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Elderly And Senior Upper Body Stretches

Elderly and senior upper body stretches will increase your range of motion in your shoulders, shoulder blades, neck and ribs.

It is vital to maintain shoulder range of motion as we age. So much of our daily activities rely on reaching, lifting and pushing motions.

These motions are more effective and easier when we are able to use more of our available movement in our upper back, shoulders, elbows and hands.

For example, in upper body dressing and grooming. This includes putting on shirts, bras, jackets, hats and also combing or fixing your hair.  

When these shirts and jackets have buttons, zippers, snaps and other fasteners, good shoulder, elbow and hand function is extremely important.

Have you ever tried to tie your shoe when your hands were freezing cold?

You've got the picture.

• Stretching can greatly help back pain
  
• Stretching can improve your posture
  
• Try one or two stretches for each body region
  
• Stretching is beneficial for arthritis

Check out the flexibility page for more stetching information.

FREE ebook for every visitor Do you like the exercises on this site? After many requests to have these exercises in a convenient form, I have created an ebook. The ebook is free and can be downloaded by signing up for my email list. This list is used only to send out my senior fitness newsletter. With thousands of downloads, this is one of the most popular Senior ebooks in the world. Click here for details....

Try these upper body stretches

Watch These Exercise Videos

1. Shoulder And Upper Back Stretch

• Shoulder stretches to increases your shoulder and scapular range of motion.
• Stretches your chest and shoulder.
• Will make it easier to reach to that high shelf in your kitchen.

2. Shoulder Rolls

• Improve the range of motion in your shoulder and upper back region with these stretching routines.
• Will assist in keeping your rib muscles flexible.
• Help in activities like reaching up to a high shelf or across the table at dinner.

3. Neck Side Stretch

• Improve the range of motion in your neck and upper back with these good stretching exercises.
• Helps with those everyday movements you need to do like looking under the bed for that other shoe!

4.Neck Rotation

• Improve the range of motion in our neck with these neck stretches.
• Help stretch the upper back and scapular muscles.

5. Shoulder Circles

• Improve the range of motion of your shoulders and upper back with these types of stretching.
• Helps increase flexibility in your chest and lungs.

6. Shoulder Stretch

• Helps stretch our shoulder, scapula and supporting muscles and joints.
• Improves our reaching ability especially across the body for these benefits of stretching.

7. Chest Stretch

• Stretches the chest and shoulders with these chest exercises.
• Improves posture and lung functioning.

8. Overhead Reach

• Increase the range of motion in your shoulder and upper back with these arm stretches.
• Help improve your ability to reach, as in getting a pan out of the cabinet or ice cream out of the freezer.

9. Reach Back

• Improve your ability to reach behind as in reaching back to hold on to an armrest before sitting down.
  
• Increase the range of motion of your shoulders and stretches your chest muscles with these arm exercises.

10. Triceps Stretch

• Stretches the shoulder and tricep with these stretches before exercise.
• Improves the mobility of your upper arm and shoulder.

11. Hand Stretch

• Increase the flexibility and range of motion of your hand and fingers with these hand exercises.
• Warms up your hand to prepare for the activity of the day.

12. Arm Raises

• Improves the range of motion of your shoulders with these muscle stretching exercises.
• Strengthens your arm for activities that require overhead reach like up to a shelf or pulling the light cord in the basement.

Do you like these exercises? Did you know you can download the exercises along with a 4 week exercise program?.