Feeling Stiff? Here’s What You Can Do

Neck feeling stiff?

Hips tight after sitting all day?

Shoulders feeling like they haven’t moved properly since Tuesday?

There are plenty of things you can do about it.

The harder question is:

What should you do right now?

Because the best option when you’ve got three minutes between meetings probably isn’t the same as when you’ve got an hour on a Sunday afternoon.

So let’s make this simple.

Stiffness can have plenty of causes.

Sometimes you’ve been sitting in the same position for hours.

Sometimes you’ve trained hard.

Sometimes you’re stressed.

Sometimes you simply haven’t moved very much.

And sometimes what feels like ordinary stiffness deserves proper assessment — particularly if it’s severe, persistent, follows an injury, or comes with symptoms such as weakness, numbness or tingling.

But if you’re dealing with the everyday “my body feels ridiculously tight” feeling, you’ve got options.

Move.

You don’t necessarily need an elaborate stretching routine.

Stand up.

Move the area gently through a comfortable range.

For example, depending on where you’re feeling stiff:

The objective isn’t to completely transform your mobility in two minutes.

It’s to stop being completely stationary.

Tell Ogo where you’re feeling stiff and how much time you’ve got.

Choose the problem area, choose your available time and follow the routine.

Now you’ve got enough time for a short mobility routine.

This is where movements such as child’s pose, puppy pose, spinal rotations, hip stretches and other targeted mobility work can become useful depending on what you’re experiencing.

Again, you don’t need to do everything.

If your neck and shoulders feel stiff, work on your neck and shoulders.

If you’ve spent eight hours sitting and your hips feel tight, give your hips some attention.

Specific beats random.

You’ve got more options.

You could do a longer mobility session.

Try a yoga class.

Go for a walk.

Use a massage gun.

Combine mobility with some light movement.

Or simply spend some time moving your body through positions it hasn’t experienced during your working day.

You don’t necessarily need to turn it into a workout.

Sometimes your body just needs movement.

Now you can consider the things that require more time.

Get a massage.

See a physiotherapist if there’s an issue you want properly assessed.

Take a yoga or mobility class.

Use a sauna if that’s part of your recovery routine.

Do a proper recovery session.

The advantage here isn’t that these options are automatically better.

They’re just available when you have more time.

And different options solve different problems.

A massage might make you feel great.

A physiotherapist can assess something you’re concerned about and potentially give you a longer-term rehabilitation plan.

Mobility work gives you something you can repeatedly do yourself.

These things don’t have to compete with each other.

This is probably the more important question.

If you spend your working day barely moving and then occasionally get a massage when everything feels terrible, you’re mostly responding to the problem after it appears.

That’s why we talk so much about mobility at Ogo.

Not because everybody needs to become ridiculously flexible.

But because your body needs regular opportunities to move.

Five minutes today.

Ten minutes tomorrow.

A walk at lunch.

A mobility routine between meetings.

A longer recovery session when you’ve got time.

Small amounts of movement become much more powerful when they’re normal rather than something you only think about once you’re uncomfortable.

Start with two questions:

Where do you feel it?

How long have you got?

Then do something.

You don’t need the perfect routine.

You don’t need an hour.

And you don’t need to wait until your body feels terrible before giving it some attention.

If you’ve got a few minutes now: