Elbow Circles
Also works: Traps
Fingertips on the shoulders, elbows up at shoulder level, tracing slow circles with the points of the elbows. Bending the arm shortens the lever, so the deltoid barely has to hold anything up and the joint gets rotation and scapular movement with almost no fatigue — which makes it the shoulder warm-up for cranky or unwarmed shoulders.
Own the movement
Set up first, then execute. Every cue below is something you can check on your next set.
Before the first rep
- Stand or sit tall with feet slightly apart and the ribcage stacked over the pelvis.
- Place your fingertips on the tops of your shoulders — a light touch, not a grip.
- Lift the elbows until they are level with the shoulders and pointing out to the sides.
- Set the shoulder blades down away from your ears before the first circle.
- Keep the chin tucked and the neck long; this drill drifts into a shrug the moment you stop paying attention.
Every rep
Breathing & tempo — Exhale as the elbows sweep forward and up, inhale as they travel out and back. Roughly three seconds per circle — slow enough that you can feel the shoulder blades moving.
How much, how often
Where to start, and what to change when it stops being hard.
No load, and it should stay that way — hands on shoulders is the point. Ten to fifteen circles each direction, once or twice through. Progress by making the circles larger and slower, or by pausing two seconds at full retraction at the back of each circle, not by adding reps until it becomes a shoulder burn.
What goes wrong
The errors that show up most often, and the cue that fixes each one.
Slow to about three seconds per circle and consciously reach the elbows behind you at the back of the arc. The retraction half is where the value is, and speed is what skips it.
Keep the shoulder blades pulled down and lower the elbows a few centimetres. If they only reach shoulder height by shrugging, that is your current range — work within it.
Brace the abs lightly and keep the ribs down. Cap the circle at the point where the ribcage starts to flare; extra range bought from the spine is not range at the shoulder.
Let the fingertips rest on the shoulders so lightly they could fall off, and watch the point of one elbow in a mirror. That point should trace a circle the width of your torso; if it is tracing a coin, you are rotating the forearm and the shoulder blade is doing nothing.
Why bother
Straight-arm circles ask the deltoid to hold the whole arm horizontal for the entire set, so they fatigue long before they run out of range. With the hands on the shoulders the load arm halves, the effort drops to almost nothing, and you can keep circling for a minute while the shoulder actually explores rotation instead of fighting gravity.
The other half of the movement happens at the shoulder blade. Driving the elbows forward until they nearly touch protracts the scapulae; sweeping them back and squeezing retracts and depresses them. That is the full arc of scapular movement that a press or a row demands, rehearsed under no load at all — and it is the part a static chest stretch never touches.
Where it fits
The first thirty seconds of any upper-body warm-up, and the drill to reach for on a morning when the shoulders feel stiff and straight-arm work is not welcome yet. Ten to fifteen circles each direction, then move on to something loaded. It also works sitting down, which makes it a genuine desk-break option.
If this one isn't it
No kit, too hard, or too easy — here's where to go instead.
Same job, different kit
When this gets easy
Asked and answered
What is the point of these if there is no weight?
They are a warm-up, not a training set. The job is to move the shoulder and shoulder blade through their full arc, raise joint temperature and get synovial fluid moving before you load the joint. Judge them on whether pressing feels smoother afterwards, not on whether they burned.
Elbow circles or arm circles?
Elbow circles when the shoulders are cold, stiff or slightly sore — the bent arm cuts the load on the deltoid roughly in half, so you can keep going without fatiguing. Straight arm circles once you are warm and want the delts working isometrically as well. Doing both takes about forty seconds.
Can I do these with a shoulder injury?
Often yes, because the short lever makes them one of the gentlest options available, but stay inside the pain-free arc rather than pushing through a catch. If a specific point in the circle reliably bites, shrink the circle to avoid it and get the shoulder looked at rather than grinding through it every session.
My shoulders click and grind during these. Should I stop?
Painless noise is not a problem. Crepitus in the shoulder is extremely common, has no relationship to tissue damage, and usually quietens down once the joint is warm — which is often three or four circles in. What matters is pain, a catch that stops the movement dead, or a sensation that the joint is about to slip. Any of those, shrink the circle to the range that is silent and smooth and get it looked at rather than circling through it daily.