maratoolElbow Circles
How to do the elbow circles
- Sit or stand with your feet slightly apart.
- Place your hands on your shoulders with your elbows at shoulder level and pointing out.
- Slowly make a circle with your elbows. Breathe out as you start the circle and breathe in as you complete the circle.
Muscles worked
The muscles under tension are the deltoids, which raise and rotate the upper arm at the shoulder joint.
A stretch loads them at the far end of the range they normally work in, so the position you hold is itself the resistance.
Even with a single joint doing the moving, the muscle is not working alone — the traps anchor the shoulder blade against the load.
How this movement works
One joint changes angle and the resistance travels toward you along a single arc. Nothing is positioned to help, so tension stays where you aimed it and the usable load drops sharply against a multi-joint pull for the same muscle. Protect the range of motion; buying weight by shortening the arc defeats the point.
It is filed under stretching, so the target is range of motion rather than force — a position you can settle into and breathe in, held long enough for the tissue to give.
What you need
These train the shoulders too, using equipment this one does not:
- External Rotationdumbbell
- External Rotation with Bandband
- External Rotation with Cablecable
- Handstand Push-Upsbody only
- Jerk Balancebarbell
Difficulty
Listed at beginner level: the pattern is simple enough to pick up without coaching, and a position that goes wrong mid-set is obvious enough to correct on the next repetition.
Of the 141 shoulders exercises in this database, 74 are listed at beginner level.
Photos: free-exercise-db — public domain (Unlicense) Full attribution →
ⓘ Informational only — not a substitute for professional fitness or medical advice.