Chair Exercises for Sri Lankan Women Who Sit All Day at Work

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Anyone who works at a desk or sits at a sewing machine or computer for extended periods of time is paying a price without realizing it. Prolonged sitting each day puts stress on your lower back, tightens your hip flexors, rounds your shoulders, slows your metabolism, and raises your chance of psychological back pain, poor blood flow and belly fat. It’s just not convenient to get off the commuter bus or train to walk two miles around the block to exercise in the middle of the day for many Sri Lankan women. Fortunately, you don’t have to get up from your seat to defend yourself. This chair workout will provide you with a full workout routine that you can perform at your desk, in your office, or even in your own home during work time, without changing your clothes or getting covered in sweat and grime.

How much damage can sitting do during the day? How bad is sitting all day?

If you’re sitting for extended periods, circulation to your legs decreases quite a bit. When you sit, your glutes (the big muscles in your buttocks) shut down nearly fully and, over time, make them weaker, and send more of your strain into your lower back. Your hip flexors compress and tighten up over numerous hours, creating the typical hip flexor pain that many people experience when standing up. The metabolism slows down in the sitting state, and during a sedentary day, one might burn as many as 150 fewer calories in a typical 24-hour period than would be burned standing in a similar day. If that is the case, chair exercises can help reverse that by awakening these muscles and restoring the circulation throughout the body.

The Chair Workout Routine

This sequence should take about 15 minutes to complete, but can be broken up into small chunks during the day if you want. You can perform it all in one go during lunch breaks or divide it up across the morning, midday and afternoon. No equipment required. If possible, use a stable chair (without wheels) or a chair with wheels that can be pushed against a wall while performing the exercises.

Sitting Marching engages your hip flexors, core and circulation. Sit straight, with feet flat on the floor, on the edge of the chair. Raise the right knee toward the chest and lower and raise the left knee. Alternate again in a slow marching step for 1 minute. Sit tall, do not lean back into the chair, as you march. This movement is easy and gets blood circulating in your lower body right away, and helps to activate the hip flexor muscles that tighten from sitting.

Seated Leg Extensions work great for the quads and stimulate blood flow in the lower legs. Sit up tall and straight, extend your right leg straight out in front until it’s parallel to the floor. Hold this for 2 seconds, feeling the muscle tighten in the thigh. Bring it down and repeat to the left side. Do 15 repetitions on each leg. To add difficulty, bend the foot so that the toes move towards the ceiling during the motion. This also stretches the calf muscles and the back of the knee.

Chair squats are a great exercise to perform for your glutes and thighs! Place your feet at hip width, facing in front of your chair. Slowly lower yourself as if you are going to sit, but before your bottom makes contact with the seat, stand up. Squat with the chair as a guide – this is a full squat. Repeat 15 times. Simply sitting down on the floor with both legs stretched straight each time and then standing back up is still a great movement for engaging the legs and glutes, and is less difficult if that seems like too much of a challenge.

Seated Shoulder Rolls and Neck Stretches alleviate upper back, neck and shoulder tension caused by long hours of screen time. Sit up straight, make big, slow circles with both shoulders 5 times forward and 5 times backward. Next, turn your right ear towards your right shoulder and hold for 10 seconds. Repeat on the other side (left). This will free up the tension associated with the trapezius muscle, a very common tight muscle among office-going women, and instantly alleviate the tension headaches that are created while working long hours.

Seated Torso Twists not only work the oblique muscles, but also help move the spine. Sitting up straight with feet flat on the floor. Shut your arms over your chest or put your hands on your shoulders. Turn the upper trunk to the right in a slow direction as far as comfortable, hold for 2 seconds and turn to the left. Repeat 15 times on either side. This is especially significant for women who get hard or stiff in their mid-back due to sitting in the same position for hours.

Calf Raises can be done seated or standing behind your chair. When seated, raise both of your heels off the floor, keeping your toes flat on the floor. Held at the top end for 2 seconds, then slowly lowered at the end with complete control. Repeat 20 times. Calf raises help to increase blood flow in your legs and help lower swelling many women experience in their feet/ankles at the end of the day, strengthen your calf muscles, which serve as a second pump to help blood move back up to the heart, and see an improvement in comfort and energy level in your legs by the end of your day at work!

Making it a Good Habit

Use a phone alarm to remind yourself to get up and move around every 60-90 minutes throughout your workday. Two minutes of sitting and marching your buttocks at regular intervals is better than eight hours of sitting idle! When most women practice daily, within two weeks, they have reported less pain in their lower back, increased energy levels throughout the day and less stiffness after prolonged sitting.