3 Twist Stretches to Help With Back Tightness (Plus Demos!)
In yogic philosophy, twists massage the internal organs and encourage detoxification and digestion but more than that, they are also really phenomenal for releasing tension in the back.
As I’m positive you’ve heard me say in each and every single class I teach because I generally doing a supine spine twist after every core sequence, that the thoracic spine (upper back) is one of the tightest areas of the back. This can be because of poor posture, poor breathing, and of course, injury.
3 Rotation Moves to Release Back Tension and Relieve Pain
Table Top Windshield Wipers
Laying flat on your back, use your core to bring the legs to tabletop/chair position. Keeping your ribs and shoulders anchored to the ground, squeeze the inner thighs together and sweep the legs as far to the right as you can without peeling your left shoulder off the floor. Make sure to keep the knees together, rather than letting one leg get longer than the other. You should feel your obliques as well (which is a bonus, because strengthening your core will majorly help with back pain!) Alternate sides, repeating 5-10x or until you feel relief. You can even do this one with your butt on a foam roller to get extra credit hip release.
Supine Hip Twist
Laying flat on your back, hug the right knee into your chest, take the right arm straight to the side and keep your right shoulder pressed to the floor as you take the right knee in the left hand and draw that knee towards the left side of the body. Hold for a few deep breaths focusing on expanding through the back ribs. Repeat on the second side.
Quadruped Thoracic Spine Twist
I love this one because it reverses the previous two moves and changes your relationship to gravity. In all fours kneeling, with the hands stacked under the shoulders and the hips stacked over the knees, inhale and reach the right arm straight to the ceiling and pause, try to reach both up and back towards the left to open the chest, then thread the right arm underneath the left armpit and lay the right side of your face on the floor. You can either linger here and take some deep breaths, or you can make this more active by repeating 5x before hitting the other side.
Conclusion
Check out this IG reel I made for visual demos of these moves and you can find more full length stretch classes as well as specific muscle releases in the Release and Restore collection and a whole collection that integrates active and passive twisting to combine strength and release work on Helen Phelan studio (free for the first 10 days!)