Issue link: https://www.massageandbodyworkdigital.com/i/790815
Stand on the opposite (right) side of the table, your body level with the client's shoulders but facing toward the client's left hip. Reach across the client's body and wrap the fingers of your right hand around the lateral aspect of the left-side inferior ribs. Think of your fingers lying in the intercostal space between each rib and the next (Image 1). You should be so lateral that the backs of your fingertips are resting on the table. Keep your back long and straight (resist the urge to hunch closer to the client, as we so often do). Now, bend your knees slightly and lean back slowly, as if you are starting to sit down in an imaginary chair. The shift of your body weight backward should lift the client's 62 m a s s a g e & b o d y w o r k m a r c h / a p r i l 2 0 1 7 Rib and scapula mobilization using the Opposite-Side Lean position. trunk ever so slightly off the table. Crucial here is that you are just holding the client; your fingertips are not digging into the rib cage, and your biceps are not flexing to try and yank the client higher off the table. You are just leaning back slightly, effortlessly, and allowing the lateral tissue to melt, or slide, through your fingers. Once their ribs begin to slide out from your grasp, resist the impulse to grab them more tightly (your client won't like that); instead, allow the tissue to melt and wrap the fingers of your other (left) hand around the next segment of their ribs, slightly superior to where your first hand was, and lean back once again, lifting—and thus mobilizing—this 1 3 2 4