10 stretches and exercises to prevent discomfort and pain while sitting on chair | Health

These days, people frequently experience neck, lower back, and other sorts of discomfort due to prolonged sitting. The fact that people who work while sitting must tilt their heads for extended periods of time raises serious concerns about cervical pain. In addition, because of the knee bend, it is common to experience lower back pain and tense hamstring muscles. To alleviate these issues, it’s important to perform stretching and exercises while sitting at a table or chair to loosen tight muscles and relieve constricted muscles. These exercises make it easier for individuals to maintain good posture and prevent discomfort while sitting for extended periods. (Also read: Office Chair Yoga: Workouts at gym are so yesterday. Try these 4 exercises at your workplace and reap health benefits )

Talking to HT Lifestyle, Aminder Singh, Fitness guru and Founder, Team Aminder, suggested some easy stretches and exercises that you can perform while sitting on a chair to help alleviate discomfort and tension in the neck, back, and legs.

1. Finger and elbow stretch

Finger and elbow stretch(Aminder Singh)

We can stretch our fingers by using our forearm and elbow biceps muscles. This will help to relax finger muscles as long hours of typing generate tension and also biceps gets bent while working on a laptop. As a result, these stretches will aid in the relaxation of all three joints.

2. Neck strengthening movements

Neck strengthening movements(Aminder Singh)

To strengthen our trap muscle, i.e related to the neck; here we have to hold the seat handle from our hand and we will try to bring the opposite shoulder down and try to stretch the neck muscle from one side and towards the other side by pulling the seat handle.

3. Hamstring chair stretch

Hamstring chair stretch(Aminder Singh)

Due to long hours of sitting the amount of contraction that occurs in the hamstring muscle, which is located at the back of our thighs, we must bend our knees after sitting for long periods of time. We have to stretch it to cure back pain. We have to extend our legs while sitting on the chair only, and we must bend our body without curving the back; our back should be straight, and we need to touch our toes; this will stretch our hamstring and calf muscles and relax us.

4. Hip muscle stretch

Hip muscle stretch(Aminder Singh)

Our hip muscles contract when we sit for an extended period of time. This is a beautiful stretch; we need to keep our legs on our knees and then bend our bodies. Repeat this stretch with the opposite leg one by one. It will relax the body by releasing tension from the lower back and hips.

5. Isometric contraction

Isometric contraction(Aminder Singh)

For overuse of a laptop, and long hours of sitting our neck muscles get tired, this stretch helps to strengthen the neck muscle. For isometric contraction; you have to press from one side of the head and keep the head over there only and then press it from the right, back and front sides. So when you will press the head, you will feel the sense of the vibration that will be created on the head and you need to feel the vibration for 4-5 seconds (this is called isometric strengthening of the neck surrounding muscles).

6. Shrug exercise

Shrug exercise(Aminder Singh)

In this, we raise our upper trap muscles by elevating our shoulder, so that our shoulder works as resistance, providing strength to our trap muscle.

7. Neck movement

Neck movement(Aminder Singh)

We move our neck from left to right to maintain the proper mobility of the neck and to avoid stiffness.

8. Triceps

Triceps(Aminder Singh)

We can do another exercise where we train our triceps muscle with our body weight and that makes the muscle strong, which helps in pushing movements like when we need arms protection to lift ourselves from the seat, or to push a car, or any heavy thing like a table, so it is important to make the triceps muscle strong and this exercise is perfect for that.

9. Incline push-up

Incline push-up(Aminder Singh)

Another one is the incline push-up to strengthen the chest muscle for hunching. We can take the help of our table, we can put our arms on the table and try to touch the chest from its surface, which will help strengthen the chest while easing your depressed posture

10. Sit-ups

Sit-ups(Aminder Singh)

We may do sit-ups on the chair by just sitting down on the chair and standing up, then repeating this deed several times. It will aid in the strengthening of our lower body.

These are a few of the exercises, which an individual can easily practice while sitting on a chair and this will give them overall benefits in terms of strength, and right posture, to cure cervical and lower and upper back pain.

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