Re: What muscles do I use to raise my arms?

What muscles does a person use to raise their arm?

It seems like almost all my answers recently start with “it depends.” This answer will be no different. What it depends upon is how you are raising your arm and how far you want to raise it.

One way to raise your arm by keeping the limb by your side and shrugging your shoulder. When you think about it, shrugging your shoulder upward raises your arm upward. This movement is called “scapular elevation.” It uses the muscles Trapezius and Levator Scapulae.

Another way to raise your arm is to lift it completely sideways. This movement is called “abduction.” When you do this you can actually only abduct your arm until it is straight sideways. The muscles used to get here were mostly Deltoid and Supraspinatus.

Lastly, you can raise your arm by moving it forward in an action called “flexion.” Like abduction, you can only flex your arm until it is straight forward. The muscles used to get here were mostly Coracobrachialis and Biceps Brachii, although there was probably also a little help from Deltoid, and Pectoralis Major.

When you want to raise your arm above your head (whether to start by flexing or abducting) you need to add rotation and elevation of the scapula. Scapular elevation was already discussed. Upward rotation of the scapula is the next important action to finally get your arm pointing straight up. To produce upward rotation of the scapula you would use Trapezius.

Most of the time when you raise your arm above your head you don’t do it by flexing the arm and then rotation the scapula, or by abducting the arm and then rotating the scapula. Instead, most people tend to do a combination of those movements, which means that you would use all of the muscles that I mentioned.