A Pilates expert shares five key moves to correct your ‘working from home posture’

Working from home can play havoc on your posture, energy levels and overall mobility. Scheduling daily movement that addresses your posture can be invigorating, reduce aches and pain and create more mental space for increased focus and drive.

Create a calendar reminder throughout your day for this 10 minute mat flow you can do anytime from home.

Pilates guru and founder of Sydney’s Bodylove Pilates wellness Studios, Ali Handley, shares five key moves to correct “working from home posture” and help ease the stress as we navigate the challenges of protracted lockdowns.

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Breath work

Simple breath work can help you transition from the rush and demands of your day and fell more grounded, centered & calm.

Set up

Begin by sitting tall, grounded evenly through your sitting bones. Close your eyes and place one hand on your heart space & one hand on your belly.

Exercise

Inhale through the nose & feel the body expand, soften & widen with the breath. Exhale out the nose very slowly, subtly and fully feeling the ribcage relax back toward the midline of your body. Reps – try for at least 8 rounds.

Chest Opener

Being hunched over our computers all day, seated on couches & beds affects the natural curves of our spine. Gentle rotation and chest stretching is an easy way to counter this rounding forward of the shoulders.

Set up

Seated on a chair, evenly weighted through sitting bones with your pelvis, ribcage and shoulders stacked. Palms together in line with your heart and stretched out in front of you.

Exercise

Sweep one hand back, spiralling the ribcage around the spine towards the moving hand. The gaze follows the hand, while the pelvis stays square. Reps 8 in each direction.

Tricep push-ups

We want to build strength down the back of the arm and this variation allows us to maintain an open, broad chest.

Set up

Seated on a chair, wrap your hands around the front of the seat. Widen through your collar bones & shine forward through the heart. Keep the chin pointed down.

Exercise

Inhale & float the glutes forward of the seat and bend through the elbows lowering the body down below the chair. Have a sensation of wrapping the elbows toward one another. Exhale & straighten the arms. Reps X 12 Challenge – hold and pulse on the final rep.

Hip Lift

Our hips get super tight when we sit for extended periods. This variation strengthens the lower body, opens the hips & widens the chest.

Set up

Knees are bent, hips on heels with palms reaching forward in line with the shoulders.

Exercise

Inhale & hover the hips above the heels. Exhale & lift the hips to a high kneeling position as you bend the elbows out the side and open through the chest. Reps X 12 Challenge – hold and pulse hips above heels on the final rep.

Thoracic Rotation

Rotation through the ribcage has a wonderful cascade effect on the body. It can provide release through the lower back, assist in respiration & can help reverse the rounding that occurs when we spend a lot of time hunched over.

Set up

Knees are bent, sit the hips back toward heels. One hand extended forward on the mat & opposite fingertips to your temple.

Exercise

Inhale & drop bent elbow to the mat. Gaze follows. Exhale & push into the extended hand and then rotate bent elbow up toward the ceiling as gaze follows, once again spiralling rib cage around the spine. Reps X 8 each way

Upper Spine lift

For balanced posture we want to strengthen the muscles down the spine, this also works on reversing the hunched over position we find ourselves in a lot especially when working from kitchen tables or sofas.

Set up

Lie on your belly. Legs are separated hip distance apart and toes turn out towards the edge on your mat. Place one hand on top of the other and then the forehead on the hands.

Exercise

Inhale & widen through the collar bones, lengthen forward with your heart. Exhale & draw the belly button to the spine, push down through the hands & lift through the back of the head to float the chest and head up. Reps X 8 Challenge – hold the extension for 3 rounds of breath.