Forearm Stretches To Do After Typing All Day

Specifically: Soreness and tightness in our forearms can crop up if we spend numerous time typing. But since the forearm muscles are small and never as heavily involved in on a regular basis activities as many of the postural muscles within the upper back and neck, all of them too often get missed.

Why does typing on a laptop make our forearms feel tight?

Dave Candy, DPT, a board-certified specialist in orthopedic physical therapy and owner of More 4 Life PT explains that the typing position will not be particularly ergonomic, yet it is extremely repetitive, which could be exhausting for the small muscles in our forearms, wrists, hands, and fingers.

“Typing uses a sustained, low-level isometric contraction of your wrist extensor muscles to carry your wrist in slight extension while typing,” says Dr. Candy. “Moreover, you utilize repetitive, low-level contractions from the finger flexors and the finger extensors to strike the keys after which lift your fingers back up off of the keys.”

Without getting too far into the weeds of the physiology of muscle contraction, using your muscles requires energy, and this energy is produced by converting glucose (sugar) within the blood into ATP, which is the energy “currency” for muscles. Oxygen is required to provide this energy. Although there are metabolic pathways that don’t depend on oxygen, you’re more apt to experience muscle soreness in the event you are indeed producing ATP without sufficient oxygen (anaerobic metabolism).

“During sustained or repetitive muscle contractions, the pressure from the muscle contraction exceeds the blood pressure of the small blood vessels (capillaries) that offer the little forearm muscles,” says Dr. Candy, who explains that this forces the muscles to make use of anaerobic metabolism. “Anaerobic glycolysis produces a byproduct that could make your muscles feel sore and stiff. Moreover, anaerobic glycolysis is far less efficient than aerobic metabolism, so your muscles still don’t meet their energy demands.”

Dr. Candy further explains that when there’s insufficient energy for the muscles, the muscle fibers actually stay in a partially contracted state since it requires energy to calm down the muscle filaments (the contractile proteins in a muscle fiber). This will result in tension in your muscles and a sense of tightness.

And it is not just typing that does this. Dr. Candy says that any low-level, sustained activity that uses the hands can elicit an identical effect in our forearm muscles: writing, playing piano, or gripping a heavy object that we’ve to hold for a protracted time frame (like a suitcase) can have the identical effect.

Why we must always stretch those muscles out

Dr. Candy says that if we do not take the time to stretch our forearm muscles, we run the danger of developing injuries like tennis elbow and carpal tunnel syndrome.

“Tennis elbow occurs as a result of overuse of the wrist and finger extensor tendons that attach on the skin of the elbow,” says Dr. Candy.

He explains that carpal tunnel syndrome has more to do with compression of the nerves that run through the carpal tunnel of the wrist than stiffness within the forearm muscles themselves.

“Nevertheless, the finger flexor tendons also run through the carpal tunnel. Subsequently, if the carpal tunnel is already narrowed, repetitive use of the fingers when typing can exacerbate carpal tunnel syndrome symptoms,” says Dr. Candy.

The very best forearm stretches to seek out relief

Fortunately, it doesn’t take much to counteract this. Dr. Candy says that there are just a few quite simple stretches that might help relieve tightness in our forearm muscles. He walked us through three of them:

1. Wrist extensor stretch

For the reason that wrist is ready of slight extension if you type, which means the wrist extensor muscles can develop into contracted and tightened, so gently bending your wrist in the wrong way might help relieve stiffness.

• Sit or stand together with your arm out in front of you, elbow straight, and palm facing down.
• Pull your fingers and palm down toward your forearm (the underside where there’s no natural arm hair) using your other hand.
• Twist the forearm in order that the fingers point barely outward (wrist pronation).
• Hold for 30 seconds, calm down, then repeat on the opposite side.

2. Wrist flexor stretch

Stretching the wrist flexors can optimize wrist mobility and forestall carpal tunnel syndrome.

• Sit or stand together with your arm out in front of you, elbow straight, and palm facing up.
• Pull your hand down toward the ground using your other hand.
• Hold for 30 seconds, calm down, then repeat on the opposite side.

3. Wrist flexor stretch together with your hand on a desk

That is an incredible stretch for the muscles within the forearm and it would improve wrist and hand mobility in the event you are feeling stiffness in your wrist from typing.

• Stand together with your hand palm down on a desk or firm chair.
• Put your other hand on top of it, over the wrist.
• Rock your body backwards and forwards over your hand with the intention to stretch your wrist flexors.
• Keep rocking for one minute, calm down, the repeat on the opposite side.

“For those who’re typing frequently, perform one set every two hours throughout the workday,” suggests Dr. Candy. “For somebody who does numerous desk work, just doing these couple of stretches several times per day quite than four-plus stretches one to 2 times per day might be more helpful.”

It also helps to listen to the ergonomics of your work station. Make sure that that your chair is just high enough in order that your forearms are as parallel to the ground as possible.

And in the event you are concerned that your forearm discomfort from typing is getting worse, work with a physical therapist to develop a more robust treatment and prevention plan.