It won’t come as a surprise that exercising regularly (along with getting regular sleep and eating a nutritious diet) is essential for your physical health and wellbeing.
Keeping our bodies moving is important for so many reasons.
It strengthens your body and stops your joints becoming stiff.
It releases endorphins and helps to relieve stress
Moving your body increases your metabolism and paired with a healthy diet can aid weight loss or help maintain a healthy weight.
Aids better quality sleep.
For a lot of people, the word exercise fills them with dread! Images of going to the gym or running for hours on a treadmill come to mind. However, moving and exercising your body is much simpler than that and if you are particularly inactive, moving just a little bit more than you do now is a step in the right direction.
We have teamed up with Dean Colin the founder of Ageing Active. Dean is a Personal Trainer with over 25 years’ experience in the fitness industry and has a specialization in senior fitness. Here is what he has to say.
Research has linked sitting for long periods of time with a number of health concerns. They include obesity and a cluster of conditions — increased blood pressure, high blood sugar, excess body fat around the waist and unhealthy cholesterol levels — that make up metabolic syndrome, as well as having a detrimental effect on our mental health.
Spending hours in a seated position at an office desk or driving greatly impacts your skeletal muscles, like those connected to the spine and legs. Extensive sitting or driving shortens your hip flexors, which can cause pinched nerves and sudden pains when moving and can also cause neck and shoulder problems.
In the pursuit of leading healthy work and home lives, remaining injury free is crucial for being active and avoiding time off work, therefore injury prevention is a paramount concern for everyone. No matter who we are, understanding the importance of looking after our back and having a strong flexible spine and legs is crucial to safeguarding yourself against potential injuries. A strong and flexible spine and legs not only contributes to enhancing your physical performance but also plays a pivotal role in providing stability, balance, and resilience to your entire body and life.
Below are some suggestions for adding in movement to your day.
Avoid lifts and escalators use the stairs – park further away from your destination and walk. If you work from home take a short walk before and after work. Not only will it add movement but it will help you to mentally clock in and out!
Unless you are driving try switching position, eg sit on the floor, stand up, maybe walk around while you are talking on the phone.
Take regular breaks away from your desk and during this time do a lap of the carpark or go up and down the stairs a few times.
Whether sitting in your vehicle or at your desk you can constantly contract and relax your glute muscles.
You can build in micro-movements into your routine, like diaphragmatic breathing. Focus on expanding your stomach as well as your ribcage as you breathe for more oxygen.
Additionally, explore the idea of walking meetings. Conversing while moving around is better than being stuck inside a coffee shop or boardroom. Anything to reduce your sedentary time.
Incorporate shoulder, neck and hip mobility and stretching movements.
We know it’s vital that we move our bodies, but we don’t have to rush out and enter an ultra-marathon. No matter what you are doing right now just try and do a little bit more each week. The secret to any success is what you do over the long term and that means months and years so starting with a few small exercises and being consistent is going to be your secret superpower for being successful.
You can simply start right from the office chair, try these:
-Standing up and sitting back down.
-Standing and lifting your heels up behind, to the front and out to the side.
-Seated or standing do some upper body rotations. (ie twist your upperbody from the waist to the left and the right)
-Seated or standing bending forwards from the hips towards the floor.
-Rotate your shoulders/arms forward and backwards.
-Neck stretch –using slow and gentle, non forceful movements pull your chin in towards your chest, look up, look down, lower your left ear to your left shoulder, then your right ear to your right shoulder.
Exercise is not without its risks and this plan as with any exercise program, can result in injury. For anyone with pre-existing injuries, underlying heath conditions or if you do not currently exercise regularly, it is reccomended that you consult your healthcare provider before undertaking any new exercise regime. For anyone undertaking any workout, if you begin to feel faint, dizzy or have any pain please stop and immediately consult a medical professional. Neither People at Work or Ageing Active accepts responsibility for any injury incurred to any party while undertaking these exercises.
If you are a wheelchair user you may still be able to do some of these seated exercises or you could also look at this Fitness advice for wheelchair users from the NHS
If you are a manager you can support your staff by encouraging them to move more. Set a good example by taking regular breaks yourself and maybe have walking meetings, standing desks or even look at providing an area where people can stretch out on the floor. Check in on your employees who work from home and remind them to break up their day with regular movement.
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