fa_jing
10-02-2001, 10:11 PM
What Kung fu/Bodywork exercises do you all use to lower/broaden/relax shoulders? I am not talking about increasing muscle size, I'm talking about lowering your shoulder bones so that when the collar bones (clavicles) are viewed from the front, they form a horizontal line --, without rolling the shoulders forward. Some people are like this naturally - my shoulders, partially due to back injury, ride high and my clavicles form a flattened V when viewed from the front. It is a little difficult to explain, so here's my list of exercises as examples and hopefully you'll get it.
1. From Mantak Chia's iron body book: Grasp each forarm with the other hand, keeping elbows pointed to the sides. Pull your arms apart, feeling the tension in your elbows. Shift this feeling to your shoulders. You should now feel your shoulders widening, and the shoulder blades should move apart from one another. Shoulders must not roll forward. My take: not so effective for me personally.
2. Place hands in vertical prayer position, behind your back. Press palms together. My take: this is effective and a good way to strech and lightly exercise muscules of the upper back such as the rhomboids, etc. This exercise is easier to perform if you can place your hands high up on your back.
3. Put left arm behind your back, and reach with the right hand over the right shoulder and curl the fingers so as to grip the hands together. Do other side. This can take some practice.
My take: I think most of you are familiar with this exercise. I feel it is the most effective exercise to loosen the shoulders and upper back.
Sometimes my shoulder blade wants to pop out from my back, so I put it against the corner of a wall. This seems to increase the stretch.
4. Place the backs of both hands together against the small of your back. Lie down flat on the floor. My take: I made this one up for myself. The action of the floor pushing my elbows forward produces a strech. This one is a good warmup for #3.
5. From Praying Mantis Warmup - Place one arm in front of you with the forarm pointing straight up at a 90 degree angle with your upper arm. Palm is facing you. Reach with the other arm underneath the elbow, wrap it around and grab the "pinkie" side of the other hand, pull down. My take: Difficult to describe this exercise in writing. Designed to exert pressure on your wrist in preparation for Chin Na. I've been able to modify the strech to rotate my forearm out, like the opposite of arm wrestling. Too much is not good. Also, I can pull the arm across my chest for an effective strech.
6. Other standard stretches I am aware of are where you grab one elbow with the other hand and pull back over your head, to the side, etc. My take: Streches the shoulder heads but not much else.
Streching other parts of your body, particularly intercostals, back, hips, massaging your temples, etc. will certainly help. But I am curious if anyone else out there had exercises specific to this goal. -Fa Jing
1. From Mantak Chia's iron body book: Grasp each forarm with the other hand, keeping elbows pointed to the sides. Pull your arms apart, feeling the tension in your elbows. Shift this feeling to your shoulders. You should now feel your shoulders widening, and the shoulder blades should move apart from one another. Shoulders must not roll forward. My take: not so effective for me personally.
2. Place hands in vertical prayer position, behind your back. Press palms together. My take: this is effective and a good way to strech and lightly exercise muscules of the upper back such as the rhomboids, etc. This exercise is easier to perform if you can place your hands high up on your back.
3. Put left arm behind your back, and reach with the right hand over the right shoulder and curl the fingers so as to grip the hands together. Do other side. This can take some practice.
My take: I think most of you are familiar with this exercise. I feel it is the most effective exercise to loosen the shoulders and upper back.
Sometimes my shoulder blade wants to pop out from my back, so I put it against the corner of a wall. This seems to increase the stretch.
4. Place the backs of both hands together against the small of your back. Lie down flat on the floor. My take: I made this one up for myself. The action of the floor pushing my elbows forward produces a strech. This one is a good warmup for #3.
5. From Praying Mantis Warmup - Place one arm in front of you with the forarm pointing straight up at a 90 degree angle with your upper arm. Palm is facing you. Reach with the other arm underneath the elbow, wrap it around and grab the "pinkie" side of the other hand, pull down. My take: Difficult to describe this exercise in writing. Designed to exert pressure on your wrist in preparation for Chin Na. I've been able to modify the strech to rotate my forearm out, like the opposite of arm wrestling. Too much is not good. Also, I can pull the arm across my chest for an effective strech.
6. Other standard stretches I am aware of are where you grab one elbow with the other hand and pull back over your head, to the side, etc. My take: Streches the shoulder heads but not much else.
Streching other parts of your body, particularly intercostals, back, hips, massaging your temples, etc. will certainly help. But I am curious if anyone else out there had exercises specific to this goal. -Fa Jing