10 Office Exercises You Can Do Secretly You absolutely love your job! It's interesting, rewarding and challenging. It also might be hazardous to your health. Office spaces are set up to require little movement, making it easy to gain weight. Before you know it, you've added 50 pounds (22.6 kilograms) on your frame. Besides increasing weight, desk jobs also increase the strain on your back, wrists, eyes and neck, and can result in a general loss of muscle tone. Stress is another disadvantage of office work. A survey by Yale University shows that 29 percent of workers feel "quite a bit or extremely stressed at work." This can lead to depression, cardiovascular disease, a lack of energy and other health issues. To combat the adverse effects of the 9-to-5 routine, it's important to exercise. But when can you find the time? Workplace workouts can help you make the most of your limited hours. With a little creativity, you can take advantage of the few minutes you have between pending deadlines and learn to exercise while you work.
For your company's benefit, squeezing in a little exercise improves concentration and actually makes you more productive. But just in case others aren't convinced (or you don't want to be conspicuous), here are some exercises you can do secretly.It turns out that sitting an an exercise ball instead of an office chair has no real health benefits, doesn't improve your posture, and doesn't work your core. Basically, you look like a tool for nothing. According to Jack P. Callaghan, who holds the Canada Research Chair in Spine Biomechanics and Injury Prevention at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, there isn't an advantage to sitting on an exercise ball while you work at your desk. He and his colleagues performed an experiment in which they had volunteers sit on a ball, an office chair, and a backless stool "while machines measured muscle activity in their abdomens and lower backs." The found that there was no difference in the seats and that the ball did not provide any kind of real work out.
Additional research shows that sitting on balls (heh) can actually increase butt pain.[I]n part because sitting on a ball chair involves more contact area between the seating surface and your backside than a chair does — you sink into the ball somewhat — many new adopters of ball chairs report increased discomfort in their backsides.But the good news is that people who sit on exercise balls while working burn off a whopping extra four calories an hour. (You can burn more than that giggling.)Image via dean bertoncelj/Shutterstock Ask Well: Ball Chairs [NYT]One trend that come’s up over and over again in regard to healthier office seating is the use of a stability ball as an office chair. Producers claim that using a stability ball provides users with increased health benefits such as the strengthening of core muscles, more calories burnt and less back pain. But can these claims be substantiated? The New York Times says no. Using backing evidence from a 2009 British study their article concluded that using a stability ball as an office chair “led to just as much slumping and poor sitting positions as a desk chair”.
In fact, it is almost impossible to maintain a neutral spine on a wellness ball over prolonged periods of time. Having a neutral spine means that your back is in its proper position: there is no pressure on your spinal discs and no feelings of discomfort or pain.Disturbingly, findings from another Dutch study also concluded that using a stability ball as an office seat instead of a conventional office chair led to significant “spinal shrinkage”. So what is spinal shrinkage? Spinal shrinkage occurs when cushions between the spinal vertebrae lose fluid due to lack of movement. There are hundreds of office chairs that claim to be healther options for you than your standard office chair. We chose to compare sitting on a wellness ball with the Move, because the Move promises to do the same things that a wellness ball promises: it strenghtens core muscles, relieves back pains, and most importantly coaxes the body to balance at all times.The Move was specifically developed to continuously promote movement while maintaining a neutral spine.
The continuous movement increases blood circulation and core muscle stimulation. Increased blood circulation through movement not only helps keep the brain in tip-top shape, it is also crucial to the process of increasing movement of fluid to the spinal muscles and cushions between the spinal vertebrae. Studies performed using the stability ball as seating actually concludes that using a stability ball as a seat is detrimental to spinal health (and general health for that matter)“The small changes in biological responses when sitting on a stability ball as compared with an office chair, combined with the increased reported discomfort while on the ball, suggests its use for prolonged sitting may not be advantageous.” – US Library of Medicine, National Institute of HealthSo why do people still choose to use the stability ball as office seating? The price may be a factor as using a ball as an office chair is a lot more affordable than investing in proper ergonomic seating solutions.
Others have been introduced to stability balls through misinformed physiotherapists.There are so many choices when it comes to proper office seating but when looking at the Move in comparison to the stability ball the choice should fall upon the Move, either as a “back-up” chair for intervals with your regular office chair or continuously. Physiotherapist Jacques Walg from the Netherlands who is a regular adviser to Varier and who champions the Move stool as well as the ergonomic concept of Active Sitting describes the benefits of the Move stool:“The spine retains its physical curvature in the same way as if one was standing. The load exerted on the spine is reduced and the intervertebral discs are supplied with blood. Load on abdominal and back muscles is applied in a dynamic and alternating way. The blood circulation is not interrupted in the legs due to muscle pump action”.When using the Move stool, the core and back muscles are highly activated. When sitting on a wellness ball, there is a huge compression placed on the spinal discs and a shortening of muscles due to constant contraction.