Posture · Shoulders · Upper back
Standing overhead reach
Mobility · Standing
- How to do it
- Stand tall with soft knees. Reach both arms overhead slowly, lengthening through the sides. Keep ribs soft (don’t flare) and breathe easy.
- Dose
- 25s
- What you should feel
- Your ribs lifting away from your hips
- Common mistake
- Flared ribs, shrugged shoulders, or locking the knees.
- Make it easier
- Reach forward and up instead of straight overhead.
- Avoid this movement if
- Raising the arms overhead causes sharp shoulder pain.
- Why DeskBreak uses it
- Reaching up is the opposite of everything a desk asks of you.
Stop this movement if it causes sharp or worsening pain, numbness, weakness or dizziness.
Evidence
General movement principle.
- Effectiveness of workplace interventions in the prevention of upper extremity musculoskeletal disorders and symptoms: an update of the evidence (Occupational and Environmental Medicine, 2016)