Consistently holding the arms in front of you with the shoulders most likely internally rotated (holding the steering wheel, carrying boxes, and frankly, many common, daily activities happen with the arms in this position) leads to excessive tension in the chest and anterior portion of the shoulders along with tension in the neck and trapezius muscles. That excessive tension comes with a tendency to hunch over from the upper back.

An easy stretch to offset this position is to pull your arm behind the back. In this version of the stretch, you can use a wall or even the side of a vehicle:

• Stand sideways to the wall/vehicle

• Place your hand against the wall/vehicle and rotate your fingers toward your back (this will put the shoulder in external rotation)

• Turn your body away from the wall

In daily life, reaching your arms behind you as much as possible is a good practice to offset all the forward reaching activities we do.

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