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Welcome to Staff Wellness
Fitness--Working Wellness
Welcome to Your Working Wellness Weekly Stretch
![j0402321[1].jpg](/j0402321[1].jpg)
As part of the Staff Wellness Yoga class fall term, you get a Working Wellness stretch once a week. By the end of the term, we’ll have enough stretches to do one each hour during the working day. They are short, sweet, stress relievers.
Week Four: Trapezius Stretch
Everyone knows that there are benefits to good posture. There must be, right, otherwise why would our mother’s spend so much time harping on standing up straight. Well, good posture has many benefits—not the least of which is making us look longer, leaner and healthier. Good posture also gives your internal organs a break from being all squished together. It also encourages us to breather deeper, fuller breaths.
Let’s take 30 seconds to release the trapezius muscles from sitting at a desk and typing all day:
Sitting in your chair with your spine straight and long and your feet flat on the floor, arrange your feet so your legs are hip-width apart and parallel to one another. Take a hold of the right edge of your chair with your right hand. Lean to the left as far as you can (without falling out of your chair—we don’t want to have to write up any incident reports). Keep your sitting bones evenly balanced and rooted to the chair and press your right shoulder down away from the ear. Hold for 15 seconds. Repeat on the other side.
Remember to go back to previous week’s stretches. Give yourself a 30 second break to stretch once an hour.
Walk tall through your week!
Previous Week's Stretches (these will be changed to a link to click once we have 6 stretches.
Week One: Upper Back, Between the Shoulders Stretch
Sitting in your chair with your feet flat on the floor, wrap your arms around your torso, right arm under the left arm, hugging yourself. Exhale and bring the hands up, the left elbow resting in the right elbow, with the either the backs of the hands together or the palms together. Breathe and feel the stretch; after a few breaths, raise the elbows up higher, to the level of the shoulder. Lower the arms with your exhale and repeat with the left arm under the right.
Week Two: Upper Back, Shoulders, Triceps Stretch
Is anyone else glad it’s Friday? Looking forward to sleeping in another ½ hour tomorrow? Before you leave your work week behind, take a moment to stretch, breathe and relax your way into the weekend. Try this stretch at your desk, before you drive out of your parking spot or when you hit the couch tonight.
With your feet flat on the floor and your spine long and straight, roll your shoulders back (drawing your shoulder blades toward one another) and think about dropping your shoulders away from your ears. Have your shoulders been crowding your ears all day? Give your neck a break and relax those hard working shoulders, arms, wrists and hands.
Raise both arms over your head and take a big, full stretch. Bend at your elbows and drop both hands behind your head with your elbows pointing toward the sky. Gently draw the elbows backwards as you press your sternum and ribs forward. Finish off with a little neck massage and a pat on the back before you drop your arms and give your arms a gentle shake to let any tension drop out of your fingertips. Take a deep breath and head off into a wonderful fall weekend.
Week Three: Hip Stretch
This week let’s change things up a little. We have two stretches for the shoulders and upper back. I’ll post another trapezius stretch next week. This week, let’s give the lower body some attention.
This is a classic hip opening/piraformis sitting stretch. Great for at your desk or in meetings or conferences with lots of sitting. It involves some rotation of the knee so you want to pay attention to any pain in the knee and stop at any sharp pain. You can do a similar stretch lying down or standing—which adds a balance component.
With a straight back, stand the left foot flat on the floor. Bring the right foot or ankle to the left knee—opening the right knee out to the right side. If this feels like a stretch you can hold for 4 deep breaths, stay here and breathe. Keep the ankle level—avoid resting the foot on the leg and letting the ankle drop toward the floor. Switch legs and give the same stretch to the other side.
If your hips or knees want something less intense (it’s really important to not only stretch but to be able to breathe too). Lift your right foot into your left hand and your right knee into your right hand and gently move the knee away from the torso and back toward the torso. Switch and do the other side.
When you are comfortable with the foot on the opposite knee and you want to increase the stretch, reach the spine long and begin to bend forward with a long spine. If you want to round the spine and drop the head towards the floor, you change the stretch and move it into the back and up between the shoulders—less stretch in the hip with the rounded back.
http://z.about.com/d/exercise/1/0/G/j/seatedhipstretch.jpg
Visit this link for a picture of the stretch.
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