Fitness to Fix Your Posture
Flexible working practices and hot desking may be good for our business but it can be bad for our body. Many sectors are reporting higher levels of sickness caused by hot desking.
Desk heights and office chairs can take time to get accustomed to. Sitting for long periods places a lot of stress on the spine. Fortunately our muscles, particularly the core muscles, will strengthen to support the spine.
Our muscle memory then takes over and most people will work pain free with their postural positioning being maintained unconsciously.
However, hot desking or flexible working can throw our muscle memory off. With our core muscles attuned to our normal or previous office set-up even a small change in desk height, screen height and chair type can cause discomfort, throbbing back or neck pain or even severe muscular injury.
How To Beat The Hot Desk Back Pain Blues
Our posture can say a lot about the health of our muscle functions. Poor posture is usually caused by a lack of core strength or muscular imbalance. This will lead to injuries and back pain and can quite often result in extended leave from work or doing the things we love to do. Slouching and slumping are indications of this lack of core strength. A study found that slouching may even make you feel sad.
Once the preserve of athletes, the benefits of balance and stability training are slowly moving into the mainstream consciousness. This type of training improves postural strength, spinal stability and coordination.
The exercises performed on the Rooboard for balance and stability are also scalable. From seated exercises with very little physical exertion to high intensity interval workouts there is an exercise and routine for every requirement.
The Rooboard is being used by hundreds of people for rehabilitation, sports specific training, fitness and improving functional movement and strength – especially in older users.
Balance and stability training engages the muscles and fibres that we take for granted. These are the muscles that stop us from slouching when seated, that enable us to stay upright when we slip or tread on an unstable surface, the same muscles that also enable us to react unconsciously to a dynamic environment.
By training these muscles we are training our unconscious mind to have faith in our body. To help us to have confidence in our movements and postural strength, regardless of how unstable our office or working environment is.
Fitness at your desk
Studies have shown that sitting for long periods of times can cause serious health problems as well as poor fitness. A recent article in the Huffington Post called it the Smoking of Our Generation.
Standing desk spaces are becoming more commonplace as studies prove that people should sit less. However, this is not practical in most London workplaces and especially not practical in the City of London. Standing in the same spot for a full day can also prove to be painful on the lower back, legs and feet.
The best solution is to perform a gentle workout at your desk. You only need to do a couple of minutes every hour. The Rooboard is perfect for this because of its compact and portable size and because it engages the core and stabilizer muscles.
This means you are using several muscle groups, even when you only performing a simple exercise, like the balance squat.
This workout will not stretch your trousers or ruffle your skirt. It is perfect for a quick break from sitting at your desk if you are unable to leave your immediate desk area.
If you are brave enough to do more than the two exercises featured below in front of your work colleagues, there are many more standing exercises you can perform on your Rooboard.
