Since the start of the new year, I've been working on keeping myself in an active way, chiefly in the morning before I go to work, as well as before I go to bed after a shower.
Now, immediately you might wonder why I would be doing exercises after a shower, and the key here it's nothing strenuous, nor high-intensity. It's mainly used to keep myself limber and mobile as my muscles are already warmed up after a nice warm shower.
Seeing as we tend to live more sedative lives with our backs more hunched over, or the fact we use our backs too often, it stands to reason that performing lower back exercises would be a good thing. So for the past couple of years, I've been doing a series of yoga exercises meant to emphasize the lower back, while also helping to aid in my overall flexibility in stretching. This also includes hamstring stretching, neck movement, and hip flexibility.
I was searching one night for exercises for your lower back, and came across this video above. I found it to be quite a nice way to introduce some exercises in order to help my lower back, while also allowing meself to modify it to my needs, which is exactly what I've done. I don't do all of the exercises shown in the video, and I've also slightly altered a couple since I don't have as much flexibility as she does. Nevertheless, it's worked quite well in keeping me limber.
https://www.artofmanliness.com/2014...oldtime-strongmans-15-minute-morning-routine/
(Note: Brett doesn't do some of the exercises exactly as are shown in the book)
Now, this routine is much more recent, specifically this year is when I discovered this, and for the past several weeks, I've incorporated it into my morning routine of getting up, eating breakfast, and getting ready for work. I've found it to be a pretty good way of just waking everything up. As an addition to this routine, I've added push-ups, and pull-ups to it. I don't do this to be strenuous, or anything high-intensity. Rather, just keeping things moving, or greasing the groove as it's known as.
Even throughout the day, I'll go ahead, and do some exercises as a means of just getting me out of the chair, or as a way of staying in motion. Even as I sit here in my office chair, I feel the need to get up, and do something.
And lastly, I've been working on ways to improve my grip strength seeing as my job involves having grip, and lifting heavier stuff, so I find having a good grip helps everything out a lot. At my desk, I keep two golf balls to use as cheap
baoding balls, as well as a stress ball, and throughout the day, I'll grab one or the other, and use for a couple minutes. I even bought two 2" solid steel balls (each weighing over 1lb), and use those as baoding balls, which can really give your hands and forearms a workout by just doing that. Laugh and snicker all you want for exercising your hands and forearms with balls.
