Working on the Ball: A Simple Guide to Office Fitness

By Jane Clapp and Sarah Robichaud

A fitness plan with exercises to help you lose weight, get fit, improve posture and combat stress, all from the comfort of your desk—includes photos.

People today are spending more time at work and less time being active, whether by sitting in front of a computer all day or in a car battling grueling traffic-or both! Working on the Ball solves this problem by providing an innovative, playful approach to fitness, no gym shoes or expensive club membership required. Authors Jane Clapp and Sarah Robichaud, both fitness professionals, don't take themselves—or readers—too seriously. They offer a fun, reasonable routine that any office worker can follow from day one. Hour by hour, the authors take readers through a full day of “active sitting,” using a stability ball as a chair, and provide guidance for making healthy choices in the workplace. Also included are photographs to help illustrate each exercise and plenty of encouragement, motivation, and coaching. The authors even offer tips on after-work stress management and other health subjects. Among the book's topics are: evaluating your posture, choosing a ball, stability ball safety, avoiding eye strain and brain drain, desk setup, healthy snacking, and more. Working on the Ball makes a great gift or a wonderful fitness resource for yourself.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: May 12, 2011
• ISBN: 9780740787126

Book preview

Working on the Ball copyright © 2006 by Jane Clapp and Sarah Robichaud. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of reprints in the context of reviews. For information, write Andrews McMeel Publishing, an Andrews McMeel Universal company, 1130 Walnut Street, Kansas City, Missouri 64106.

E-ISBN: 9780740787126

Library of Congress Control Number: 2005052961

www.andrewsmcmeel.com

Photography by Michael Alberstat

www.alberstat.com

Design by Pete Lippincott

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Contents

Chapter One

Getting on the Ball

Chapter Two

Having a Ball on the Job

Chapter Three

Dropping the Ball

Acknowledgments

About the Authors

Working on the Ball in a Nutshell

Working on the Ball throws the acclaimed fitness tool into a new arena: the workplace, where most of us spend most of our time. We provide an innovative and playful approach to fitness—no gym shoes or expensive fitness club memberships required. We don’t use lots of fitness jargon and we don’t expect you to take yourself too seriously. We want to help you find the strong, sexy, and powerful you. If you do what we tell you to do, you will.

We take you through a full day of exercises to be performed at your desk while using a stability ball as a chair (also referred to as active sitting). We share useful tips for immediate lifestyle improvements to help you make healthy choices at work. And we’re there with you, on each page, to coach, to demonstrate, and to cheer you on.

Do You Sit at a Computer Most of the Day?

Anyone can deduce that sitting and slouching at a desk all day is hazardous to lower-back health and posture. In addition to making the worst of our nine-to-five activity, it can lead to such physical conditions as kyphosis (rounding of the upper back and shoulders) and lordosis (excessive curvature in the lower back). These conditions contribute to neck pain, headaches, dull lower-back pain, decreased enjoyment of life, and an unattractive appearance. Headaches and lower-back pain (in that order) are the most frequent pain ailments, according to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. A full 70 percent of the population experiences lower-back pain every year. Even though people blame their workplaces for lower-back pain and all kinds of other ailments, they remain out of touch with what their bodies really need: to eat less and move more.

These conditions are just as bad for business as they are for employees. Work-related back injuries are the most common type of injury, involving the most lost workdays. The trunk, including the shoulder and back, is the body part most affected by work incidents, accounting for 36.5 percent of all 2001 claims (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2003).

Meanwhile, growing awareness of the importance of more mindful living has created a huge market for preventative health care, as well as for exercise that is more accessible.

Roughly seventy million Americans use a computer. There’s something mesmerizing about computers. We can sit in the same posture for an hour or two and forget about the passage of time. Computers have changed the nature of our economy and the nature of the way we use our bodies.

You think working on a construction site is dangerous? Working at a computer isn’t as safe as you might like to believe. Sitting and slouching at your desk all day will make your job hazardous to good posture and back health.

There are many different possible causes for bad posture, but the most likely is a lack of awareness when sitting at your desk, the place where you spend potentially 40 to 50