Simple exercises for the office

Presenter - Now let's go through the office exercises, because obviously a lot of people spend the whole eight hours in the office slouched in front of the computer.

Lucy - OK, well this one is great; you could make sure you do this every day. Start off with just doing a few shoulder rolls. What that does is, it kind of mobilises and warms up through the chest, the shoulder and the back joints. Then we've got the stretches through the back, where you're trying to sort of separate the shoulder blades. Then you can do the reverse of that. And for someone sat on a computer all day, this is fantastic to really open up the chest muscles.

Lucy - So then we can do some toning exercises, and the first one we'll do is really fantastic for working into the waist. Make sure you're sitting with good posture – shoulders pulled back, belly button tight to the spine – with your feet a hip-width distance apart. Sit nice and tall in the chair, and just reach round to the side, turning the whole of the upper body, and then come back to the centre. Now the great thing with this, because of the way we're seated we can't twist the hips, so what we're doing is we're isolating the muscles. Now can you feel that in your waist?

Presenter - Yes, I can actually, really pulling. It's good.

Lucy - If you were to cheat and not go that far round, you wouldn't feel it, so you just need to make sure that you're working to your fullest range of movement.

Presenter - How many times should you do this?

Lucy - I would say aim for just doing 10 and making sure that you can really feel that. At the same time that you're rotating, keep your abdominals pulled in really tight. The benefit of that is we're going to sit with good posture, you're going to strengthen the deepest abdominal muscle, plus we work the obliques which shape the waist.

Lucy - Another simple abdominal exercise we can do is, again, sit with good posture and just pull the naval or belly button tight to the spine, and hold it for like 10 seconds. Just keep that muscle nice and tight. If you imagine that this muscle, it's a bit like a corset, and if you have it undone it doesn't shape you and it doesn't protect or pull anything in. So by doing this, we're making it nice and tight as if someone's pulled it in tight, so it shapes you and is fantastic for preventing back injuries.

Presenter - And I guess these are exercises that apply to people who have maybe not exercised and are sitting at home and want to start?

Lucy - Absolutely, a great way to start is by doing these. So, we've got two really good abdominal exercises. Now the next one, no one will even know you're doing it, you could be on the phone and do it. This is great for the bottom, so women like this exercise. It's literally as simple as just squeezing your bum really tight and holding it for a couple of seconds. This form of exercise we call isometric, and basically it means you're just squeezing a muscle, so we're not working through a range of movements.

Presenter - What are the end results for this one?

Lucy - You're strengthening, you're making that muscle stronger so it will just kind of help tone up, through the hips, through the thighs, through the bottom. The great thing is with that, the more toned a bigger muscle is, the more calories you burn, so the more toned your bottom is, the more calories you burn.

Lucy - Now, this next one is fantastic to strengthen through the front of the thighs and also if someone's had any knee problems, as it's used in rehabilitation for knee injuries. Again, it's really important to always sit with good posture. Quite a good way of remembering this is to imagine if someone's dropped an ice cube down your back, because that immediately makes you sit nice and tall.

Lucy - And all you do is you lift the leg so that the knee is hip level. You just extend the leg straight, and back down. You don't really need to do any more than 10 of these and you'll really start to feel that working through the front. The higher up you have the leg, the higher the knee is from the hip, then the more you'll work that. So do 10 on one leg, rest, then do 10 on the other leg. The quadricep is another big muscle group, so the more toned a big muscle is, the more calories you're burning.

Lucy - And then we can do another one which is very simple and it's literally, again, feet hip-width distance apart, and you're just going to come up onto the tip toes, then come down onto the heels. This works the calf muscle and it works the muscle that runs down the front of the shin. So it's just raising onto the tip toes, lower, and then just lifting the front of the feet off the floor.

Presenter - These are the sort of exercises you could do if you're on a long plane journey.

Lucy - Exactly, brilliant for that. You see there, with those exercise, we've worked through the chest, we've worked through the abdominals, we've worked the gluteal muscles, we've worked through the knees, we've worked through the hip joint and the ankle joints, and the great thing also is it kind of pumps the blood round, it keeps your circulation nice and healthy.

Presenter - Releasing those endorphins.

Lucy - Totally. And they're so easy to do. For a complete beginner who's sat at home, who has never exercised, just start off with some gentle exercise like that. Or if you're stuck in the office all day, you know there are some easy little things that you can do makes all the difference.