Welcome, from my office, I wanted to make a video for you going over things that you can do to avoid sitting so much, stretches that you can do to loosen up and gain more energy throughout the day. Okay. Basically, sitting is considered the new smoking. It’s said that for every hour that you sit; you’re going to take off 22.8 minutes of your life. Compared to every cigarette that you smoke, it’s 11 minutes. Okay. If you sit and you smoke, it’s doubly bad. More reasons to do these stretches and movements and we’ll help you do that on this video. One thing that you can do and I don’t know if it is possible with your work but you can always ask your supervisor or if you are the owner then there’s no excuse not to do it.
Standing desk, okay, so this is my standing desk that make other variations. This is just a very basic one so just put it down, put your keyboard on, put your mouse there and then you just stand there and type but if you wanna be moving while you’re standing, I’m usually swaying side to side or put a lacrosse ball on my feet which I will talk about a little bit later as one of the techniques, always moving. Standing in the same place is just as bad as sitting because we don’t want our body to conform to a certain position. That’s bad.
Another thing that you can do is get a Swiss ball so I’ll alternate between the standing desk and sitting on a Swiss ball. In Swiss ball, there’s no box so you can’t lean alright, you have to sit in a better posture, abs turned on, you can’t slouch but honestly if you’re sitting on this ball, it will remind you to fix your posture. So your abs are turned on instantly it will turn your posture a little better. Also in your standing desk and just kneeling on the floor, especially if you have to write something on a piece of paper, as you can see there’s a little gateway here. I’ll just put the piece of paper down and I’ll go down and I’ll kneel on the floor, either one leg up or both knees down and on the floor I have one of these things – the mat so it’s not hard on my knees. So those are three things that I do to not sit so much. Obviously, Swiss ball is still sitting but you’ll have a better posture. That’s what counts. The bigger that you can get the ball, the better. We don’t want our hips to be… This one’s is too small for me, the bigger that you can get. Watch your hip, most chairs will have your hip angle like that. You can get it more down that especially on the Swiss ball it will be down like that so that way your hip is not as flexed as much so we don’t want that flexed position. It will be stuck there if we don’t do anything about it.
When you’re at work you’re usually wearing a work shoe. Work shoes is obviously a man’s shoe, has a heel. Let’s say it has at least an inch of a heel. They say that for every inch elevation on the heel in order to be in a proper position standing, you need to be at an 11 degree angle. For 1 inch, then 2 inch, then 22 degrees. Ladies wearing 4-inch high heels for whatever reason, you need to be in 44 degree angle to be standing correctly. Remember Michael Jackson in Smooth Criminal when he’s all the way down there.
You need to be basically in that position in that entire time to be in the proper position wearing those heels. So that’s ridiculous. If you are at your work, I highly suggest taking your shoes off. Bring some bio-spray or bring some foot spray whatever. If you have stinky feet then take them off. I used to wear shoes all the time and my feet stunk at the end of the day while taking off. If you are basically mitten on your shoe just think about what your feet go through. They support your entire body weight. There are tons of muscles in there. If they’re not open, if they don’t get the oxygen they need, they’re going to start wearing down. Take off your shoes because the more angle you have, the more you’re in a proper position. Remember the angles, 1 inch equals 11 degrees. You will not be able to flex as much. It will cause trigger points, it will cause damage to your foot which we don’t want. Take your shoe off. You won’t be able to do your job if you have a shoe on your hand. It’s not comfortable. Your foot doesn’t like it. Take your shoe off, if you can and you will need you shoe off in order to do the exercise that I am going to show you. But we should not be sitting for more than an hour. 30 minutes would be optimal and 15 minutes would be the best. If we can stand up every 15 minutes set your time on your phone, set your time somewhere every hour on the hour. Just set a routine so you’re standing up and you‘re gonna do this stretches to help you loosen the body, open the body, keep it fresh and keep those trigger points from starting to pop up.
So the stretches, basically the first one is a Prisoner Openers. Basically, it’s for the upper back, shoulders. A lot of people when they sit, they sit like this which will start to develop the kyphosis. So you see the older people and they look like hunch back of Notre Dame. It takes decades to build up. Its not years, alright. It takes decades to build posture. If you are sitting and you watch this video and your posture is sucky, sit up, abs tight, abs should be turned on at all times while standing and sitting 20%, 3 0% shows full back, all the good stuff, head in line, head knock down, head up. Keep every thing in line.
Prisoner opens works with the T spine and the rest of the spine, helps open it up, opens the chest up. What you’re gonna do hands behind the head, you’re gonna inhale bring arms forward, exhale open up, go as far as you can each time. Each time you try to go a little further. Just open up. Every time you step up, you can do that. Especially if you are feeling a little tight there. Â Tight in the chest, tight in the shoulders. Just push back as far as you can.
T-Spine Extension:
Other things you can do is stand up and you just gotta work your hip. You bring your hip forward and you do hip rotation, out and around and then back. Obviously, don’t forget the other way. Some legs will be tighter, some hips will be tighter so just work a little more reps on that side. Butt squeeze. You can just stand at your desk, squeeze your butt as far as you can. When you do that, the feet should be facing straight ahead. Try to scorch through your feet into the floor, then squeeze your butt. If your feet are turned out, you are not able to squeeze your butt as hard that’s because your feet are in improper alignment. With proper alighnment, we have the most power, the most strength, most bounce, most mobility and stability. Another thing you can do, is simple butt lifts. Lift the leg, really squeeze that butt at the top, back and forth, when you sit a lot the areas that really get hammered are your hip, hip flexer, your butt, your hamstring and your lower back and honestly your upper back if you’re slouched over. Those are the areas that we want to work the most and those are the areas that get inflamed the most. Inflammation is a huge issue when you sit a lot and inflammation will open up to pretty much everything – every disease, obesity, diabetes from sitting. Sitting is the new smoking. We want to avoid that and we got a couple stretches so we have the calf stretch.
Calf stretch: we just go over to a wall, put your foot on the wall and just lean over to the wall as far as you can. It will help open up that calf. Wrist stretch is very good if you are typing on a keyboard all day long. If you want to avoid the wrist dysfunction, carpal tunnel syndrome. Couple days you can do, you just pull down or pull up or put your hands together and then just make circles. Keeping the palms together, so don’t separate the palms and make big circles as you can. Differerent directions, all that good stuff. And one more you can do with the wrist is take your hand, place it down backwards facing you and you just lean back, forward, back. When youre going backwards that’s when you’re gonna really feel the stretch and you keep that palm completely flat on the surface. You go forward, back, forward, back. Just try to go back a little further each time that you do that.
Final thing, I wanna talk on this video is Lacrosse ball and foam roller. Every single person should have Lacrosse ball. You can start with the tennis ball that will be the easier version. Its not as hard. If you’ve never done stuff like this then I would say just start with a tennis ball. Foam roller, everybody should have one of these, you can have this at the office. Don’t be afraid to use your foam roller in the office. There’s some office space in the open or if you have an office, then do it in there. I usually use a pvc pipe as well. You gotta work up to the pvc pipe. This is the beginner’s version so you work up to a link full routine that you can do. But basically when you have the lacrosse ball and you’re standing or sitting for a while, take your shoes off, that should be off. If you come in to my gym and Im wearing shoe and ive been there longer for 2 minutes, it’s a miracle. 90% of my normal day is without shoes.
With the Lacrosse ball. You just put it on the floor and you just basically going to be just moving the foam roller all around. You are looking for the trigger points. If you are wearing shoes a lot then you’ll have a lot of trigger points. Trigger points are basically areas that hurt a little bit more so you can feel it. It’s your body’s way to protect yourself. Trigger points will not let you move as far. Your mobility will be decreased, your flexibility will be decreased and then we start to move and you start to exercise and stuff like that, that’s when injury can occur. You are trying to overstretch and you are trying to over push. So we need to release those trigger points and you’ll be able to do more. With the foot, obviously we don’t want to injure the foot, because its very important thing. We cant walk without the foot. We need to find those trigger points. This is something I do, recently I have developed plenty of osteoarthritis and this is one of the things I do. So you just basically just roll around. Once you find the trigger point, you’re gonna stay there. Put as much pressure as you can, breathe as deeply as you can. You can do like little waves, back and forth. Oh that one was deep. Sometimes, you might not be able to get it. Sometimes you will be able to get it but the more you do this, the more you will be able to get it out. That is something you do on the foot.
Lacrosse ball smashing:
Hamstring Smash with Lacrosse Ball:
With the foam roller,
Basically, the areas you wanna get, your butt, if you have been sitting for so long, so you’re just rolling back and forth. Leg up to get more deep. Just stop in one area. If you find a trigger point, then you rest on that area. Breathe deeply as much as you can.  Little movements, back and forth. And eventually you can move up to the tennis ball and a crossball on this area. Other areas, hamstring, very important especially if you have been sitting all day. Calves and also hip so down here just roll on one side, just little movement right on that hip. And you can go down all the way to your quad. Back and forth, and then you can do your lower back, or you can do your entire back. Back and forth, try to search those trigger points. Moving back and forth, back and forth. Hug yourself when you move to the shoulder blades and one thing you can do for your upper back is open up and you stay here. Open that back and just breathe as deeply as you can and just really try to really open that up for about a minute or two. Just try to find different angles where you feel you are most tight.
Disclaimer: *The Improvement Warrior newsletter contains information that may or may not fit with your views and beliefs. My goal is to provide the truth and wake people up to the falsehoods that have been propagated in the health, fitness, nutrition, and wellness industries. Some information provided is Jason’s personal beliefs and habits. Before starting or implementing any information that Jason presents to you consult your physician and do your own research, especially if your doctor is in the modern paradigm of belief themselves. Some links provided are affiliate links and Jason collects a certain percentage from those links. I only promote things I personally use and/or come from people I trust have done their due dilligence on a product or service.
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