Beauty

In fact, a towel is an excellent tool for performing various stretches of the arms, shoulder girdle, chest and other muscles of the upper body. Good flexibility in these parts of the body will certainly improve performance in sports such as swimming, basketball, tennis, handball, volleyball, running, walking and many others.

Exercise #1

1. Starting position: standing, feet shoulder width apart. Take a towel in your hands, the distance between your hands should be such as to allow you to bring it behind your back and back.

2. Now raise the towel over your head with straightened arms and slowly move it behind your back. You can pause for a while (10-15 seconds) at any point of the trajectory to stretch one or another muscle group (See picture).

It is important:

To increase or decrease the load accordingly, simply decrease or increase the grip width.

Do not bend your elbows; they should remain straight throughout the entire trajectory of movement.

It is important that during the exercise you do not overstrain and do not twist your arms.

Watch your breathing: it should be deep and rhythmic.

You can stop and hold the stretch in any phase of the movement. This will allow you to stretch the same muscles at different angles, which further develops the flexibility of all the upper body.

Emphasize the load on the most rigid muscles, since the general feeling of stretching is formed by the least stretched muscles.

Exercise #2

1. Starting position: the same as in the previous exercise.

2. Raise the towel on straightened arms above your head. Then, without letting go of the towel, take your left hand behind your back to shoulder level and at the same time bend your right arm at the elbow at an angle of about 90 ° (See figure).

3. Next step: straighten your right arm and lower it to the same level as your left arm, then lower both arms at the same time (See picture).

4. Repeat the exercise, changing the order of arm movement.

It is important:

To increase the load, and as the flexibility of muscles and joints develops, you can increase the load by reducing the distance between the hands holding the towel.

Performing this exercise, it is necessary that all movements are slow and performed without jerks.

You can stop and hold the stretch in any phase of the movement to additionally stretch a specific muscle group, or vice versa, perform it as one movement without pausing.

Attention: if in the past you had injuries or some other problems with your shoulders, we recommend that you perform the described exercises with extreme caution, and if there is discomfort or unpleasant, especially painful sensations, immediately finish stretching.

Author: Alexander Kuznetsov based on the book Stretching for Everyone by Bob and Jill Anderson

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