I just discovered my upper back today, one year into my midlife body journey. I thought I knew myself. But here was this vast empty plain that followed me all my life, as close as a backpack. First it blew my mind and then it broke me. I collapsed on the floor of my garage gym in tears.
The Ghost Town
My Zen master weight training coach Brandon Chien has observed this reaction in his female clients before. The shock at feeling her body as if for the first time. Rage at the patriarchy for blinding us. He said gently, “If women want to smash the patriarchy, lift more than five pounds.” That meant get strong. Occupy your body. Decolonize.
Far from a barking drill-sergeant-type trainer, Brandon does next-level strength coaching for smart people. He’s like Yoda with a secret operating manual to bodies and a psychology-meets-physiology philosophy. He positioned me for a sitting row exercise.
Brandon: Round your upper back and straighten it while pulling from your shoulder blades.
Me, trying it: What does that even mean?
Brandon: Don’t straighten from your low back, just your upper back.
Me, struggling: How the hell do you do that?
Brandon: The upper spine moves more easily than that lower spine.
Me, desperate: Not mine. And now my low back and neck aches.
Brandon: Stop. They ache because you don’t have a relationship with your upper back.
Me, shocked: It’s a ghost town.
Brandon: Round your upper back and straighten it while pulling from your shoulder blades.
Me, trying it: What does that even mean?
Brandon: Don’t straighten from your low back, just your upper back.
Me, struggling: How the hell do you do that?
Brandon: The upper spine moves more easily than that lower spine.
Me, desperate: Not mine. And now my low back and neck aches.
Brandon: Stop. They ache because you don’t have a relationship with your upper back.
Me, shocked: It’s a ghost town.
He slowed me down and isolated my shoulder muscles and upper spine. Within 15 minutes, assisted by bands, weights and barbell, my upper back was no longer a ghost town to me. I learned four row exercises that day and made contact with my upper back for the first time in my life. That was when I cried like an orphan, for I realized that I had abandoned my body.
My Body Journey Begins
The upper back is what’s under the neck but above the bra strap. Its landmarks are the shoulder blades, upper spine and ribs. It’s the part that makes you groan with pleasure in a massage and the part that heaves when you sob.
It must be no accident that our bodies — the one piece of real estate that we truly possess, our single-most powerful asset that others want to use us for— is hidden from us. It fills me with grief and regret that our bodies are not taught to us as the masterpieces they are. It should be the first thing we learn about ourselves in grade school.
Instead I suffered 18 years of PE without ever noticing my upper back. Then paid thousands for decades to gyms, exercise classes, trainers, physical therapists, chiropractors and doctors for back problems. Not one of them ever addressed my upper back. But I’m sure they all noticed the front of my upper back, my boobs, which are big, like DD big. Even still, the upper Bback strength supporting them never came up as a solution.
Without a strong upper back, Brandon said, you can’t hold up a confident stance. If your shoulders cave in, the ribcage gets compacted by gravity, and you can’t take deep breaths. Without deep breaths, you’re stuck breathing shallowly into your chest. Shallow breathing signals panic in your nervous system, so you’re constantly stressed. Recognize modern life?
The implications are vast. It’s beyond just back problems and old folks with hunched backs, which Brandon assures me is entirely preventable. Hunched, weak and stressed is how we spend our lives in the patriarchy until we find our bodies.
Your Body Journey
As women, we need to know about the structure, strengthening and care of our upper backs since we carry up to five pounds of dense, heavy grapefruit all our lives. It’s not just a place to put a backpack. We must be aware of how patriarchy makes a hierarchy of our body parts, favoring some and ignoring others. What it ignores, we abandon. I was guilty of that. The patriarchy was me, too.
I encourage you to go on a body journey and find your own upper back and any other unmapped ghost towns. Weight training helps you find the muscles of the back chain, from the neck, lats, glutes, hams down to the calves and achilles, which are particularly unseen behind you. The reality is that the body is a whole system in which all muscles work interdependently as a symphony, not in isolation. Wholeness, not perfection, is within your grasp.
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