Desk Workers Recovery: 13-Min Full-Body Stretch Routine

Hey everyone and welcome to this yoga for desk workers video. My name is Adam Ellis. I'm a yoga instructor at yoga for BDOJ and we're going to take a look at a few stretches that are going to hopefully relieve some of that stiffness and soreness you get from sitting down all day. So if you do sit down all day for work maybe behind a desk or in an office this video is going to help you so make sure you stick around and try these stretches yourself.

Okay so the first thing we're going to do in this stretches for desk workers video is we're just going to sit on the floor with our hands behind us, our knees bent and just start to move our knees from left to right and it doesn't matter how much movement you're getting here at first we're just working on getting a little bit of movement in the hips because sometimes especially when we've been sat down all day it can feel really good to just invite a bit of movement here and as we're doing these we're obviously thinking a lot about movement but think a lot about your breath as well so just slow breaths in and out the nose and you're probably doing this twice the speed you need to so let's slow it down even more and keep going from left to right and then next time your knees are over to the left just stop there and then tense your glutes so sending your hips over to the left let's ease off over to the right now good then one more over to the left and one more over to the right good so now we've got a bit of movement in the hips we're going to come up to all fours and then from all fours we're going to do some cat and cows so my wrists are under my shoulders my knees are under my hips then I look up tilt my hips away shrug my shoulders back and drop my chest take a breath here then I'm going to look towards my hips and then tilt my hips towards my head and push my chest through my back take a deep breath here and then back up for an inhale for an inhale exhale down and just a few of them and if it feels good as you're moving you can move forwards and back and find those tight areas in your back again from sitting down all day really nice to get some hip movement and just work the back moving everything finding those tight areas and looking after them nice okay now just bring your hands forwards and then sit your hips back over your heels if this isn't very comfortable for you you can open your knees a little wider and sit back towards your heels here see if you can feel a stretch in your lower back here when you're doing this and take three deep breaths here so good let's come back up to all fours now bring your right foot in front of you here I'm going to come up and now my hips are staying above this back knee so we're not coming forwards into a lunge I want you to stay up here and then so right now I'm poking my bum out behind me but I want you to do the opposite so tuck that under until you can feel a stretch in the front of the left hip and just breathe here with that engagement stretching out the front of that hip and we're up nice and straight here good ease off that step the right foot forwards a little bit more bring your left hand down now and then we're just going to let our hips drop down and our knee open out to the right so you bring that right hand down if you want but just trying to stretch out the left side here then back up and switch your knees so now left foot my hips are above the right knee instead of poking my bum out I'm going to tuck feel that stretch and breathe here nothing special with this so I'm going to come back up and then I'm going to come back down and then I'm going to come back up and then I'm going to come back down and then I'm going to come feel that stretch and breathe here nothing special with this it's just stretching out the hips and it always feels really good step the left foot forward slightly right hand comes down and drop your hips down here here just stretching out that right side okay back to all fours now and now we're coming back to where we started with our knees up this time my knees are coming over to the left and then my right knee is going back so that my legs are in this zigzag here okay then from that I'm just going to try and fold over my left shin to feel a bit of a stretch in the hips and we might be here feeling a stretch or we might be down here but whatever is a stretch for you just stay there and slow that breath down down and if you want a little more of a stretch when we're here we can go back to pigeon so just think about the back knee I'm going to drag that further behind me and point my knee down into the mat and let my hips open out here but if you do this and you feel super tight just go back a step and go back to the one we were in before and again it's really important with these stretches that we're not pushing to our absolute limit we're just stretching to a point where we're comfortable as you can hear I can speak fine I'm still breathing I'm not like tensed and you know it's not like I'm holding a heavy weight up or something I've got I can I can still speak and just carry on as usual let's ease off and now over to the other side with the knees and then set that zigzag leaning forwards and just because you might have been able to do it the other side might not mean you can do it this side so go easy and if you want to that back knee can point down and let your hips open and we're opening the hips out here not the knees so if you can feel a bit of a stretch in your knees just undo what you're doing and go back okay let's come out of that so now the other thing as well when we sat down all day we usually we've got a keyboard in front of us or something and our backs are like this so let's try and open everything out the other way so come up to all fours keep your hips above your knees and step your hands forwards looking towards your hands and then just let your chest drop down to the mat okay so I'm stretching out my shoulders here opening up my chest and whatever else you can feel stretching my lats are quite tight today so I can feel it there too and breathe here here and then just like those cat and cows we were doing I want you to push down with your hands and lift your chest up as you tuck your hips under and look towards your hips and drop look up towards the hands drop the chest and push just a few times opening out the chest and shoulders so really opening everything out the other way and finally just let your chest drop down take three nice and slow breaths through the nose here so brilliant let's come up to all fours now bring the legs in front of us again sitting down now my hands are going behind me here not too far to begin with my knees are bent and instead of this we want to do this so just let your back come out behind you here I'm not like this all right then shrug the shoulders back and open the chest maybe step the hands back a little more and bend the elbows behind you and away so we're stretching out the chest and you'll feel it right in the front of the shoulders let's come back up maybe scoot the hips forwards again and then elbows back stretching everything out here then back up make sure you're shrugging those shoulders back and opening the chest and back and back up one more back and back up okay let's drop down to our backs now so backs in the mat get a nice and flat back on the mat and then lift your right foot up and your right ankle goes on top of your left knee here then lift your left foot off the mat and then reach up either around my hamstring or around my shin here but we don't want to be like this all uncomfortable here again we want to be breathing nice and comfortable so if you need to ease off a bit in order to get to that then let's do that and again breathing here nice and comfortable good let's switch now so outside of the left ankle on the right knee lift the right foot up and reach through for the hamstring or the shin and breathe okay drop both feet down let's lift the hips up so drive your feet down into the mat lift your hips up off the mat so you can feel that stretch in the front of the hips like we had earlier then drop your hips down then lift back up this time make sure you're using your glutes so tend your glutes maybe drive the hips a bit higher and lower and then one more driving the hips up and lower okay this time right ankle back on the left knee i'm going to turn to my left side so i'm turning away from you then my right hand points up towards the ceiling and i'm looking up as well then i'm opening my hand out to the right and just take a few breaths here in this twist and i'm not pushing into it i'm just letting everything go super chill so let's undo that so turn to your left push yourself back onto your back and switch the feet now turn to the right so i'm turning to face you my left hand drives up and then opens to the left and again breathe so good turn onto your right again push yourself onto your back and seat yourselves up so that is it for my stretches for desk workers class hope you guys enjoyed it make sure you come back and do this more when you're feeling sore cheers guys