Arm and Hand Stretches
These stretches can either be done as a complete series or individually and most of them can be done at your desk. Some will ease tension in specific parts of the body whilst others are generally relaxing. Please remember stretching should always be relaxing and never painful!
To get maximum benefit from these stretches you should do them daily and hold each stretch for 15 seconds and repeat twice unless otherwise stated.
Arm and Hand Stretches
- Stand with your feet together, keeping you feet together and your knees soft. Raise your arms alternatively swinging them over your head as if you were performing backstroke.
- Raise your left arm above your head and push up as high as you can. Feel the stretch down the left side of the body. Hold for 30 seconds. Repeat on the right.
- Raise your right arm to the side, keeping at shoulder height. Point your fingers towards the ceiling and push your palm away from your body. Hold for 30 seconds and repeat on left side.
- With your right hand by your side, point your fingers behind you with your palm facing up. Push your right shoulder and wrist towards the floor, then make a fist. Hold. Repeat on the other side.
- Keep your arms by your side and clench your fists as tight as you can, then spread your thumb and fingers as far apart as possible.
- Let your arms hang loosely by your side and shake them for about 15 seconds.
Related Posts
Why does massage help so much?
In a previous post I outlined some of the benefits of the 15 minutes Seated Acupressure Neck & Shoulder massage including the scientific evidence for these claims. But I think their is one benefit that stands out above these.
I know in my previous life as an IT project manage, several times I spent most of a day trying to fix a problem and I just couldn't find a solution. I had a tendency to get caught up in a problem and its just frustrating -- it can literally stress you out. When you're stressed out, it's harder to think clearly. Emotional stress can send your problem-solving skills into a tailspin. To make matters worse I used to flip over that fine line between being focused on solving the problem and obsessing over it.
The trick to break this cycle is to shift your focus. The purpose of shifting your focus is to temporarily get your mind off whatever challenge has it tied up in knots. So when you come back to it you have are re-energised and have a fresh perspective.
Going for a massage, shifts your focus to your body releases anxiety and the seated acupressure massage energises you & improves your mental alertness. So I found it an ideal way of breaking the cycle of mentally obsessing over problems when I worked in IT.
Why do runners to get injured?
While there are many reasons why runner's get injured I want to share with you what I consider the common causes based on what we treat in clinic. Posture I find many clients know they don't have the perfect posture when they sit at their desks but assume their running won't be affected. This is wrong, bad posture carries over into your run which can put extra stress on your back and knees. So its important to focus on good running posture which is upper torso straight with head balanced directly over shoulders and lower back not arched. Training Errors This is the number 1 cause of running injuries. Training errors basically means your are trying to run too much or too far or too quickly for your body. The body needs time to adapt from training changes and jumps in mileage, intensity or changes in terrain. Muscles need recovery time to they can handle more training demands. If you rush the process you break can down rather than build up. Running experts recommend the 10% rule, which means the maximum speed or distance (note I didn't say speed and distance) you increase by each week is 10%. So if you run 10 miles in the first week, you run 11 miles in the second week and so on. RICE - Rest,Ice, Compression and Elevation All of my clients know rice. However I find too many runners focus on the I (ice), and ignore the RCE. So they tend to get stuck in a cycle of ice-and-run, ice-and-run etc without giving the muscles time to heal. Its like dieting every day until 7pm and then pigging out at the all your can eat buffet! Remember the R in RICE means rest, i.e. don't run until the injury is better.
Elbow Pain
Recently we have treated a few cases of elbow pain.
There are two common site for elbow pain, the outside edge of the elbow which is often an indication of tennis elbow or lateral epicondylitis and the inside edge of the elbow which is often an indication of glofer's elbow or medial epicondylitis. With both of these conditions the pain may radiate up the arm and / or down along the forearm.
Both conditions can be caused by precise wrist movements from using a mouse or keyboard. As the name suggests tennis elbow can be caused by faulty backhand technique when playing tennis. While golfer's elbow can be caused by poor technique when playing Golf or faulty forehand technique when playing tennis.
In addition tennis elbow can be caused by carrying heavy shopping bags as it causes tension in the wrist extensors.
Most of the cases we see are caused by long hours using computers. The first thing we do is try and establish the cause of the pain, which can be tightness or spasm in the muscles of the forearm, neck or shoulders and then treat accordingly. We can also show you simple stretches to stretch out the muscles of the forearm.
What surprised us, and prompted me to write this blog is that they all the clients had just assumed that elbow pain was something that they just had to lived with. In all the cases we dramatically reduced the pain and in most cases after a few treatments the clients were pain free! So don't sit their in pain, book a massage.
