Name: Playbook - TrickStrong RX - Neck & Mid-Back Mobility
Uploaded: 2025-04-08T19:59:01.975Z
Duration: 45 min
Description: Neck & Mid-Back Mobility

James

Drake Cebrian

The Shoulder Y Lift, or Ys for short is designed to improve overhead shoulder strength, stability and mobility. With the Y, we can improve the overhead position we so often need for Tricking as well as in daily life. Many things might be limiting from you accessing this position (such as strength deficits, shoulder or spinal mobility, pain, etc), but by practicing it we can improve these limitations over time.
We want to feel this exercise between the shoulder blades and especially at the lower trapezius muscle, which helps to keep our shoulder blades in an optimal position during overhead movement. We want to avoid upper trapezius dominance which can limit overhead shoulder mobility and put undue tension on our neck and shoulder.

Shoulder Ys - Standing

This is a great drill to include in a warmup, core or mobility circuit. 

This combines the benefits of a downward dog stretch with a dynamic plank. Inch worms are excellent for total body mobility, stability and coordination.

Inch Worms

Framing the door is an amazing mobility drill to encourage opening in the pec major, pec minor, lats, teres major and other internal rotators of the shoulder.

- Begin with chin tuck + scap squeeze
- Bring arms OH, facing palms outward
- Bring elbows as close to body as possible while maintaining goalpost position
- Hold at bottom position for 5-10 seconds, and return to the top

You should feel all of the muscles between your scapulae and your lats firing HARD during this. The more consciously you squeeze the muscles in the back, the more your shoulders will open and the more your posture will improve. 

An alternative is doing it on the floor using a foam roller. 
I won’t say it’s a progression because the foam roller makes it easier from a postural stability standpoint, but more challenging from a mobility standpoint.

Framing the Door - Standing

Chin Tuck Rotations are great for mobility and stability of the cervical (neck) and upper thoracic (mid-back) spine and should be a staple in your routine.
 
Cervical mobility is extremely important in not only improving neck, shoulder and postural function, but in giving us the space to perform athletic movement without limitations.

The plank adds difficulty by making us stabilize while we move our neck. This helps improve neck control.

Chin Tuck Rotation - Plank

The windmill is an amazing exercise for combining the hip hinge movement pattern with spinal rotation, which not only trains our core and shoulder stability, but also lengthens our hamstrings, thoracic spine, pecs and neck. 

Think about why we would need this movement pattern as tricking athletes. Owning this movement creates more stability in tricks such as touchdown raiz, gumbi, sideswipe – any move that loads through the hips with spinal rotation.  

You can begin this with soft knees, and progress to straight knees which will stretch the HS. Notice how I turn my feet away from my overhead arm about 45 degrees to allow room for the rotation. 

Look towards your overhead arm the entire time. As you maintain core rigidity, load your shoulder in line with gravity by aiming the weight directly at the ceiling.
Avoid excessive shrugging and trunk sagging.

Windmill - KB

By design, our necks are quite mobile. Our mobility and stability training needs to reflect this for maximum benefit and carryover to functional tasks such as looking around, driving or athletics. 

These are not neck rolls. Cervical CARs are done in a specific sequence to involve all of the joint capacity that the neck joints allow. Before beginning, it’s important to understand that if there is any pain or pinching to do this exercise JUST outside of that ROM. 

Begin with:
Neck long (slight chin tuck) 
Jaw closed
Tongue on roof of mouth
 
1.	Flexion
2.	Rotation (follow the collarbone with your chin)
3.	Sidebending (get your ear to your shoulder while looking as far as you can to one side)
4.	Extension (look back)
5.	Sidebending + Rotation (look to your other side)
6.	Rotation (get ear away from shoulder)
7.	End position (follow chin along collarbone to return to the starting position).

Be sure to do both sides!

Cervical CARS - Standing

Get into a quadruped position. Slowly alternate between arched back to rounded back positions, feeling movement at each vertebrae.
 
Look up as you arch, look down as you round and push through your arms.

With Cat Camel, we are training spinal mobility and hip/spine dissociation, which is important for proper articulation with movement. We want each segment of your spine to be able to move and interact with each other. Typically after injury, segments of the spine have reduced range of motion. 

The old adage – if you don’t use it, you lose it – applies here. 

Our ability to compensate and use only certain parts of our spines can trick us into thinking we are more mobile than we are. These areas that have forgotten how to move can lead to other issues if left unaddressed.

Cat Camel

Thread the Needle is great for mobility and stability of the thoracic spine and shoulder girdle and should be a staple in your routine. 

Thoracic mobility is extremely important in not only improving neck, shoulder and postural function, but in giving us the space to perform throwing and rotational movements such as touchdown raiz or eagles without limitation.

Begin in the quadruped position, or all fours. We prefer doing this drill banded because it allows us to gain strength and stability within our range of motion and therefore increases carryover of this new mobility. 

Strength throughout our full range of motion is simply safer as it is injury preventative. 

Make sure you choose a tension that is challenging but does not limit your full range of motion.

Thread the Needle - Banded

Quadruped Thoracic Rotations are great for mobility and stability of the thoracic spine and shoulder girdle and should be a staple in your routine. 

Thoracic mobility is extremely important in not only improving neck, shoulder and postural function, but in giving us the space to perform throwing and rotational movements such as touchdown raiz or eagles without limitation.

Begin in the quadruped position, or all fours. We prefer doing this drill banded because it allows us to gain strength and stability within our range of motion and therefore increases carryover of this new mobility. 

Strength throughout our full range of motion is simply safer as it is injury preventative. 

Make sure you choose a tension that is challenging but does not limit your full range of motion.

Quadruped Thoracic Rotations - Banded

Actively pull your chest through your arms with the muscles between your shoulder blades. Roll your palms towards the ceiling to increase lat lengthening.

Active Lat Stretch

Thoracic whips are a great way to quickly improve thoracic and cervical spine mobility along with shoulder mobility. It is definitely a more aggressive technique which is better performed later on in the rehab process, as a movement prep before activity or as part of a mobility session. 

They look violent, but are perfectly safe and effective in improving thoracic spine mobility. This drill is great to address asymmetries from Tricking as we are frequently twisting to one side and not the other. This can also be used as a useful twisting drill to improve initiation and spotting.

It is important that we isolate this motion to the spine, rather than moving excessively through our shoulders.

Thoracic Whips

Thoracic extension mobility is often restricted due to the forward head, rounded shoulder posture we often assume in the modern day. This can not only make the muscles tight in this region, but the joints of our spine get used to being in a flexed posture as well. 

If this is you, you will feel closed off in the front and tight in the neck and upper back. Tightness in this region can sometimes feel like a stiffness or pinch when we try to extend through the thoracic spine, or upper to mid back. 

The yoga wheel is great for general upper thoracic mobility. Using a weight enhances the mobilization - but don't go too heavy. I'm using a 15 lb KB here. 

I keep my core engaged to focus the movement in my upper back while limiting it in the often-mobile lumbar spine.

Neck & Mid-Back Mobility

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