A short conversational video where Aaron Whybrow (mortgage broker) and Andy (physiotherapist, Proform Physiotherapy) discuss balancing office computer work with physical activity. Andy explains health benefits of sunlight and short exercise breaks, recommends Pomodoro-style 5–10 minute breaks every 30–60 minutes, and gives practical standing/posture tips (e.g., placing a foot on a rail to reduce lumbar extension). The clip ends with clinic location/services and light closing banter.
Hey there, it's Aaron from Diagnostics and Finance. I'm a mortgage broker and I'm here with Andy today.
How's it going, guys? I'm a physiotherapist from Proform Physiotherapy.
And one of the things I wanted to talk about this morning is about being able to balance your time in the office, doing computer work and getting out in the sunshine like we are this morning.
It's absolutely beautiful, isn't it? Now, I think we've discussed this many times. There's a myriad of health benefits already associated with getting out. And about the first thing is that we're working on our tan, getting some vitamin D, which is really good for your mental state and also your state of being. But one of the other things with exercise actually sort of gets you out and about, gets you away from the office, gets your heart rate up, release some chemical stuff in your head, which makes you feel a lot more productive and a lot more aware about things. So I think that's already a good start.
It is a good start. But what happens when you get really busy, Andy, with what can you do when you're in the office? You're grinding really hard, getting your work done and then you forget to get out or stand up or. What I find is when I've been to a good gym session and I sit down for a couple of hours, I can't move.
It's almost like things get a little bit sticky. And I guess, and this is probably one of the things that I deal with on the regular, is that a lot of individuals, when they're sitting down for long periods of time, they're actually saying that sitting is almost like the new cancer. Oftentimes who get a lot of sort of lower back pain, hip pain, sort of lower leg pain and things like this from sitting down too much. So it's very important that we try to exercise or even just get out of the office, just on little bits. And one thing that I often recommend is it's actually a time management principle. It's called the Pomodoro effect. And essentially what it is in time management and productivity. The idea is that if you can totally disengage from whatever it is that you're doing for a little bit, just for a little bit like five, 10 minutes, something like that, and then totally re engage back into whatever it is that you're doing, chances are your productivity is going to be a little bit higher in that little bit of time, though, where you're disengaging that's when you can actually get up, go for a bit of a walk, do a little bit of exercise, something that's going to take you out of that workspace. So that way you're not stuck in front of the computer, laptop or whatever it is for four, five, six hours at a time, scratching your head, thinking about actually what you're going to do. So if I was to recommend anything every half an hour to an hour, try for at least 5, 10 minutes to get up, get a glass of water, at the very, very least, do some stretches at your workstation, whatever it is that you can do, you actually might find you get a little bit more work done.
It's a thing that I find. I go to the gym in the morning, but then I will work really solidly. I've tried things before like a standing table and then my feet get sore and it's a manual one, so I have to crank it or I just like someone else in the office with me working, which usually balances me out a little bit more.
Yeah, that's fine. One thing on standing there, I even find, like, there's a. If you ever notice, whenever you go to the bar. So next time you're at the pub, go to the bar and you'll notice that there's a little foot stand, I guess, right at the bar, and these guys figured this out a lot earlier, is that if you actually put your foot on that bar, you can actually take a fair bit of pressure off your lower back. So if you're standing for a long period of time, what tends to happen is your back tends to arch and you get put into a whole bunch of what we call lumbar extension, which can be a little bit compressive on your lower back, especially around, like, your facet joints where your lumbar spine is. Now, the minute that you put your foot on something, you negate that extension force and put yourself in a bit of hip flexion, which tends to sort of level you out. So the idea, being at the pub, that if you spend more time at the pub because you can stand there longer, chances are you're going to spend a bit more money. So these guys were doing physio long before us.
The physiotherapist. Bartender.
Exactly right. I mean, I wish I could do a good ipa, but I don't.
I don't mind that. That's cool. So. So we do need to get out and about. Probably. Probably more than we think. Yeah, I think it is. The more the better.
Yeah, I think so you don't want to get sort of like locked in that little cubicle all day. You go crazy otherwise. So I think that that's one. If I could sort of encourage anyone to do anything like that. Try to get out as much as you can and actually you might find that you're not, you know, like I said, you're just a little bit more productive.
What with. What do you think is crap? What was my question?
So we're just enjoying the sunshine. So it's fine.
We are. So we get out more than we can. We have done. We usually will become more productivity and we're more focused at work.
Yeah. Like I say, it's actually quite peculiar. I've had some patients come back to me and sort of. And say that very thing. It's just like by the fact of being able to totally disengage. Like I said, it's almost like their mind's fresh and they can actually go back into it because it's almost like you only have so much cognitive willpower unless you get into a flow state, which is a little bit tricky. But it's almost like there's always at that time where you sort of sit and scratch in your head, being busy but not necessarily productive. And that's often the thing that they say. So why not while you're doing that, address yourself physically as well and negate some of these issues that you can. That you can come across and people often do.
So what do you recommend? Where could we find you, Andy, if we got injured or we need some more advice on things around caring for ourselves in the office space.
Sure, totally. I guess we have a clinic over in Bella Vista. So if you know the area well enough, it's the Vera style building, right where the Frango's is. So you have to be very, very tempted. Walk straight past Frango's because there's beautiful chicken in there. I guess we're in level four in that building there. We have a little clinic up top. We have four physios in there, happy to help and lend a hand wherever we can. An exercise physiologist that's really good at sort of clinical and exercise programming and also too, we have a massage therapist. So I guess for any of the office guys, headaches is often a thing and that's something that she deals with on the regular. So definitely got you covered.
Yeah, definitely. Like the combination of physio with massage. Yeah, probably massage first and then. Yeah, get stuck into it.
Exactly right. I know. I need a massage every now and then.
So it's all good.
Definitely.
So thanks for joining us at the park today. Would have loved to be at the beer.
Yeah, no. Tell you it's five to eight, though, so, I mean, it might be a.
Little bit too early. We have to go for coffee instead.
It's five o' clock somewhere, they say.
So we have to talk about the health effects of coffee later on.
