To Your Health
March, 2012 (Vol. 06, Issue 03) |
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Work Out at Work
You're imprisoned at your desk job from 9 to 5, stuck to your chair and glued to your screen. A sedentary recipe for health disaster. How can put a little movement into your motionless day? Try these four easy exercise strategies to break up your mundane routine and fulfill your daily activity requirements at the same time:
Your office is your gym: Whether you work in a cubicle or your own office, just about everyone who works at a sedentary job has a few accessories in common: a desk and a chair. Use that desk to do push-ups a few times a day; simply place your hands shoulder-width apart on the edge of the desk and mimic a floor push-up, keeping your back straight and your feet together behind you. If you have enough room on the floor, you can do push-ups there, too, providing a different workout angle for your chest, shoulders and arms. And if your chair has armrests, use them to elevate yourself straight up off the chair with your legs out in front of you, working your triceps and abdominals simultaneously.
Revisit the stairs: Before elevators came along, anyone who did anything on the second floor or above had only one way to get up or down: take the stairs. Those stairs, long forgotten by most people except in the case of an emergency, is your easy workout waiting for you. Whether you're going to work, leaving work or just grabbing a quick bite to eat, take the stairs instead of the elevator and give your entire body a workout.
Leave the keys: Speaking of modern innovations that have compromised our physical activity, consider the car for a moment. Wherever we go, most of us take a car, truck, bus or train - something that gives us the luxury of sitting motionless at the expense of our health. At work, next time you need to run a lunch errand or grab something to eat (hopefully healthy), keep the keys in your desk and take a walk to your destination instead. You'll burn calories, enjoy some fresh air, save money on gas, and maybe even stop yourself from making the 5-mile drive to the local burger hangout.
Office aerobics: OK, so for whatever reason, the first three exercise strategies just don't work for you. You work on an assembly line, so you can't do desk / chair exercises; your office is a one-story building, which rules out stairs; and you never go anywhere on your break, so you car stays in the lot all day anyway. What to do? Well, you're required by law to have breaks and lunch every day, so how about some office aerobics? Even if your company consists of one enormous room with 50 cubicles, you've got an indoor walking path somewhere, regardless of the weather. Take a stroll around the office a few times a day and experience health on multiple levels: you'll break the monotony of your daily grind, get your body moving and see what the rest of the office actually looks like. You may even meet a co-workers you didn't even realize worked with you!
Ready to shape up during the work week without having to find time to get to the gym? Try these easy at-work exercise strategies and improve your health on the job. Talk to your doctor of chiropractic to learn more easy ways to stay in shape.
