Moving through Midlife | Habit Stack & Movement Snacks for Midlife Moms, Parenting in Midlife | Fitness over 40

Ep 26.2: Movement Snack/Raise your arms overhead

October 28, 2021 Courtney McManus
Moving through Midlife | Habit Stack & Movement Snacks for Midlife Moms, Parenting in Midlife | Fitness over 40
Ep 26.2: Movement Snack/Raise your arms overhead
Moving through Midlife
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Show Notes Transcript

Our shoulders can get tight and less mobile due to the way we sit with rounded shoulders so today I want you to see what your mobility is in your shoulders.

When you raise your arms up overhead do you notice your back goes into an extension?  Or do your shoulders rise up towards your ears? 

If so, then I want you to head over to our Form Fit Mom Community on FB to watch me explain this exercise in a video format to help you begin to strengthen your 

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It is always my goal to help you and your family move more. So every Thursday, I am dropping a movement snack into your ears to help you and your family move more. To today, our movement snack has to do with shoulder mobility. And we're going to think about cleaning and bringing our arm overhead. So if you were to imagine yourself, cleaning your mirror, or a kitchen cabinet, or even reaching for something up high, I want you to do that you can do it with one arm. Preferably, I would like you to do it with both arms, because that's where we're going to really start to see the mobility in your shoulder. So this is going to kind of assess your shoulder mobility and the strength in your mid back. So I want you to reach your arms up over your head. And what does your torso do? What does your ribs do? Do you notice that when you do this, you go into an extension? Do your arms allow you to lift up overhead without your back extending, when you lift up overhead? Do you feel your shoulders rising up to your ears, these are a few things that you may be noticing occurring. And we want to work on allowing ourselves so if I were to reach my arm up over my head, I should be able to my shoulder, my I'm sorry, my scapula, I think shoulder blades should be able to move away from my body. So move out to where my shoulder should not have to rise up towards my ear. I mean, it may a little obviously, but not a lot. And then also, I should not have to extend through my torso. So I should not be opening up my ribcage when I lift my arm up overhead. If you notice, these are things that you are doing, then we need to start working on that we will need to start working on some exercises, that helps create more mobility within the shoulder and starts to strengthen the mid back. Because if we don't, that's when we start to deal with shoulder pains and things in regards to that in for many of us because we're rounded forward so much. This becomes very difficult. So today, your assignment so to speak, is to raise your arms up over your head and see what happens to your midsection. Does your ribcage open? Do you feel that extension occurring through your back? Or do you notice how your shoulders rise up to your ears. Now if you do, here's the key. I'm going to show you some videos over in my form CIT mom community, where we're going to go through some exercises that you can start working on at home. I'm going to try to explain one of the more basic ones for you. But audio makes it really difficult to explain certain exercises. And it's so much better to be able to see it. But I'm hopefully going to explain a little bit. So what you're going to do, if you notice where your arms are moving, we're going to go up against a wall. So we're going to put our forehead up against a wall, we're going to back our feet up a little bit, I would say about four to five inches off the wall so your feet are not up against the wall, you're not trying to go straight up against the wall. You're it's like you're leaning forward a little bit. And then you're going to bring your arms and you can walk your arms up the wall, trying to keep those shoulders relax. So when I walk my arms up the wall, I'm not letting my shoulders rise up to my ears. I'm just thinking about using that nib back to pull those shoulders back down while we walk our fingertips up the wall. And then you can just hold here for a moment and just see what that feels like. And then if you can, with those arms in that position without the shoulders rising up, you're going to try to pull your hands away. So think about pulling away from the wall and you're going to feel that mid back firing on. So that is one thing that you're going to practice. The other thing that you can do is very simply when you go to rise your arms up. So raise your arms up over your head. And it doesn't have to be a straight overhead. Think more like a why? If I were to bring my arms out into a why, and then I'm going to draw my pinkies out, like I'm trying to draw my pinkies up, rather than reaching with my pointer finger, middle finger, I'm going to reach with my pinky, and you're going to feel that muscle right underneath or right surrounding that shoulder blade. That is one of our weaker muscles. So that is a great exercise to just kind of feel what I'm trying to get you to be more aware of that mid back muscle, that muscle right underneath the shoulder Bill blade, and let me know, what do you notice? Do you notice anything is anything tight? If anything's tight, please make sure to head over to our forum fitmom community so I can help you with some exercises that will help you with protraction retraction of the shoulder blades also help you work on strengthening that mid back. And I think that's pretty much it. I hope you all have an amazing day. Start working into that shoulder see how much movement you can have without creating too much tension in your upper back and upper neck area. I hope you all have a wonderful day. And I'll talk to you soon. Thank you so much for joining us today. If you could do me a favor if you like what you hear. Could you leave us a review or take a screenshot and share your favorite takeaway on social media. And make sure to tag us over at raising underscore healthy humans. Now go out and enjoy more movement throughout your day.