Office Exercise: Hand and Wrist Stretches

When I was younger, I never understood what my parents meant when they said they were tired after a long day of work. “You’re just sitting!” I screamed, incensed that they wouldn’t go out and buy me the candy that I so desperately needed. How could sitting be so tiring? Adults were weird.

Fast forward to today, and I now understand how draining sitting in front of a computer can be. The computer is an altar, and every time I place my wrists on the keyboard, it takes some of my energy as a sacrifice. Energy theft isn’t the only downside to sitting at desk for hours at a time; our muscles and joints can get tight and sore from being sedentary, especially if they’re in an awkward position. Today’s stretches target a popular problem region for office workers: the hands and wrists.

Accessories or heavy duty wrist protection?

Office Workout: Butt

Every week we spend hours at work, sitting at our desks, barely moving anything aside from our fingers across the keyboard. Thankfully, we can still tone different parts of our bodies while carrying out the day’s tasks; from abs to arms to legs and now our butts, we’re able to simultaneously work out and do our work.

Yoga and the Office: Mind

Yoga has numerous physical benefits, and many poses can be transformed into seated stretches for the hips, shoulders, and back that you can easily do at work. In addition to releasing the tension that we accumulate in our bodies throughout the day, yoga can also relieve our minds of stress.

Being stressed can leave you in a bad mood long after you’ve left the office, and it’s also an exhaustive state of being. Whether it’s  a client insulting the quality of your work or an annoying colleague, these yoga poses will help you regroup, refocus, and not let the stress of the workplace eat you alive.

Morning Workout: Jump Rope

We’ve all seen or heard about them, the people who wake up at the crack of dawn to go for a run or exercise at the gym as soon as it opens. You may have stared as them, mouth hanging open as you wondered why someone would sacrifice hours of sleep to work out when for you, five extra minutes of sleep is the difference between a good day and a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad one.

It turns out that these real life Nike ads aren’t overachieving, they’re just exercising intelligently. A morning work out is a great way to start your day on the right foot, physically and mentally. If you can’t will yourself to leave the house to exercise before work or are actually unable to do so due to children or other reasons, jumping rope (which burns more than 10 calories a minute) will get your heart pumping while toning your entire body.

Office Workout: Arms

From short sleeved silk blouses in the office to bathing suits on the beach, our arms are definitely on display (on display, on displaaaaay) in the summertime, which is why they’re the target area of this week’s exercises.

Arms are harder to tone without weights, so these exercises are definitely more conspicuous than our previous ones; nevertheless, doing these exercises while at work is a great way to use your time, while improving your body.

Yoga and the Office: Shoulder Edition

Aside from the back, another area of the body that tends to be negatively affected by hours of sitting at a desk and typing away on a computer is the shoulders. Luckily for the shoulders sufferers out there, yoga has great stretches for loosening shoulders and releasing physical as well as mental tension.

Office Workout: Legs

It’s summertime, and it’s hot, which means more dresses and more skirts to the office and bathing suits on the weekend. To help you look your best while you show them off, here are some exercises you can do at work to tone your legs.

Office Lifestyle Challenges

From Morgan Freeman-narrated Visa commercials to today’s Times interactive feature on American athletes who competed in the last London Olympics in 1948, Olympic fever is in the air. Only four days remain until the opening ceremony of the 2012 London Summer Olympics kicks off two weeks of high-intensity competition amongst the best athletes of the world as they push the human body past unfathomable limits.

While you won’t be competing for gold on one of the world’s most impressive and respected stages, you can still get into an Olympic state of mind by introducing competition into your life via an office lifestyle challenge. You create teams, you eat properly, you workout, and you monitor your progress, all in the name of health. 

Yoga and the Office: Back Edition

Oh, the sore back. After slouching for hours, you can feel the soreness spread, and just like that, sitting at your desk goes from being relatively painless to actually painful. When you’re experiencing that kind of discomfort, it’s hard to focus and you may find that your productivity suffers.

Fixing your posture is the best way to avoid that soreness, and strengthening your core will definitely help you sit up straight. In the meantime,  here are two yoga stretches you can do at work that will help you relieve that dull pain.

Don’t worry, you won’t be doing this. Yet.

Office Workout: Abs

Just because you sit for eight hours or so a day, doesn’t mean you can’t stretch and tone different parts of your body; in fact, it’s probably the best time to squeeze in some exercise since you have to be at you desk.

Here are a couple of simple exercises you can do to tone your abs while filling out spreadsheets or participating on a call. While it won’t compare to the workouts you get at pilates or the gym, it’s definitely a great way to strengthen your core in the office.