If you’ve felt regular tightness or stiffness in your shoulders that you just cannot shake off, you might be in dire need of effective shoulder stretches. Stress, tension, overuse of shoulders, and bad posture are often the culprits behind the pain in your deltoid muscles. To relieve tightness and stiffness of the shoulders, give these stretching exercises for shoulder pain a try.
7 Best Shoulder Stretches for Your Flexibility and Mobility
1. Shoulder Rolls
Shoulder rolls are perhaps a fundamental of shoulder stretching exercises. This simple move allows you to feel all three parts of your deltoid muscles – the posterior, the middle, and the anterior muscles. It also exercises your rotator cuffs, the group of muscles in your deltoid that allows you to rotate and raise your shoulders. This simple and often overlooked move helps you establish the basics in the exercises to follow.
How to do it:
- Sit or stand up straight, with both hands placed firmly on top of your shoulders. Keep a straight back and a neutral neck.
- From here, shrug both of your shoulders forward and up. Slowly roll them backward and then downwards before returning to your starting position.
- Make sure to get a full range of motion in your shoulders. The stretch should be felt mostly in your deltoids and not in your elbows.
- Complete 15 circles in a forward motion. Afterward, reverse the movement and complete 15 circles backward.
2. Neck Rolls
Stiff shoulders often affect not only your delts. It usually crawls up to your traps and all the way to your neck. Neck rolls are one of the best stretching exercises for neck and shoulder pain. They stretch your neck and your spine, alleviating tension and pain in the area. It also develops your flexibility.
How to do it:
- Sit or stand up straight with both hands held neutrally at your sides. Maintain proper posture.
- Drop your chin to your chest, keep your spine lengthened and engage your core muscles.
- From here, roll your head slowly until your right ear is close to your right shoulder. Then roll it back until you’re almost facing up. Keep in mind that your shoulders should stay dropped as they have a tendency to shrug during this motion. Continue to roll your head to the other side until your left ear is close to your left shoulder.
- Complete the motion by returning to your starting position and doing the same thing backward. That is considered 1 repetition. Complete 15 repetitions of this movement, as well.
3. Triceps Stretch
While this exercise is focused mostly on stretching your triceps, it’s also one of the best stretches for sore shoulders. The motion is known to improve flexibility, especially if you’re trying to reach as far down behind your back as you can.
How to do it:
- Sit or stand up straight.
- Raise your right hand above your head and reach for your shoulder blade on the other side. Put your left hand on top of your right elbow.
- With your left hand, push the elbow downward. Make sure that you feel the stretch in the triceps down to your deltoids.
- Hold the position for 15 seconds and do the same for the other arm.
4. Cow Face Pose
The cow face pose, or Gomukhasana as it is known in Sanskrit, is a powerful move in yoga for tight shoulders and flexible rotator cuffs. It’s a challenging move that usually requires a lot of practice before it can be done correctly. With practice, it should greatly improve your flexibility and help alleviate a lot of tension in the shoulder muscles.
How to do it:
- Sit or stand up straight.
- Raise your right hand over your head and reach behind your back by bending your elbow downward. Your right palm must be touching your back.
- At the same time, lower your left arm and reach for your right hand by bending the elbow upward. Your left palm, facing outward, must be able to clasp your right hand.
- Hold the position for 15 seconds and do the same for the other arm.
- If you’re unable to reach for your arm on either side, try using a towel. The hand reaching for the back from above should hold a towel. The hand reaching for the back from below has to grab the towel and try to slowly move his grip upwards.
- Make sure not to stretch beyond what you can currently do. Try to improve your flexibility every day by challenging yourself, but learn to listen to your body and its limits, too.
5. Clasped Hands Extension
This particular exercise is at the core of all upper back stretches. Often, shoulder pain stretches up to the shoulder blades. These shoulder blade stretches work not only your upper back, but it also hits your chest as it pulls on those in the movement as well.
How to do it:
- Stand up straight with your feet planted firmly on the ground at shoulder-width apart.
- Position your hands on your lower back above your glutes, and clasp your hands together with your fingers interlocked.
- Pull your elbows back, squeeze your shoulder blades together (to the back) and stretch your chest out.
- Now stretch your arms straight and slightly bend your body backwards. Hold this for 15 seconds.
- After 15 seconds, keep your arms straight, but this time, widen your stance. Bend your body forward until it’s parallel to the ground. Your hands should still be clasped behind your back with your back straight. Hold this position for 15 seconds before releasing.
6. Arm Circles
Arm circles are a good way to not only build flexibility in your shoulders but also build endurance that will come in useful in full-body workouts. This is another basic move often overlooked yet is at the core of shoulder stretches.
How to do it:
- Stand up straight. Stretch your arms out to your sides with your palms facing downwards (T-formation).
- From here, move your arms forward in small circular motions. Again, the power of the movement should be coming from the shoulders.
- After 10 small circles, do 10 big circular movements.
- Once that is complete, stop the movement and resume, but this time going backwards. Again, begin with 10 small circular movements before doing 10 big ones.
7. Goal Post Stretch
When your shoulders are hunched forward, this can affect your neck, ribs, and scapula. This is why it is very important to stretch your shoulders regularly and maintain good body posture at all times. If your shoulders are flexible enough, it can avoid stiffness in the neck, which can benefit you both in your day-to-day life as well as when you’re training and working out. This shoulder stretch is easy to do but very effective in improving the flexibility of the shoulders.
How to do it:
- Stand with your back against a wall. Bring your elbows out to the sides at a 90-degree angle, while keeping the scapula in a neutral position.
- Keep the position of your elbows. Start by turning the right arm downward, with the right palm touching the wall.
- Now switch positions. Turn your right arm upward, with the back of the right hand facing the wall. Simultaneously, the left arm is turned downward, with the palm touching the wall.
- Make sure to keep your elbows at a 90-degree angle throughout this stretch, and don’t rush the switch until you feel the stretch.
- Do this continuously for 30 seconds.
Want to know how you can maximize your training day in and day out? Watch our video below:
Your deltoid muscles play a great role in your day-to-day functionality. Hurting them can bother you for days and prevent you from performing at a hundred percent, especially since they’re involved in most of the exercises of our major muscle groups. That’s why in working out, it’s important to follow a workout plan that doesn’t overwork your muscles paired with the right supplements that helps you recover faster. Combined with proper nutrition, performing these shoulder stretches will help keep those deltoid muscles loose and flexible after a long workout.
Do you have other shoulder exercises in mind that you think we might’ve missed? Tell us in the comments section below!
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