How to Burn Calories and Build Muscle While Sitting at Your Desk

If you are working full-time and don’t always have a chance to get to the gym in the evening, one solution is to do your exercises while you work. There are a number of easy exercises that you can perform without much thought while sitting at your desk, and they will both burn calories and build muscle.

Fidgeting While Sitting
The best way to just burn calories if you don’t really care what muscles you are using is to fidget. Shake a foot back and forth, bounce your legs up and down, wiggle in your seat all the time, or whatever else you can think of that will keep you moving. If you are fidgeting constantly while you work, you will burn at least an extra 500 calories every day!

Forearm Exercise While Sitting
This exercise is great for times when you are on the phone and have your hands available. The basic principle is to work the muscles in your forearm by clenching and unclenching your hand. Many “stress balls” sold for just a few dollars in stores are useful for this exercise, and repetitive squeezing of a stress ball will build muscle in your forearm. If you don’t have a stress ball, just make and loosen a fist repetitively. Don’t forget to work both of your forearms, not just one!

Bicep Exercise While Sitting
Another good exercise to do to build muscles and burn calories while on the telephone is bicep curls. With your elbow resting on the desk and your palm facing up, bring your hand up toward your shoulder. This motion is a bit too easy without resistance, so either bring in a free weight or two to keep at your desk, or if you would like to be more discreet, hold a good-sized paperweight in your hand. Again, make sure that you switch arms occasionally so as to not have unbalanced biceps.

Quadricep Exercise While Sitting
This exercise is difficult to do if your desk is against a wall (or against other people’s desks), but if you have space in front of your feet, you can do quadricep extensions. Bending at the knee, bring your feet up so your legs are fully extended, and then lower them to the ground again in a controlled manner. Like the previous exercise, this one is significantly better if you have some resistance, so either wear ankle weights or lift something with your feet.

Calf Exercise While Sitting
This exercise is easy and mindless, and in no time you will find that you have really well-defined calves. The key to this one is repetition, because it’s tough to get enough resistance to do much at once. The benefit is that it keeps you in constant motion, which burns lots of calories! To do calf raises at your desk, simply push into the floor with your toes until your heels are as far off the ground as they will go, and then lower them to the floor again. If you would like to work one calf at a time with more resistance, rest your other leg on your knee so you have to lift that too.

Shin Exercise While Sitting
Your shin muscles are typically not used much, unless you are a runner, but there are some great ways to build shin strength while sitting at your desk. The easiest is toe taps, where you quickly and repetitively lift your toes off the ground and let them fall again, all while keeping your heels firmly planted. Another exercise for your shins that takes significantly more focus, so probably isn’t the best thing to do at work, is to lift your whole foot off the ground and spell out the alphabet with your toe.

If you are doing one or more of these exercises at a time while you are at work, you will find that you burn a lot of calories and develop muscle just by keeping moving while at work. Of course, it is also important to have some cardiovascular exercise as part of your routine, so don’t cut the gym out of your schedule entirely!
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