11 Best Office Stretches (For Slaying Zombie Posture)
If you work in an office, you might spend a third of your life as prey for a ruthless, sneaking hunter: your desk.
That means you spend eight or more hours a day, five or more days a week, in the same posture — and probably a bad one. If you feel tired when you get home, even though you’ve been sitting all day; if your hips, back, shoulders, or neck ache after a shift; if you get stir-crazy from being desk-bound… then this article is for you.
Because we can turn this around. Those eight hours in the office are a big opportunity! Maybe you can’t do laps around the building every hour or squeeze a gym session into your lunch break. But everyone can take a few minutes, a few times a day, to stretch.
Adding some stretching and movement into your workday will help you feel better and prepare you for the wonderful, deskless parts of life. And if you get some side-eye from your boss, tell them that short stretching breaks might make you more productive, too [1]. Take some time each day for you and your body.
Here are the 11 best stretches for fighting desk-zombie posture — demonstrated by the handsome, intelligent, and humble Avatar Team. Try them out (the stretches) to feel like a human again!
Note: For all the stretches that follow, try holding each position for 30–60 seconds. And, most importantly: listen to your body. If you start to feel pain (more than the discomfort of stretching your muscles) then stop immediately.
1. Wrist Release
Our wrists get a lot of “stress” from hovering over keyboards and cranking back and forth between mice and coffee mugs. All these little contortions take their toll and can lead to wrist disorders like carpal tunnel syndrome. Give your wrists some love with this release sequence:
Extend your right arm fully with your palm facing up. With your left hand, grab the palm of your right hand. Apply pressure with the left fingers to bend the right fingers back, extending the right wrist and pointing the right fingers down toward the floor. Try to keep the right elbow extended with the wrist pointing directly straight out from the elbow. Then repeat on the other side.
2. Supple Shoulders
This chest- and shoulder-opening stretch hits the pectoralis major and minor, as well as the latissimus dorsii. These muscles get shortened by sitting slouched-forward at our desks all day!
Stand up from your chair and move the chair away from you. (Depending on your office environment, a drop-kick works nicely.) Make sure your desk is sturdy and able to support a bit of weight. Place your hands on the desk just wider than your hips and walk your feet back about four feet from the desk. Your hips should be slightly in front of your toes. Start to draw your hips back over your ankles while lowering the chest toward the floor. You should be looking straight down at the floor. Your goal is to bring the crown of your head level with the desk so that, eventually, your chest will be lower than the elevation of the desk and you should feel a nice stretch across the front of the shoulders. Pause here for a least one minute to release tension and stiffness.
3. Healthy Hips 1: Extension
Being chair-bound all day is basically a straight-jacket for your hips, and it’s no wonder they get tight and cranky. What’s more, your hips are closely connected with your lower back, and getting your pelvis moving (funny as that sounds) can work magic on lower back stress. Give this desk-lunge a try (beard not included)!
Keep your hands firmly on the desk for support a little wider than hip-distance apart. Start with your feet about two feet back from the desk. Now, extend your right foot back as far as it can comfortably reach, plant your toes on the ground and keep your right heel lifted off the floor. Your left knee should be directly over your left ankle. Straighten the right leg by activating your quadriceps and pulling the back knee straight. Try to pull your right hip forward and down toward the floor. Repeat on the other side.
4. Healthy Hips 2: Rotation
Now let’s get some rotation in those hips! Sit with your spine nice and tall with both feet planted firmly on the floor. Lift your right foot up and place your right ankle on your left knee. Hold your right ankle with your left hand. Slowly lower your right knee toward the floor. To get a little deeper stretch, you can press down gently on the inside of your knee with your right hand. You should feel this stretch in the outside of your glutes as your femur rotates downward.
5. Nicer Neck 1: Flexion
There aren’t a lot of places on the body more important than your neck — the bridge between the brain and the body. And yet, we spend all day cranking our heads forward and down to look at laptop screens and smartphones. That’s why it will feel so good when you spend a few minutes each day taking care of this crucial zone. Here’s the best “flow” of neck stretches to cover all your bases:
Interlace your fingers and place your cradled hands just behind your head. Apply a little pressure to the back of your head while dropping your chin toward the chest. Don’t apply too much pressure! The purpose of this stretch is to lightly stretch the posterior neck muscles.
Now bring your head back to neutral. Reach your left hand over your head and place it just above your right ear. Bring your left ear toward your left shoulder while pulling gently (gently!) with your hand to create a deeper stretch on the right side of your neck. Repeat on the other side. You really don’t need to use a lot of pressure here to stretch the lateral neck muscles.
6. Nicer Neck 2: Extension
This is an easy one: Just release your neck and look up at the ceiling. You don’t need to add resistance this time — this is a movement your neck isn’t used to doing often. Just look back as far as possible, slowly increasing the stretch as you feel comfortable. You should feel a nice stretch in the front of your neck.
7. Nicer Neck 3: Rotation
Now begin with a neutral, forward gaze. With your chin parallel to the floor, turn your head as far as possible to the right and pause for 15 seconds. Then turn back to neutral and look to the left as far as you can go for another 15 seconds.
8. Bending Back
A desked back is a flexed back. What we mean is: your spine is constantly rounding-forward at your desk, tightening your abdominals (not in a good way) and weakening your mid- and lower-back. This stretch attacks that problem directly!
Shift forward slightly in your chair but make sure the chair is stable and you’re fully supported with your feet on the ground. Keep your arms straight and lift them overhead with the palms facing each other. Start to draw your upper arms behind your ears. As you do this, bend your back so that your spine curves backward and your shoulder blades reach for the wall behind you. Keep your gaze fixed on the ceiling. This will provide a slight extension of the spine. Hold this position for at least one minute.
9. Thankful Thighs
The muscles of the quadriceps cross the knee joint and the front of the hips. This means that, when you sit in a chair with your hips at 90-degrees, the upper ends of your thigh can get very tight throughout the day. This stretch will ease your suffering hip flexors and quads. It’s a classic, and it feels great!
Start in a standing position with the feet together. Place your left hand on your desk for stability. Bend the right knee, bringing your right heel up toward your hips and grab the outside of your foot with your right hand. Use your arm to comfortably pull the heel closer toward your hips. The knees and hips should all remain in alignment, as you can see in the picture.
10. Spinning Spine
They say you’re only as old as your spine. You might say, “Duh, my spine is part of me, so we’re the same age,” and you’d be right. But even know-it-alls get old, and as you age your spine gets weak, crooked, and rigid. Sitting bent-over all day speeds up the process! So, let’s turn that chair into a fountain of youth.
Sit with your spine fully elongated and in a neutral position with your feet firmly rooted on the floor. Use your hands to grab the right armrest of the chair (maybe the right hand can reach farther to the back of the chair) and pull your body around to rotate your torso from the middle (thoracic) and upper (cervical) spine. Look as far to the right as possible while keeping your chin parallel to the floor. Make sure not pull too strongly and force the torso around — -this should be a gentle twist.
11. Happy Hamstrings
We’ve already attacked the front of the thigh (the quads and hip flexors) but we need to give some love to the hamstrings. Sitting with your knees flexed and your butt tucked softly underneath can make your hamstrings brutally tight. Scientifically, this “makes your body sad,” putting a strain on your lower back even when walking around. Let’s turn that frown upside down.
Stand with your feet together. Then, with a flat spine, hinge at your hips and lower your chest toward the floor. (Tip: Don’t think about lowering down, think about reaching your hips back to the wall behind you. This will help you feel your hamstrings stretch.) Reach your hands out in front of you until they touch the floor. If your hamstrings are too tight to let you reach the floor (with a flat back!) find something about knee-height to place under your hands, which will provide extra support until you find the flexibility to get all the way down.
Stretch Out the Day
It’s important to say that stretching isn’t a cure-all. It can certainly improve your comfort and well-being at work [1], but on its own, stretching isn’t likely to fix the problems of sitting at your desk all day [2]. While stretching can be a great step toward a healthier lifestyle, other habit changes like walking more, working on your posture, or getting a standing desk will do wonders, too.
So, now you have an armory of weapons to fight life-sucking desk posture! Mixing a few of these into your day — maybe once an hour — will make a big difference in your energy level, focus, and body-happiness. Try them out consistently for a few weeks! We know you won’t turn back.
References
- Henning RA, Jacques P, Kissel GV, et al. Frequent short rest breaks from computer work: effects on productivity and well-being at two field sites. Ergonomics (1997). 40(1): 78–91.
- da Costa BR, Vieira ER. Stretching to reduce work-related musculoskeletal disorders: a systematic review. Journal of Rehabilitation Medicine (2008). 40(5): 321–328.
