Your 15-minute desk workout

By NAOMI COLEMAN

Last updated at 17:12 27 November 2006


Fears about deep vein thrombosis (DVT) were once confined to long-haul air travel.

Now, according to doctors, office workers spending long periods of immobility at their desk could run the risk of developing the condition.

If you suffer from back ache, lethargy or a 'woolly' head - let alone symptoms of DVT - perhaps it's time to work out at your desk!

To help you feel more alert and active during the day, we've found some desk exercises to keep you fitter and improve your mind at work.

Click here to view our step-by-step exercises to working out at the office

According to Alan Pearson, author of Fit 4 Work, just spending two to three times a week working out at your desk for 15 minutes can help you feel more alert, activate your muscular system, improve your posture and help you burn calories too!

'The human being is designed to move around during the day,' says Alan Pearson. 'Sitting down for hours at a time can prevent us from stretching our limbs and our blood from moving,' he says.

But a few simple desk exercises can raise our heart rate, encourage good posture and improve our mental alertness, he claims.

Just moving around for fifteen minutes - even at your desk - involves elevating our heart rate. This increases blood circulation, bringing more nutrients and oxygen to our tissues and helping to remove waste from our body more quickly.

Doing any kind of exercise which raises your heart rate will also help you to breathe more deeply. Breathing more deeply, which involves breathing from all parts of your lungs, means that our bodies are being supplied with the right amount of oxygen.

This action replenishes our brain with oxygen, which will make us feel more alert during the day.

Sitting down for long periods of time can not only make you hunch backed, but can give you neck and shoulder pain too. That's because poor posture increases stress on our back by around 40 per cent.

Sitting puts strain on our back muscles and compresses each of our vertebrae - the 33 small bones that make up the spine of our body - causing them to become tense and knotted.

Poor posture and being static over a long period of time also prevents blood from circulating around our body - the process that feeds our spine with fresh nutrients and helps keep pain at bay.

And apart from improving posture, just 15 minutes of moderate exercise can burn up at least 100 calories, helping you to keep weight gain at bay.

The idea, says Alan, is to get into the habit of exercising at least twice a week at work. 'It may look odd, but you can do your exercises discreetly at your desk or while everyone else is at lunch. Better still, get your work colleagues to join in!'

Once you establish a routine, you'll find it easier to stick to and you'll start to notice a difference in your physical fitness and mental alertness even after a couple of weeks.

For a full range of exercises at work, Alan Pearson's Fit 4 Work is published by A & C Black, priced £5.99. For more information on fitness, visit www.saqinternational.com.

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