Exercise at your Desk
Oh Hi! Bad posture again? Did you see that? So this is video number three of ‘Just for Jenni.’ The reason they’re just for Jenni is that she’s the only one of all the people, I think we have seven people who watch our videos regularly, and of the seven people that watch the videos, Jenni is the only one who said, ‘Hey, why don’t you do a video on this and that?’
So we’re doing exactly the videos Jenni asked for. If you’re not Jenni, but you’re still watching, go ahead because it’ll probably benefit you. So here’s what we did. The first one we talked about how to sit, the second we talked about your computer and how that can affect you, and how to don’t work on a laptop like this.
The third one, which is now we’re going to talk about exercises you can be doing at your desk while you’re sitting down to improve your posture and make sure it stays that way. So, I’m just going to give you three exercises, very, very simple exercises.
Number one is called the Chin Tuck.
See, one of the things that happen is, as we start working, our head goes forward more and more and more. You get this hump right here, and then you get stuck like this. Wherever you go, you’re always like this, instead of your head being up here. The exercise is called a Chin Tuck because you need to strengthen the deep flexors of your neck. The Chin Tuck looks like this. All you do is tuck your chin, that’s your neck. It makes your talk funny, but that is okay. Then you hold it for two seconds. You do it ten times for two seconds. So you pull your chin in and relax. When you pull in count, one Mississippi, two Mississippi, relax, and again. Don’t shrug your shoulders up or anything, just keep your chin in. You notice how it brings my head back over my shoulders; it makes my posture pretty straight. Do that ten times. You can do it two, three times throughout the day or just once but at least once 10 repetitions, 2 seconds each.
The second one is called a Shoulder Retraction or a Scapular Retraction.
Shoulder Retraction & Protraction
You have these two shoulder blades in the back of your thoracic cage (rib cage). What you need to do is pull the shoulders back. Start with palms up, and pull your shoulder blades back together, squeeze them together like you’re pinching a penny with your shoulder blades. Then pull your shoulders down towards the floor. Your hands act like you’re carrying two trays of margaritas – tea, we don’t drink margaritas. Then you pull them back behind you, pull the elbows down towards the floor. Now make sure you’re sitting with a nice arching your lower back. We talked about it in the first video, pull them down and squeeze. This one you have to squeeze in and hold for 10 whole seconds and do it three times, 10 seconds each. Pull the shoulders back, squeeze them together, pull down towards the floor, squeeze as hard as you can and stay there for 10 seconds.
The third one is Loosen Up Your Knees
Loosen Up Your Knee
One of the things that happen when I’m sitting, my knees are bent. When you bend the knees, you’re shortening the hamstrings. When the hamstring stays short for a long period of time, they’re going to stay short. They have to learn to stay contracted. All we have to do is teach you to do an exercise to stretch it, a really easy one. Straighten your leg, so easy. The way you do it is to put a big arch in your lower back, so push your stomach forward and arch your back, shoulders back. Hold that arch and slowly straighten the leg and hold it there. Do a two-second hold, 10 repetitions. So, if I was doing a couple of repetitions, a big arch in my low back, I come up till I feel the stretch, count one Mississippi, two Mississippi, down, then again up, one Mississippi, two Mississippi, down and up and so on. Do that; you’ll notice if keep a big arch in your low back, you’ll start to feel a big stretch in the back of the knee, back of the hamstring, that means you’re doing it correctly. If you don’t see that stretch, you don’t feel the stretch; you need to put a bigger arch in your lower back. If you still can’t feel the stretch, that means your hamstrings are not tight. Do it anyway; it’s fun. It’s a good exercise.
So, those are your three exercises, ‘Just for Jenni,’ enjoy them. Let me know if there’s anything else I can do for you. Jenni, if you have other ideas for other videos, I think this kind of wraps it up. I gave you the exercises. If you can think of anything else you want me to do, I’m happy to do it just for you. Take care. We’ll see you soon.
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