Office Fitness Tips

• Incorporate fitness into your workday woman in an office image by forca from Fotolia.com

  Staying active is essential to maintaining and improving your physical fitness and maintaining a healthy body weight. When you have a full time job, finding time to exercise can be a challenge. Even if you exercise, being sedentary for the rest of the day is not ideal. Make your daily lifestyle more active by integrating movement into your workday.

Take Frequent Walk Breaks

• If you primarily sit at a desk for most of your workday, make it a point to stand up every hour or so to walk around and stretch your legs. Use your lunch break or coffee break to walk around the office or up and down the block a few times. When you need to communicate with a co-worker, walk to their office to discuss details in person instead of sending an email.

Practice Good Posture

• According to HiveHealthMedia.com, sitting up straight is crucial to maintaining your physical fitness. Slouching at your desk while on the computer can lead to back and neck pain and stiff muscles. Not only does good posture engage the muscles of your core, it also promotes increased circulation, which will give you more energy to get through the workday with focus and alertness.

Bring Equipment to the Office

• Having fitness tools at your disposal while working makes it easier to incorporate fitness into your workday. Keep a pair of light dumbbells or resistance bands under your desk and try some light biceps curls when you take a break. If discretion is a concern, try wearing ankle weights under your pants to strengthen your legs simply by walking around. You could also keep a squeezable stress ball at your desk to tone your arms.

Work Exercise into Your Day

• Whenever possible, choose the option that adds physical movement to your day. In the morning, park as far away from the door as possible or even consider walking or biking to work, if it's feasible. Take the stairs instead of the elevator and try seated leg extensions under your desk.

Try a Fitness Ball Instead of a Chair

• Using an inflatable fitness ball to sit at your desk forces you to engage your muscles to remain balanced. According to physical therapist Cheryl Soleway, this encourages active sitting rather than passive sitting. Soleway says that the fitness ball provides "a low level of neuromuscular activity --- your abdominal and trunk muscles are contracting to some degree." There may be some muscle fatigue issues from sitting on the ball throughout an entire 8-hour shift, so start with 20 minutes and alternate sitting on the ball with sitting on an ergonomic chair designed to provide adequate back support.