Upper body mobility exercises: increase your muscle flexibility

Position

• You need to lie down in a supine position and grasp the hand behind your head to increase the flexibility of the pectoralis major muscle.

Procedure

• While in the position of hand behind the head, you need to relax your arms.
• Let your hands drop down to the support surface.
• You can feel a mild tension in the anterior shoulder bilaterally.
• A second person can also apply a gentle force to the elbows bilaterally to push the elbow down towards the support surface.

Position

• You need to lie down in a prone position or on your stomach.
• The shoulder should be internally rotated and placed behind the back.
• In most cases, this position will cause winging of the scapula.

Procedure

• In this stretch, you need a second person to help you out.
• He needs to put one hand on the scapula and applies gentle pressure, pushing it anteriorly against the rib cage.
• We can increase the amount of stretch by moving his hand farther up or down the spine.

Position

• You need to lie down on your back with the shoulder abducted 90 degrees.
• You need to externally rotate the shoulder as shown.

Procedure

• You need to hold some weight while maintaining that initial position.
• Keep your muscles relaxed while maintaining that position and let your hand move freely towards the floor.
• Weight should be enough that can build tension in your anterior part of the shoulder.

Position

• You need to sit with feet shoulder-width apart.
• For external rotation of the left shoulder, you need to grasp a towel and move your arm in abduction and external rotation, allowing the towel to hang down to the lumbar spine.
• Try to reach to the towel with your right arm behind the back.

Procedure

• This can be done by gently pulling the towel inferiorly with the right arm which will increase the amount of external rotation in the left arm.
• This can be reversed by gently pulling the towel superiorly with the left arm which will increase the amount of internal rotation in the right arm.

Position

• You need to stand straight with your arms behind your back and your elbow fully extended.
• A second person has to stand behind the person.

Procedure

• Make sure that your elbow is fully extended.
• A second person should hold the first person’s hand and gently pull his hands into extension or towards himself.
• Extend until he can feel a gentle tension in the anterior aspect of the upper arm.

Position

• One hand of the therapist is on the back of the head and the other on the shoulder of the side to be stretched.

Procedure

• To stretch the right levator scapulae muscle, the therapist uses the hand on the back of the head to gently push the person’s head into flexion, left lateral flexion, and left rotation.
• The other hand on the right shoulder gently depresses the shoulder to produce a counterforce to cervical movement.
• A person should feel a mild tension in the posterolateral aspect on the right side of the cervical spine.