Don’t worry, I got your back.

Google was just telling me that “on average, office workers spend 4-8 hours of their workday sitting down”, which according to some studies equate to around 2 months of sitting per year.

Now that I can appreciate exercise physiology and kinesiology, I see the impact all this sitting around has on our thoracic and lumbar spine aka our back. I was curious to understand this topic further as I myself have spent countless hours sitting in office/home and remember the numerous times I had to remind myself to sit with my spine erect.

In the past few years, I’ve been exploring exercises to help support the spine better and while changing our posture is possible, it is a long-term goal and doesn’t happen overnight unfortunately. However, there are stretches we all can do as part of our warmup before the main workout, or just on their own as they will help provide that core mobility that we can lose over the years due to muscle tightness.

I just finished my pain free performance specialist certification and it really helped me get a further understanding of our 6 functional movement patterns (Squat, Hinge, Lunge, Push, Pull + Carry) and how to build a workout program incorporating these basic functional patterns. (If you want to read more about these, check out my functional pattern blog earlier). The reason I wanted to take this certification was to help my corporate clients who are used to being in their chairs and front of desks for long hours and while standing desk is a good alternative, it’s not practical for everyone which is why i’m emphasizing on these tried and tested stretches to help with any stiffness in your back.

Before I get into the stretches, I just want you to take a moment and appreciate your own body structure. How all the bones in your body have lined up and how all the joints and muscles are working in synchrony in order for you to perform any simple task such as typing your next work email or even scrolling through this great blog you happen to run into today 😉. For us to be able to function pain free as we get older, it’s imperative we start giving our bones the respect they deserve or chronic pain can be our long-term friend. To sum it up, impaired physical function in mid-life predicts the incidence of disability at old age. Let that sink in!

Now that I’ve caught your attention, here’s the good news: Start incorporating these stretches in your daily routine in early morning or while taking a break from work or before heading to bed and you will see the benefits within a month provided you stick to it. I think of these stretches as massage for your back and who doesn’t like a more flexible back specially if you can bend it like Beckham.

Feel free to reach out to me if you have any questions or comments and let’s get moving this year.

Stretch 1 - The Crab reach: This exercise will help with tight hip flexors that can be due to sitting in chair for an elongated period. It will also help with hip extension and opening up the chest area while elongating the spine. Do this 5 times on each hand and slowly progress to 10.

Stretch 2 – Quadruped T-Spine rotation: Great for developing T-Spine mobility. Do 5 rotations on each hand eventually progressing to 10.

Stretch 3 – Resistance band 3 way stretch: For this you will need a resistance band but it’s worth getting one as you can do multiple workouts with a band and it’s easy to carry when traveling. Do 3 sets of 10 reps each so that’s 90 reps if you get through them all.

There are more exercises/stretches for stiff neck and arms caused by excessive sitting and I’d be happy to share those in my upcoming blogs but for now I want you to try these and have fun with it. Namaste!