Best Exercise For Desk Workers

Hi, Dr Tony here from Auburn South Chiropractic. Are you someone, are you one of the millions of people in Australia who sits too much? Are you sitting at the desk and you find your posture’s hunching over, you’re driving a car lots hunching forward at the steering wheel? Well, I’m going to take you through my number one, exercise, my number one stretch that you should be doing to help overcome this sitting forward posture that is doing us no help whatsoever with our health. So what is this number one exercise that you should be doing? It is the easiest exercise you will ever be given. 

All you need is one of these – a foam roller. Even if you haven’t got a foam roller, you can just roll some towels up – three or four towels rolled into a tube, just like this one, and that’s all you need.

Let’s get to it. What we’re going to do is get down on the floor with the roller along our mat, or just on the carpet in your bedroom or lounge, and this can be done anywhere. We’re going to lay back on the roller – the roller is a long our spine, and we’re going to have our head supported on the roller and our tailbone supported on the roller. So we’re nice and comfortable. And it’s as simple as opening your arms out at 90 degrees to your body to allow the chest to open and allow the shoulder blades to relax around the roller. And here it is, folks, all we’re going to do is simply lay here for three to five minutes, and you’re going to do it every day to counter the forward posture that you’ve been in all day. And there’s two major benefits that this is going to bring.

One is that it’s going to open up the front of the chest because it’s been closed all day sitting in this forward posture. The second thing that this position does is that it places our body in the parasympathetic stimulus, which means that it’s the opposite of fight flight. And this fight flight forward posture is a stress posture. So we’re opening up to stimulate the parasympathetic nervous system, which is all about resting, digesting, health, and healing. And so doing this every day for three to five minutes is my number one, exercise that just about everyone can do from the comfort of your own home. I’d love to know how you go. Do you like doing it with your eyes open with your eyes closed? Do you meditate? Do you listen to music? Just find a quiet spot and get it done. Until next time. Walk tall, smile lots!