5 TOP exercises for people who sit all day

Sitting exercises

Recent studies suggest that “sitting is the new smoking.” If your job requires you to sit for 6-7 hours in the same position, the impact will be similar to smoking cigarettes regularly.

It compromises your posture, leads to visceral fat accumulation, overstretches your wrist muscles, numbs your butt, and increases back pain. You may not realize how sitting is affecting your health at first, as symptoms start to appear slowly.

Although there is no way to run away from these dangers of having a desk job, you can certainly reduce the impact by standing up for 5 minutes after every 30 minutes and doing some simple exercises to make your muscles more flexible.

1. Chair Calf Raise

Stand with your feet apart parallel to your hips and support yourself with your hands on a chair.
Get as high as you can stepping only with the balls of your feet. Hold the position for a moment and lower to the starting position. That’s a repeat.
Perform between 25 and 40 repetitions in total.

2. Stretch lunge

If you’ve ever performed lunges before, stretching lunges will be easy for you. It’s similar to lunges, the only difference is that it helps you stretch more muscles in your inner and outer thighs, hamstrings, and quads.

Stand tall with your feet hip-width apart and your hands on your hips.
Move your right leg forward and lower your body as far as you can. Place your hands on your knees to maintain stability.
Pause for a few seconds, come out of the stretch, and do the lunge again.
Perform 10 to 20 repetitions with each leg.

3. Downward facing dog

Downward Facing Dog is an excellent yoga asana for reducing neck strain and back pain, common side effects of sitting all day.

Get down on all fours so that your body forms a table-like structure. Shoulders under wrists and hips over knees.
Inhale and lift your hips up as you straighten your elbows and knees to make an inverted V shape. Rest your hands on the ground and stretch your neck. Gaze at your navel and inhale. Pause for a few seconds, bend your knees, and return to tabletop position.

Spinal twist

Spinal twisting helps create intervertebral space. Lengthen your spine and flex your shoulder and neck muscles.

Lie on your back on the floor and spread your hands in a T shape.
Bend your knees with your feet flat on the floor.
Facing left, bend your left leg and bring it to the right.
Pause for a few seconds and repeat the same on the other side.
Perform 10 to 20 repetitions with each leg.

Reverse Plank

While the plank pose helps target your core muscle, the inverted plank helps target your lower back, hamstrings, and gluteal muscles . It can help relieve back pain and numbness in the buttocks.

Begin sitting with your legs extended, your back slightly bent, and your arms outstretched, with your palms on the floor and your fingertips toward your butt.
Inhale and, using your core, lift yourself off the ground so your body forms a straight line from head to toe. Let your head fall back so your neck is in line with your spine. Hold this position.
Start with 10-15 second increments and hold for as long as you are able to maintain proper form.

Photography: CanvaSource: Times of India