• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
Breaking Muscle

Breaking Muscle

Breaking Muscle

  • Fitness
  • Workouts
    • Best Shoulder Workouts
    • Best Chest Workouts
    • Best Leg Workouts
    • Best Leg Exercises
    • Best Biceps Exercises
    • Best Kettlebell Exercises
    • Best Back Workouts
    • Best HIIT Workouts
    • Best Triceps Exercises
    • Best Arm Workouts
  • Reviews
    • Supplements
      • Best Pre-Workouts
      • Best Whey Protein
    • Equipment
      • Best Home Gym Machines
    • Certifications
      • ISSA Review
  • News
  • Exercise Guides
    • Legs
      • Back Squat
      • Bulgarian Split Squat
      • Goblet Squat
      • Zercher Squat
      • Standing Calf Raise
      • Hack Squat
    • Chest
      • Bench Press
      • Dumbbell Bench Press
      • Close-Grip Bench Press
      • Incline Bench Press
    • Shoulders
      • Overhead Dumbbell Press
      • Lateral Raise
    • Arms
      • Chin-Up
      • Weighted Pull-Up
      • Triceps Pushdown
    • Back
      • Deadlift
      • Trap Bar Deadlift
      • Lat Pulldown
      • Inverted Row
      • Bent-Over Barbell Row
      • Single-Arm Dumbbell Row
      • Pendlay Row
Fitness

How Foam Rolling Relieves the Pain of Working a Desk

Sitting can leave you feeling exhausted, sore, and unmotivated at the end of a long day at the office, but it can do much worse.

Written by Jack Wilson Last updated on August 3, 2014

If you work at a desk and typically sit for extended periods of time during the day, you may be suffering from more than just a case of the afternoon yawns. Sitting can leave you feeling exhausted, sore, and unmotivated at the end of a long day at the office, but it can do much worse.

Over time, sitting in the same position can negatively impact your natural posture and the way your body is intended to move. Sitting is excellent for resting from activity, but the body’s posture is more natural when standing or lying down. Our bodies are designed to be in motion, not static all day sitting in a swivel chair. Even if your desk is completely ergonomic, your body is still going to be locked in certain positions during the day.

In any of these scenarios, you are going to slowly but surely reset your natural posture to accommodate the posture you maintain at work. On its face this doesn’t sound that terrible, but resetting your body in this way can wreak havoc on your muscles and joints.

How Perpetual Sitting Destroys Posture

When your muscles are stuck in the same position for hours on end, day after day, they begin to resize themselves to accommodate these habitual, long-term sitting sessions. Let’s take a snapshot of how working in a seated position for years has taught your body to semi-permanently alter itself:

  • Your back and posterior shoulder muscles are overextended from having your hands placed on a keyboard or writing on a desk.
  • Your chest muscles and biceps have learned to remain contracted from having your hands and arms out in front of you.
  • The low back and shoulders have rolled forward, which can cause low back pain and increase your chances of shoulder injuries.
  • Your hip flexors and quadriceps have tightened from staying locked at or near a ninety-degree angle.

All of this causes uncomfortable knots in the muscle groups that have been contracted while you are sitting (pectoralis, anterior deltoid, abdominals, and hip flexors, to name a few).

So What Does this All Mean?

Are you familiar with that uncomfortable, hunched over look that most of the older executives, bosses, and managers at your company have? Terrified of the back, shoulder, and knee joint pains that your bosses complain about around the water cooler?

mobility work, how to do mobility work, doing mobility work wrong, foam roller

Take a good look, because that is going to be you in a few years if you don’t do something about it. I’ve found that the majority of my friends and clients (age ranging from mid twenties to early thirties) who work at desks during the day are already beginning to have postural changes, aches, and pains. The majority of them experience shoulder issues and injuries, low back pain, tight hips, and poor form when bending and lifting, which can lead to knee injuries and exacerbate existing back pain.

Altering natural muscle lengths affects posture and strength, and can also decrease circulation to certain muscle groups and areas of the body. So how can we start correcting these problems and work on preventing further postural deviation and injury?

Benefits of Foam Rolling and Self Myofascial Release (SMR)

Foam rolling and other methods of SMR are excellent ways to alleviate pain, help muscles return to their normal lengths, increase circulation, and decrease your chances of injury in both work and activity.

Think of it this way: the muscles that are contracted all day while sitting at a desk have developed knots in them. These knots (or adhesions) limit the range of motion of your joints and muscles, which also decreases circulation. Imagine it like a tangle or knot in a Slinky. Putting pressure on those knots with a foam roller or other SMR tools like a lacrosse ball will help massage the knot out so the muscle group can return to its intended length.

mobility work, how to do mobility work, doing mobility work wrong, foam roller

Rules of Thumb When Rolling

Some key areas to roll to help correct posture and alleviate pain include the quadriceps, trapezius, deltoids, latissimus dorsi, inner thighs, and calf muscles. Here’s how you go about it:

  1. Using a foam roller or ball, roll over the belly of the muscle group until you find a trigger point or pain point.
  2. Avoid rolling on or close to your joints.
  3. Apply pressure to that point for at least ten to fifteen seconds, but no more than 45 seconds if you are just starting out.
  4. Rest as needed, and repeat this process for the rest of the muscle group.

Keep in mind that the rolling itself is only used identify the knots in your muscles. The static pressure you apply to that trigger point or knot is what flattens it out.

Take It to Work

One of the best features about foam rollers and other SMR devices like lacrosse balls is that they are inexpensive and portable. Bring them with you to work and leave them in the office. Try to take ten to twenty minutes during your workday or lunch break to roll out your trouble areas.

Do you have a favorite foam roller or tool you keep in the office? How do you keep yourself mobile while stuff at work all day? Post your thoughts to the comments below.

Photos courtesy of Shutterstock.

About Jack Wilson

Jack Wilson is a health and fitness writer, a lifestyle fitness instructor on Udem, and an ACE Certified personal trainer in Los Angeles, California. His specialties are foam rolling and self-myofascial release, fat loss, and nutrition consulting.

Jack used to be more than forty pounds overweight. He was severely bullied and made fun of when he was younger and was miserable with the way he looked and felt. Growing up on heavy Southern cuisine in East Tennessee made it almost hopeless to lose weight. To make matters worse, his parents owned the local cookie stores, so sweets were always around the house. His weight loss journey began after losing seven pounds while in the hospital with bacterial pneumonia. He decided this was as good a start as any to lose weight. After eating healthy and working out changed his life forever, he truly believes that the path to good health should be an enjoyable lifestyle decision.

Jack is an instructor on Udemy and is currently teaching two rapidly growing courses. His course How to Lose Fat and Keep it Off has become the second most popular health and fitness course on the site with over 7,100 students. His course How to Use a Foam Roller walks you through all of the benefits of foam rolling and self-myofascial release. When Jack’s not in the gym or writing, you can find him running, surfing, cooking, picking guitar on the patio, sipping coffee on the beach, and contributing his fitness acumen to Bacon Chronicle. You can read more from Jack on his website.

View All Articles

Recommended Articles

shutterstock277195298
Sit Less and Prioritize Movement for Long-Term Fitness
Method Man Incline Dumbbell Presses December 2022
Check Out Rapper Method Man Cruising Through 120-Pound Incline Dumbbell Presses for 10 Reps
Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson Leg Workout
Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson Crushes 5 “Monster Sets” of a Leg Workout
Michael B. Jordan poster for Creed III
Michael B. Jordan and Jonathan Majors Look Like Shredded Boxing Stars in “Creed III”

Primary Sidebar

Latest Articles

Justin Medeiros Walks Through a Full Tour of His Home Gym Before CrossFit Season

Powerlifter Jimmy Kolb Logs 612.5-Kilogram (1,350.3-Pound) Equipped Bench Press World Record

The Ultimate Back and Biceps Workout for Every Lifter From Beginner to Advanced

Strongman Legend Hafthor Björnsson Receives International Sports Hall of Fame Induction

Latest Reviews

ISSA Personal Trainer Certification Review

ISSA Personal Trainer Certification Review

Best Whey Proteins for Packing on Muscle, Shredding Down, Meal Replacement, and More

Best Pre-Workouts for Building Muscle, Running, Taste, and More

Best Home Gym Machines

Best Home Gym Machines

woman lifting barbell

Be the smartest person in your gym

The Breaking Muscle newsletter is everything you need to know about strength in a 3 minute read.

I WANT IN!

Breaking Muscle is the fitness world’s preeminent destination for timely, high-quality information on exercise, fitness, health, and nutrition. Our audience encompasses the entire spectrum of the fitness community: consumers, aficionados, fitness professionals, and business owners. We seek to inform, educate and advocate for this community.

  • Reviews
  • Healthy Eating
  • Workouts
  • Fitness
  • News

Follow Us

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • Pinterest
  • RSS Feed

© 2023 · Breaking Muscle · Terms of Use · Privacy Policy · Affiliate Disclaimer · Accessibility · About