The dilemma of your upper arm

So you Crossfit and you have wanted to fix your front rack position, and you still wonder why your forearm muscles are tight and possible why your shoulders are still feeling sore?

You may have worked on the rotator cuff muscles, deltoids, the pecs and the forearms in the past and benefited from rehabbing and prehabing these areas but you still believe there is something missing from the overall picture. What is the area between that links these two areas together? You guessed right, your biceps. However, there is still a couple of other muscles that need to be included, Coracobrachialis and Brachialis.

The Anatomy

The upper arm is made up of three muscles.

• Biceps brachii (Long head and a short head)

• Coracobrachialis

• Brachialis

The actions of the muscles of the upper arm.

Biceps brachii actions: Flexes the forearm, abducts the shoulder and supinates the forearm. In plain English, brings the forearm closer to the shoulder, takes the arm away from the body and turns the forearm towards the sky.

Coracobrachialis actions: Adducts the upper arm, flexes the upper arm at the glenohumeral joint. In plain English it brings the upper arm closer to the body, it allows the upper arm to lift up towards the sky.

Brachialis actions: Flexion at the elbow joint. In plain English, it allows the forearm to come towards the shoulder.

The upper arm muscles are used with barbell movements, that require the use of the forearms and shoulders, they also help with stabilising the shoulder. Furthermore, all of the Crossfit gymnastic movements will utilise the upper arm muscles. Thus, promoting the importance of working on the strength and suppleness of these muscles.

The Important stuff.

Mobilisation of the biceps area.

Put a barbell on a squat rack with some weight on either end. This is so the bar doesn’t shift. Start mobilising, at the elbow by pushing your elbow up against the bar and move towards the shoulder.  You will be required to flex and extend your forearm, to gain your benefits from this mobilise exercise. To get even greater benefits rotate your forearm, after you have flexed your arm. I recommend two minutes of this on each arm.

Another mobilisation exercise, which will also help your front rack position.

Keeping that barbell loaded and grab the bar with one hand. Squat underneath the barbell with just the one hand holding onto the barbell and drive your elbow upwards. Repeated with the other hand. To add an extra element of mobilisation in, you can push your elbow inwards and outwards, as this will mobilise other areas of the upper arm.

Landmines press

Landmines presses are a good exercise for working your arms, either singular or both at the same time. This exercises can be set up by placing a plate flat on the ground, with the barbell you are going to place one end of the barbell on an angle into the hole of the plate. I’d recommend a 45-degree angle. Then you will press the barbell up.

To make this exercise harder, you can push it up on this angle then as your elbow is about to go into full extension pass the barbell into the other hand. Furthermore, adding weights onto the end of the barbell that you are holding can add an extra challenge for yourself.  
An alternative to that you can use resistance bands, however, this will be saved for another time.

If you want to help your forearm out even more read up on Forearm Conundrum below by clicking the “learn more”

Take home message.

The key further gains can lay between the areas that you are working.