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My Daily Stretching System

Posted: Tue Aug 01, 2006 2:34 pm
by phayze
I go into this in more detail over in the Shovelglove Forum, but while I was writing about I realized that there might be other interested my little system as well, so I trimmed a bit to post over here.

Like many people in our modern, push-button age I spend most of my 40-hour work-week sitting at a desk, so I have an alarm set on my computer at work to make a little sonar sound every hour to tell me get off my bony hind end and stretch for 1 or 2 minutes. Every hour it's a random muscle group or two, usually based on what feels the stiffest, what I worked out that hardest that morning, and/or what's actively hurting at the moment. I got the idea from an ergonomist that I met at a health and safety conference in May. Regular, frequent stretching is great for the muscles, stimulates circulation and improves productivity. Best of all, 2 minutes or less is pretty solidly schedulistically insignificant, so you don't have to feel like you're taking time out of your day to do it. Just make sure your coworkers can't see if you're the type to get self-conscious. ;)

No clever metaphors that I could think of, but motion is an essential part of being alive, and there's no reason to be dead all day at work - so get up and MOVE!

Posted: Thu Aug 03, 2006 12:35 am
by reinhard
Thanks for posting this, phayze. I'm not much of a stretcher myself, but if it's for you, an unobtrusive system like this sounds great.

I build in work breaks by drinking a lot of coffee, tea, and water -- ensuring frequent trips to both the coffee machine/water cooler and the bathroom. And then of course I take a full hour lunch break for urban rangering.

Reinhard