Open Books - Active Chest Stretch and Spine Mobilization

Open Books - Active Chest Stretch and Spine Mobilization is an effective and easy-to-follow stretching program created to maintain proper posture and to improve overall mobility. This program utilizes dynamic stretching and mobilization techniques, providing users with the tools to improve alignment, reduce stress, and enhance balance. Through active and combined mobility exercises, users are able to gain greater freedom of movement, reduce the risk of injury, and improve core stability. The program provides an effective and efficient means of addressing common issues

Transcript

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This is Brent Brookbush, President of B2C and we're talking about
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our progressions from our static stretching
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techniques, which are our active stretching techniques. I think you're going to
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really appreciate this technique. It's a combined technique, works
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wonderfully for active chest stretch, works great for active pec minor stretch, works
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great for spinal mobilization all the way down to the SI joint, and in some
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individuals who are really tight you may even get an active piriformis stretch. I'm going to have Vinnie
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come out and help me demonstrate this. We start with just a foam roll or even
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a half foam roll, or a medicine ball, something about this height, you'll see why the
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height is important. I'm going to have him set up side-lying behind this foam roll. We're
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going to use this foam roll for his knee. So Vinnie's going to bring his knee up to
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90 degrees of hip flexion, he's going to put his foot just above his knee with this leg
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straight, his spine and this back leg are lined up nice. Now, what we're going to do
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is go ahead and put one hand behind his head, he's going to use this hand on his
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knee, he's going to go ahead and grab his biceps femoris tendon. So this hand is really
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pulling this way. One thing I don't really want you guys to do is push down on this knee, because
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that can cause a lot of torque in the spine, you'll see what I'm talking about when we start this
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technique. He's just kind of using it to guard to make sure it stays on this
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foam roll, and he's using his active strength, his leg strength to push down into it a little bit.
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What Vinnie is going to first start out doing is try to put his elbow on floor. At this
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point this becomes an incredible, active, posterior capsule stretch. I'm sure Vinnie
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can feel that. He's going to hold that for 2. Then he's going to go ahead and open up all of the way, keeping
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that hand on the back of his head, and then as he rotates he'll feel this all the
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way through his thoracic spine, he'll feel this through his SI joint, through
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his piriformus, and of course, as he comes close to the floor this becomes and incredible
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pec minor stretch. He's going to hold that for 2, and then come back.
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Now, I'm just kind of going back to this foam roll, I've seen people try to
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attempt this on the floor. If we added up optimal extensibility of the hip, optimal
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extensibility of spinal rotation, optimal extensibility of scapular retraction and
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horizontal abduction and external rotation of the shoulder, all of those combined still wouldn't get us to the point of
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the knee on the floor and the elbow on the floor. So I don't want people going for hypermobility.
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Hypermobility, too much flexibility, is just as dangerous as being tight. So
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please use a foam roll or a half foam roll because that will get us to a point of
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good extensibility at all joints. We can make a couple little modifications to
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this to progress the exercise. This is really, really hard unto
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itself. A regression might be to let them go ahead and extend their hand into
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a chest stretch, and then go ahead and as you roll back, just reach forward with
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your hand. Of course increasing that lever length means he doesn't have to rotate as far.
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I have even gone as far, to combine a little more into the stretch, have people
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go into half a wall angel, that serratus anterior activation, so they turn this
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way, put their forearm against the floor, and then reach up into a shoulder press
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like motion. This is a great stretch for anybody with upper body dysfunction. It
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ends up being a pretty good stretch for anybody with lumbo pelvic hip complex dysfunction, and because there is some
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SI joint dysfunction in lower leg, we can even use it for that. Of course our base
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technique, just kind of going back to review, is hand behind the head, we're going to go forward, touch the
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elbow down and then keep this position opening up. Make sure we have upward rotation in the scapula,