Exercises at Your Desk

Gym Smarts: Exercise at your desk

We're going to demonstrate some exercises that you can do right at your own office. One of the occupational hazards of sitting at your desk, is that you are looking at your computer, talking on a phone, and generally people sit with their head and shoulders forward. Shoulders internally rotated and head forward. So what we are going to demonstrate a stretch you can do right in the corner, and what it is going to do is open up the front of the shoulder and strengthen the back of the shoulder. So we are going to have Sam stand in the corner here. And we are going put your arms up at shoulder height, elbows at about 90 degrees, right at the shoulder level And what he is doing is strengthening the back of the shoulder and stretching the front of the shoulder. So he's going to step as far forward as he can so he gets a good stretch And he is going to hold that for about 15 seconds. And now we are going to have him come back to the chair and do some exercises for the back of his arms or his triceps. And he is going to place is hands on the handles, and we are just got have him left hisself out of the chair using the back of his arms. And we'll have him do about 10 repetitions of that And if you keep yourself seated nice and tell you can also engage those core muscles in your abdominals and lower back. And now we are going to demonstrate an exercise for your lower body. We're going to have Sam come and sit next to the wall here. And we want him to come down until his hips are at a 90 degree angle as well as his knees. You want to make sure your feet are directly below your knees. And we are going to have him stay there for 30 seconds. Most people wouldn't be able to do this for thirty seconds at a time. And he is going to work up the 60 seconds. This is a great exercise to strengthen your lower body and doesn’t irritate your knees at all so its great for people that have problems with their knees. We are going to do the conventional push up but we are going to give you three levels of working the chest and bicep by doing the push up. And at the beginner level we would be doing it against the wall. So we're going to have him face the wall, and place his hands out shoulder width or wider, And keep his back nice and straight, and then he is just going to lower his body towards the wall and push it back out. We’re going to have him do about 15 reps of that. And that's going to work the chest and a little on the bicep and also you’re going to work your core muscles if you keep your back nice and straight And now we are going to have him demonstrate an intermediate level of the same exercise, We're going to have him do it right against the desk. So we're going to put the hands just about as wide, move the feet back a little bit until the body is perfectly straight, pull the abdominals in, and engage the abs And keep the back nice and straight. The same thing, you would do 3 sets of 15. And that’s going to be an intermediate level of the same exercise. Its just a little more difficult So you can progress and get yourself into better shape by improving the level of exercise.