Video: Arm & upper body strengthening (Part 1)

﻿Hello there, my name is Sophie Brazier. I'm a children's physio-therapist. Thank you for joining me today for our lesson. So we are on unit three, lesson four, and we're continuing on the topic of strengthening your limbs. But today we're going to have a look at how we can strengthen your upper limbs. So I am going to begin by doing a recap of what muscle strength is and we will look at why it is important and then we will finish with an activity that you can try where you can strengthen your arms. So the activity you're going to be trying, you're going to be in a line position with your arms up towards the ceiling, and you're going to be doing a cushion hold. So you might wonder what that is, and I will explain in more detail later on in the lesson. All you'll need is yourself, maybe a mat if you're lying on the floor and a cushion that you can hold in both of your palms comfortably and you may need some help from a parent or carer. So if you'd like to get those things and get ready, then we can make a start. I would just like to give you a little message from our team. We as therapists have tried to think of the best way to continue to support children, young people and their families. So you may be watching this as a child by yourself, or you might be with a parent or carer. We will be exploring topic areas that we regularly provide advice and support on across all ages and abilities. And each lesson we will aim to give you some ideas and activities that can be carried out either at home or in school. You may already have specific programmes that you're using or advice that has been given to you by your child's school or therapist. So please make sure that you're using any information I'm giving you alongside anything you already have. And if you do have any questions or would like help tailoring this to their needs, then please make sure you get in contact with your local therapy service. In lesson one on this unit in strengthening your limbs we went through what muscle strength is. And I'll just go through a little recap for you. So muscle strength is how strong you are. And remember there are different types of muscle contractions. It is needed for your fine motor skills and for your gross motor skills. So for things like holding a pencil and handwriting and cleaning your teeth where you're using maybe your hand and the muscles around the lower part of your arm and it's also needed for gross motor skills. So these are for bigger actions where you're using more muscles at once. So it's the things like throwing and catching and for carrying things and for example carrying your school bags. So it's also needed to keep you healthy. Lets also recap on why muscle strength is important. So why do you need that in the first place? So your muscles control your ability to do everyday activities. So in the upper limb, it's the things such as reaching, pulling, pushing and lifting. So all these activities that you do with your arms where you need to use those muscles around the area. And having a strong upper body can improve your flexibility, your mobility and the range of movement. So if you have the strength there, then all those things will be working well too. And also it keeps you healthy and can reduce the chance of injuries. And this is because if you've got strong muscles around your joints, it can help keep your joints stable. So for today's activity, you're going to be holding a cushion above your chest when lying on your back. So your starting position, I want you to lie on your back with a small gap between your knees, with your knees bent and your feet flat on the floor. So almost like you're starting a bridging position and you're going to hold a cushion with both hands on your palms facing up. You're going to keep your hands around shoulder width apart, and you're going to straighten your arms up towards the direction of the ceiling. So you're then going to keep the cushion steady on your palms, keeping your arms straight and hold, try and hold to begin with for about 30 seconds. And in this position here, what you'll feel is your arms are up against gravity and obviously you're holding something so you're adding a bit of resistance. So, if you can't manage 30 seconds that's fine. Now, if you watch the video, you will see me demonstrating this exercise and I'll talk through it as well and then if you pause the video you can have a go yourself. And then if you restart afterwards, we'll go through some ways to simplify and also extend this activity for you. So here I'm demonstrating the cushion hold exercise. So I'm starting off lying on my back with my knees bent up and my feet flat on the floor. I then have my palms facing up with the cushion held above my body. So I'm taking my arms with my elbows and my hands above my shoulders in that nice aligned position and then I'm returning my arms back down. So you can just do some single ones to build up, to get used to that holding that cushion. But then if you try to hold the cushion above your head and perhaps build up to about 30 seconds, you might need to build up to it so start off with a smaller number first and then see how you manage. And you'll see here that as I pushed back up, I'm using the strength in my arms to hold the cushion there. So I'm now showing you how to do this exercise without holding the cushion. So this could be a way to just try it if you find it a little bit challenging with the cushion. So you just do exactly the same, you're in the same starting position, but you're taking your arms up without holding on to anything. So here you're just taking your arms up against gravity. So this can be a nice way to simplify it. Would you perhaps like some ideas of how to simplify or extend this activity? Let me just talk you through some now. So to extend the activity, you can make it more challenging by holding the cushion for a longer amount of time. You could also get a partner to tap the cushion while you keep it up steady. You could also try with a small ball, like a Pilates style ball and get them to tap it if you find that easier. Here, it's just making you challenging those muscles a little bit more because you've got to hold it in that position while your partner is challenging your strength a little bit more. You can also increase the number of times you do the activity. So you might want to do it for 30 seconds, have a short break, and then you could perhaps do that five times, increase it to 10 and see what works for you. You can also simplify this activity, so making it easier by holding for less time. So you could perhaps focus on holding the cushion with your arms down and work on just lifting the cushion up, hold at the top and come back down. So holding it momentarily and just going through the action of lifting your arms up with the cushion and bringing it back down but making the movement nice and controlled. You could also use a lighter cushion if you're struggling with a heavier one. So maybe start off with the lighter one to begin with and the other option is not to use a cushion. So you saw in the video that I took the cushion away and I just used my arms. So you're moving your arms up against gravity to that stretched out position and then bringing it down slowly. So pause the video now, give some of those options a try and see which works best for you and then restart afterwards. So now we've come to the end of our lesson. So I'd like to say thank you to you for joining me and I hope you gave that activity a try. And if you needed to, you use the options that I spoke through of how to simplify or extend the activity. Please join me next time for lesson five on unit three, where we will be continuing to look at upper body strengthening activities and I will show you a second example of an exercise you can try. And if you'd like to join me, then I'll see you then. So all that leads me to say now is take care, have a great day and I will see you soon. Goodbye.

Lesson summary: Arm & upper body strengthening (Part 1)

This lesson is a recap of upper body strength and why it is important, with a demonstration of an activity for upper body & arm strengthening in lying.

Arm & upper body strengthening (Part 1)

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Lesson summary: Arm & upper body strengthening (Part 1)

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