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Muscle Stretching Exercises For Seniors And The Elderly

Muscle stretching exercises for seniors and the elderly are vitally important especially in the arms and upper back.

As we age our chest and arms loose elasticity and our range of motion begins to decline.  

This amounts to a reduction in the available motion our joints have. Often there is an accompanying element of pain.


For this reason, overhead arm limbering exercises like the overhead raise below are powerful tools to keep stiffness at bay and even improve our existing range of motion in our shoulders and back.

Try these exercises below today and incorporate abdominal breathing at the same time to expand the chest and back. Good luck!

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Overhead Raise

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Purpose of this exercise

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

How to do it

Step 1

• Begin standing with arms comfortably at sides.
• Relax your shoulders and lift your ribs.

Step 2 

• Inhale while you lift both arms overhead.
• Return to the start position and repeat 10 times.

Breathing

• Inhale during the upward movement phase.
• Exhale during the downward movement phase.

Tips

• Try not to arch your back when raising your arms.
• Keep your hands loose and fingers open.
• Every time you reach, try a little harder to raise your hands toward the ceiling.

Take it up a notch

• Add 1 pound wrist weights for an added challenge.
• Bring your arms out to the side on the odd numbers. 
• Try this exercise against a wall for proper posture and alignment when raising arms.

Try these other 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?.

Watch These Exercise Videos

1. Arm Ups

• Improve the flexibility of your ribs to assist in breathing.
• Increase your ability to lift the ribs and bring the shoulders back into proper position.

2. Spine Extensions

• Helps correct faulty posture by bringing the spine into neutral, shoulders and chin back.
• Assists in the flexibility of the chest, improving respiration and lung functioning.

3. Chin Tuck And Jut

• Provides good feedback on correcting faulty posture habits.
• Strengthens the cervical retracting muscles for better support of good posture.

4.Shoulder Circles

• Improve the flexibility of your shoulders and rib cage.
• Helps bring your spine into a better erect posture.
• This is a great exercise to do to "set" your spine and shoulders during the day.

5. Shoulder Blade Squeeze

• Helps position your spine in a comfortable neutral position.
• Corrects faulty posture by positioning your shoulders below your ears.

6. Wall Tilts

• Helps bring your lower back into correct posture.
• Strengthens your pelvis and buttock muscles.

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