of its attach\u00adment to the ribcage). It has rela\u00adtively most move\u00adment avail\u00adable in rota\u00adtion, but also flexion and exten\u00adsion is avail\u00adable, yet espe\u00adcially exten\u00adsion is often under-used in the Thoracic. <\/p>\n\n

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The lumbar spine moves mainly in flexion, exten\u00adsion and side bending. As many of our clients can be quite unaware of the possible move\u00adment in their thoracic, they tend to over\u00adlook this part of the spine espe\u00adcially in exten\u00adsion. Therefor it is so impor\u00adtant to include exer\u00adcises to increase aware\u00adness, mobility and strength in every session with your client. This can result in dramatic changes to your clients posture, breath and therefor their general well being. <\/p>\n\n

As you breathe your lungs move: they increase and decrease in size. Move\u00adment of the spine can be facil\u00adi\u00adtated by the use of breath. On the other hand, move\u00adment can also be restricted because of shallow or acces\u00adsory breathing. Often this will come together with a stiff\u00adening in the Thoracic and the shoulder girdle, reducing the ROM in this area. <\/p>\n\n

It can be useful to imagine the move\u00adment of the breath to be an initiator of move\u00adment. Also you can exper\u00adi\u00adment in visu\u00adal\u00adizing the move\u00adment of the lungs as initia\u00adtors of move\u00adment of the spine in rota\u00adtion. Does the canister move the content, or is it the other way around? <\/p>\n\n

If the ribcage is used as a rigid part of the trunk, you will observe exces\u00adsive move\u00adment in the cervical and lumbar spine. On top of that, it is likely that the ribs are weighing down on the lumbar\/\u200babdominnla area, which my result compres\u00adsion issues in those areas. <\/p>\n\n

In addi\u00adtion one needs to consider the role of the shoulder girdle in the move\u00adment of the thoracic spine: the more free the scapulae move in rela\u00adtion to the ribcage, in all direc\u00adtions, the easier move\u00adment will trans\u00adport trough the thoracic spine. Fine tuning the co\u00f6r\u00addi\u00adna\u00adtion between the scapulae, arms, ribcage pelvis and spine will opti\u00admalise the move\u00adment of the spine, thus keeping it happy to move! <\/p>\n\n

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When bending to the back, we need to also have a look at the rela\u00adtion between the pelvis and the ribcage. As the spine and the ribs reach back, the pelvis is easily ante\u00adri\u00adorly tilted. This can also over\u00adload the lumbar spine. While doing the exer\u00adcises of this work\u00adshop, it it therefor very impor\u00adtant to keep paying atten\u00adtion the posi\u00adtion of the pelvis, specif\u00adi\u00adcally the length\u00adening of the psoas, in order to develop a healthy move\u00adment pattern. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The thoracic spine is the area of the spine connected to the ribs. Each rib has its own joint to connect to its own vertebra. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":43199,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","wp_typography_post_enhancements_disabled":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[37],"dipi_cpt_category":[],"class_list":["post-43200","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","tag-thoracic-spine"],"a3_pvc":{"activated":false,"total_views":25,"today_views":0},"ase":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/leilaspilates.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43200","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/leilaspilates.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/leilaspilates.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leilaspilates.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leilaspilates.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43200"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/leilaspilates.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43200\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43229,"href":"https:\/\/leilaspilates.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43200\/revisions\/43229"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leilaspilates.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43199"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/leilaspilates.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43200"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leilaspilates.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43200"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leilaspilates.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43200"},{"taxonomy":"dipi_cpt_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leilaspilates.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/dipi_cpt_category?post=43200"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}