Are you enjoying summer? Bike riding, gardening, or any other activities? Watch now for a simple open arm stretch to help you feel better and avoid trouble.

Hi this is Dana Ranahan from Body Works Sports Physiotherapy in North Vancouver and I’m here today to show you a simple exercise to open up some of the tightness in the chest.

A lot of us are doing gardening, biking, or other activities using our arms in the summer. It’s a good idea to open it up at the end of the day so you don’t get into trouble with pain or tightness.

This is a BackMitra. It’s a little foam piece of material that you can lay on. You can use something similar at home, or even roll up a towel of a similar size.

We’re going to lay this down on the ground and lie on top of it
It’s going to run the length of the spine so it’s underneath youry head and down to the middle of your back
The big thing here is, when you lay on it you don’t want to allow your chest to pop up. Just allow your spine to kind of melt into it.
Now you can do some gentle opening across the front. So work on stretching through your chest.
If you lay here for a couple of minutes with a few deep breathes it will really help to open up and lengthen through here

Hopefully this open arm stretch will help you feel a little better for your day to day. If you have any other questions check out our website at www.body-works.ca.