Hi, I’m Dr Jill Harling. I’m one of the GPs here at Courtfield Private Practice.
Today I wanted to talk to you about incorporating some stretching and strength exercises in your day-to-day office life. Both older and younger women can do these exercises to keep up your bone density and muscle mass as you get older.
I tend to do most of these exercises between seeing patients, so doing these at least once every hour when you’ve been sat at your desk is a great place to start.
Simple back stretches for your thoracic spine:
Your thoracic spine is the middle section of your spine and is what’s most affected from bad posture, which is often encouraged when sitting at your desk hunched over a computer.
Here are some exercises you can do to help stretch out your thoracic spine and help alleviate some of the tension there.
Wafting your arms around your body
Once I’ve finished seeing a patient, I’ll often get up out of my chair and twist my upper back slightly, allowing my arms to waft around my body, letting momentum do a lot of the work.
This is a brilliant exercise to loosen up your thoracic spine and super easy to do quickly in the midst of a busy day.
Stretching your arms up and down
After wafting my arms around, I then tend to stretch right up to the ceiling. Again, stretching the thoracic spine. Then what I absolutely love, and really helps to release the tension, is just to flop over and dangle your hands down to the ground.
These are all pilates moves and are just a quick way of stretching out that you can do multiple times over the course of the long working day.
Push ups against a wall or low surface
You don’t need a set of weights to help improve your muscle mass. I’ve got a sink basin in my examination area and I just do some simple press ups leaning against it.
Ladies, we lose a lot of muscle mass as we get older and bone density too, this helps keep up our upper body strength.
Wall squats
My secretary laughs when she comes in and sees me doing this but hey ho, right?
If I’m really going for the whole package, in my little stretching routine, I love to sit up against the wall as if sitting on a chair, with my back pressed against the wall and my knees at a 90-degree angle – a similar exercise to what you might do in pre skiing exercises. Holding for as long as you can count, but I aim for 20.
This is really brilliant for improving your quadriceps muscles which is important for your balance and protecting your knees. It is also great for your core.
Getting up from chairs
Finally, it’s so important to remain able to get up out of a chair, especially as you get older. You don’t need to be in a gym to do this, just sit in a chair and practice sitting and standing without using your arms to help you up.
