Upper Back Rehab Program (Day 2): 17-Min Band & Foam Roller Flow

Back, put your hands behind your head, then elbows to the floor, squeeze back up. And push into the floor there if you can. And relax there. So for the next exercise, I want my band attached to something.

So again, if you can fix it to a wall, a door frame, anything that's not going to fall over when you pull on it. So I'm going to start the grip on the band, keeping my body nice and square. I'm going to start by pulling my shoulder blade back and then pull the band towards my hip. Back out again.

And then this time I'm going to go high. So I'm going to keep the elbow high. Come back out and then I'm going to alternate low, high. I can switch hands and do the same thing.

So I'm going to go low and then high. Then the exercise I'm going to mix that up with is a scapular push up. So for this, I'm going to keep my arms absolutely straight. I'm not going to let my elbows bend, but I'm just going to let my shoulder blades slide on my rib cage.

I'm going to let them come together at the back and then I push them forwards. I'm getting a small amount of movement there just from the sliding of the shoulder blade. The elbows stay locked. This one can take a little while to get the hang of.

I need to make sure I'm really pushing down into the floor as I push the shoulders forwards. And relax there. And then we're going to do one more set, starting with the band. So again, I can adjust the tension on the band and how strong the band is, based on how difficult this feels and where I'm getting the pain.

So again, I never want these exercises to be painful. It may be a little bit uncomfortable at times, but if it crosses the line into pain, then I know I'm going a bit too far. And switch sides. Grab my band.

And I'm going to hold the band a little bit wider than the shoulder width this time. And again, that will depend on how flexible your shoulders are, so you can vary this. I'm going to take the arms up to the front, over the head, and then all the way back, if I can. And again, you might find that you need a slightly wider grip on the band to enable you to do that.

And you're feeling a bit of a stretch. It may be a little bit uncomfortable, but there's no pain there. Try and keep a bit of tension on the band as you go all the way over. And rest there.

Put the band to one side, and grab your foam roller. So I want to start with the foam roller around the middle of my back. Feet planted on the floor, hips on the floor. So I can support my head with my hands if I want to.

And what I'm going to do is I'm just going to lean back as far as I can comfortably, and then come back up. I'm going to do that a few times. And from there, I use my feet to slide myself down just a little bit. We're going to do the same thing a little bit higher up.

Now, you might find that some places feel a bit stiffer and sore than others. Slide up again. You may find that if you're having upper back pain, there are a couple of spots where it's really very painful, in which case, take it easy. Work around the area, but don't force it through pain.

Slide down to the next one. For some people who've got quite an irritable upper back, I'll suggest they start with either a soft foam roller or wrap their foam roller in a towel, something like that, just to take the edge off things a little bit. It can be quite uncomfortable the first time you do this. Slide down again.

As I get a bit higher up, I find that I'm getting a little bit less movement. I want to focus on pushing my elbows back, trying to get as much movement as I can. Slide up again. If there is a place that feels a bit stiff, a bit stuck, I may want to spend a bit longer at that point.

Slide down to the next one. Right up at the top here. Slide my shoulders up, again, making sure those elbows go back, trying to make the most of that movement that I've got. Much smaller movement at this end of the spine, but I want to make sure that it's moving as well as it can be.

Eventually, I run out of spine. I'm just going to roll up and down the muscles. Then I can go back to... I can do this whole thing again.

Start at the bottom, go through the whole process one more time. Slide up to the next one. This is one of my favorite uses for a foam roller. It's a really good way of mobilizing the upper back.

Slide down. Slide up. Slide down. I tend to find that a lot of the things that we do in jiu-jitsu, and a lot of martial arts generally, tend to involve having the shoulders rounded, the upper back rounded.

A lot of the muscles we use and to pull the shoulders in that direction. So spending a bit of time doing some mobilization and making sure that we're maintaining our movement in the other direction as well can really pay off. And that's all for day two. We'll see you back here tomorrow and we'll continue with this idea.