Desk Exercises

People with desk jobs sit on average 8 hours/day at work. The human body isn’t made to be in any one position for longer than 15 minutes at a time, so in a perfect world, we would stand up every 15 minutes. Unfortunately, we probably wouldn’t be very productive at work if that was the case, so standing up every 30-60 minutes is ideal in the real world. This doesn’t necessarily mean walking around to get a coffee/go to the washroom. Sometimes just standing up and “shaking it out” can be enough.

Keeping the body moving is important and this can be challenging with a sedentary desk job.

Here are a few exercises that can be done at your desk to minimize the effects of prolonged sitting on the body:

• Standing Lumbar Extension
• Stand from your chair. Place your hands on your hips and bend backwards. Maintain this position for 3-5 seconds. Repeat 10 times.
• Axial Extension + Chin Tuck
• While sitting in your chair, picture someone pulling a hair on the top of your head to make you as tall as possible. Then add a small chin tuck (bringing your chin towards your neck) without engaging the big neck muscles. Breathe gently as you hold this position for 10 sec. Repeat 10 times.
• Pectoral stretch
• Standing in a door frame, place your forearm along the frame. Then, while keeping your neck in the midline of your body (without turning your head), turn your body away from the door frame. You should feel a good stretch in the front of your chest. There should be no pinching/pain in the shoulder or the arm. You can adjust the shoulder position by sliding your arm up/down the door frame to get the best stretch. Hold the position for 20 seconds. Repeat 3 times.
• Wall Angels
• Standing with your back to a wall, keep your pelvis, mid back and back of the head on the wall. You can gently pull in your belly button and tuck your chin in as above to maintain this posture. Place the back of your arms and forearms to the wall with your hands flat on the wall (this might already be a strong stretch). Then slowly slide your arms up and down the wall (as if making a snow angel) while maintaining contact with your arms and forearms to the wall throughout. Repeat this 10 times.
• Scapular Retraction (+ Rotator Cuff Activation)
• Sitting or standing, squeeze your shoulder blades together (picture as if you’re trying to hold an egg between your shoulder blades without cracking it). Hold this for 5 seconds. Repeat 10 times.
• You can also add an element of rotator cuff activation by holding a band with both hands and pulling the band out while keeping your elbows by your side and your wrists straight. You can hold this for 5 seconds as above, or maintain your shoulder blades squeezed as you pull the band out slowly 10 times without holding at the end.

Keep moving! Make your sedentary job a little more active!