The Kibouti Footrest

Exercise you can do for health and stress relief while at work.
Exercises that make you feel better and help you to enjoy the other parts of your life.

Here are some exercises you can do to give your body and mind a break.

Stretches that can be done next to your desk

Get up from your desk. Stand next to your desk and place one foot on the Kibouti. Keep your back leg as straight as you can, bend forward and touch the toes on your raised foot.  Hold for a few seconds. Now stand up straight. CAUTION: Before you stand up pull in your tummy (stomach) muscles and slowly move up to a standing position.

Change legs and repeat steps.   
Do this three or four times and your energy level will go up. 

Leg extensions I

While sitting at you desk. Flip over the footrest and tuck your toes under the small bar. Now with your hands either on your desk in front of you or holding onto your chair, lift your legs straight out in front of you.
Feel it in your lower stomach muscles and in the back of your legs. Hold it up for a few seconds and repeat several times.

Leg extension II

While you have your legs extended out push your legs apart. Feel it in your upper and lower leg muscles. Keep that up for a few seconds or as long as you can. Now to add to this exercise while keeping one leg fully extended pull in the other leg and then see-saw back and forth. Doesn’t that feel good? Not only is that good for your legs but It’s good for your lower back muscles as well.

Leg extension III

Place the Kibouti as close to your chair as you can. Legs bent at 90% at the knees grasp with your feet the outside of the footrest stands. Now holding the Kibouti tight extend your legs straight out. It takes some effort to hold the footrest without dropping it and that will give you some really good inner thigh muscle tension.  

Leg Lift

OK. This is an exercise you have to work at. With your toes tucked under the small bar, or if you have our smallest footrest, clutch it on the side as in leg extention III above, sit upright. Bring the Kibouti close to you so your legs are bent at the knee at a 90% angle.  Place your hands on your desk. Now lift the footrest straight up.

You should feel that in your thighs and lower stomach muscles.         

 
 
Rock the Rest

While you are sitting at your desk. place one or both of your feet on the flat top of the footrest and rock it back and forth.

This will flex the calves of your legs and help to pump blood back up to your heart.
Doing this counters some of the effort required to pump blood back up against gravity.
Some of the side benefits include, prevent blood pooling in the lower legs, swelling around your ankles and help reduce the onset of varicos veins.
Rock the footrest back and forth for blood flow.
Do lower leg stretches to keep the muscles and tendons pliable.

As we said the Kibouti is more than a footrest.
In addition to the exercises described above it can also be used for;

Stress relief

Flip the Kibouti upside down so the stands and bars are facing upward.  
Reflexology tells us how important and beneficial it is to massage the bottom of your feet and how the nerves in the soles of our feet are connected to all the major organs in our bodies.
Check out this chart found at www.omfeet.com. For more information about reflexology you may want to contact omfeet directly.

Take off your shoes and gently rub the bottom of your feet.

A particularly powerful spot is known as the Solar Plexus located in the middle of your foot just under the ball. You can locate it on the chart provided. Gently rubbing in that area (use the corner of one of the stands ) will help you release stress built up during the day.

Recommendation
Try using the foot massage component just before leaving work. It will relax you and help start your move from work to home. Leaving your work stress at work is always a good idea. This quick little foot massage helps to cope with the commute and getting home a little more relaxed and ready to be present with your family.

ENJOY.