Let's focus on your rib mobility this week to ensure we are able to take a deep breath.
If you normally are a shallow breather than you are not working into the ribs fully and your ribs need to be able to move fully so that you can take nice deep cleansing breaths.
Today I will discuss a few things that you can do to increase the mobility in the ribs with skin rolling.
For the week, so this week, in Episode 15, we were discussing meditation and breathing. And I want to lean into this a little bit more, because I want to talk to you about breathing. What I noticed for many of us, including myself, is that most of us are shallow breathers we breathe up high, we don't take deep, full breaths, and therefore our ribcage doesn't expand and move like it would normally. And I noticed for myself that when I practice breathing and expanding through my rib cage, it starts to do it on its own. At some point, it's like that, riding a bike type thing, where you don't realize that you've become a shallow breather until you start to breathe normal, again, where you start to allow that ribcage to expand. And once you start to do that your body picks up on what it's supposed to do, and it starts to breathe normal. So if you're thinking about this, and you're thinking, you know, this isn't something I can do every day, if you can focus on this for the next few weeks, you will start to naturally see a difference. Because you're getting those ribs to start to move more, we're going to practice some rib mobility here. And we're going to do this through skin rolling. And I want you to first just kind of assess where you are with your ribs. So place your hands on your, like, if you were to place your hands on your waist, we're going to go up to the bra line, and just place them around the ribs. And then I want you to take a deep breath in. And I think I've had you do this before in past movement snacks, but take a deep breath in and feel where those ribs are moving, do you notice certain areas move in certain areas Stay still. Because the goal would actually be to get a full 360 movement pattern within the rib cage. So they would all move equally. And for some of us, we may struggle to feel the ribs expand into our rib and into our thumbs. You may also notice that you feel one side expand but the other side doesn't expand. So what we want to do is try to get that 360 breathing to occur again. And we can do this by practicing breathing, practicing that back breathing that I mentioned quite often. And you are welcome to come over to our form fit mom community so that you can see more of that, where I have some tips on how you can get more into back breathing. But once we do this, we'll get this fuller breath. And you'll start to notice things changing within your body. So we want to pay attention to what our ribs are doing. And if you notice an area that's not moving so much, we're going to then go into the fascia, and we're going to try to get it unstuck. So it's called skin rolling. And basically what you're going to do is I want you to take your hand, and I want you to pick up the skin on the top of your other hand. And I just want you to roll across, you're going to pick up the skin and you're just going to kind of roll it and you'll see that it moves pretty easily. But then if you do this with your skin around your ribs, it might be tight. And you may say Oh, I can't do that. One of the things that I hear a lot of people say is Oh, I can't do that because I'm too fat. Well, one, no stop. Let's not talk like that. Let's focus on the skin. Okay, and can you pull that skin away. Now it's going to be thicker than what you feel on your hand. But you're going to notice so if I just take out kind of, I'm going to find an area where it's a little bit looser, and I'm going to take it and I'm going to just kind of wiggle it and I've got probably about an inch of skin right now that I'm grabbing on to near Are my ribs my like near my bra line, and then I'm going to just start rolling that. And I'm going to notice that some areas are stickier that I'm not able to roll into it, like all of a sudden, then I start going into the fattier portion, right, I go through that rather than being able to keep it more on top like the skin. So that would tell me that there are some stickiness of the fascia there, I might not be able to roll at all, if you go to right in between your chest, if you go down, and you try to pull that skin, you may not be able to get it at all that's right on the linea Alba. So that line that goes straight down from in between the ribs down to the pubic bone, you might notice you can't do that at all. So this is something where you should be able to move that has nothing to do with the size that you are has nothing to do with that it has to do with the fascia, and how it is connecting to what's underneath it. So if it's sticky and it's stuck, then it's going to be harder for your ribs to expand and move into that 360 breathing pattern because things are tight holding it in like the muscles and the skin. And the fascia are tight. So we've got to work on releasing that. So skin rolling is something that you can do, it may feel like pins and needles, that is definitely a sensation you may feel. And then there's other ways that you can start working on releasing these areas foam rolling is great. There are these little suction cups that they sell for cellulite. So you could get one of those and rub it and it just kind of pulls the skin away from the fascia. That's a great thing that you can do in the shower around that rib area. I don't know how well it works for cellulite. But I'm here to talk about rim mobility. Let's get the ribs moving so that we can get to taking deeper, fuller breaths. So that is my movement snack for you this week. If you need a video to kind of see what I'm talking about, make sure to join me over at the forum sit mom community. And then I also wanted to let you all know that I am offering a six week program. It is a hands on program if you are interested, it is in regards to what some of you may call that mommy pooch. what some of you may call or have been diagnosed with diastasis recti or split abs. But I am going to be offering a six week hands on course if you are interested. If you're not able to get in on this session, I will be hosting it again. So make sure to reach out to me by going to Courtney at form fit Naples calm and feel free to just ask when is your next belly pooch program or diastasis recti program starting and I can give you that information. But it is a six week program it is hands on. So each week I will be doing a small group class. If you are not able to attend the time, you will be able to see the recorded video and then ask me questions along the way. There will be weekly homework so to speak assignments, that's just basic exercises to help you heal and this is great for those who have that belly pooch that you can't seem to get rid of. It's also great for those who have diastasis recti or split ABS or if you are dealing with some pelvic floor prolapse or incontinence, it will help with that as well. So feel free to reach out to me at Courtney at form fit Naples calm. I will also have a free guide for you to begin working on helping you understand more about things, small things that you can start doing for this if you are interested. And that is it. I hope you all have a wonderful week.