Exercises for Sitting

Exercise is Important

You do not have to become an athlete or an advanced yogi to sit upright without back support for prolonged periods of time. A person with a fairly sedentary lifestyle, average muscle tone, and limited flexibility can place themselves in a well-formed posture that should be sustainable for an hour or more. Nevertheless, comprehensive physical conditioning and yoga are quite helpful to the aspiring meditator. Virtually all of the meditation postures apart from sitting in a chair require some degree of flexibility and some basic level of muscular strength. Establishing a fit and healthy body facilitates the development of good meditation posture.

I highly recommend developing a stretching routine that works well for your body, even just five to ten minutes per day. In this area, there is a great deal of room for personalization. Some people will have tight hamstrings; others might have tight quads. Still others might need to work on opening their hips.

Specific Exercises

There are several stretches and exercises that I find particularly helpful.

The Pigeon Stretch. This yoga posture, called Kapotasana in Sanskrit, is extremely valuable for those wishing to sit in the lotus posture (or half lotus) without doing harm to their knees. It can also be useful for anyone who has trouble getting into a cross-legged posture. I recommend doing pigeon on both sides every day before meditating. There are numerous variations on this stretch, and it is worthwhile to experiment with as many of them as possible.

Yoga Strap Stretch. Take a yoga strap and hold it horizontally behind your head with your hands about shoulder width apart. Reach back and up with your hands, stretching the muscles of your chest. In my experience, this facilitates a much deeper relaxation of the chest than the doorway stretch (below). You can also combine this with doing an overhead tricep stretch, which I find also helps to stretch out the chest and lats.

The Doorway Stretch. This stretch is performed by standing in an open doorway and placing the forearms on either side of the frame. Lean into the doorway to push the arms back and open the shoulders, stretching the pectoral muscles. For people who have rounded shoulders or “thoracic kyphosis”, this stretch can make the upper back more comfortable.

Kettle Bell Swings. Kettle bell swings strengthen the key muscles that support the body when sitting upright. Kettle bells can provide many of the benefits of heavy weight-lifting, but with significantly less weight. The one negative effect I have noticed with this exercise is that it can generate some stiffness in the hips, which must otherwise remain flexible for sitting cross-legged. This can be mitigated by the regular stretching recommended above.

Rows. This exercise is an excellent compliment to kettle bell swings. Whereas swings strengthen the entire back of the body, rows focus on the muscles between and around the shoulder blades. This is a particular problem area for a lot of people who are accustomed to sitting in chairs, so developing some strength in this area can be very helpful.

These exercises should greatly help the vast majority of practitioners. However, you should develop the fitness routine that works best for you.

A Note on Stretching

One last note on stretching. Personally, I find the term “stretching” somewhat misleading. It evokes the image of physically pulling tissues apart, like pulling on a rubber band, or pulling on a piece of rawhide to stretch and elongate the material. Your muscles should not be forcefully pulled into a longer position than is comfortable.

Instead, think of stretching exercises as teaching your muscles to relax and lengthen. This is done by extending the muscle to the limit of its range, until you feel a slight sensation of resistance. You then direct your attention to the muscle to relax it to further to increase its range of motion. As the muscle relaxes, the feeling of resistance will fade. You can then deepen the stretch by moving into the increased range of motion until the slight sensation of resistance reappears. Continue relaxing the muscle and deepening the stretch.

It may be helpful when stretching to visualize warm light flowing into the muscle where you feel resistance. This little visualization can be helpful in getting the muscle to relax. After some practice, you won't even need to visualize, you will be able to intentionally relax the muscle just by feel. Be as gentle as possible at first. In due time, you will be able to increase the amount of pressure, and you will have an intuitive sense of when to apply more pressure and when to back off.