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Whether you have to stay shackled to your desk at the office for long hours or have to work at your home desk all day long, your muscles and joints will definitely be under strain. You may have a sore or stiff neck, back, or shoulders and even experience pain in these regions.
Since pains, strains, and aches make you feel uncomfortable and adversely affect your productivity, you can try some easy-breezy exercises for desk workers to combat discomfort and health issues, like shoulder, back, and neck pain.
If you feel you can’t leave your seat to do exercises, the following chair exercises for desk workers can help you stretch during your work schedule and stay away from aches and pains.
Ready to begin?
Effective Stretching Exercises for Desk Workers
Shoulder Rolls
If your shoulders feel tight or sore and you need effective stretching exercises for desk workers, shoulder rolls are the ideal bet. While being seated in a comfortable position with your back straight, you should bring your shoulders up gently and roll them backward. Let your shoulders slowly drop down and feel the tension being released.
You will need to repeat this movement five to ten times. Shoulder rolls help improve circulation and relieve tension in your shoulder muscles, which can potentially prove effective in decreasing shoulder pain.
Posterior Shoulder Stretch
This is one of the recommended shoulder exercises for desk workers that can help reduce stiffness and increase flexibility. To do this exercise while being seated, you need to hold your right arm across your body and use your left hand to pull your right elbow into your chest. You should hold this stretch for 30 seconds and repeat the move with your left arm.
By offering your shoulders a gentle stretch, this exercise will offer relief from the pain and tightness you experience in your shoulders.
Neck Rolls
Whether you need relief from neck pain and tightness or want to improve your neck’s flexibility and mobility, neck rolls can come in handy. Like the previous exercise, this too is a helpful exercise for desk job workers. It involves slowly rolling your head in a circle clockwise for five to ten seconds and repeating the same move anticlockwise.
Neck rolls will make your neck muscles feel gradually stretched, which will help combat neck stiffness and aches caused by long hours of desk job or computer work.
Sitting Back Extensions
If lower back pain is troubling you and you seek back exercises for desk workers that can offer relief, this could be just what you need. To do this exercise, you need to sit straight keeping your feet together, and position the palms of your hands into the small of your back. Make your lower back feel stretched by leaning back over your hands, holding for a few seconds, coming back to the original position, and repeating the move three to five times.
In addition to offering relief from back pain, this exercise improves your posture, back stability, and flexibility, and could even help prevent lower back pain in the future.
Seated Spinal Rotation
If you are looking for back exercises for desk workers that can offer relief from back pain, this exercise could be just what you need. Once you are seated comfortably, you should cross your arms over your chest to grip your shoulders. Next, you need to move gently from left to right to rotate your upper body from the waist as far as you can, hold for five seconds, return to the original position, and repeat on the other side.
This exercise, when repeated three to five times, will make your lower back stretch, which can improve posture, boost flexibility and spinal mobility, and bring down the risk of back pain.
Final Words
Since the problems and fitness needs of people vary, you can’t call any exercise the “best exercise for desk workers.” Again, if you have any health issues, it’s always better to consult your doctor before starting any exercise. It’s always a good idea to start small with your stretching exercises for desk workers, remain consistent with your practice, and build up the momentum from there.
The above exercises will help you get started and if you can stick to a routine, you will soon feel back pain and shoulder and neck aches things from the past. Start moving your body today with these simple stretches, which form part of effective desk exercises for office workers.
This article was written by Sonali