Stretch: The Biceps Stretch
What is this muscle?
There are two biceps (the short head and the long head) and they are located on the front of the arm above the elbow and below the shoulder (as in fig.1). It is these muscles in particular that us men want to develop so they are big and we love to spend ages working on them. However it is also the muscle that we are least likely to stretch. Bear this in mind: you can only achieve the best results if you stretch your muscles, only then can they get to their biggest and strongest.
What do we use them for?
Apart from attracting the ladies the body uses them to bend the lower arm towards the upper at the elbow (for lifting that important pint of beer! – Beeble). Its secondary jobs are to turn the palm of your hand upwards when the elbow is bent and to raise the whole arm up in front of you.
In the exercise world the biceps are used in the biceps curl (obviously – Beeble), any exercise that involves pulling, like the chin-up, lat pulldown machine and most other back exercises. It is also used in the front raise which is primarily a shoulder exercise.
Is it important to stretch them?
Of course it is important to stretch your biceps, as it is with any muscle in your body. As I have already mentioned, if you don’t stretch a muscle then you don’t give it a chance to be as strong or as properly developed as it can be. The biceps have little direct affect on our posture and so are not critical from that point of view, however a tight muscle is a lot more easy to injure and also has the ability to create weakness around it by pulling on the antagonist (opposing) muscles and in the case of the biceps that is the triceps.
How to tell if your biceps are too tight
This is a really simple test and one you can do easily. Stand upright with the best possible posture you can muster. Let your arms "hang" by your side as relaxed as possible. Ideally for this you will need a mirror; stand side ways to the mirror and if your arm is bent at the elbow then your biceps are too tight. Told you it was easy!
Stretch those biceps
For the biceps stretch you will need a hip height (or thereabouts) table or surface and your arm.
Standing sideways to the table place the palm of your hand onto the table with the fingers facing backwards and your arm completely straight. Now very slowly, keeping your hand in place, move your body forwards and down in a lunge movement (click here to see the lunge). Your arm will be left behind extending the angle at the shoulder joint and in turn stretching your biceps muscles.
It doesn’t really matter which leg you lunge forwards with, but make sure you are in a strong position as you could injure yourself if you were to lose balance. After holding the stretch for at least 20 seconds push your body up using your legs, and then back to the starting position. Now face the other way and stretch the other arm with the same technique.
How much to stretch
Using the perceived rate of exertion (PRE) which is a scale ranging from 1 – 10, 1 = very light, hardly felt, 10 = a very painful. We want the stretch to be a feeling of 7 out of 10.
This should be a “strongish” pull in the middle of the muscle. However if you feel the pull or pain in the shoulder or elbow, move up and back, using your legs, to ease the stretch off.
And a warning….
If you can’t do the lunge well or are weak in that position, then do not attempt this exercise as you could really cause yourself a lot of damage. Also make sure that you don’t use the arm that you are stretching to help yourself back up to the start position. Using the muscle in this stretch could cause it to be damaged as it will not be used to working from this position.
Summary
There are not many ways to stretch your biceps by yourself so make sure you use this technique well and you can feel the stretch in the actual muscle and not at the extremities of your arm.
As always let us know how you get on with this stretch and any problems you face with it by leaving us a comment. I will, of course, endeavour to answer your comment as soon as I can. Good luck and be safe.
