Raise your hand if your legs and/or other parts of your body go numb by the end of the work day! I don't know about you, but working from home has caused me to sit for longer periods of time. Don't get me wrong, I have plenty of interruptions with a 6 and 8 year old in the house. However, I don't have the ability to walk something over to someone's officer rather than send an email. This has made my days of sitting much longer.
I get it, our days are getting more and more busy and you can't exactly excuse yourself from a zoom call and start doing jumping jacks. You will have to compromise and adjust your schedule based off of your day. The easiest way for me, is to set a re-occurring alarm for the top of every hour. This can be done on your Outlook, your phone, Apple Watch, etc. When that alarm goes off you need to stop what you're doing (or finish that email/zoom call) and get up out of that chair!
Here is a quick and easy way to get your body moving throughout the day. The more you do, the easier it will become. You might actually look forward to these little breaks throughout the day! If you find yourself saying "I'm too busy for this", remember one thing... it's only 2 minutes. TWO. MINUTES. You got this!
1st hour: Let's wake our bodies up! Use this first hour to warm up your core. Make sure you have a timer next to you and set it for two minutes! The first movement of the day will be good old fashion planks. A plank is when you lay face down but hold yourself up using your forearms and your toes. Make sure that neither your chest, knees, nor your thighs are touching the ground. It's important to keep your body as level as a board (aka plank), don't stick your bum in the air! Hold this position for two minutes.
2nd hour: Let's do some squats! Don't worry, they are air squats and they are completed exactly as it sounds. Stand with your feet hip width apart. Keep your chest up and drop that bum to the ground (as low as you can get it!). Do this for two minutes.
3rd hour: Two minute push-ups! You can do this from your knees if you aren't proficient with this movement. I promise you will get better and eventually will be able to do these for the entire two minutes!
4th hour: What a better way to work up an appetite for lunch then to do some jumping jacks!? I know, I hate them too... but it's only two minutes!
5th hour: Stationary lunges! This is a good movement to do later in the day since it's stretches your legs a bit as well as working them out. From a standing position, lunge with your right leg forward, touching your left knee to the ground, then return to the standing position. Switch to your left leg forward and alternate for the entire two minutes.
6th hour: Wall sits. This one starts off easy but man oh man... two minutes may seam like two hours with this movement. It's fine, you'll be FINE! Place your back against the wall and slide down to a sitting position. Imagine you're actually sitting in a chair which means your thighs will be parallel to the ground below. Hold for two minutes.
7th hour: Burpees! I know... again... it's two minutes folks. If you don't know what a burpee is I really need for you to Google it. If I try to explain the way I do them, you'll end up taking a two minute nap on your floor.
8th hour: Wooooooohhhhoooo last one! Since we started with your core, let's end with it as well! This hour you will do alternating planks. Start with your standard plank for 30 seconds. The next 30 seconds, move from both forearms to your right. Be sure to move your right foot to it's side as well. For the next 30 seconds you will return to a standard plank. Finally, to your left which will bring you to your last 30 second side plank totaling 2 minutes!
I recommend doing this every other day such as Monday, Wednesday and Friday. On Tuesdays and Thursdays you can stretch and choose four of the eight movements above, alternating between mini workouts and stretching. Create a journal to document how many reps you can complete of the movements and see how you improve over time!
If you prefer to work out in the mornings like I do, then sitting can cause even more discomfort. On the days that you do make it to the gym, make sure to treat this as "2 minute stretching" rather then a workout.
My alarm is telling me to go and so some burpees now...ugh... Oh wait, it's only TWO MINUTES!