It’s the third week of August, how are your wrists and forearms feeling!? Looser I hope! This week we will be doing a forearm twist. We have two bones in our forearms, the ulna and the radius, that help us to make that twisting, or supination/pronation, of the forearm. In between these bones are little muscles and when they are tight it’s difficult to make those movements with the arm. This stretch will assist in helping to loosen these muscles as well as the muscles connected to the radius.

You will not need anything for this stretch. There are no major contradictions for this stretch, but as always don’t push yourself to over stretching, listen to your body. This stretch is a little hard to explain so there are a series of photos to guide you. Please refer to them with each step.

How to:

1. Extend the arms out in front of you at shoulder height. Face the backs of the hands toward each other. Shown in top left photo marked 1.

2. Cross the left arm over the right at the wrists, shown in middle left photo marked 2.

3.  Interlace the fingers, shown in bottom left photo marked 3.

4. Bend the elbows and start to face the interlaced fingers towards the floor, then start to bring the hands under and upward. Think the direction is moving from the belly button up towards the chest. Shown in the top right photo marked 4.

5. Continue the upward movement until the hands are right in front of your face, as shown in the middle right photo marked 5. If you have very tight forearms this may be as far as you go. Don’t continue further if it causes pain.

6. If you feel it’s a appropriate for you, you can start to straighten the arms out in front of you as shown in the bottom right photo marked 6. Hands remain interlaced throughout every step! Hold here or at step 5 for 30 seconds to a minute. Then untwist the arms and switch the crossing of the wrists to do the other side.

Tip: if you find this one very difficult to do it’s probable one you need to add do in your daily routine until the forearms begin to loosen more. 

Questions? Email Rachel at rachel.lackowski@athletico.com