What's up, guys?
Jeff Cavaliere, ATHLEANX.com.
Today we're going to attack another one of those issues that seems to plague all of us.
It doesn’t matter whether we are high level, functioning athletes that's home used to training
– and they have these issues – or whether you're somebody that sits behind a desk all
day, or likes to be on your iPhone all day.
You're going to have, probably, adaptive shortening in the forearm muscles on the back of your
arm here, that are going to lead to a lot of problems.
So there is a great way to stretch them out.
Really, when we talk about stretching it's actually pretty simple because if you look
at what the function of a muscle is, or a group of muscles, if you do the opposite you're
going to stretch them out.
Google's a really good resource because it tells us right away that the function of a
muscle – we could probably reverse engineer that and do exactly the opposite.
So when we look at these muscles here what are we talking about?
We're talking about all the muscles in the back of the forearm.
You know if you've been laying away from the gym for a long period of time and you start
to train again, you get sore back here.
It's one of the most common places people come to me and say "Man, I just started working
out again.
I do curls, I do pull ups; I can't even do them because they hurt."
Or you go and you sit down at work and you try to type all day.
The problem is, we're getting shortening over time because look at the posture that we're
holding here.
All of us, all day long – just like when we were sitting with the hip flexors and the
anterior tilt – we get our elbows in here and they're flexed.
They're not out straight.
They're flexed in here.
Our hands and wrists are kind of bent back a little bit.
Typing, or again, using iPhones.
They're bent back.
You can see it right there.
The next thing is, we get some supination.
Meaning that our forearms kind of turn this way.
They kind of turn up.
This is a real exaggeration of it, but they're here.
They're certainly not down.
So over time you've got adaptive shortening of all the muscles that do that.
Then we're talking about the brachial radialis, we're talking about extensions on the back
side of our wrists.
So in order to stretch them we want to do the exact opposite.
We want to extend our elbows as far as we can, we want to pronate our wrists – our
forearms – as much as we can, and we want to flex our wrists.
So here's the easy way to do it.
Take your hands, put them out back to back.
Just like that, okay?
Now, from here, if you want to stretch – you're going to have to stretch them both so it doesn't
really matter – but if you want to stretch this one out, whatever one you want to stretch,
you put it over the other one.
Okay, now you try to grasp your hands together.
So now we're in this position.
Okay, now right off the bat what I want to do is, I want to straighten my elbows.
We talked about that in those other muscles like to bend our elbows and flex them.
So we want to straighten them out to get that stretch started.
The next thing we want to do is, if they want to turn our arms up, we want to turn them
down.
So again, I'm stretching the one on top here.
I use my right hand – this arm over here – to turn it down.
Turn down that way.
Then lastly, I use that same hand to pull my wrist into flexion.
It's right here when we start.
Nice and straight, like that.
I use my right hand – which is the one underneath here where my thumb is – and I pull down,
into flexion.
So I've got straight arms, I'm pulling into flexion, and then I'm twisting down into that
pronation there.
That is a great stretch for the back side of my forearms.
Again, I don’t care whether you're sitting at your desk all day, whether you're driving,
whether you're texting, or whether you're trying to work out and you've already got
forearm pain.
You need to start doing this and stretching it.
You hold it for about 30 seconds, three, four, five time a day.
What's going to happen is, your forearms are going to start getting nice and loose again.
You're going to get rid of a lot of that pain and when you do hit the gym you're not going
to be laid up because you can't do your exercises because of that pain.
Guys, again, we're putting that science back in strength always here because this stuff
matters.
Whether you're a high level, functioning athlete who can't perform at their highest level because
these things are bringing you down, or whether you're somebody that's trying to get there,
or you're just trying to life your own life and you can't do it because this pain is kind
of getting in the way; we all need to do something like this.
If you're ready to commit to a training program, step by step, and you want to train like and
athlete, to look like an athlete, and to feel like one; then head to ATHLEANX.com and get
our ATHLEANX training system.
In the meantime, if you've found this video helpful make sure you leave your comments
and thumbs up below.
Whatever other problems you're dealing with, leave them down below and I'll be happy to
cover them.
As a physical therapist it's kind of my job and responsibility, I think, and I've got
a big community here that I think I can help in doing so.
All right, guys.
I'll be back here again soon.
See you.