Video: Stretches for your arms

﻿Hello there. My name is Sophie Brazier. I'm a children's physiotherapist. Thank you for joining me today for our lesson. So what we're going to be looking at today is we are going to be continuing to look at stretching as a topic. And what we will do, we are in lesson six, so we're going to be continuing working around the body. And today we will start off with a bit more of a recap of stretching and have a look at some points to remember, and then we'll look at an activity of a stretch, and I will be showing you a stretch where you can stretch this part of your arm. So going to be doing a nice across-the-body stretch, which you can do in a seated position, you can do it in standing. And I'll be demonstrating in a seated position. So you don't need any equipment. You just need yourself, but you may need some help from a parent or carer if you want to look into the other options as well. So if you want to get yourself ready, then we can make a start on today's lesson. 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. In 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. So let's think about why is stretching important? So remember that stretching is quite an instinctive action. Did you wake up this morning and have a stretch as you woke up? Did you stretch your arms above your head and go, "Oh," and a good way to start the day? Or did you yawn in the last hour or have you yawned today? And you've kind of gone, "Ah," and done a big yawn and the big stretch. So thinking about those two things, stretching is actually quite an automatic action that we do. So it kind of, you can see how we can build those kinds of things into our day, just in small chunks. And it can just become part of our routine. Because we do spend quite a lot of time in static postures. So these postures that are still, so when we're learning, when you're watching television, when you're doing an activity that doesn't require you to move, when you're listening to music, perhaps, and you're sitting on a sofa, when you're in a car. So lots of things that we do in modern life can keep us in static postures, which can lead to tight muscles and stiffness. So stretching can really help relieve some of this tension. And I also just think it's really nice. So regular stretching can become part of your daily routine. And the last point there, remember to think about your breathing when you are stretching, as this can really help calm your mind as well. And I'm a big believer in trying to match up your physical with your mental health. So if you're thinking about your breathing and what's happening to you physically, and you're releasing some tension, if you're concentrating and bringing a little bit of relaxation for your mind, that can really help and really work together to kind of relax you and kind of calm you. So both those things can work well together. Now let's think about some points to remember for good stretching. So important things to think about, always follow the advice of your physiotherapist. So this just means if you have got a stretching programme that you've been given and you're following it, and you know what you're doing, then stick with that first and use some of these stretches as ideas. But what has been made for you will be specific to you. So if you've got that, make sure you're following it. And if you like any of the ideas that I'm showing you, remember that the ideas are generic. They're not specific for you, but they are ways to stretch and you might find them useful for you. And if you do need more help tailoring them to you, remember to speak to your physio about them. So relaxed breathing, again, that's bringing in the breathing element, remembering to really breathe into the stretch. So you can enjoy it a little bit more and sometimes really concentrating on your breathing can help you take the stretch a little bit further if you like to, but that leads on to not forcing stretches. So don't over force the stretch. Make sure you take it slowly, and start off with maybe a small amount of time in the stretch to begin with when you hold it, and then increase that as you feel comfortable. And that means you need to avoid pain. So you only feel the stretch. So take the stretches that I'm showing you to a point where you just feel them. And if it feels okay, you can stay there. You could then back off or go a little bit further, but never should you experience any pain when you're doing these. So that's really important to point out to everybody. So the activity I'm going to show you now is a stretch for your arm. So you're going to feel it in the top part of your arm, just below your shoulder and above your elbow. So those muscles across there, and it's an across-the-body, horizontal stretch. So that just means it's going across your body. And I will demonstrate in a moment, but I'll just talk you through it now, before I demonstrate. So you're going to stand with your feet shoulder-width apart or sit, which is the position I'm going to show you in. You're going to bring your left arm across your body with your elbow slightly bent. That just means that you don't want it dead straight. And some people do have a bit of extra movement in their elbow. So you want to make sure that you're keeping a nice, neutral, aligned position, not taking it too far into extension. With your other arm, your right arm, you're going to guide your left arm in and across your body a bit more. So that will be a bit clearer when I show you the stretch. Then you're going to hold the stretch. And I say, to begin with, hold for about 10 to 20 seconds and maybe increase that to 30 as you feel comfortable, and then repeat on the other side. And I'd say maybe try five times to begin with on each side and then increase that as you feel comfortable. So for the stretch now I'm going to demonstrate, we're going to be giving your arms a good stretch. So you're going to be stretching across this part of your arm. So your muscles in here are called your triceps. So it just gives you a nice stretch across this part of your arm. So if you've been doing lots of activities using your arms, this can be a really nice stretch today. So you can either do it in standing or in sitting. I'm going to demonstrate in sitting, and then I'll show you this stretch first, and then I'll show you a way to extend it. Okay. So I'm going to do my left arm first. So I'm going to take my arm across my body. I'm not going to take it all the way out, straight here, because then you put a bit of a stretch on your joint. So you want to keep in a natural, aligned position, and then I'm going to bring it across, and then I'm going to use my other arms, my right arm to increase the stretch across my body here. And what I want to make clear is that you don't really want to be holding on the elbow joint itself. And some people prefer to get more of a stretch there, but I quite like to hold here, and then you can just guide across and you can feel the stretch. You could hold it for about 10 seconds and then release. And then you can repeat again, and you can just see how long you'd like to hold it for where you feel a nice stretch. And remember, if it's too much, you can back off slightly, or if you need a bit more of a stretch, you can increase it a bit more. And then we're going over to the other side. So again, you can either be here, just not on the joint. And you want to be coming across your body, like that. Okay. And a way to extend the stretch is you're going to do a slightly different stretch for your sort of upper body and your arms. And it's going to be a overhead stretch. So I'll show you it from the front and then I'll show you it from behind, 'cause you'll see what my arms are doing behind me. So I'm going to take this arm up above my head, and then I'm going to bring this other arm here, and I'm going to stretch down here. And I'm feeling the stretch down this part of my arm. So what you want to be doing, you can put your head down like this, but it's quite good to keep your head in a nice, aligned position. So you can stretch that way. And then you can swap over to the other side. And again, you'll feel the stretch down here. I'll now show you from behind so that you can see what's going on with my arms in that position, okay? So I'll just turn around and show you the position. So you're going to lift up like this and you're going to be holding with your elbow here and you can keep your palm down there. And then I'll show you the other side. And then you're going to be stretching there. So go and give those a try. And then I will go into a little bit of detail about how to simplify the activity. And I'll also talk through in more detail, how to extend it. And then if you restart afterwards, you can join me again. So now I'd like you to pause the video and have a go at that stretch. If you rejoin me afterwards, I'll talk you through some of the ways to extend and simplify as I demonstrated in the video. So I'll just talk you through some of those options I gave you to extend or simplify. So you can make it more challenging by doing the overhead stretch that I showed. So you're lifting your left arm up, bending your elbow, and putting your palm onto your back. This can be quite challenging, so only do this if you feel comfortable with the other one first, and then you're just using your other arm to gently push down, and you'll feel that stretch where I showed you in the demonstration. And to make it a little bit easier, you can do the across-the-body horizontal stretch in lying. So you do exactly the same as I demonstrated in sitting, but you're just going to be in a lying position. So this just, it's a slightly different option if you find it challenging in sitting and perhaps in lying, you could get somebody to help bring your arm across, if you struggle with that. So there are some options. Pause the video, have a go yourself, and then rejoin me afterwards. How did you find that stretch? I really like that stretch and find that it can be built into your day really easily. And if you've been doing activities where you've been using lots of arm muscles, it can be really nice to do after an activity as part of a cooldown. So I hope you gave those options a try and worked out what was better for you. So please join me next time, where we'll be moving on to lesson seven, and we will be looking at a stretch for your wrists, which also is a really nice stretch. So please join me then. Have a great rest of your day, take care, and I'll see you really soon. Goodbye.

Lesson summary: Stretches for your arms

This lesson is a recap of why stretching is important, with a focus on your arms. The video includes a demonstration of a stretch to try with ways to simplify or extend the stretch as well.

Stretches for your arms

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Lesson summary: Stretches for your arms

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