Taking care of your ribs gives you well-being

When a person transmits well-being and dynamismwhat informs us about these qualities are aspects that we perceive unconsciously: the freedom of his breathing, the elasticity of his spine and torso, the ease of his movements.

One of the keys lies in an element that we rarely pay attention to: the costal flexibilityor what is the same, the ability of our ribs and the joints of our rib cage to adapt to movement.

Our ribs, beautifully curved, are the only elastic bones of the body. They yield when a force is applied to them – like a bow when shooting an arrow – and return to their state of rest when that force ceases. They adapt their shape to both the variety of respiratory movement and that of the spinal column.

The ribs are flexible and, furthermore, they are articulated in many places with the column. Taking care of this mobility provides intimate well-being, since it comes from a very axial and central place.

But what joints are those? so important and so secret? More than eighty! Each pair of ribs – there are twelve pairs – joins at two points with the spine and also, in front, with the sternum. A portion of the ribs is made of cartilage, which is even more flexible.

When the column moves, all these small joints adapt and they move too.

The vertebral column, a vigorous stem

The column name itself suggests its support function. But it is also a flexible reed equipped for a considerable number of movements: it can curve back and forth, lean to the sides, spiral and combine these movements to perform more complex ones.

This spinal mobility It is, above all, a team effort: each spinal level contributes its grain of sand – a few degrees – and the sum is impressive. If mobility is lost at the thoracic level, neighbors will be affected.

That’s when we think of take care of the cervical or the lumbar ones, because they hurt us. But the cause is overwork that can only truly be solved by restoring movement to the sluggish areas.

Expands the rib cage to function better

The name of rib cage It also refers to its mission: to constitute a safe enclosure to protect our valuable heart. The lungs, in addition to protection, need to be filled and emptied, vary their size, and in this they must also be accompanied by their envelope, the thoracic basket, as it is sometimes called to keep in mind its plasticity: like that of a fresh wicker basket.

The everyday breathingeven at rest, needs a certain freedom of the lower ribs for the action of the diaphragm, which moves rhythmically – like a beautiful jellyfish – within this adaptable enclosure.

If you like to do exercises to strengthen your upper abdominals, don’t forget to also stretch them to preserve this mobility.

He stress Sometimes it manifests itself as a «knot in the stomach», and it is a true muscular knot – of the abdominals and the diaphragm – that blocks rib mobility and reinforces a vicious circle.

When you have that «knot», put your hands in the area – the diaphragm lives in the floor under the pectorals – and think about give space, comfort and freedom to your breathing there. Proof! Simple? Works!

The well-being Digestive, circulatory and even lymphatic benefit from this costal flexibility, since it is also the mission of the diaphragm to contribute, with its movement, to all these functions.