Do you sit at a computer for 9 hours a day and your wrists and elbows can get achy and sore? Or maybe you’ve noticed that doing moves such as push ups or handstands cause wrist or elbow pain?
That is because most of us spend lots of time with our wrists and elbows in flexion (actually basically our entire upper body is in flexion hunched over a computer screen), which can cause the muscles of our forearms and even our upper arms and upper back to get sore and tight.
This tightness in our forearms and our upper back can cause wrist and elbow pain and lead to injuries when we workout. When we go to the gym and do moves like push ups and handstands, we ask our wrists to be in extension, which they may be too tight to comfortably do.
Plus the tightness caused by sitting in flexion can also cause the extensors in our forearms and the muscles of our upper backs to be weak, which can also lead to injury when we lift because we may not be engaging the correct muscles and may be instead overusing weak muscles that can’t handle the load.
Below are 10 Tips to help you prevent and alleviate wrist and elbow pain at your desk and loosen up your upper body after sitting in flexion hunched over a computer. Any time you need a little break from typing, try one of these moves!
To keep your body healthy and strong, you need to correct the imbalances caused by sitting all day at a desk and performing repetitive movements.
To correct these imbalances and truly help prevent and alleviate injuries, you can’t just simply go and workout. You can’t just simply lift weight and expect to get stronger.
Because even if you have seemingly perfect form, you may not be activating and using the correct muscles to lift the weight – and this could lead to injury instead of you getting stronger and fitter.
In order to make sure you are using the correct muscles when you lift, you must implement all four training elements – foam rolling, stretching, activation and strength training – in your workout routine.
You can’t simply skip to strength training and expect your body to work correctly and remain injury-free.
Before you start your workout and your strength training routine, you must first start to work on restoring your flexibility and joint mobility by foam rolling tight areas. When you foam roll, you help release knots so that muscles can become loose and ready to work.
By starting your workout program with foam rolling, you can start restoring muscles to their proper length-tension relationships. When muscles are at their proper length tension relationship, they can contract properly allowing us to lift more weight and engage the correct muscles to do the work.
Also, by loosening up knots, you can help improve your joint mobility. When a muscle is tight and shortened, it can change how your joint operates. It can limit your range of motion around a joint, leading to improper movement patterns and compensations
But foam rolling alone won’t restore your flexibility and joint mobility.
Once you’ve foam rolled to start getting the tight, overactive muscles loose, you then need to stretch to help elongate shortened muscles.
Below are 35 Stretches that stretch everything from your feet to your neck and wrists. These moves will help you improve your flexibility and mobility so that you can move better and feel better.
And then once you’ve stretched out using a few of these moves, make sure to get those underactive muscles working with some activation exercises before you move onto your strength training!
Many of us have poor posture and suffer from minor aches and pains just because we sit at a desk hunched over a computer for 9 hours a day.
That is why every single day we need to do the OPPOSITE and stretch out and open up our body after sitting in flexion all day.
However, most of us are also busy and the last thing on our mind is spending time stretching and opening up after sitting all day.
That is why the World’s Greatest Stretch is such a great exercise for us to do. With just 1 move and less than 5 minutes, we can open up all of the areas that become tight from sitting hunched over at our desks.
Because we sit hunched over a computer for like 9 hours a day, muscles get tight that shouldn’t be tight. These tight muscles cause other muscles that should be active to not function correctly, which leads to compensation and injury.
These tight muscles from sitting all day at a desk must be rolled out and stretched so that they aren’t being overworked.
