Spine

Back pain is a problem everyone faces sooner or later. Do any of these conditions sound familiar?

• Osteochondrosis of the spine.  
• Spinal curvature or scoliosis.  
• You work at a desk all day, in a chair that doesn’t fit or offers little in the way of support. 
• You work at a desk all day and your chair is perfect. You just never get out of it.

 You frequently over-estimate your body’s ability to play or work like it did 15 or 20 years ago, and painful muscles spasms remind you of your age.

These reasons are far from being the entire list of conditions or reasons that lead to acute or chronic pain in the thoracic spine and back.

In many cases, we know what makes our back hurt, the real question is, how to get rid of the pain! Is there a way to get rid of back pain that is effective and safe? If you are looking for a way to end your struggle with back pain that works and that isn’t going to do more harm than good, consider a unique approach developed by Doctor Borschenko. His method will help you develop a strong muscular foundation for your spine and strengthen the essential muscle groups which lead to the elimination of pain. 

Many people with back pain seek relief in the form of medications like over-the-counter pain pills, muscle relaxants, antidepressants and even narcotics. Effective? Maybe. Safe? Maybe not. Medications definitely carry a risk of side effects. Isometric Exercises cause only one side effect: pain relief.   

Static isometric gymnastics for the spine is non-strenuous.  It is a way to train your muscles without any strain or pain, and you don’t need to invest hundreds or thousands of dollars in expensive training equipment. You don’t have to worry about joining a gym or buying new work-out clothes.  All you do is position your body according to the simple training poses, and briefly hold the poses.  As a result, not only your spinal muscles, but also the spinal ligaments become stronger. You’ll know these exercises work when you experience the evidence yourself:  elimination of pain, increased spinal mobility and relaxation of your muscles.

Static isometric exercises for the thoracic spine are effective for eliminating back and chest pain, and strengthening the respiratory muscles, especially the diaphragm. The functioning of the gastrointestinal tract and other internal organs also improves when thoracic spine exercises strengthen essential muscle groups in the chest, back and abdomen.

You can get rid of back pain and your spine will regain its former flexibility and mobility in just a few weeks of following Igor Borschenkos’ plan.  Just strike a pose and hold it!

What is connected with the thoracic spine?

Your thoracic spine consists of 12 vertebrae that are situated between your neck and your lower back.  This set of a dozen bones is the least mobile part of the spine because your ribs are attached to them. This rib skeleton protects your lungs, heart and part of the organs in your abdominal cavity. It also limits the mobility of the thoracic spine. That is why slipped thoracic discs so rarely occur. They are so rare that they are operated on 100-150 times less than slipped discs in the lumbar (lower back) or cervical (neck) are. Pain in thoracic spine also happens less often than pain in the neck or lower back does.

But chest pain can still happen, and the most widespread diagnosis is intercostal neuralgia. The thing about this is that the intercostal nerves themselves have nothing to do with it! All the intercostal nerves do is conduct pain impulses from the spine to a nerve ending, where the pain is felt.  The pain is not felt at the place where it started, that’s why it is called “eccentric” or “spreading” pain. So the pain connected with the thoracic spine can be felt more strongly in the chest than in the spine itself.

The direct relationship of the thoracic vertebrae to the respiratory muscles leads to pain in thoracic spine which often affects breathing. Those who have suffered from upper back pain know that these painful feelings are almost always accompanied by shortness of breath. It hurts to take a deep breath, so we stop breathing deeply and the pain then continues to get worse.  

You have to remember what lies inside your chest. Symptoms of heart and lungs diseases are often not seen in the heart and lungs themselves, but somewhere else in the body. In the spine, for example. A posterior wall myocardial infarction can cause pain in the back and between the shoulder blades, but not in the chest.  Back pain can also be a symptom of lung disorders.

More often situations occur when the spine is the source of a disease, but it shows itself in some other area, for example, in the area of the heart. People suffering from heart pain may visit a cardiologist over a long period of time, but no heart diseases can ever be found. Patients often have appointments with me after having visited many other specialists, such as a cardiologists and gastroenterologists. I’m often the last place they look for answers. Their complaints are primarily connected with the functioning of their internal organs, such as their stomach, heart or intestines, but the underlying cause is a problem with their spine. Sometimes even complaints like an irregular pulse or palpitations can be caused by osteochondrosis of thoracic spine.

Advice

It is important to remember that not every pain in the thoracic vertebrae is correctly diagnosed as thoracic osteochondrosis. Various combinations of shortness of breath, irregular heartbeat, cough or fever with pain in the thoracic spine are reasons to visit a physician who will exclude acute heart or lungs diseases. Failure to rule out these conditions could lead to complications. But sometimes everything is vice versa. If a cardiologist cannot find any heart disease you have to examine your spine.

Your thoracic spine is the longest part of the spine. It has 12 vertebrae. For comparison, the cervical spine has 7 vertebrae and the lumbar spine has 5. The length of this part of the spine helps explain why thoracic spine curvatures frequently occur.  Consider scoliosis.  Whatever curvature happens will definitely lead to an unbalanced load being placed on the spine. If you have scoliosis, your spine not only bends to one side, it also turns (this phenomenon is called rotation). 

As a result, the turning vertebrae pull on the ribs that are attached to them. This makes one half of the chest go beyond the other half. You can do a simple test to easily find such a curvature yourself. Ask a person to turn his back to you in a standing position and then bend forward from the waist.  Take a look at his back.  If his spine is healthy, the chest and ribs will be on one level. If he has scoliosis, the ribs on one side will be higher than the ribs on the other side. If you do this with your child you can detect a curvature even when it is just beginning. 

This makes it a very useful test for parents to use to examine their children.

A curved spine loads the ligaments, muscles, and joints asymmetrically or unevenly. As a result, these structures on one side of a spine are overloaded and the structures on the other side are under-loaded.  The overloaded muscles and joints respond with excessive contractions, inflammation and a pain syndrome develops in which muscle spasms play a leading part.  That is why adolescents who have scoliosis complain of back pain more often than their healthy friends. Their curved spine provokes muscle spasms.

Another reason for thoracic spine pain is Scheuermann’s disease.  How often adults blame their children for bending and stooping! We all want our children to be healthy and good-looking. But stooping is not always just a bad habit. It can also be caused by a disease. In this case, three or four thoracic vertebrae change their form and look like a trapezium instead of a regular quadrangle. The thoracic spine then bends forward and a natural slight spinal curve becomes more visible. Another name for this condition is “juvenile kyphosis.”  If a spinal curvature takes place, the muscles are overloaded, and muscle spasms and back pain often appear.

We have already discussed that pain connected with the spine can be felt somewhere else in the body.  A diseased spine can provoke changes in internal organs that are situated close to it. For example, thoracic disk herniation can cause an irregular heartbeat. To explain this we have to look at the time before we were born. In our mother’s womb, we all develop according to a common plan. At a certain stage an embryo, like an earthworm, is divided into almost equal parts. 

Later, as an embryo grows and obtains human features, the plan of segmental organization of the body becomes less visible (such organization remains pronounced only in the spine – think of 32 vertebrae). But segmental connections still remain. That is why intervertebral disks or joints are connected with internal organs through autonomic nerves. 

This connection explains why a person who has thoracic osteochondrosis can suddenly start suffering from intestinal disorders, gallbladder disorders or heart rhythm disorders.  

I hope you are now convinced that even though the thoracic spine may seem awkward and it is not very mobile, it plays an essential role in our health.      

Why exercise the diaphragm?

While doing respiratory exercises for thoracic spine, the main respiratory muscle, the diaphragm, is also being exercised. The diaphragm separates the organs of the chest from the abdominal cavity and every time you inhale and exhale, it massages the internal organs (the liver, stomach, intestines, and gall-bladder).  

That is why these exercises can greatly improve the functioning of the internal organs. Exercises for the thoracic vertebrae will help you get rid of constipation, disorders of the biliary tract, symptoms of irritated bowels, (IBS), and other diseases of the internal organs.  

Summary

• Static isometric exercises for the thoracic spine are effective against back and chest pain.
• Isometric gymnastics for the thoracic spine strengthen respiratory muscles, especially the diaphragm.
• Exercises for the thoracic spine also help improve the functioning of the gastrointestinal tract and other internal organs. 
• The thoracic spine is the least movable among all the spinal parts.
• Problems connected with thoracic spine are often felt not in a spine itself, but somewhere else in the body.
• Disorders of the thoracic spine can cause dysfunction in the internal organs.