How to Do Range-Of-Motion Exercises

Video Transcript

"Now, we're going to talk about how to perform an exercise correctly using full range of motion. First, we're going to start out with a bicep curl, but before I break down the bicep curl I'd like to explain to you what full range of motion is. So, if you take a look at my elbow right here; a lot of people will hyper-extend their elbow or overextend their elbow. So, if you see here this is overextending where my joint is locked out. That's bad for the joints. So again, let me show you. This is bent, and this is extended, and this is hyper extended. Either extension, right here, or hyper-extension isn't good for the joints while performing an exercise, okay. So, what we want to do is keep soft elbows or soft joints, so your elbow is straight but not locked but soft, okay? So, that's what we want to keep in mind when we're doing a bicep curl. So, I'm going to pick up a dumbbell, a couple of dumbbells. This is going to be a bilateral bicep movement, meaning using two arms, okay. Ideally, a bicep curl starts at the bottom; again, full range of motion. You notice my shoulders are back and my chest is out, and we simply curl up, okay, using full range of motion. So, you notice where my angle stops, and then I bring it all the way back down using soft elbows, and all the way back up. Now, I just want to show you the common misconception, or the common malpractice that people usually take. The common malpractice that people usually do is they'll perform it halfway, so say you start here; people usually come to right here and that's not full range of motion. You want to make sure you come down and come up; down and up. Why is full range of motion important? Imagine carrying a bag of groceries, and you only have strength in your arm up to here because you performed muscle movements only up to here. So, the people who perform bicep curls to right here only have strength to right here; opposed to having strength full way through their arm. So, if I'm carrying a bag of groceries I don't want to carry it here; normally we carry it here. So, that's why we want to emphasize exercising using full range of motion."