Got lower back pain? Get moving!

Sitting all day while at work or during meetings and conferences is a sure-fire way to get ‘Desk Jockey Syndrome’ – chronic lower back pain. If you’re experiencing this, you are not alone: Millions of people suffer, and there’s a simple way to alleviate it: Movement.

An August 2020 systematic review and meta-analysis study revealed that yoga offers great short-term relief from back pain, and walking reduces discomfort both short-term and long-term (greater than 6 months). If you sit less and move more, you’ll reap positive health benefits. Here’s how to integrate both activities into your lifestyle.

Try yoga

If you’re just starting out on your yoga journey or looking for ways to integrate yoga into your virtual or hybrid meetings and workdays, I have a library of short, curated yoga video breaks that are easy to do between sessions or as stretch and mind-body breaks throughout the work day. These include bedtime yoga practices like wake-up and wind-down yoga poses and desk jockey yoga, both seated and standing yoga poses.

Here’s a sneak peek of one of my yoga micro-breaks which comes with a downloadable tip sheet with images and descriptions of each of the five standing yoga poses.

Take a walk

• Instead of eating lunch at your desk, head outside for a walk.
• Park your car several blocks from your destination and walk the rest of the way.
• Take it one step at a time. All steps count! Start small, and build up until you are walking a minimum 30 minutes per day. It doesn’t have to be all at once; you can walk in 10-minute spurts.
• Aim to squeeze in at least 150 minutes of walking per week.

Want to level up your walk? Add poles!

I’m an avid pole walker. It keeps my posture upright, and gives me a way better workout, burning twice as many calories and helping me reach a significantly higher heart rate.

I get a total body muscular and cardiovascular workout while strengthening my core, plus sculpting and toning benefits, because pole walking activates most upper and lower body muscles.

Grab my pole walking freebie to read more about the benefits of pole walking HERE.

Try yoga and keep moving forward with my full-body workout guide to urban pole walking so you can up your fitness game.

Stay well,

PS: I now partner with a US-based distributor of urban walking poles, and am offering pole walking starter packages for individuals, workplaces and conferences. Contact me HERE to find out more!