The doorway stretch - How, why and when you should do it

The doorway stretch stretches your chest and shoulders muscles and should especially be included in your warmups during your push day gym workouts. In this article you’ll learn how easy this stretch is and how to do it from anywhere.

Introduction

The doorway stretch is a great exercise to stretch your upper body muscles. In particular, it stretches your chest muscles (your pecs) and the front part of your shoulder muscles (the front deltoids). You'll probably feel the most stretch in your chest muscles. If your working out your chest, for example during a push workout, doing the doorway stretch should be included in your warming up.

It's a simple, effective exercise that you can do anywhere. The only thing you need is a doorway.

Let's see how to do the doorway stretch and how often you need to do this exercise to make the most use of it.

How to do a doorway stretch

1. Stand in a doorway.

Stand in the middle of the doorway with your feet shoulder width apart.

2. Place your arms on each side of the doorway.

Place your lower arms vertically on each side of the doorway, such that your upper arms are parallel to the floor. Keep your back straight, chest forward, and shoulders back.

3. Step forward and hold the stretch.

Take a small step forward to feel your shoulders and chest muscles being stretched. Hold this position for 30-45 seconds. Then, gently take a step back and rest. This constitutes 1 set (1 stretch = 1 set). Repeat for the specified number of sets/stretches (see below for frequency and sets).

Note: you can do this stretch with both arms at the same time or one arm at a time. In both cases, the technique to perform the doorway stretch is the same. However, when doing one arm at a time, then 1 set/stretch consists of doing both the left and the right arm.

Sets and frequency per week

Doorway stretching is, fortunately, a simpel exercise that takes a few minutes of time at most. Since it barely takes any time to do this exercise, if you want to benefit from this exercise as best as possible, then you need to do this exercise frequently.

This means you need to do this exercise:

• 3 sets/stretches per sessions, holding a stretch for 30-45 seconds per set (1 stretch = 1 set)
• 3 sessions per day
• 5 days a week

So, according to the above frequency, you'll be doing 9 stretches a day for 5 days a week.

It's best to spread out these sessions over the day. For example, do 1 sessions in the morning (consisting of 3 sets), 1 in the afternoon, and 1 in the evening.

Why and when you should do the doorway stretch

As noted in the introduction, you’ll feel a stretch in your chest and shoulders when performing the doorway stretch, and these happen to be the same muscles that are worked during bench pressing.

So especially on days you’re going to do bench pressing, doing the doorway stretch should be included in your warm up.

Personally, when I have a push day planned for the day, I also do the doorway stretch hours before my workout begins. For example, if I plan to go to the gym in the evening that day, I make sure I do some light doorway stretches in the morning, during lunch break, and right after finishing work at 5 PM. And that’s all in addition to stretching and warming up as part of the workout.

I find that doing this stretch (as well as other stretches) multiple times a day and hours before my push workout really looses my shoulder joints, making it much more comfortable to do pressing movements. I even feel as if my range of motion increases the more I do doorway stretching during the day on my push workout day.

Does the doorway stretch prevent muscle soreness?

Although stretching before and after a workout should be a part of your warming up and cooling down, contrary to popular belief, research has shown that stretching may not be that helpful to prevent muscle soreness.

That doesn’t mean that the doorway stretch, or stretching in general, should be omitted, because it has many advantages that help you in your training. For example, stretching reduces the risk of injury by losening your joints, improve blood flow through your muscles, and help to increase your range of motion for exercises. For these reasons alone you shouldn’t skip any stretching.

Conclusion

You really can't go wrong with the doorway stretch. It's simple, effective, and can be done anywhere, even at work!