Forearm Stretch: Everything Should Be Easy

forearm stretch

A forearm stretch should be easy. The muscles of the body are meant to work in balanced pairs with similar tone and an even capacity for stretching. Unfortunately this is rarely the case and the muscles of the back of the body tend to be much tighter than the muscles of the front.  The muscles of the forearm follow a slightly different pattern with the underside, which is the front of the forearm, tending to be much tighter than the back, or hairier side, of the forearm.

I refer to the muscles of the forearm stretch in the video above as technological muscles. They are muscles abused for lack of use. Not every one sits at a desk but one very common pattern among people who spend too much time at a computer is to lay the front of the forearm on the desk or keyboard for hours at a time

Many of the exercises that I teach regularly in my yoga classes are easily done in the course of the day in an office (like this one).  If you try and stretch these muscles and find that they are very tight—you might want to stretch them every time you stand up from your desk.

Forearm Stretch

  • Start on your hands and knees.
  • Turn your hands around to that your fingers are pointing towards your knees.
  • Try to line the middle finger up with the center of  the kneecap, keeping the heel of the palm grounded on the floor.
  • See if you can reach the hips back towards the heels a little bit.
  • If this stretch seems accessible you can lift your knees one inch off of the floor and even go towards downward dog if possible.

 

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