When you're working from home, it's fairly easy to sit in the same spot all day long — give or take a few trips to the bathroom and the kitchen for lunch. But it's that lack of 9-to-5 motion that might be contributing to your joint stiffness come the end of the day.
One solution? Scheduling in a midday stretching break. For that, we turned to Steven Leonard, a yoga and meditation teacher and functional movement specialist at the Kripalu Center For Yoga and Health.
Check out his simple 10-minute sequence ahead.
"When you take slow, deep breaths, it signals the nervous system to relax," Leonard said. "When the nervous system is in a relaxed state, muscles, connective tissue, and joints tend to move in a more smooth and integrated way."
"Circling the major joints of the body creates lubrication within the joint and also moves the surrounding muscles in a dynamic way," Leonard noted.
Hip Circles
Shoulder Circles
Knee/Ankle Circles
"Dynamic movements can be done slowly, quickly, in a small range of motion, or large range of motion," Leonard said. "The benefit of these exercises is to move in a holistic and integrated way — the way we evolved to move."
Squat Flow
Side Stretch
Swinging Twist