How to do Standing Arm Circles

Arm circles, sometimes called arm rolls, are small, controlled circles with your arms held straight out to the sides. They’re mostly used to warm up the shoulders before upper-body training, but holding your arms up for a minute or more also builds endurance in the shoulder muscles.

1. Stand strong, with your feet placed at about shoulder width apart, a slight bend at the knee, and your arms extended straight out to your sides

2. Keeping your arms straight, begin to rotate both arms in either forward or backward rotations

3. Maintain the focus on keeping your body upright and your shoulders strong for the specific number of repetitions or time

Benefits

Their main job is to get blood into your shoulders and take them through their range of motion before you press, pull or lift overhead. The deltoids, the rounded muscles on top of your shoulders, do most of the work of holding your arms up, with your upper back and chest helping.

Done for 30 to 60 seconds in each direction, they also build the endurance you need for jobs with your arms raised, like painting a ceiling. And they make a good movement break if you spend long spells sitting at a desk.

Form tips

• Start small, about the size of a dinner plate, and make the circles bigger as your shoulders warm up.
• Keep your shoulders down, away from your ears.
• Change direction halfway through. Forward circles lean on the front of your shoulders, backward circles on the back.
• Keep your arms level with your shoulders. If they start to drop, rest for a few seconds and go again.

Variations

• Easier: circle one arm at a time, or hold your arms a little lower.
• Harder: hold a light dumbbell or a water bottle in each hand, or keep going for longer.