Cat - Cow

This one is lovely. We are just seeking mobility in our thoracic spine. I often cue it as your vertebrae being a strand of pearls and you are just seeking movement between each little one. So in other words, as you move your spine, it doesn't move in chunks, it moves in little segments at a time. We will be taking the cervical, thoracic and lumbar spine into flexion and extension.

Flexion:

Flexion means forward bending.
In the cervical spine is chin to chest In the thoracic spine is the rounded back to the ceiling - like a cat In the lumbar spine is tucking the tailbone between your knees.
We also call this "Bad dog" sometimes. You know, how a dog will tuck it's tail between it's knees when it does something bad. This flexion of all 3 segments of the vertebrae is called CAT.

Extension:

Extension means backward bending.
In the cervical spine is crown of the head up to the ceiling.
In the thoracic spine is arching the sternum up between your arms.
In the lumbar spine is dropping your belly to the floor and arching your low back as you lift your tailbone up to the ceiling. The extension of all 3 spinal segments of the vertebrae like this is called COW.

REPS:

Move through it about 5-7 times and search for more movement each time.

Eventually, you will want to push your hands into the floor and create rounded shoulders on cat, and retracted shoulders on cow.
Work on the spine first and then see if you can work into the shoulder blade (scapular) movement.