Use Your Lunch Break to Gain Strength and Relax After Hours of Sitting
After sitting at your desk for a long time at your desk, the best way to untangle twisted muscles is to move. Take it a step further and try bodyweight “streaming”, where you force your body to perform a series of unfamiliar movements that challenge, stretch, and build muscle at the same time.
You may have heard of yoga streams in which you move from one yoga posture to another in a fluid, logical sequence. The bodyweight workout pattern is similar to this, except that you include classic bodyweight movements like squats, push-ups, planks, and any variation of them just to get your body moving.
The above video from Primal Flow Training is a simple process that will take you no more than 15 minutes to complete. All movements challenge your upper body strength and core stability . Get a timer or use the timer on your phone and get to work:
- Approach 1. Starting from a standing position, you step back and squat again, then move to a standing position. Do 20 seconds, then rest 40.
- Approach 2: Add a prone bend (which is basically like a static diagonal push-up) at the end of the arm extension. Do this for 40 seconds, then rest 1:20.
- Approach 3: Add a slight bench press to the incline for a serrated push-up. Do this for a minute and rest for two.
- Set 4: After pushing up, point one hand toward the ceiling and rotate it. This stretches the upper back and also trains the shoulder stability of the hand on the floor. Perform one minute 40 seconds and rest for about three minutes.
- Set 5: Finally, add a side kick. You will need to watch the video at around 2:26 to see what it looks like. Do all this for one minute and 40 seconds.
When you create it all together, everything should flow smoothly. Here’s a more complex example:
The main thing is to just move . I often do this on days when I don’t have a more structured workout. Sometimes I like to pretend that I am a break dancer or that I am Beyoncé’s backup dancer, but in reality I just flop with the grace of a whale and make my body do funky movements for 15 minutes.