People with injuries and disabilities are often sedentary, believing that their limitations prevent them from getting a good workout. Truth is, you don’t need to be at 100% to reap the rewards of an intense training session at the gym. In fact, you can even get in a hardcore, muscle-blasting workout without ever being on your feet. All you need to do is take a seat.
Along with improving flexibility, strength, and balance, seated exercise takes the pressure off lower extremities during heavy lifts while targeting the muscles that are strong enough to carry the load. Whatever your setback—a leg injury, bad back, foot pain—it’s not an excuse to call it quits with the iron. You can still stay in the game by parking it with these highly effective exercises that can all be performed while seated.
So if you need to get off your feet for a few training sessions while your body is healing, give this seated workout a go to stay in optimal shape and keep those muscles firing on all cylinders.
Make sure to keep your ribcage high and your shoulders shrugged back, feet firmly on the ground for support to keep full focus on the target muscles.
Exercise 2 of 9
Incline Dumbbell Chest Press
Equipment
Sets
3
Reps
4-6
Rest
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The angle we’re looking for is about 70 degrees. Perform exercises with a pair of DBs or on a smith machine. Make sure to keep your ribcage high and your shoulders shrugged back.
It is very important that the weight is not your focus here, it should be challenging but you need to get full range of motion with every rep to be able to reap the benefits and get that width you desire.
This can be performed with a 90 degree bench and dumbbells, or on a seated side lateral raise machine. Do this movement strictly with no momentum for a maximum pump.
Sit on a 90 degree angle bench, grab a barbell, or set of dumbbells, and press up in an explosive manner but lower slowly. Draw out the eccentric to really tear those muscle fibers. Keep your core tight and don’t jerk, form here is key.
Exercise 7 of 9
Seated Dumbbell Shrug
Equipment
Sets
2
Reps
4-6
Rest
--
Seated at a 90 degree incline grab a set of Dumbbells, make sure you get a full range of motion trying to pull the traps up as close to the ear as possible, allowing the traps to stretch at the bottom and contract intensely at the top.
