Exercise Tips For The Office

If you are like most people, you spend the better part of your day sitting at a desk where you may not change positions for several hours. Unfortunately, this is a Monday through Friday job where you work ten plus hours a day.

This equates out to at least 40 hours a week where you are sitting a desk, not really moving your body. This can make you very lethargic, and make it difficult to be active outside of work.

Though this is what your job requires of you, there are some things you can do in your office chair that can help you burn a few calories. This will benefit your overall health and hopefully make your office experience less dreary.

If you have trouble staying fit while at work, there are some office exercises that will get your body moving throughout the day. Each one entails movements that are meant to stretch and strengthen your body without requiring you to run up and down the stairs of the building.

Please keep in mind that these exercises are not meant to take the place of tradition strength training, but are rather are an aide to help keep your body moving while you are sitting at a desk for hours at a time. You should still participate in strength and cardiovascular training while you are not at work.

The thing you can do is to stretch out your wrists and arms. For your wrist, extend one arm in front of your body with the palm facing away from you and grab the fingers with your other hand.

Gently pull the fingers towards you to stretch the forearm, holding the position for 20 to 30 seconds. You then repeat the same stretch with the opposite arm.

For your wrist and forearm, press your hands together in front of chest, with the elbows bent and parallel to the floor. Gently bend wrists to the right and left for 10 repetitions.

For a lower back stretch, you should sit tall and upright, and place the left arm behind left hip. Gently twist to the left, using the right hand to deepen the stretch, holding for 20 to 30 seconds.

You can repeat this stretch for the left size of your body as well. For your lower body, you can do the hip flexion.

This requires you to sit tall and upright with the abs in while you lift the left foot off the floor a few inches, knee bent. Hold this position for 2 seconds, lower and repeat for 10 repetitions on each leg.

The leg extension requires you to sit upright with the abs in while extending the left leg until it is level with the hip, squeezing the quadriceps. Hold this position for 2 seconds, lower and repeat for 10 times for each leg.

For the inner thighs, place a towel or firm water bottle between the knees as you sit up tall with the abs in. Squeeze the towel or bottle with your knees, release halfway and squeeze again, completing 10 repetitions of slow pulses.

There is also a chair squat that you can do at your desk. Start by sitting on your chair, and then slightly stand up so that your hips are just hovering over the chair, arms out for balance.

Hold this bent position for 2 to 3 seconds, then stand all the way up and repeat for 10 repetitions. You can also do a one leg squat in you chair so long as it is a stable one.

Take one foot slightly in front of the other and use your hands for leverage as you push up into a one-legged squat. You should be hovering just over the chair and keeping the other leg on the floor for balance.

Lower and repeat the movement, only coming a few inches off the chair for 10 repetitions for each leg. To work on your upper body, you can do a front raise to triceps press.

For this you sit upright with the abdominals tucked in and a full water bottle in your left hand. You lift the bottle up to shoulder level, pause, and then continue lifting all the way up over the head.

When the arm is next to the ear, bend the elbow, taking the water bottle behind you and contracting the triceps. Straighten the arm and lower down, repeating for 10 reps on each arm.