Legs · Hips · Posture
Short walk
Movement · Standing
- How to do it
- Walk away from your desk. To the far end of the room, a window, or the kitchen and back.
- Dose
- 60s
- What you should feel
- Your legs and hips loosening as you go
- Common mistake
- Taking your phone and standing still with it.
- Make it easier
- Walk to the nearest door and back.
- Avoid this movement if
- You cannot walk safely without support.
- Why DeskBreak uses it
- Walking is the best-evidenced way to break up sitting. Even a minute changes what your legs, hips and back are doing.
Stop this movement if it causes sharp or worsening pain, numbness, weakness or dizziness.
Evidence
Strong evidence.
- Breaking up prolonged sitting reduces postprandial glucose and insulin responses (Diabetes Care, 2012)
- The sedentary office: an expert statement on the growing case for change towards better health and productivity (British Journal of Sports Medicine, 2015)
- Does physical activity attenuate, or even eliminate, the detrimental association of sitting time with mortality? (The Lancet, 2016)