6 Desk Exercises You Should Do If You Sit All Day
Sitting for several hours a day isn't healthy for anyone—but especially not runners. Here’s what to do.
If you’re like us, morning runs are an integral part of your routine: You wake up, sip a cup of coffee while you get dressed, lace up your shoes, and head out for some miles before work. Then it’s off to the office—where again, like most of us—you spend the day at your desk. While we all know sitting for eight hours a day isn’t healthy, it can be even more detrimental for runners.
“In terms of the movements and positions involved, running is very extension dominant, while sitting is purely flexion, especially if you really hunch forward while you’re at your desk,” explains Cameron Yuen, D.P.T., senior physical therapist at A Hip Thrust Workout for Stronger Glutes and certified strength and conditioning specialist. “Theoretically, going from running to sitting for hours can cause the calves, hamstrings, and hip flexors to tighten up.”
If you’re an evening runner, and you’re thinking this doesn’t apply to you—think again. After a full day of work, your body is generally stiffer, and you're probably tired, so you need to shift your focus toward preparing for the run even more so than usual, Yuen says. “This means increasing your body temperature, loosening up muscles, and redirecting blood flow away from the center of the body and into the muscles,” he says.
Luckily, there’s an easy fix for both scenarios: desk exercises. No, we don’t expect you to bust out jumping jacks in the middle of a conference call. These are discreet, non-disruptive stretches and exercises you can do at your desk that can reverse the negative effects of sitting. Below, Yuen shares the best moves for you.
How to use this list: If you run in the morning, Yuen recommends performing one set of the following exercises, several times per day to maintain range of motion, flush metabolic byproducts from your earlier run, and keep the muscles active.
If you run after work, Yuen says to perform at least 3 sets of the following exercises back-to-back. “After a full day of work, your body is generally stiffer, and so your goal is to prepare for the run,” he says.
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Amy Schlinger is a health and fitness writer and editor based in New York City whose work has appeared in Men’s Health, Women’s Health, The New York Post, Self, Shape, Cosmopolitan, Glamour, and more; The National Academy for Sports Medicine Certified Personal Trainer (NASM-CPT) is extremely passionate about healthy living and can often be found strength training at the gym when she isn’t interviewing trainers, doctors, medical professionals, nutritionists, or pro athletes for stories.
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