Ergonomic Stretches for Typing

Video Transcript

"Hi, this is Linda Lewis on behalf of Expert Village.com. Check out my website at www.keytime.com. What are ergonomic stretches? It is very important to remember the stretch that it used to be in the olden days that we would have to walk to the store and carry the groceries home and we were doing a lot of motions. Now we drive to the store, now we have to go up jogging and go to the gym to get our exercise and with keyboarding you are sitting there in a position and you are sitting even if you are slumped down especially which is not proper but you need to be sitting up. It is important to stretch every 10 to 15 minutes, just do a very simple stretch. One of the things that the chair is you have arms on them, you want to make sure that your arms are not resting on this because your shoulders are going to get very hunched up and you are using different muscles with your arm; you are cutting off your circulation here. And so remembering that your elbows would be right at your waist for your practice then you would want to then take your hands down and shake them out. This is a common one and a tuitive one that people use in sports often. You are working to get your circulation to your finger tips and that again, if your elbow is lower than your hand your circulation has a difficult time getting up to your finger tips. Another stretch for this area here, this is your carpal tunnel, you want to keep that so that it is open and relaxed so you want to lock your fingers together and pull your elbows apart, holding each stretch about 3 to 5 seconds. Another one is to take your palms forward and then reach out. Now without bending forward really stretch. This feels really good. Then another is to relax your shoulders and this is good for the back. Take your elbow; press it over your shoulder. If you’ve been doing a good job, just give yourself a pat on the back and then take your other one and do the same. You want to hold and push your elbow so that you are stretching the back and your shoulder."