These are pain free techniques designed to get the joints in your thoracic spine moving. These include the intervertebral joints, costo vertebral joints (vertebrae and rib joints), and the ribs themselves. They can help people with anterior, lateral or posterior thoracic chest pain.
These rely on the movement of the joints into a pain free position. The joints become jammed in the wrong position creating pain, with further movement this jamming is exacerbated and your pain increases because the joint is jammed harder. Mulligan techniques rely on unjamming the joints and then regaining movements. For this reason the techniques need to be pain free when performed because this is what tells us that the joint has been moved into the correct position.
Each vertebrae has 2 articulations or joints with the vertebra above and below and with the ribs on either side. The ribs usually have a joint with the transverse process of one vertebra and another joint with the body of the vertebra above. This means each vertebra has 6 joints, 3 on either side. This is why your thoracic spine gets so stiff when it is sore because the joints all start to tighten.
Mulligan techniques are designed to unlock these joints and get movement back into your thoracic spine.
So if you get chest pain with movements or even coughing (not associated with a respiratory infection), then these techniques could work for you.