The Stretches You Need to Keep Your Arms Loose
Your Personal PT, Rachel Tavel, is a Doctor of Physical Therapy (DPT) and Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist (CSCS), so she knows how to get your body back on track when it's out of line. In this weekly series, she gives you tips on how to feel better, get stronger, and train smarter.
We use our arms for just about everything: lifting, carrying, reaching, dressing, pressing, pulling, holding, and even communicating. That's a long list—and it doesn’t even include the extra load you add when you hit the gym for an “arm day” workout.
Due to all this activity, tension builds up and your arms become fatigued and tight. People work their arms aggressively, but they don’t usually stretch them as much as they should, especially if they're not exactly sure which arm stretches they should do.
There are many different muscles in the arms, from the biceps and triceps to the smaller wrist flexor/extensor muscle groups, pronator teres and brachioradialis muscles (and plenty more). The ones that tend to get the tightest are the biceps in the upper anterior arm, and the wrist flexors and extensors in the lower arm (below the elbow). These muscles cross multiple joints and can get fatigued and tight after heavy lifting or even simple phone and computer use.
Since your arms don’t just exist in isolation, you’ll want to stretch everything from the upper chest and shoulder down to the fingertips to get maximum relief from tension, but here are a few ways for you to give your arms a break and begin mixing specific arm stretches that target these commonly tense muscles into your routine.
Your Move: Start with a biceps stretch.
Stand facing the edge of a wall. Place your hand against the wall and keep your arm straight while slowly rotating away from that wall.
You should feel a stretch along your upper arm from the elbow all the way into your shoulder and chest.
Hold this stretch for at least 30 seconds, taking a few slow breaths in and out as you maintain this position.
Next, you’ll want to stretch the muscles of the lower arm.
Reach your arm out in front of you with your palm facing up and elbow straight at about shoulder height.
Using your other hand, gently press the fingers of the outstretched hand down towards the floor to stretch the front of the forearm. Hold this stretch for up to 30 seconds.
Flip your arm so that the palm faces down and your opposite hand applies overpressure on the knuckle side of the fingers. Hold this stretch for 30 seconds.
To complete the arm stretching routine, you can throw in some side lying twists (or “open books”), child’s pose, and overhead triceps stretches (bring one arm vertical above your head, bend elbow, apply overpressure with opposite hand and hold).
There are a million different ways to stretch the many muscles of the arms, but the important thing is to listen to your body and focus on the specific muscles that demand your attention most.
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