5 Great Exercises You Can Do from Your Chair!

Living increasingly busy lives often means getting out to the gym and exercising can present something of a dilemma more especially when you’ve paid for a membership that you rarely make use of. Despair not! you can actually do a lot to negate those missed sessions – doing simple exercises at your office desk or at home can also supplement in between the training that your usual program prescribes. Finding yourself stuck at the desk more often than not? Then read on for these 5 Great Exercises You Can Do from Your Chair!

1. Bulgarian Split Squats

These require very little space or expertise to complete yet at the same time, offer you a solid range of benefits. They’re great for your legs and help overall quad strength. As a unilateral exercise they also allow you to concentrate on one leg at a time and iron out any discrepancies along the way as well as improving your balance and stability. Finally, split squats are excellent for improving hip mobility – a real concern for many adults given the sedentary lifestyle habits that many still have.

2. Chair Dips

These take up virtually zero space and can be completed by almost anyone. These are great for working on your wrist, triceps and chest strength as well as improving shoulder stability. If you need more resistance either stretch your legs out further or find a heavy book to place on your legs to add to the weight.

3. Ankle Rotations

For a number of us, the ankles don’t get much direct attention so some deliberate strengthening will often be found useful. Simple ankle rotations are easy to do and you can complete them while working or watching TV. This simple exercise can increase mobility and ankle strength, prevent strains. If you want to improve your squat or deadlift form, ankle mobility will be a significant key to bearing heavier loads, as well as supporting other areas of your training.

4. Leg Raises

Another simple one to do in front of the TV or at your desk. Doing a few sets of leg raises a day will do wonders for your core strength and overall trunk stability. You can get strong quite quickly with this exercise. Start with your legs tucked into your chest and as that becomes easier, straighten them out to give a little more resistance and make the exercise more challenging.

5. Breathing Exercises

Lots of people focus on their physical training and often neglect their mental well being. Simple breathing exercises can go a long way to helping control anxiety thereby enhancing peace and mindfulness. Adding some of these exercises into your daily routine will assuredly improve your physical function and, by extension, increase your productivity.

With these 5 Great Exercises You Can Do from Your Chair, you can still make an impact on your own body without necessarily making ‘big’ movements or tracking large tracts of land! Knowing how to exercise and workout wherever you are is a very high leverage skill set. You can get in quick workouts to spot strengthen areas of weakness (ie. an unstable joint) and improve mobility. Now you have no excuses to skip doing at least some exercise on a daily basis, no matter how simple it happens to be.

We shall revisit this topic as there is an almost infinite variety of exercises and levels of progression to add as you practice – so you’ll never need to worry about exhausting all the possibilities! Do you do any of the above? What simple exercises help you the most? Let us know in the comments below, and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, & Instagram!

David Challis

David, a student at the University of Exeter, is primarily interested in functional fitness coupled with the benefits of weightlifting. Having used a variety of these methods to train for rugby and recover from various injuries, David believes that implementing a combination of different training styles unlocks the door to successful, sustainable as well as exciting training!

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