28 with a desk job; What are the most effective ways to maintain agility and flexibility with just 20min/day

Aa apple wrote:

Thanks to michealman and others for teaching me the "mechanics of life" using analogies someone like me can understand. So this is only treating the symptom not the cause!? Computers let you do stuff at home? Woah, consider my mind blown!

Sarcasm aside, thanks to the few who actually gave the advice asked for. I should have known LRC would try to be my personal life coach rather than just answering the question.

You're like the guy who comes into my office who demands antibiotics for a viral infection and then gets pissy when he doesn't get what he wants. The thing you asked for isn't the solution to your problem. Some people were nice enough to give you the right answer anyway.

For those who claim that one must choose between sitting at a desk all day and paying the bills: my job pays just fine, and I have a very healthy mix of desk work and light physical activity. Many healthcare jobs are the same. I also worked in real estate development prior to returning to school, and was able to spend a good bit of time on my feet there as well. Various types of architects and engineers can find jobs where they get out of the office to sites often. Point is, you can find a job that pays well and doesn't require you to sacrifice your health if you just take that desire into account when picking your career.

Flexibility: Yoga is great for flexibility. There are probably some good videos to follow along with on youtube, but I'd also recommend going to some intro classes for getting started. On the days when you can make it to the football field, I'd recommend doing some plyometrics/dynamic stretching drills. Namely, jog a bit to warm up then do things like A and B skips, grapevines, backwards running, bounds, etc. If you have access to hurdles, you can also do hurdle drills:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8brPabMEVE0

Finally, here is a short basic routine for hip flexibility (the 'myrtl' routine):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2GLrKr54yA0

Posture: I'd recommend squats and Romanian deadlifts for strength and flexibility in your posterior chain. Core exercises like planks and glute bridges will also help. Also, obviously, sitting with good posture while you are at your desk. Don't slouch. Finally, everyone who works in an office should get a desk which can switch back and forth between sitting and standing. This is good for both health and productivity, and you'll definitely notice the difference in your posture.

Balance: This is very trainable. Depending on how bad your balance is right now, you can even start with just standing on one foot for 30 seconds, with your other foot raised about six inches off the ground. Once this becomes easy, you can add difficulty by swiveling your head from side to side, or by closing your eyes, or by standing on a less stable surface such as a folded towel or pillow. Depending on the source of your issues, working on your foot intrinsics (by for example curling up a towel with your toes) may also help.

Agility: Hopping up a few steps on one foot, then hopping back down backwards. Jump roping. Finally, 'dots drills', basically hopping back and forth and sideways between some dots arranged in a grid, google for details.

Finally, and I can't stress this enough, is periodic 'micro-exercise' throughout your work day. Sitting for 9 hours straight is one of the worst things you can do. Breaking it up with 40 minutes of exercise in the middle of the day is a good start. But taking shorter breaks throughout the day is crucial. Have a timer go off every 45 minutes or so. When it goes off, take 60 seconds to stand up, shrug your shoulders, do some light stretching, walk to the water cooler, do a few bodyweight squats and pushups, walk up and down the stairs of your building, etc. Just get your blood flowing a bit and engage as many of your muscle groups as you can. Do something a little different with each break. This will take very minimal time, might be a net positive for your work productivity even in the short term, and will make an *enormous* difference for your physical well being.

Runner MD,

Your analogy is off base. I am not defending the corporate America cubicle farm, claiming it is my only option to pay the bills, or being naive about the true cause of my problem. I am annoyed at all the assumptions everyone is using to stand on as the foundation for their soap box, which have derailed the thread.

You are making all the same assumptions; assumptions that I don't already know everything that has been said thus far; assumptions that I am not doing several other things to remedy the cause; assumptions on the nature of my job and my slavery to it. In a short time I will have advanced to a position where I will be not have to sit in the back crunching numbers. My time out of the office will increase dramatically while total hours will remain the same. I will hand the paperwork off to people in my current position. Meanwhile I am living frugally, putting all extra cash into generating passive income, and actively looking for any and all opportunities to improve my situation. I just didn't realize I had to write an essay on all of that to avoid being preached to. I should have just asked for exercises in one sentence without any background.

About 20 years older than you and have been a laborer for 30 years. Just found it funny that you compared yourself to the Tin Man because that's how I wake up each morning or become after I stay still for to long. Running is my oil.

I'm 30 with a desk job (engineer as well). Switching to a standing desk was huge for me. I felt immensely better after that change. My back hurts less, but mostly I have way more energy and feel much looser after work.

The other key for me is that I don't go home after work, I go straight to where I am running that day. After that I let myself go home. If I go home right after work, I will end up getting too "comfy" to go run about half of the time.

We also have a gym at the office. If I'm hurt or the weather outside sucks, I'll go there at lunch and get in about 40 minutes on the bike plus 10 minutes of various stretches and weights. During the indoor season and early track season, I go there at lunch 2-3x a week to get in swiss ball mobility and various weights and core work.

I think you asking the question of what you can do in 20 minutes a day to improve your flexibility and agility is the wrong question. I think you should ask what you can do in your life to turn that 20 minutes into an hour a day. Some people have success waking up early for a run. This is especially helpful if you have kids. Others work from home a few days a week. Others get out of the office and go for a run at lunch time.

One thing that helped me free up more time was deciding that if I worked out at lunch, the shower was optional if I was pressed for time. It sounds gross, but from 1pm until you leave for work, if you're in an air conditioned office, you don't really have time to start to smell that much in your clean work clothes even if you were a little sweaty still when you put them on. This buys you time.

Just some ideas on how to get more efficient with your time.

Haven't you been following the thread? The OP already knows this stuff and DOESN'T WANT TO HEAR IT, dammit! Why can't you just leave the poor man alone?

Myrtl Routine + Lunge Matrix (if knees allow it) + plank routine

Some good suggestions I'll look into.

I might clarify that I am currently running or biking after work and doing 3 days lifting in the gym at lunch. I am changing from 3 days to 5 days and will do a mobility routine on all days. I plan on getting out on some grass on the weekend and doing some stuff there too. I am looking for advice on effective mobobility routines. I also already have a standing desk, acquired a few months ago.

I have a desk job - I simply set an alarm to go off every 30 minutes and I do some pushups or deep knee bends or planks or other things.

works fine but yeah I get a few weird looks.

helps my running too - my core is getting stronger.

Like most Letsrun threads, eventually, I learned something. I have been doing Cossack squats in my office for the last 10 minutes and they are great.

what are you doing???????? You get 1 life!!!!!! Only 1!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I work for an engineering planning firm, use to do that work but gravitated into IT. Be careful what you wish for. Ha!

Anyhow they do provide stand-up desks to people here and the company culture is fairly relaxed. I believe they try to accommodate people within reason; we are nearly all virtual so people can work from home as needed.

I go into my server room and do stretches/squats several times a day especially when increasing miles. Also I make a point to get up and walk to someone's desk to talk instead of calling when I can.

Set a alarm to get up and move if you need help remembering to do that when you get busy. Our engineers often have deadlines so sometimes you just have to tough it out, but often you can find a few minutes here and there to keep the body moving.

What is wrong with the knees?

Set up a standing desk and stand the f up.

I stumbled across Chinese wand (jiangan) exercises in an article about staying active throughout life. I liken it to a tai chi-type exercise system.

All you need is the bamboo stick (which you can get at home improvement or gardening stores), suitable clothing, and sufficient space. I can go through the exercises (10 reps) in 17-22 minutes.

It's a nice low-impact, whole body workout that has certainly helped my balance and core strength (I'm in my early 50s).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Wand_Exercise

Desk jobs are not only bad for your body, but also soulcrushing. The idleness is so bad that I found simply walking to my car in the parking lot (20 meters away) made a huge difference if I did it even once per day.

Spend the 20 min per day looking for a job where you don't have to sit at a desk all day.

I've definitely been in the same shoes - errrr, desk - as the OP. Scariest thing was that it took maybe 2-3 years of desk life for it to catch up to me, which made reversing the trend even tougher. But doable!

To actually answer your "bang for the buck" question, I recommend playing a sport (a real sport, running isn't a real sport obviously, there is no ball) with lots of varied motion at least a couple times a week. No need to join a league or anything, but get out a soccer ball and dribble around a field making tons of cuts for a while. Or play some basketball, leaping after each rebound like a maniac.

The benefit here is three-fold. You will get an such varied motions from these activities, engaging arms core hips you name it. And it is fun, at least compared to core work in the basement. And last, when you eventually want a break from running to play a team sport, you won't be that uncoordinated runner spaz that gets picked early based on looking fit but sucks come gametime.

SlimPickens wrote:

I recommend playing a sport (a real sport, running isn't a real sport obviously, there is no ball) with lots of varied motion at least a couple times a week. No need to join a league or anything, but get out a soccer ball and dribble around a field making tons of cuts for a while. Or play some basketball, leaping after each rebound like a maniac.

The benefit here is three-fold. You will get an such varied motions from these activities, engaging arms core hips you name it. And it is fun, at least compared to core work in the basement. And last, when you eventually want a break from running to play a team sport, you won't be that uncoordinated runner spaz that gets picked early based on looking fit but sucks come gametime.

I think this is something a lot of runners should do. Like you say since it's fun you are more likely to get something out of it rather than doing some boring drills. I spent at least an hour/day at basketball practice in HS, then in college all I did was run. I remember getting into a pickup game after xc was over and being extremely sore the next day. I thought I was in great shape and it made me realize how one dimensional running is. Sadly though I have some knee damage so can't do much of it anymore.

36 with a mostly desk job. Sitting all day is hell on your mobility, but there's a lot you can do to mitigate some of the effects without deciding to change your career entirely (!)

Seconding the recommendation for Ready to Run. Some of the requirements are bogus but the exercises recommendations are gold, but if I had twenty minutes (assuming a warm-up, like you're doing this after running.)

Good mornings; single-leg deadlifts; single-leg bodyweight squats; planks; finish with couch stretch.

For the lifts: Start unweighted and focus on range of motion and form; when 3 sets of 12 becomes easy, add light weights and drop to 8 reps; over time, progress to 12, when that becomes easy, add weight, etc.. Planks: work up to accumulating 3 minutes of planks (3 sets of a minute is fine.)

During the work day: if you have a private office or cube, take a couple minutes every hour and drop into a deep squat and just hold it.