COLORADO SPRINGS — If being glued to your computer while working from home is making your body feel a little achy, we're sharing some quick, simple stretches that will help get rid of that soreness.
The three main areas you need to focus on are your neck, your shoulders, and your back.
Bradley Swallows has 10 years of experience in the field of massage therapy, and he says we tend to slouch more at home because we feel more comfortable. But, that can have serious consequences.
Swallows is the lead massage therapist at Hand and Stone Massage and Facial Spa in Colorado Springs, and he walked us through some 10-second stretches you can incorporate in your everyday routine.
NECK STRETCHES
"You want to look straight up at the ceiling," he described. "You'll arch your neck all the way back. And then you're gonna tilt it to the left. And you're gonna tilt it to the right."
SHOULDER STRETCHES
"Take one arm and you'll put it up on your shoulder," he motioned. "You'll take your other arm, and put it up here on your shoulder."
"You'll want your elbows to overlap. Give yourself a nice, little, tight hug. And you'll turn as far to the right as you can go. And then you're going to stretch over to the left and do the same on the opposite side."
BACK STRETCHES
"Find any door frame that you can kind of get your arms on both sides of," he recommended. "And essentially what you'll do is you'll spread your arms all the way out. So at first, we'll kind of go up at a 30-degree angle. And, you'll basically put your hands on the door frame and step forward."
He added, "We would do a second one at a 90-degree angle, so we'd put our shoulders up and then pull that forward. And then the last one, we'll raise our arms up as high as you can get them, and do that stretch again."
This stretch is meant to "pull your shoulders back into the position that they're supposed to be in."
WHY STRETCHING HELPS
When you're on your computer, you tend to pull your muscles forward, which can be problematic.
"If your muscles get tight enough, they can pull on your bones," Swallows said. "And then you have a slipped disk, or you have an out-of-alignment vertebrae. You can cause serious damage to your body where it's difficult for you to move."
He recommends doing any of these stretches every half hour to release tension in any of your problem areas, and working within your range of motion so you don't feel any pain or discomfort in practicing these stretches.
