My mobility is bad as hell

Hi guys,

today was my first day of Throraric mobility work. I gotta say my mobility is so, so bad. I have chronic pain in my Th, C spine from muscle imbalances and bad mobility. When I started with even first exercise (rocking table for warm up?) I felt very discomfort feeling in my biceps, even now I feel pain in the right arm - bicep, elbow. Do you have some advice for me? I don't want hurt my self or tear up my muscles, you know. I ended my series at Supine trap stretch (9.) ...  Thanks guys

- Discomfort is to be expected.

- Make sure you feel fully recovered before beginning another session. 

- Don't train through pain. If something hurts, reduce the intensity until it doesn't. 

Thank you.. I would also ask, when I feel lot of tension even in the first exercise from the series, that is for warm up, do I have to any special warm up before? ANd how to scale exercises, decrease ROM? Ty

Cornelius said:

Thank you.. I would also ask, when I feel lot of tension even in the first exercise from the series, that is for warm up, do I have to any special warm up before? ANd how to scale exercises, decrease ROM? Ty

I would try to warmup a little beforehand. Others with more knowledge in the gymnastics realm may have better, alternative suggestions, but I would say, at the very least, do a 5 - 10m walk at a good pace to get your heart rate up.

And for scaling, same thing, others may have better suggestions, but you won't/don't work flexibility the same way you work conditioning. That is, and Coach Sommer says throughout the videos, you get into the positions to the point of discomfort and try to relax the muscle(s) being stretched. That's why some of the holds are as long as they are; over time, your body will stop fighting the position allowing you to get deeper into the stretch. Plan on the process taking a while, and don't try to push yourself so hard that your hurt yourself.

I am finding that with the stretches that are new to me that there is a learning phase.  I felt awkward at first.  By way of comparison, the stretches or movements that I have done before, while feeling different in the context of the sequence, were much less troublesome.  As I have learned the new stretches or movements, I am feeling more comfortable in doing them, even though I have not really progressed much yet.

So I would say just keep doing as much as you can, and give yourself sometime to experience the movements or stretches, and then start to work on getting a little more out of it.