Work it! Exercises for Computer Users

If you sit at a desk all day, chances are good that the muscles in the back of your neck and between your shoulder blades are a little achy by the end of your work day.  A lot of the time our inclination is to stretch sore, tired muscles,  but that can do more harm than good in this case. Those achy muscles in your back are the 90-pound weaklings of the shoulder girdle, griping about having to hold up your head against the force of gravity.  Stretching them will only make them weaker — they’re already barely hanging on! As your shoulders shrug up and in, and your head juts forward and down toward your laptop screen, the strong, silent muscles of the chest and anterior neck shorten and pull on the opposing, weaker back muscles.

The fix: stretch the strong and strengthen the weak!  Try this routine a couple of times a week, doing each exercise in order and completing the full series 3 times.  Rest for 30 seconds to 1 minute between exercises.  Choose weights that are heavy enough that you can JUST finish each set of exercises but not so heavy that your form suffers.  Increase your weights when 12 reps become too easy.

 

30 Superman extensions

30 Airplane extensions

30 second plank (on hands or forearms)

12 skull crusher triceps extensions

12 single-arm bent-over rows

12 dumbbell reverse flys

12 dumbbell lateral raises

12 single-arm external shoulder rotations