A Chiropractor's Case for Lateral Mobility

By Dr. Todd Sinett, DC — Founder of Tru Whole Care (www.truwholecare.com)

Every day, I see the same story walk through my door. A financial analyst from a Park Avenue firm, a designer who works out of a WeWork on 47th Street, a teacher who commutes two hours each way from New Jersey. Different lives, similar complaints: a dull, persistent tightness running along the side of their torso — from the hip all the way up to the shoulder — that no amount of massage or ibuprofen seems to touch.

In over 30+ years of chiropractic practice at Tru Whole Care in Midtown Manhattan, I've come to believe that lateral tightness is one of the signature injuries of modern urban life. We sit. We hunch. We carry bags on one shoulder. We stare down at our phones in the subway. And we almost never — not once in a typical day — stretch our bodies sideways.

That's a problem. And fixing it might be one of the highest-leverage things you can do for your long-term spinal health.

The Forgotten Plane of Movement

The human spine is designed to move in three planes: forward and back (flexion and extension), rotation, and side-to-side (lateral flexion). In most people's lives, and honestly in most gym routines, the third plane is almost completely ignored.

Think about it. You deadlift, you row, you do crunches — all forward and back. You twist during a sit-up or a golf swing. But when do you actually reach your body sideways? Almost never.

This matters because the muscles along your lateral chain — the quadratus lumborum (QL), the obliques, the intercostals between your ribs, the latissimus dorsi, and the iliotibial band — become progressively shorter and stiffer without regular lateral movement. Over time, that tightness doesn't stay local. It pulls on everything connected to it.

I've seen lateral chain tightness contribute to low back pain, hip impingement, shoulder problems, and even recurring headaches. When one side is dramatically tighter than the other — which is common in people who carry a bag on the same shoulder every day, or who sleep curled to one side — it creates asymmetrical tension on the spine itself. Discs, which are already under tremendous compressive load from sitting all day, don't respond well to uneven forces. That's how you end up in my office.

What a Proper Side Stretch Actually Does

A true lateral stretch — where you elongate the entire side of the body from hip to fingertip — does several things simultaneously that no other movement replicates. Here's a quick 2-minute video on how to side stretch with the Backbridge.

First, it decompresses the spine. When you reach overhead and lean to the opposite side, you create space between the vertebrae on the stretched side. For patients who spend eight or more hours compressed in a chair, this kind of decompression is genuinely therapeutic. Think of the discs like sponges: compression squeezes fluid out, and decompression allows them to reabsorb it. Healthy discs are hydrated discs.

Second, it releases the quadratus lumborum — the deep muscle connecting the bottom rib to the top of the pelvis. The QL is one of the most chronically overworked and undertreated muscles in the body. It works overtime anytime you're sitting, standing asymmetrically, or carrying anything in one hand. Sustained lateral stretching is one of the few ways to meaningfully lengthen it.

Third, it opens the intercostal spaces between the ribs. Patients are often surprised to learn that rib mobility affects breathing. Tight intercostals restrict the chest wall's ability to fully expand. I regularly see patients whose lung capacity — and their sense of being able to take a deep breath — improve noticeably after consistent lateral stretching.

Where Most People Go Wrong

Here's the thing: most people think they're stretching their sides when they're really not. They lean slightly to the right, feel a mild pull, and call it done. (I SEE YOU TRYING THAT IN YOUR OFFICE CHAIR.) But without a full reach overhead, without genuine hip stability on the grounded side, and without enough duration to get past the initial muscular guarding, you're barely scratching the surface.

A truly effective lateral stretch requires the pelvis to stay anchored while the ribcage travels away from it. That's a difficult proprioceptive task — your body has to work against its natural tendency to hike the hip and cheat the stretch out of the lower back. Most people cannot achieve this consistently on their own.

That's where a tool like the Backbridge becomes genuinely interesting to those serious about safe, consistent stretching routines.

The Backbridge Advantage

The Backbridge is a curved, tiered support device originally designed to restore the natural extension curve of the spine. Most of my patients know it as a back extension tool. But its utility for lateral work is something I've been incorporating into my recommendations more and more.

When a patient positions themselves over the Backbridge on their side, something important happens: the device provides a fixed, stable contact point at the ribcage or hip, which grounds the lower side of the body and allows the upper side to genuinely open. You get passive gravitational assistance — your own body weight becomes the stretch force, which is significantly more consistent and controllable than any arm-assisted pull.

For patients with tight quadratus lumborum and restricted thoracic mobility, using the Backbridge laterally creates a sustained, gentle traction that holds the stretch for long enough (typically 60 to 90 seconds per side, in my protocols) to actually influence the connective tissue, not just the muscle belly. Myofascial change requires sustained load — a quick 10-second side bend does almost nothing. The BackBridge makes it practical to hold the position long enough to matter, because the device does the structural work of keeping you there.

I also appreciate it for patients with asymmetry, which is almost everyone. The tiered design lets us adjust the height of the contact point, so we can customize the stretch to address a specific area — lower ribs, mid-thoracic, or the iliolumbar junction — depending on the restriction.

The Importance of Daily Stretching

If I could give one piece of advice to every office worker, commuter, and desk-bound professional in this city, it would be this: before you check your email in the morning, spend two minutes stretching each side of your body. Reach up, anchor your hip, and breathe into the stretch. Use a Backbridge if you have access to one — it will do in sixty seconds what thirty seconds of effortful bending cannot.

Your spine is the central highway of your entire nervous system. It deserves to move in every direction it was designed for — including the ones you've been ignoring.

Dr. Todd Sinett, DC, practices at Tru Whole Care in Midtown Manhattan and is the inventor and patent holder of the Backbridge.