So a lot of you have requested for another workout video and today
I'm gonna show you a couple of exercises and stretches that you can do at your desk.
More and more people are leading sedentary lifestyles nowadays,
sitting down for extended period of time.
And that's not too ideal because it can lead to a lot of issues,
like chronic pains, weight gain, as well as poor posture.
And that's why it's important for you to find ways to reenergise your body
when you're sitting down for extended periods of time.
These workout and stretches are not only simple to do, but more importantly discrete
for those of y'all who are working at an office and don't wanna look like a crazy person.
So if you're ready or you're sitting down right now, lets just do the workouts together.
So if you're seated at your desk for extended periods of time,
you tend to be hunching over and that can lead to very bad posture,
as well as shoulder pains.
So the very important thing you need to do is to remember to stretch out once in awhile
to alleviate any kind of shoulder or neck pains that you're experiencing.
So the very first stretch I'm gonna show you is the Side Bends.
So put your hands together,
reach your arms up and above your head.
Inhale.
Lengthen the spine,
and then exhale
and stretch your torso to one side.
Make sure that you feel a stretch at the side of your torso.
Hold this position, and then inhale
back to center, and do the same on the other side.
Chest Openers.
Now if you're seated hunched over for long periods of time,
your shoulders are gonna round forward and it can cause you to have a lot of shoulder and back aches.
What you're gonna do is to just interlace your fingers,
roll your shoulders backwards and look up.
Make sure that your chest is open up,
your back is squeezed and your shoulders are rounded back.
This is also gonna help you to straighten your posture.
So if you're experiencing any kind of neck pain then this is a great stretch for you.
You're gonna put your hands at bottom of your chair.
You're gonna inhale,
and then exhale,
bring your head to one side.
Make sure that you're not over-stretching,
so keep your stretch very light and gentle.
And once you're done, inhale,
come back to the center
and exhale, stretch on the other side.
I like putting my hands at the base of the chair because this gives you more support when you stretch.
So if you're sitting for a long period of time hunched over with bad posture,
then your lower back might start to hurt.
So this is a great stretch to help you solve that issue.
This is called the Chair Twist.
Start by sitting at the edge of your chair.
Put one of your hands at the back of your chair
and the other at the bottom.
Now you're gonna inhale,
exhale
and twist your torso back.
Look back and hold on to your chair tight so you get a maximum stretch.
You should feel the stretch in your torso
and then come back to the center and do the same on the other side.
This stretch helps you to open up your chest as well.
So for all the stretches that I've just showed you,
I recommend that you hold them for about 30 to 60 seconds
because this is an optimal time for you to really get a good stretch.
Another great tip I have is that if you've been sitting down for long periods of time,
just get up, use the toilet break as a reason for you to walk around and just y'know,
get some blood flow in your legs.
And if these stretches are not enough for your to reenergise your body and keep you awake,
then try these light workouts.
So I'm gonna show you an upper body exercise
and these are some Chest and Shoulder Openers with a resistance band.
So this is what a resistance band looks like.
And this acts as a great way for you to grab a workout in
even if you have no weights available to you.
I highly recommend that every have this as part of their basic fitness kit
because they're just so versatile.
If you've no weights or no gym available to you,
this can act as your weight no matter where you are.
And I'm super excited to announce that No Sweat now has its own resistance bands for sale.
You'll get them in a full set with bands of 3 different levels of resistance,
and also a drawstring bag for you to put your bands inside.
So the green is the lightest resistance, yellow is medium and grey is the heaviest.
And they are indicated with these cute little emojis and the side showing light, medium and heavy.
So when it came to creating my own resistance bands,
I wanted to make sure that it was of high quality and that it would pass my test,
and also that of my clients.
And before putting these bands up, I've been testing these products for months and months,
going through countless samples.
And I've been testing it out with my clients
and I can tell you the feed that has overall been very positive and great,
so I can't wait for you guys to finally try it.
So if you guys wanna get the bands, I put a link to the shop in the description below
so go and check it out and let me know what you think about these.
Okay, back to Chest and Shoulder Openers.
We're gonna do this with a light resistance band.
So keep your resistance band over your wrist.
Keep your elbows close to your torso,
open your chest, stretching your shoulders out.
And once you've stretched it open, you close it and then repeat.
I'm gonna show you another variation of the Chest and Shoulder Openers.
With the resistance band on your wrists,
stretch your arms in front of you
and then inhale and stretch your arms up.
You might hear a little crack in your shoulders.
But don't overextend, just lift your arms above your head
and you should feel the resistance band really pulling your muscles apart.
You'll feel a stretch in your shoulders and opening in your chest.
And I just want you to hold it in this position for a few seconds.
And exhale, bring it back down.
And then repeat.
You see with a resistance band,
your muscles are engaged a lot more so you're really getting a lot out of each stretch.
What's important for this stretch is that you feel it in your chest,
you feel your shoulders rolling back, feel your posture realigning.
So now that we've worked on our upper body, we're gonna move on to our lower body.
So when you're seated for extended periods of time, your legs start to get really stiff.
So it's important to get your blood circulation going,
and to also strengthen your legs at the same time.
So I'm gonna show you a couple of exercises to do just that.
These are Seated Hip Abductors with a resistance band.
And for this, I'm gonna use the medium resistance band,
but depending on your fitness level, you can use the lightest,
or the heaviest for an extra challenge.
Put your legs through the resistance band,
pull it all the way up to right above your knees.
Keep your feet together and then draw your knees apart and then close it.
You should feel this in your outer thighs, and the side of your glutes, and your hips.
I know this looks kinda awkward but don't worry.
You're gonna be sitting at your desk so no one's gonna be able to see this going on at the bottom.
I recommend that you do this anywhere from 20 to 30 repetitions at a time
just so that you feel the blood flowing in your legs and that you don't feel so stiff.
And when you're doing this exercise, make sure that you're not doing it too fast.
When you are opening up your legs, hold it for a second before coming in and closing
so that you actually feel a contraction at the side of your legs.
So this exercise is Leg Extensions
and you can do this without a resistance band, you can use just your body weight.
What I find is that when you use a band, you get a lot more muscle engagement.
So you're gonna start by putting the band below the heels of one of your legs.
I'm gonna start with my left foot here, put it underneath your heel
and then put the other end of the band over the ankle of the other leg.
So once this is set up, sit at the edge of your chair.
Keep your legs together and then draw your right leg up.
Squeeze your right leg at the top and you should feel a contraction in your front of your thighs,
which are your quadriceps.
Hold it for a second and then come back down.
And then repeat. When you pull it up, exhale.
And when you come back down, inhale.
My legs are getting tired just from doing this.
But you'll definitely feel a lot more blood circulation in your legs
and it's very important because when you're sitting for long periods of time,
your legs kind of go to sleep.
So to really energise the rest of your body, you want to wake up your legs.
Now we're gonna move onto our abs.
Even when you're sitting at your desk, you can work on your abs and I'm gonna show you some Knee Raises.
While you're seated, just pull your knee up towards your chest and come back down.
When you're coming up, exhale
and feel a light contraction in your right abdominal muscle.
And if it helps you can even lean forward so that your knee comes closer to your chest.
This is a very small motion but it's very effective for engaging your core.
And once you're done, you can do the same to the other side.
And for more advanced version, you can also do Double Knee Raises.
So move to the edge of your chair, put your hands at the side and bring your knees up to your chest.
So the Double Knee Raises,
it might be quite hard for you to do it while you are typing or doing your work.
So what I recommend is that every hour, just take 2 minutes off to go and energise your body.
Go work on your core, work on your legs, work on your upper body,
and I feel that doing these small exercises will give you new energy to go and work even harder.
So here are some other tips to help you release muscle tension at your desk.
You can use a foam roller.
So for those of you who don't know what a foam roller is, this is a foam roller.
And it's meant to help to release tensions in your body.
You're gonna put this underneath your sore muscles,
roll on top of it and it's kinda like giving yourself a massage.
Your muscles feel a lot looser after.
So just put the foam roller on the ground,
take off your shoes.
So just roll it back and forth, and it's kinda like foot reflexology that you're doing for yourself.
This is meant to help stimulate blood circulation
and I think that it's exceptionally important for girls who are wearing heels to work or uncomfortable shoes.
In the middle of the day, make sure you take off your heels and give your feet a nice massage.
And if you don't have a foam roller, you can also do this with a tennis ball.
So if you're studying or working from home, a great tip I have for you is to keep a yoga mat close by.
So if you're sitting for prolong periods of time,
your hips are gonna get really tight and your back might start to ache.
So it's important to do deep stretches for your hips and your back,
and a yoga mat will help with that.
And I'm so excited to show you my yoga mat!
Here we have the very first No Sweat yoga mat,
and I am so excited for you guys to finally try this
because it's literally been months of testing this out.
And I finally found my dream yoga mat.
It doesn't matter if you work out every single day or you're just starting out with fitness.
I feel that having a yoga mat at home is just an essential product
because it's like a foundation for a workout.
So I used to have 2 issues with yoga mats.
It was either that they were too thick or too thin.
For the too thick yoga mats, I found that they were very heavy and very difficult to roll up.
So it was quite inconvenient for me to carry them around.
And for those that were too thin,
I found that they didn't give my back the optimal support that I needed when I was exercising.
And they were kind of like not very good at cushioning my knees and my joints when I was working out.
So I wanted to find a yoga mat that struck a balance between having the right amount
of thickness and cushioning for me to feel supported during my workout, but also was
thin and portable for me to carry around.
So this is the level of thickness that I've chosen.
This is not too thin and not too thick.
It just provides you with the right amount of cushioning
so you can support your workout whether or not you're lying down or doing pushups on top of it.
Another important thing to me is that this yoga mat has to be a non-slip mat.
So if you look on the underside of the yoga mat,
you'll see little grooves and this is gonna help with friction when you're working out.
Because if you're doing a very sweaty workout, the last thing you want is for your mat to slip and slide.
In terms of the colour, I wanted something that was universal and neutral.
So this is a very pretty turquoise colour that I think everyone's gonna like.
And if you look closely, you'll see a floral embossing.
And this is actually an anti-slip technology that is incorporated into the mat.
But instead of a plain yoga mat, I thought that this subtle detailing will give the mat a nice touch.
So if you guys want to get your hands on this mat, we've included a link in the description box.
So go and purchase this and let me know what you think about it.
So now I'm gonna show you a couple of deep stretches
that are very good at stretching out your back and your hip joints.
The Pigeon Pose.
You're gonna start on all fours.
You're gonna extend your right leg back, and then pull your right knee to your right wrist.
Sit into the stretch and make sure you straighten your left leg.
Then slowly walk your right foot outwards, and sit into the stretch.
You should feel a deep stretch in your hips as well as your thighs.
Make sure your back is straight.
The straighter your back, the deeper the stretch.
And once you're done, you can do the same thing on the other side.
And for an even deeper stretch, you can lean forward and support your body with your forearms.
This is the Supine Hip Opener.
Place your left foot over your right knee and push your hips upwards.
You're gonna feel a nice deep stretch in your left hip and then come back down.
Then repeat.
And once you're done with one side, you can move over to the other side.
So that's all I have for you for this episode.
Whether you're working in the office or studying at home,
it's important to take those mini breaks just to refocus and energise your body.
And honestly, I'm just so excited to finally get to share these products with you guys
because it's been in the works for a very long time.
I've always thought if I were to create some products
for everybody who's just starting out on their fitness journey,
what would it be?
And for anybody who doesn't have a gym membership
or just wants to start working out from home,
yoga mats and resistance bands are just essentials.
And if you wanna try this out, head over to our store, the link is in the description down below.
So this is our first line or merchandise and if you guys like what we have,
we're definitely gonna create a lot more in the future.
And with all of our videos, please remember to give it a thumbs up,
click the subscribe button and the little bell
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So I'll see you guys in the next one.
Take care! Bye!