15 exercises you can do at your desk.
One sixty-second exercise once an hour, picked from this list more or less at random. No equipment, no changing clothes, no plan. Ten exercises across an eight-hour day adds up to about ten minutes of movement, which is roughly what your legs were asking for anyway.
The hardest part of "exercises you can do at your desk" isn't the exercises. It's that nothing on the internet matches what people actually want, which is a short list of things they can do in sixty seconds, looking only mildly odd, without putting on running shoes or watching a video. So that's what this is.
Group the list into five buckets (legs, back, core, hips, shoulders), do one or two from each over the course of a workday, and you've covered everything a desk-bound body tends to complain about. Pick whichever sounds least annoying in the moment. The right one is the one you'll actually do.
1. Chair squats
Stand in front of your chair. Lower your bottom toward the seat as if you're going to sit, tap it lightly, then stand back up. Do ten. If you keep your weight in your heels and your chest up, this is exactly a real squat.
wakes up: quads, glutes, hip mechanics2. Calf raises
Stand behind your chair, lightly hold the back. Rise up onto the balls of your feet, hold for a second at the top, lower with control. Twenty reps. Surprisingly demanding by rep eighteen.
wakes up: calves, ankle mobility, circulation3. Standing knee lifts
Standing, hands on hips. Lift your right knee up toward your chest, lower, then lift your left. Do twenty alternating reps. A casual version of marching in place that doesn't feel as silly as it sounds.
wakes up: hip flexors, balance, core4. Standing back extensions
Stand up, hands on your lower back. Gently arch backwards, looking up at the ceiling, breathing out as you go. Hold for two breaths, then return upright. Repeat five times. Counteracts the all-day forward hunch.
wakes up: spinal extensors, postural muscles5. Cat-cow at the desk
Stand, hands on your desk, feet about hip-width back. Drop your belly toward the floor while looking up (cow). Then round your spine toward the ceiling, tucking your chin (cat). Slow rounds, eight to ten.
wakes up: full spine, mid-back stiffness6. Seated spinal twist
Sit tall, feet flat. Place your right hand on the outside of your left knee, your left hand on your chair behind you. Gently turn your torso to the left. Hold fifteen seconds, switch sides. Lead with your chest, not your neck.
wakes up: lower- and mid-back rotation7. Chair leg lifts
Sit at the front edge of your chair, hands gripping the sides. Extend both legs out straight, then lift them up toward the ceiling as a unit, lower with control. Eight to ten reps. Looks like nothing. Feels like something.
wakes up: lower abs, hip flexors8. Standing side bends
Stand tall, right arm reaching up. Lean to the left, feeling the stretch along your right side. Hold three seconds, return upright, switch arms. Five each side. Quiet enough to do during a call.
wakes up: obliques, lateral spine9. Standing torso twists
Stand tall, arms out at shoulder height. Slowly twist your torso from side to side, letting your arms swing naturally. Twenty alternating twists. Lubricates the whole midsection.
wakes up: obliques, lower-back rotation10. Standing hip flexor stretch
Stand next to your chair. Step your right foot back into a small lunge, keep your back leg straight, gently tuck your pelvis under. Hold thirty seconds. Switch sides. The single most useful counter to a sitting day.
wakes up: hip flexors, opens up the front of the hip11. Seated figure-four stretch
Sit tall. Cross your right ankle over your left knee, gently lean forward from the hips until you feel a stretch in your right glute. Hold twenty seconds. Switch sides. Hugely relieving in mid-afternoon.
wakes up: glutes, outer hips, piriformis12. Glute squeezes
Sitting or standing, squeeze both glutes together as hard as you can, hold for five seconds, release. Repeat ten times. Reactivates muscles that have been napping inside your chair.
wakes up: glutes, posterior chain13. Shoulder rolls
Lift your shoulders up toward your ears, then roll them back and down in a smooth circle, breathing out. Ten slow rolls back, ten forward. The single most popular desk-stretch on the internet for a reason.
wakes up: upper traps, shoulder mechanics14. Wall (or doorframe) chest opener
Stand sideways to a wall or doorframe. Place your forearm against it at shoulder height, then gently rotate your body away. Hold twenty seconds. Switch sides. Counteracts the typing-hunch better than any rolled-up towel.
wakes up: chest, front of shoulders, pec stretch15. Arm circles
Stand with arms straight out at shoulder height. Make ten small backwards circles, then ten medium ones, then ten large ones. Reverse direction. By the time you finish, your shoulders will feel awake in a way you forgot they could.
wakes up: shoulder joint, deltoids, upper backPick three. The one that opens your hips (#10), the one that opens your chest (#14), and one of the leg ones (#1 or #3). Do those three at different points in the day, every workday. That alone is more than 90% of desk workers.
The compounding effect isn't the exercise. It's that you stood up at all. Most days, that's the only intervention you needed.
How to actually do this consistently
This list is solved. The execution is the hard part, and everyone who has ever printed a list like this has run into the same wall: you forget. Not because you don't care. Not because you're lazy. Because desks and screens are extremely good at making one hour feel like ten minutes, and "I'll do a stretch in a bit" is a thought you've had every day for years.
The fix is some kind of cue you can't ignore. A wrist tap, a phone alarm, a calendar block, an app whose entire job is to be the cue. We made one of those, because we'd tried every other option and kept skipping.
let moo pick the moment.
Sixty-second nudge, once an hour, all day. Free, no account, made by a nonprofit. iPhone, Apple Watch, Mac menu bar, Android, Chrome.
