We are constantly being asked by people how to reduce their upper body pain and increase their flexibility.
In our Personal Training Centres in Milton Keynes & Bedford we can help them directly…
But what about you?
If you live too far away to come and see us then this video is for you.
In it we go through “foam rolling” and some very effective stretching routines, that will have you loosened up in no time!
In this video, you will learn:
- A 7 minute routine of 4 exercises for the upper body and shoulders
- Use a foam roller in the first exercise for the upper back and do it 10 to 15 times
- The second exercise is for the muscles that come underneath the shoulders
- Use a foam roller or a lacrosse ball and do the second exercise 10 to 15 times
- The third exercise is the Sleeper Stretch which is good for the joint or shoulder capsule
- The fourth exercise is the Pectoral Stretch to open up the shoulders, make it healthy and less painful
Transcript:
Stephen Gray: Hi! This is Stephen from TheDVCC.com, the place to be for weight loss and toning advice. Now, today we’re going to be using a foam roller and a few different types of stretches to make a really big difference to how your upper body, how your shoulders feel, how healthy they feel and any aches and pains that you have.
So, you can get one of these foam rollers from Amazon and from loads of different places now. This is a smaller, harder version. You can actually get really big, longer, more foamy versions and I suggest you start with the larger ones to begin with.
Now, we’re going to use this to really make a big difference to the flexibility of our upper body and how our general movements feel.
So, we’re going to start off with an exercise that’s going to really make a difference to how our upper back feels. So, what I want you to do is put the foam roller in the middle of your back. You’re going to lean back.
We’re going to raise up onto our hips into this position here. We’re then going to open our shoulder blades. So we’re going to try and put our arms across our shoulders so that we open up our shoulder blades. And then we slowly slide down with the foam roller up just to below our necks. We don’t go past our neck, and then we’re going to slide back.
And we’re going to move up and down. We’re not going to go onto our lower back so make sure you don’t go too low. Up the neck and slowly back. And we’re going to do this between 10 to 15 times. Now that’s our first exercise. What you might feel is a little bit of popping here and there and that might be a way of just kind of getting back into position. I certainly feel that there.
From then, we’re going to go into our next exercise, which is going to be for the muscles that come underneath our shoulders. So there’s some rotator cuff teres minor and your lats. They all come into there. And what you can find is that underneath your shoulders, it’s really quite sore. It makes a big difference to how your shoulders feel.
So, we can use a foam roller for this or we can actually use – this is actually a lacrosse ball. Now, again, I suggest you start with the foam roller because the lacrosse ball can be quite sore.
So I’ll show you the foam roller. You’re going to lie out. You’re going to place the foam roller underneath the crease in your arm where your arm and your back meets and you’re going to slowly slide. It’s not a big movement. You’re going to move around and you’re going to find some really sore spots.
What you want to do is just slowly move over those areas and what you’re going to be doing is breaking down any adhesions, little tight areas, and really mobilizing your shoulder. You can hear, by the way, I’m speaking. It’s actually quite sore. And you want to be very careful when you do this that you’re not going to put yourself under too much pressure.
Okay. So you’re going to do both shoulders, nice and slowly. What you’ll find is that there’s areas that are more sore than others. Come rotate around so you get to the back of your shoulders as well and just move over slowly. And if you come down a little bit, you’ll get a little bit of your lat as well. And slowly over there. And again, you can do that 10 to 15 times on both shoulders.
So from there, we’re going to go into a stretch. Now this is actually a Sleeper Stretch. So you’re going to lie on your side. It’s very important that you do this very carefully. You’re going to have your arm at 90 degrees. Try and make it comfortable.
If you’ve got tight shoulders, just make sure you’re in a comfortable position. From this position, with 90 degrees of your arm, you’re going to slowly, very slowly – it’s important you do this slowly – push down.
Make sure you’re breathing and you’re very, very gently pushing down. You’re not going too crazy to try and touch the floor because you’ll find that you’re way off from the floor. This is after I’ve done this every day for a long period of time. This is as far as I can go. I’ve got rugby player shoulders so they’re quite sore.
And you’re going to hold this position for about 30 seconds. Gradually, as it loosens off, you can push a little bit harder so you get a little bit lower, and you’re going to gradually push down.
Now, when you release off, do it very, very slowly. Like that. Because otherwise, any jerky movements and you’ll really put too much stress on your shoulders. Again, you’re going to go and you’re going to do this on both shoulders.
You’ll find that you have one shoulder that’s tighter than the other. This actually really stretches the joint capsule or the shoulder capsule and it’s an excellent stretch. I mean, you’ll notice a big difference in how you feel, how your shoulders feel by doing this exercise.
So you can see actually this shoulder’s easier than the other side to get down straight away. So again, 30 seconds on each side.
So, from there, we’re then going to stand up. We’re going to finish off. I want to make this just a few key exercises that you do. So it’s not a really long routine. It takes about seven minutes to do properly.
We’re going to move over into a Pectoral Stretch. So we want to open up our shoulders. And what you’ll find by having your shoulders more in this position, you feel a lot, lot healthier, a lot better, a lot less painful in your shoulders.
So, we’re going to put our arm up at about 45 degrees. You’re going to step forward and push forward, and you’re going to feel a stretch across your pectoral muscle there. So you’re going to press forward just nice and slowly.
Again, for about 30 to 45 seconds you’re going to hold this position. And you’re going to do this on both sides. Obviously, you don’t want to be lopsided so you’re going to do it on both sides.
Now, that’s four things that we’ve gone through, but they all make an enormous difference to how your shoulders feel or how your upper body feels. The shoulders are really a commonly injured and commonly sore body part because they’re so mobile.
As a joint, they’re a really mobile joint. So, try those four different exercises out, and the key is that you do them consistently. You need to do them daily. It’s only about seven minutes out of your time to actually make a really big difference to your upper body.
So, if you have any questions about that, we do have longer routines, flexibility routines that we use with clients, but I just wanted to show you a very short one that you can do at home to make a really big difference straight away. And if you do that daily, after about 14 days or two weeks, you’re going to notice a big difference.
So comment in the box below. Let me know if you’ve been doing it and let me know how you feel.
This is Stephen from TheDVCC.com!
