Physiotherapy Movements For Office Professionals: Combat Sedentary Lifestyle With Simple Desk Exercises

In today’s sedentary work environment, many of my young patients are plagued by back strain due to prolonged sitting at desks. Incorporating simple in-office exercises can significantly alleviate this discomfort and promote overall well-being. Here are three effective exercises tailored to combat back strain:

1. Neck and leg stretches

When sitting on your office chairs one of the easiest exercises is neck stretches. Simply bend your head forward, making your chin touch your chest and pull your head down with both hands, elbows facing front while keeping your back straight, creating a neural stretch. This focuses on the muscles of the upper and lower back and avoids neck, mid and lower-back stiffness.

Along with this, you can also perform another exercise to release lactic acid by holding your hands behind your neck and pushing your head against them. Make sure your neck is straight and both elbows are pointing outwards. This helps to release your upper back and neck muscles.

Another exercise is forming the figure “four” that aids the hip [the piriformis muscle] which gets stretched thus releasing pressure in the lower back. On your seat itself, put one foot on the knee of the other at a 90-degree angle, forming a “four” and bend your back forward, both hands stretching out on the table. This helps one to release hip and back stiffness.

2. Wall stretches

Fatigue and stiffness are noticed in people with 9 to 5 jobs or jobs that require sitting in one position, especially in front of the laptop. One must take a minute or two to get up from their seat and walk a bit. If possible, try stretching with the wall, keeping both hands on the wall, trying to stretch your back, similar to wall push-ups.

This targets and helps in relieving the shoulder girdle, back muscles and the lower fibres of neck muscles. Sometimes this may be very awkward to do in an open office, so an easy solution is to visit the loo or terrace, if available and spare a few minutes for your well-being.

3. Shoulder Blade Squeeze

Keeping your hands on both sides of your chair, keep your back as straight as possible, retract your scapula, expanding your chest, hold for a few seconds, breathing deep and relax. Repeat this eight to ten times. One may also use a thera-loop for this exercise which helps to release lactic acid accumulation in the upper trapezius and shoulder girdle muscles.

Tying the band around your wrists, lift both arms behind your neck, keeping elbows straight and stretch for ten counts. This aids in conditioning and strengthening upper back muscles thus avoiding load on the lower back.

Additionally, lower back pain is caused due to wrong posture which can be easily avoided by sitting in a relaxed manner.

A “straight” posture may not help you but a “relaxed” posture definitely will. If your back and abdominal muscles are not strong enough, do not unnecessarily strain your back reaching for the perfect posture when it doesn’t exist. In case of pain, contact your physiotherapist and do not let it worsen.