Office based exercises
These exercises can help keep your back and neck pain free when working at a desk. Our bodies are not setup to stay in these positions for long periods of time, but we know that when work calls you have to answer.
Top tips:
- There is no such thing as the right posture.
- The best posture is your next posture - So keep moving.
- Having different postural changes throughout the day is good
Neck stretch
This stretch helps keeps your Scalenes muscles on the side, front and back of your neck mobile.
These muscles attach to most of the vertebrae on the side of your neck to your 1st and 2nd rib. It's very common for people who work at desk to have short, tight and sometimes painful muscles in this area.
In our clinic we commonly prescribe this movement to help manage pains in the neck, upper back and torso. If you ind you're struggling to keep yourself upright at your desk this exercise will help.
It's important to appreciate the stretching does take time for you to notice a difference in mobility. You shoulder perform this stretch 3-4 times a day.
Back mobility
This exercise address a common area of stiffness for people who work at desks. It focuses movement through your mid and upper back whilst keeping the lower back still.
With people with desk related back pain they struggle to active divide movement throughout their spine. Typically, the neck and lower back are used in daily movements and the mid thoracic spine becomes stiff.
With people with desk related back pain they struggle to active divide movement throughout their spine. Typically, the neck and lower back are used in daily movements and the mid thoracic spine becomes stiff.
Pain is normally felt in the neck or lower back but this area becomes a main dive for over use or poor loading of the mid and lower back. It's really important to be able to actively move this area of the back. Sometime our will feel a click or a popping sound doing this movement; this is normal but encouraged as a solution to any pain.
Mid-back stretch
Keeping your shoulders, mid and lower back can be tough when sitting at a desk can be tough. This is a simple and exercise to help mobilise your back.
When at our desk we rarely need to raise our arms meaning shoulders can lose a significant amount of mobility in our shoulders. As this progresses shoulders can become rounded forwards and encourage a slouching like posture.
This stretch can be performed in almost any location you can hold on to something fixed. A desk, door frame, sink...
Like with any stretch its important to keep in mind a consistent approach, stretching 3-4 times in a day.
Hip and glute stretch
For the avid runners out there this is a great way to help mobilise your gluteal muscles in-between those busy office days.
Considering the hip are 3-Dimensional joints it is important to stretch these muscles in more than one direction using a combination of ‘levers’ to do so. For example in this video you can use your knee and foot to increase the ranges of movement in your hip that can be stretched.
In order maintain mobility in any muscle regular stretching is important. You can achieve this with movement/exercise, foam rolling, massage balls and stretching. Whatever the combination that works for you do keep in mind this isn’t a quick fix. You’ll see changes over 2-3 months
