Mid Back Pain?! Watch This Video Right Now!
Hi, everyone, Dr. Samantha Szyska here with Cornerstone Health. We’re gonna continue along through our Pain During Pregnancy series. Today we’re gonna talk about mid back pain. We’re gonna talk about the location, some checks to do that you can do at home and one exercise that you can already do at home to help relieve some of that pain.
Hi everyone, Dr. Samantha Szyska here again with Cornerstone Health continuing with our Pain During Pregnancy series. We’ve already talked about low back pain. So if you haven’t seen that video, go check that one out. If not, we’re gonna start today with our mid back pain. Mid back pain, I see it all the time. I see it a lot in my general population, but I see it in my pregnant populations a ton. A lot of them will have it prior and it just gets worse during pregnancy.
We live in society that a lot of individuals sit for work. We sit at a computer. You can already check yourself. Today at work, take a minute and look in a mirror or look at yourself in your computer. Is your head really forward? Are your shoulders rounded? Is there a big, kind of, we call it a kyphosis, or is that a big hump in your mid back? All those are precursors to some mid back pain. Are you tight into the chest? If you have those prior to pregnancy, they might increase during pregnancy. They might start during pregnancy because again, during pregnancy, our body likes to do different things.
Everyone’s pregnancy is different. We are, our weight is changing in the front of our bodies which causes our back, our posterior chain muscles, all the muscles of our back have to work twice as hard to help open up our chest, hold us up straight in a good posture. Our hormones are changing. As you get later in pregnancy, hormones are changing. There are different things going on, so we need to make sure that our body is nice and strong so that you can sit, you can work, you can, afterwards, feed your baby because if you’ve had mid back pain during pregnancy, there’s a good chance as you’re feeding your baby, it might increase or get worse due to that feeding posture.
We’re gonna go over next a couple of common areas where the pain is and then one exercise that you can do at home already to help relieve some of that pain. Okay, welcome back. So we are gonna start today exactly showing where mid back pain is and then an exercise that can be done at home already to help relieve some of that tension. So we’re gonna have our lovely model here PQ turn around so I can show you exactly where the mid back pain is.
A lot of times it starts right at the base of the neck. We get a lot of tension in here, oh yeah, I’m always, there’s always a knot right here. I can’t get rid of it. No matter how many times I massage it I can’t get rid of it. That’s when we’re looking at some other structures. We’re looking at what are you doing during your day activities? What’s causing it? So we’re looking here in between the shoulders and then kind of a couple inches below the scapula, the shoulder blade here. So right in this region. So a quick easy exercise that we’re gonna have PQ help demonstrate us, it goes by a couple of names.
The Exercise To Try!
We’re gonna call it tripod rotation. So, what we’re gonna do, there’s different variations. You can use the floor, a wall, a desk, a couch, any sort of height. So this can be done at work, this can be done in an elevator, this can be done at home, wherever you got it, we’re gonna do it. So , what we’re gonna do, PQ’s gonna place one hand, it’s called tripod, so you need to make your body into a tripod.
So she’s gonna place her one hand there, then she’s actually going to switch her feet for me. So here, so she’s making a tripod with her body. One, two, three. She’s good spacing in her legs, you wanna have a good stable base, then again we’re already starting with a nice straightened, good spine. So her head is nice and long, there’s no rounding here, no excess dipping here. She’s gonna place her left hand at the base of her neck, nice and relaxed through her head here. What she’s gonna do, she’s gonna have a good stable hand through her right hand. Then she’s going to open up this hand towards the ceiling, rotating through the thoracic spine, mid back, getting a good stretch through here.
No neck tension, so her shoulders are nice and relaxed. She might even get a little stretch into the low back, into the hips. Main focus is right through here. She’s gonna hold for about five to 10 seconds and then repeat this about three to four times per day. And she’s gonna do 10 on each side. So she can take a break there, and she’s gonna do one more for the camera ’cause she did such a great job the first time. Good, good, all the way up. Feeling right through here.
This can be done at your desk, this can be done at home while you’re making dinner, whatever you’re doing this is an easy variation that can be done. So if you have any issues, if you had mid back pain during your pregnancy, or post partum when you’re feeding your child, or just in general life. Give us a call, let’s get you in, let’s check out and see how we can help you.
