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Release the Erector Spinae muscles of your mid back
Sitting poorly, over-working your back, or a bad bed can cause tight mid back muscles. The result is a tight, burning sensation down one side, or both sides of your mid-back, along the band of muscles there. People with a scoliosis in their spine are much more likely to experience this muscle tightness on the side where the outside of the curve is.
To fix it you can use something that sounds rather impressive—ischaemic compression—but in actual fact is simple to do. In ischaemic compression we compress the muscles to squeeze out any lactic acid that has built up in the muscle. When we release the pressure blood floods into the muscle to flush out the muscle. A foam roller is too big to get into this band of muscle, so we use a firm tennis ball instead.
How to release the back muscles
Place the tennis ball on the lower end of the muscle tightness and lean on the ball up against a wall. Round out your back and cross your arms to expose the muscle. Then simply bend your knees slowly and straighten them again to roll the ball up and down along the band of muscles just to the side of your spine. Don’t press the ball on the bones of the spine though, keep the ball over the muscles.
This technique also mobilises the costo-vertebral joints where the ribs attach to the spine, which can be a source of muscle tightness in the area. It’s normal if there is a bit of muscle soreness as you massage the muscles with the ball, but you can control this by leaning on less of an incline against the wall. If your knees hurt a bit as they bend, just don’t go down as low.
A percussion massage gun is an alternative to this technique, but the vibration can feel a bit ticklish or sore in some people, especially for people with a more rounded back (an increased kyphosis)
To release the spinal joints in this thoracic area go to this video
