Sitting is not bad for you. But sitting all day is bad for you and is associated with a host of health issues. For a huge proportion of society, sitting for hours each day is common. The good news is that nobody is powerless in improving their health, irrespective of their work scenario.

Top Exercise Tips For Office Workers

Increase Sitting Breaks

You may not be able to have time away from the office throughout the day, but breaking sitting time up with standing, using a sit to stand desk or even just a quick stretch, can be helpful.

Increase Activity Away From Your Desk

When we aren’t in the office, being active is important to counteract sedentarism. You can use step counters as a measure of this and it can be a good way to set tangible goals, for example, increasing your step count from 2,500 per day to 5,000 per day over a 1–2-month spell.

Increase Exercise

Exercise is the last piece of the puzzle, and possibly the most important. Engaging in regular resistance training is essential and picking exercises that help target the common issues associated with the desk-based worker, is even better. If you're just starting out in the gym, start with a low weight and work your way up. Our model is demonstrating with 10kg Plates.

How To Reduce Neck Pain

Neck pain can be incredibly debilitating for the desk-based worker given that working in an office often requires slightly more load on the neck due to the habitual hunching over that occurs when we sit at a computer. Thus, we recommend a slightly greater focus on training the neck when you are at the gym.

Bench Neck Bridge

The neck bridge improves your neck extension strength, a position and movement that is neglected during the working day for those in an office.

Prone Neck Bridge

The prone neck bridge increases your neck extension strength, which is a position that you spend a lot of time in if you work at a desk hunched over the computer, so raising your relative capacity for load in that position, via strength training, is important.

How To Reduce Back Pain

Back pain is one of the most common musculoskeletal disorders worldwide, making is a real concern for most of the population. For those that are in an office with a lot of sitting, it is impossible to avoid loading the lower back. When we sit, a level of spinal flexion and pelvic tilt is unavoidable. This, along with the acute lower back fatigue from short term bouts of sitting tells us that the back is under a state of chronic loading for the desk-based worker. Therefore, we need to work on a strong back to cope with these demands.

Deadlift

The barbell deadlift is great for heavy lumbar loading and works well with both high intensity and high-volume training programmes.

Prone Superman

The prone superman is great for improving strength and mobility in an extended lumbar position, which is often neglected in office workers, who spend most of their day in a flexed position.

How To Strengthen Weak Glutes

The glutes are one of the strongest muscles in the body and play a huge part in any fitness endeavour. Having strong glutes should be a high priority, especially for those who have sedentary working days.

Zercher Step Up

The step up is a great variation for loading the glutes at long muscle lengths, one leg at a time, which is helpful for reducing side-to-side imbalances.

Back Squat

Back squatting to a full depth has repeatedly been shown to be great for building glute strength. The key is training to high intensities through a full range of motion.

How To Relieve Tight Hip Flexors

A common complaint for desk workers is tight hips. This can be particularly uncomfortable during the working day but is also a barrier to an effective training programme if your tight hips get in the way of performing certain exercises.

Front Foot Elevated Split Squat

The front foot elevated Split Squat is great for loading the front of your hips, but it also targets the back leg, which is helpful for desk workers as it creates a big stretch down the hip flexors.

Seated Thigh Raise

The seated thigh raise, or the hip flexor raise, is a great way to exaggerate the position of hip flexion that is often a complaint for desk workers with tight hips, making them more robust.

How To Relieve General Tightness

Key areas of tightness associated with working in an office are the shoulders, back and hips. Some of the muscles around these joints that can be particularly tight are the hamstrings, hip flexors, deltoids, and erectors. Exercises that work these areas through a large range of motion, under load, are very beneficial.

Jefferson Curl

The Jefferson curl exercises the hips, lumbar and thoracic through a larger range of motion in flexion than most white-collar workers would experience in their day-to-day life and can often be very relieving for those with lots of posterior tightness.

Overhead Squat

While a difficult movement, working up to an overhead squat can help improve thoracic extension and shoulder mobility which you may struggle with due to work.

How To Get Away From Your Screen

Working 9 to 5 didn’t work for Dolly Parton and equally for office workers it isn’t great for facilitating time outside. Sunshine is incredibly beneficial for our mental and physical health. If you find outdoor time hard to come by, you might consider adding outdoor workouts into your training regime. You don't need a whole Multi Gym to get the benefits of exercise.

Skipping

Skipping is a fun way to add plyometric training into your routine, which is an aspect of training that is often neglected and great for power development and maintaining functional capacity as we age.

Yoga

Yoga is fantastic for office workers. It provides a lot of movement variety and is easily adaptable to all experience levels.

How To Relieve Carpal Tunnel Syndrome

Carpal Tunnel Syndrome (CTS) is a condition that occurs when the median nerve compresses against the carpal tunnel, which can cause burning, numbing or tingling symptoms. While causation is often unknown, office workers are among the most affected and thus exercises that are shown to be effective in treating CTS can be a great part of an office workers health regime.

Hand Flexion and Extension Stretch

Moving the wrist through various stretches, like the hand flexion and extension, can act as an effect tendon gliding exercise, which can relieve both short-term and long-term symptoms.

Hand Gripper Squeeze

Grip Training is a great way to work on improving strength in the forearms and the intrinsic muscles of the hand.

How To Combat Lack of Social Interaction

With the explosion of people working from home from 2020 onwards, a lot of office workers have been able to reap the benefits of flexible work scenarios. A downside is a lack of social interaction. Exercise can be a great way to negate this, whilst also getting fitter and healthier.

Partner Workout

Not only does this keep you more accountable and help you work harder, but it is a great way stay in touch with friends amongst a busy work-life.

Run Club

Strength training is important. But so is our cardiovascular health. Running is a great way to improve this but can be a struggle for people to adhere to. Joining a running club is a great way to keep yourself accountable and to meet new people as you do so.

If you’re a desk worker and want to improve your health and fitness, build your routine around all the above and you will feel much better in no time. Remember, your health changes do not need to be perfect to be beneficial. Make small and easy changes to your routine to start and slowly compound changes over time to make a big difference in both your fitness and happiness.

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Tags: Misc > Lifestyle