09/21/2025
This is a great visual of how the thoracic sling is activated by dynamic movement.
It helps me to think of there being four slings:
The left and right upper slings that provide rotational stabilization of the spine towards vertical balance, and the left and right lower slings that ‘collect’ the body back over the limbs toward vertical alignment, using the adductor muscles (orange and yellow).
This is why lateral work is important!

We can start working on the lower sling with shoulder-in and turn on the hindquarters, but work like haunches-in and counterbent turns starts to work the upper sling. Halfpass requires the most of all the slings.
Of course, none of this works in isolation. We have to simultaneously develop the ‘gluteal bridge,’ (my own term for the combined structure and function of the glutes and longissimus back muscle). But that’s a different post for a different time. 
Image from Animal-Balance
