What are the upper limb exercises

During the exercise, people can choose different exercise methods according to the parts they want to exercise. If you want to exercise your abdominal muscles, you should do some exercises that help exercise your abdominal muscles, such as push-ups and sit-ups. Performing upper limb exercises can effectively enhance a person's strength to resist injuries, so people who want to increase their upper arm strength can learn upper limb exercises to enhance their upper limb strength.

What are the upper limb exercises?

Various basic movement forms of the upper limbs are completed by the joint participation of all parts of the upper limbs. The basic movements of the upper limbs can be summarized into three types: pushing, pulling and whipping.

1. Upper limb push-ups

Pushing is the main form of upper limb activity. It is the process in which the extensor muscles of each link of the upper limb overcome resistance and the joints change from a flexion state to an extension state. For example, shot put, weightlifting, barbell pushing, push-ups, vaulting horse push-ups, and basketball chest passes are all forms of pushing movements.

In human movement activities, pushing actions are manifested in two forms: one-handed pushing and two-handed pushing:

(1) The most common one-handed pushing movements in sports are shot put and one-handed shooting. The goal of the former is distance, while the goal of the latter is accuracy. Since shot put requires speed, the legs and torso must work together to complete the pushing action in order to push the shot put farther; basketball shooting takes accuracy into consideration, and the movement of the body and legs is relatively coordinated to ensure the accuracy of the direction of force applied by the upper limb muscles when completing the pushing action.

(2) Common forms of push-ups in sports include push-ups, barbell raises, vaulting horse push-ups, basketball passes, and volleyball set-fights. In the two-handed push, the main movements are shoulder flexion, elbow extension, wrist flexion, and finger flexion.

The pushing action generally starts from the lower limbs and trunk. The pushing action varies in terms of the degree of activity, the way the force is applied, etc., depending on the task to be completed. For example, in the same chest pass in basketball, when making a long pass, the lower limbs and trunk muscles exert force first, followed by the shoulder girdle muscles. The shoulder, elbow, and wrist joints move with a larger range of motion, and the upper limbs are almost completely extended. When making a short pass, the lower limbs and trunk muscles exert less force, the shoulder and elbow joints move with a smaller range of motion, and it is mainly completed by a quick "wrist shake".

2. Upper body pulling movements

Pulling is the process in which the flexor muscles of the upper limbs overcome resistance and the joints change from extension to flexion. In human movement, the action takes the form of pulling the equipment closer to the body or pulling the body closer to the grip. For example, rock climbing, pull-ups, pole vaulting pull-ups, swimming strokes, rowing, and rope climbing (Figure 3

Certain sports techniques often include a combination of pulling and pushing of the upper limbs, such as the pull-up movement in pole vaulting and the subsequent supported handstand push-up movement, and the same is true for the bar lifting and push-up movements in weightlifting.

3. Upper limb whipping

Whipping action refers to the process in which each link in the open movement chain of the human upper limb exerts force and brakes in sequence from the proximal end to the distal end, that is, the movement moves like a whip.

In human locomotion, the main purpose of the whipping action is to make the end link (hand or handheld equipment) generate a greater speed or momentum, such as volleyball's powerful jump serve, powerful spike, javelin throwing, badminton smash and other actions. FIG. 4 is a schematic diagram of a whipping action in a volleyball serve.

When completing the whipping action, the upper limbs first swing in the opposite direction of the whipping action and are in a relatively flexed state. Then the proximal link of the upper limb movement chain accelerates (rotates) first, driving each link of the upper limb to accelerate and rotate in turn, forming a whipping-like action form, and causing the terminal link to generate a larger movement speed or momentum. The whipping action of the upper limbs often starts from the trunk and ends with the movement of the wrist joint.

It should be emphasized that when completing the whipping action, the support and fixation of other parts of the body are very important. Only in this way can the efficiency of angular momentum transfer of the whipping action be improved. For example, in the final exertion of javelin throwing, the forces of the lower limbs and trunk, the shoulder joints, the elbow joints and the wrist joints are exerted in sequence. The left-side support of the lower limbs (throwing the javelin with the right hand) and the moderate tension of the trunk when the upper limbs exert force are important conditions for completing the whipping action.