Description

Bessie Neshan, an IFPA Certified Personal Trainer, will help you achieve optimum health in the workplace whether you’re an employer, employee, work in an office or work from home. This video teaches you how to start out with a fitness program at work.

Transcript

Physical Fitness at the Workplace - Starting a Fitness Program at Work Research studies have proven that employees that exercise before or during their workday experience numerous benefits, more energy, improved work performance, better time management and improved working morale. Exercise also was shown to positively affect employee’s moods, helping employees to be more tolerant of each other and work better together. Not to mention health care cost decrease when employees regularly exercise at work. Note just some of the following company statistics regarding employees who exercise during their workday versus non-exercisers. Here we go, 80% fewer sick days and 1.9 million saved in rehabilitation cost, medical claims decreased by 27% while non-exercisers claims increase 17%. Productivity increase 12.5% as well as concentration and decision making is enhanced. Annual turnover ratio 1.8% for exercisers compared to 18% for non-exercisers. The bottom line, physical fitness in the workplace improves productivity from many angles, tangible and intangible. It only makes sense then since so much time is spent at the work place. Why not maximize the time spent also improve your well being. Yet if you haven’t started an exercise program at the workplace, how can it be done? Well it’s first important to understand that health changes are specific to the system you’re training. There are three essential components of physical fitness. That’s cardiovascular endurance, muscular strength and flexibility. Cardio or aerobic training develops the heart, lungs and blood vessels. Muscular strength or strength training builds lean muscle tissue, stronger bones and increases metabolism. Flexibility improves the range of motion of the joints which improves overall physical performance and reduces the risk of injury. All three components along with proper nutrition contribute to optimum health. If you’re just starting out, begin slowly and don’t over do it. Choose moderate intense activities that you enjoy the most. Gradually build up the duration and the frequency or the intensity of the activity to reap further results. Perhaps your workplace provides a wellness and fitness center on the premises, offer cardio equipment or aerobic classes and strength-training machines or free weights, or programs like flexibility classes such as pilates and yoga. Perhaps outside of your facility an outside track or trails available for walking and running or jogging. I strongly encourage you to utilize these amenities. Your employer in essence is investing in your long-term health by providing these services. However, perhaps you don’t have these services available to you, what can you do during your workday? First, be sure to always have comfortable clothing, walking or running shoes in your car or office. This way you’re always prepared. At best park your car further away than you usually do and take the stairs instead of the elevator or the escalator. Every little bit helps. But in regards to specific aerobic training on your lunch hour, something as easy walking or jogging outside in the parking lot or adjacent streets can be beneficial. Now if that’s not an option, driving to a nearby park or school track is a viable alternative, of course weather permitting. In bad weather another option is simply walking up and down the stairs for an extended period of time. Don’t be embarrassed. Encourage your co-workers to do the same. They’ll benefit just as well. Worst case scenario, throw in like a CD player or an iPod and get in the zone, you heart will thank you later. In regards to flexibility training, certainly the stretching exercise discussed in the previous segment will help you become more flexible. I covered an extensive head to toe sectional progression set of exercises that can be done throughout your workday. Please review that segment again for direction. Now what can be done in regards to strength training again in the event that a fitness center with strength training machines or free weights is not available? I’m going to explain and demonstrate simple exercises that can be done throughout your workday that are convenient and time efficient. Keep in mind I’m not going to give you a long list of exercises, rather this is to supplement perhaps a strength training program hopefully you have or will establish outside of your workplace. But remember this key point, a form is half the battle so please be sure to listen to the queues given to you, get the most from the exercise. Also maintain good posture through the moves, back is straight, shoulders pinned back, soft bend in the joints such as the knees and the elbows. Your movement should be slow and controlled, never fast or jerky. Think about the muscle group that you’re working again to gain the most from the exercise. And although we’re not using any external weights here in this particular setting, we are using our own body’s resistance as well as isometric contractions to work the muscle. Isometric contractions simply means the muscle is tensed, you’re just holding the muscle. As you’ll see much can be much accomplished even without weights. So are you ready? Why don’t you practice along with me? Let’s breakdown these exercises into three parts, upper body, lower body and abdominals. Let’s start with the upper body. I’m going to take into a desk push-up. So you can remove your chair from your area and you’re going to utilize your desk. Now I’m going to show you modifications as well but I’ll take it into the basic push-up and then we’ll show you easier version. You’re going to take the legs outright and your arms are going to be extended wide and you’re going to bring your body down first of all and be sure to suck it in. Always working your abs is a great trick while you’re doing any exercise, not just here. You’re going to take the body and press it down into the table or the desk and you’ll notice my elbows, they’re 90 degrees bent outward. Of course you want to be able to use proper form and never take the form into a faster jerky move, you want to exhale on the hard part so let’s talk about breathing on the downward motion and you inhale on the up, take it down and you push up. Now if you want a little extra concentration on the tricep, simply bring the hands in. You’ll notice this if you try this. It’s a little bit more difficult than a regular chest push-up. Alright here we go. We take it down. Elbows are in close to the body and you push-up. Of course I’m going a little bit slow for the demonstration, but of course you can speed up the pace at your level. Now of course if you are just starting out, of course that’s a little hard. So as you notice I just brought my feet in to make it a little easier. So I went from an outward position. I’m going to take it in here to make it a little easier for myself and now I’m just simply going to bring down the chest towards the desk and push-up. Bring down the chest and then push-up. This is much easier than having my legs extended. Same applies with the tricep. My elbows are in tight. You’ll notice its contracting right here, tricep brachii, you want to press in and blow it out, okay? Now keep in mind this is desk push-up. You can also do this on the wall, same format, a wall push-up or a tricep wall push-up.