Swing those arms to get your blood flowing and help your immune system!

The arm-swinging exercise really took off after many people falsely believed it could cure cancer following a Taiwanese surgeon's experience with doing the exercise regularly while he had colorectal cancer. — Filepic

If you are a frequent park-goer, you would have noticed that older exercisers tend to exaggerate their arm movements.

Whether they’re walking or standing still, they swing their arms a lot.

I’ve seen my elderly neighbours do this in their garden every morning or evening.

Obviously, they’ve discovered the benefits of arm swinging and have spread the word around.

My mum does it from time to time and says it makes her feel “lighter”.

What is it, you ask?

Arm swinging is ... simply swinging the arms from front to back.

The swinging is believed to enhance circulation, release tension in the neck and shoulder areas, and flush your lymphatic system.

As the armpit region is one of the main areas lymph nodes are concentrated in within the body, swinging the arms sort of gives a massage to this area.

Your lymphatic system is a key part of the immune system; it acts as a sewerage system, protecting your body from illness-causing invaders, maintaining body fluid levels, absorbing digestive tract fats and removing cellular waste.

Unlike the circulatory system, which has the heart to move blood throughout your body, the lymphatic system has no dedicated pump.

It takes muscle contractions such as arm swings to move the lymph – a colourless, watery fluid – through your tissues.

Although there is no “founder” of this low-intensity exercise, its roots are believed to come from qigong.

There are many testimonies of how it helps in healing, including from Dr Xu Dafu, a Taiwanese surgeon who shared how he swung his arms (Ping Shuai Gong) consistently and managed to overcome stage three colorectal cancer without surgical intervention.

By chance, Dr Xu was introduced to the exercise and he did it religiously.

Miraculously, his 5cm tumour vanished after three months, stunning his medical care team.

Since then, he has become an advocate of this exercise (he does 2,000 arm swings daily to keep healthy) and encourages his patients to try arm swinging, along with following a healthy diet.

While Dr Xu never claimed the arm-swinging exercises cured his cancer, the Internet went into frenzy after his sharing and people started believing arm-swinging cures cancer.

“When the arms swing downward, the muscles are relaxed,” he was quoted as saying. “This improves the blood circulation.

“The circulation is like a highway; it allows white blood and other cells in the immune system to travel to problematic areas to help with healing.”

Scientific evidence

A 2015 study on the “Improvement of pulmonary function with arm swing exercise in patients with type 2 diabetes” published in the Journal of Physical Therapy Science reported multiple health benefits from this easy exercise.

Twenty-four overweight subjects went through their daily routine for eight weeks (control period), then added in arm swings for the next eight weeks (30 minutes per day, three days per week).

Various parameters, including fasting blood glucose and lipid profiles, were measured before and after each period.

Results showed that haemoglobin A1c (HbA1c), low-density lipoprotein (LDL), malondialdehyde, oxidised glutathione and body fat percentages, were significantly decreased after the arm-swinging period, compared with after the control period.

I tested the swinging myself, trying it for 10 minutes daily for a week, and indeed, like my mother experienced, my upper body felt a lot lighter and limbs, freer.

Despite it being seemingly simple, you can build up a sweat, especially in this current hot climate.

As for health benefits, I haven’t tried it long enough to observe any significant changes.

Here’s how to do it.

• Stand tall with legs shoulder- or hip-width apart.

  Pull your belly in to contract your abdominal muscles.

• Raise your arms in front, up to shoulder level, with palms facing down.

  This is the starting position.

• Swing your arms back naturally, with minimal exertion.

  Keep the elbows straight.

  The swing mimics a pendulum motion.

• Return to the starting position and repeat.
• You can continue like this or follow Dr Xu’s version, where he adds a double bounce by bending the knees on the fifth swing, i.e. one gentle bend (not squat) of both knees when the arms swing back, and another little bend when the arms swing forward.

If standing is too difficult, you can modify the exercise by sitting on a chair with your back erect and feet flat on the floor.

You can also use these arm swings as a warm-up exercise as it helps get your blood flowing.

Start with five minutes and increase the time as you progress to a maximum of 30 minutes as beginners will probably be unable to stay in the same position for too long.

Or break up the time into three 10-minute segments throughout the day.

Breathe normally.

For calculation purposes, you should be able to swing 40-50 times in a minute, depending on your pace.

That would amount to 400-500 swings in 10 minutes.

Best of all, you don’t need any exercise gear and you can even do it at work to give your mind a break.

Try it and see if you feel a difference.

Revathi Murugappan is a certified fitness trainer who tries to battle gravity and continues to dance to express herself artistically and nourish her soul. For more information, email [e-mail]. The information contained in this column is for general educational purposes only. Neither The Star nor the author gives any warranty on accuracy, completeness, functionality, usefulness or other assurances as to such information. The Star and the author disclaim all responsibility for any losses, damage to property or personal injury suffered directly or indirectly from reliance on such information.