Desk exercises that actually do something
Stretching makes sitting more comfortable. Exercise changes what sitting does to you. They are not the same thing, and if you only have a minute a few times a day, this is the one worth spending it on.
Everything below takes between 30 and 75 seconds, needs no equipment beyond a chair or a desk, and can be done in work clothes.
Start with squats
If you do one thing from this page, make it this one. It is the most researched desk exercise there is, and the findings are unusually specific.
Bodyweight squats
Feet about shoulder-width, push your hips back as though reaching for a chair behind you, keep your chest up, stand back up. Ten of them takes about thirty seconds.
A 2024 trial found that squat breaks taken regularly through the day reduced post-meal blood glucose compared with sitting uninterrupted [1]. A separate 2022 trial found squat breaks increased muscle protein synthesis compared with uninterrupted sitting [2]. Both trials used longer bouts than ten squats, so treat the ten-squat break as a shorter, more achievable version of what they tested.
The honest framing. None of this replaces structured exercise. What it does is interrupt the hours of stillness in between, and the evidence suggests that interruption matters on its own terms.
If you want strength
Desk push-ups
Hands on the desk edge, walk your feet back until your body is a straight line, lower your chest towards the desk and press back up. Check the desk is solid before trusting it.
Chair dips
Hands on the front edge of a stable, non-wheeled chair, slide your hips forward off the seat, bend the elbows to lower, press back up. Keep the shoulders down away from your ears.
Isometric wall squat
Back flat to the wall, slide down until your thighs are somewhere near parallel, hold. No movement, no noise, and it is harder than it sounds by about the forty-second mark.
Calf raises
Stand, rise onto the balls of your feet, lower under control. Hold the desk if your balance needs it.
If you want your heart rate up
Marching in place
Lift the knees deliberately rather than shuffling. A minute of this is enough to change how awake you feel.
High knees, slow
As above but higher and more controlled, driving each knee towards hip height. Slow is the point: it is about range, not speed.
Standing side steps
Step out to one side and back, then the other. Sideways movement is almost entirely absent from a desk day.
The ones nobody will notice
Open-plan offices are the real reason people stop doing this. These three are effectively invisible.
Gluteal contractions
Squeeze, hold five seconds, release, repeat. Entirely undetectable, and the muscle in question has been doing nothing for hours.
Soleus push-ups
Seated, feet flat, lift your heels as high as they go while the balls of your feet stay down, then lower. The soleus is the deep calf muscle, and it is one of the few that can keep working for long periods without tiring.
Seated leg extensions
Straighten one leg out in front, hold briefly, lower without letting the foot touch down. Alternate.
How often
Something every 30 to 60 minutes of sitting. Not a routine, not a block in your calendar — one or two of these, a minute, several times a day.
Frequency is doing the work here. An analysis of wearable data found that very small amounts of vigorous incidental activity through an ordinary day were associated with substantially lower all-cause mortality in people who did no structured exercise at all [2]. Movement breaks have also been associated with increased cerebral blood flow and better working memory shortly after standing up [3].
For the stiffness rather than the metabolic side, see the desk stretches guide, or the posture exercises guide if sitting has left you rounded forward.
A sensible caution
Build up rather than starting with the hardest thing on the page. If you have a cardiac condition, a recent injury, or you are pregnant, check with a clinician about what is appropriate. Sharp pain is a stop signal, not something to work through.
All of these are in the app
Exercise Snacks prompts you at the interval you choose and guides you through each one. Free on iOS.
- Gao et al., Scandinavian Journal of Medicine & Science in Sports, 2024 — squat breaks and postprandial glucose. PubMed
- Moore DR, Williamson EP, Hodson N, et al. Walking or body weight squat “activity snacks” increase dietary amino acid utilization for myofibrillar protein synthesis during prolonged sitting. J Appl Physiol, 2022. PubMed
- Stamatakis E, Ahmadi MN, Gill JMR. Association of wearable device-measured vigorous intermittent lifestyle physical activity with mortality. Nature Medicine, 2022. Nature Medicine
- Kjellenberg K, Ekblom Ö, Tarassova O, et al. Short, frequent physical activity breaks improve working memory while preserving cerebral blood flow in adolescents during prolonged sitting. BMC Public Health, 2024. BMC Public Health