New-to-me yoga teacher the other day. He reminded me about the importance of working with the ribs. Those of us that have a tendency to roll our shoulders forward in a slouch usually end up misaligning our rib cage (and thus the mid back) when we make adjustments to our shoulders to open the chest and breathe better.

Playing with Mid-back Alignment: Top Down (Shoulders to Pelvis)

Try sitting or standing upright (straighten your spine to its neutral or natural upright curves), relaxing your shoulders down and then back a little bit, taking a nice deep breath and letting your chest open fully. Feels great right?

And it is! And if you are like most of us you’ve probably managed to thrust your ribs forward, a little or a lot, in the process. Check your low back. If there is a bigger curve there, or if your torso is not stacked over your pelvis try this simple adjustment: keeping your chest nice and open, gently pull your bottom ribs back in towards towards your spine as if someone was pushing your bottom ribs backwards. This simple action moves your spine towards neutral by aligning your spine in your mid back.

A couple of interesting things can happen now…

The first thing we’ll explore is that your chest is open, your upper torso is stacked over your pelvis… and your low back and belly feel tight and constricted. This can be because your muscles are weak in this position so they are tightening in an effort to compensate. If you don’t rest in this alignment most of the time, your muscles aren’t used to working in this way so they are not so strong in this alignment. They are more used to your normal stance. Since your posture muscles are weak, they will tire quickly. The result is that in this position you can breathe, but you can’t move freely or maintain it for very long.

To help with the tightness, keep your shoulders relaxed, your chest broad, your ribs aligned, and gently move your upper body around (in small circles, side to side, etc) encouraging your low torso to soften. Then relax into neutral spine and rest there. When you feel tightness returning maintain your upper body alignment and move around a bit more. Keep doing this interplay until you lose concentration or until you start getting physically a bit fatigued, which ever comes first.

To help with the muscular weakness, play with this alignment for a few minutes at a time as often as you remember it. The key is to strengthen the muscles by working them a little at a time as often as you can. Like every other posture exercise, you can change habits by creating new ones over time… so enjoy the adventure!

The next thing we’ll explore is that your chest is open, your upper torso is stacked over your pelvis… and you are holding your ribs in so tightly that you aren’t allowing your rib cage to expand fully with each breath. The result of this is that you are in alignment, but you cannot breathe freely.

To help with this tightness keep your shoulders relaxed, your chest broad, your ribs aligned and soften your hold on your intercostal muscles (the muscles between your ribs) by playing with expanding your ribs sideways as you inhale. If you play with sideways expansion you can actively relax your ribcage, allowing movement, while maintaining alignment front to back. In other words, you are softening by letting your body expand to the sides versus expanding forwards and possibly jutting your ribs forward again into misalignment.

Again, it is good to play with this alignment for as long as you can maintain concentration or until you get physically tired, which ever arrives first.

Playing with Mid-back Alignment: Bottom Up (Feet to Ribcage)

Another way to play with this mid-back alignment, is to work with stabilizing your base first, getting your feet and legs well placed and strong, then positioning the pelvis and finally making sure that the ribs are aligned. This was how the yoga teacher interacted with this and emphasized it by making it the foundation for every asana he taught. Made for a beautiful class.

First, how is your base? Are you standing with your weight evenly distributed between both feet and legs? Are you sitting with your weight evenly spread between your sit bones? Are you relaxed, tense, strong, floppy, comfortable, in pain… check them out and see what you feel. Make adjustments towards alignment, balance and comfort by distributing your weight evenly between your legs or sit bones, and the balls and heels of both feet. In this way you are even right to left and front to back.

Next, move up to your low torso and notice how your pelvis is positioned… is your low back flat or over arched? Is one hip out to the side? Are you crossing your legs and making your pelvis uneven horizontally and also front to back (one hip further in front than the other)? Do you feel comfortable? Balanced? Supported? Make adjustments towards them by tilting or un-tilting your pelvis and uncrossing your legs and ankles.

Finally, notice your ribs. Are you jutting out your ribcage or are your ribs tucked in nicely, creating nice alignment in your mid-back? Adjust accordingly.

Additionally, of course, you can keep moving up and check your shoulders and head alignment, noticing and adjusting them so that they are open and balanced over your pelvis.

Playing with Mid-back Alignment: Ribs Only – Simplest Practice

Lately, I skip all of this and just play with my ribs… am I pushing them out or are they aligned? And surprisingly, I can make nice adjustments most of the time. I wasn’t really noticing them so much before this class. And when I bother to do a whole routine, there is this wonderful feeling of support and strength that comes from being lined up like a column, a solid and relaxed feeling.

 

I’m interested to know what works best for you and what you find when you play with these things.

And if you have any other suggestions you’d care to share, please do!

 

Thanks for Sharing,

Elena