Guys and Gals

I was thinking today, as I worked out, about the folk who want to work out with me. It is an interesting demographic. One might think that men in their 30′s, 40′s and 50′s might see the benefit of the core and balance routines that I have developed. Or might notice how ripped I am and want to achieve similar results. Hey, once in a while such a guy will join us – 2 weeks ago a mid-30′s gent joined us for Monday (Chin-ups, pull-ups, and abs) and for Tuesday (gymnasts rings). He was pretty fit – indicated that he liked to play hockey. Funny thing was, on rings day, he was able to do 7 clean push-ups with his hands on the gymnasts rings, his feet on the floor. Then Donna (62) did 10 clean push-ups with her hands on the rings and her feet balanced on a basket ball.

Funny – haven’t seen him since.

Then there was the mid 30′s guy who wanted to drop the weights after every set. I tried to gently explain that we just don’t drop weights – if we can’t handle them we go to lighter weights. Funny, haven’t seen him since either.

We’ve seen this a few times – relatively fit young men make it a couple of times, claim to really be enjoying the camaraderie and challenge, then don’t show up.

Flip side, guys in their late teens or early 20′s? They love it and show up over and over. For months and even years now.

The other group that join us are women. All ages. Everywhere from 20′s to 60′s. In fact, three that make me proudest are Sue (54), Maia (64) and Donna (62).

So, what is it – men can’t handle it when women do better? A lot of the problem, as I see it, is men having a ready excuse for not wanting to work out the way we do. They have a bad back, shoulder, arm, hip, ankle, foot, neck, toe, finger, well, I’ve heard pretty much every part of the anatomy.

What gives???

I also get a kick out of the couples in their 30′s to 50′s work out together – typically the guys just sort of glare as we stand on Bosu Balls and do one arm curls, or do funny sit-ups, push-ups, pull-ups, chin-ups… The lady’s smile when we walk by, but try to make sure their guys don’t notice they are smiling at a fit old men.

So, do 30 to 60 year old guys have egos that are so weak they can’t stand it when old guys or old women can do more than they can? Funny, doesn’t faze the 20 year olds. In fact, the young guys have learned to tell folk who chat with us that the reason Mark (53) and I (58) can do more is because we are older. Gets a funny look every time.

And the young guys cheer on the ladies every time they do something special.

I fear there really is not a point to this post – unless it is that men need to quit making up excuses and get fit. Perhaps that is enough.

Oh, and women should take pride when they kick younger mens behinds when doing exercises!

I was pedaling away on an exercise bicycle this last week when one of the fairly serious body-building types stopped to chat. He hadn’t been aware that I did a cardio workout before getting serious with my daily routines – but he had been told by his doctor that he needed to start doing more cardio. After talking about cardio for a bit I asked him how his shoulder was doing – he had managed to strain it pretty badly 4 months ago and I knew he had to take a couple of months off to let it recover. He indicated that he was starting to ramp back up on weight, but that he needed to learn more about stretching to help protect his joints and muscles.

Hmmm. Seriously built bodybuilder – coming to realize how important stretching is.

Then I read an article about Doctor Oz in Prevention (10/2012 – ok, I am a bit behind in some of the magazines). Habit number 1 that Dr. Oz lists for those over 50 who want to live well is to stretch first thing in the morning. “Stretching for 10 minutes every morning has a variety of benefits, including decreasing risk of heart attack, alleviating stress, and improving circulation”.

In my own world I have gone from fighting chronic back and shoulder pain to being amazingly pain free. Sure, once in a while I will strain a muscle – gads, the 20 year olds who work out with me strain more muscles than I do, so I expect some challenges in this area. But, with my daily stretching I recover very quickly. And just don’t have the chronic soreness that I experienced when I was 10 or 15 years younger and didn’t stretch every day.

I have discussed my routine before – and shot pictures, and even a video for my site. Check out stretches and while you’re at it, check out my latest push-ups – Old Man Pushups Talk about enough to give one a sore back???

My daily routine is pretty simple. I spend 5 to 10 minutes first thing in the morning doing some basic stretches. Then, during my workout, I spend 25 to 30 minutes stretching as soon as I get my cardio out of the way. Anymore I have 3 or 4 older folk joining me many days to go through my stretch routine.

I recently talked to them about what they are getting out of stretching. Two of them had been fighting joint pain. When they are religious about stretching with me they can quit taking the pain meds they have to otherwise rely on. Initially they found they could cut back, but after a couple of months – they were able to quit.

One of them talked about how much better he was able to walk and maintain his balance.

I don’t have to tell you how good it made me feel knowing I was helping these people. It also reinforced what I read about the benefits of stretching.

Brings to mind another recent gym experience. We were working out on gymnasts rings – doing things like stretching out horizontally, toes on a basketball, hands in the rings, and basically doing horizontal jumping jacks – ok, not jumping, but holding ourselves off the floor with the rings and moving our hands and arms from straight over our heads to straight out to the sides. Ok, like making snow angels – ‘cept we were facing the floor and holding ourselves up with the rings.

This puts massive strain on your core. When I was finished with my set I was watching one of the group work at the same move, and one of the young guys doing squats came up behind me – clamped his hands on my shoulders (which pretty much surprised the heck out of me) and told me he couldn’t believe what he had just seen me do.

I really can’t stress enough how important stretching is – both in protecting oneself from that “wrong move” that always puts your back out, to helping prevent muscle pain from day to day living.

Stretching, building your core strength, and improving your balance – my recipe for helping your body age gracefully!

I was reading an article on the challenges that women face as their children leave the home, the “empty nest” challenge. I thought that the advice given in the article was very much in tune with what I have found in my life – “The more you’ve developed a sense of identity and competence apart from mothering or wife-ing, the more tools you have when your care-taking period ends”.

Or, transferring that to men and women who have a career (and may also be mothers), the better chance you will have of successfully coping with retirement.

I have chosen, in the title of this post, to reverse the order of the concepts – placing competence before sense of identity. Why, because I think the competence that you develop, the skills you develop, will help you define your own identity. What does this mean to me? Well, 10 years before I had the chance to retire I was very much an engineer. If you asked, yup, I’d tell you I was an engineer. But, I was already working on becoming my “next” self. I went through a period where I debated what I wanted to be when I was retired, and then pursued it. I was fortunate that I had a number of skill sets to choose from – making about anything in leather, making unusual leaded glass pieces, working out and fitness, clock restoration, vintage car restoration, woodworking… In the end I chose clock-making because it gave me a social status as an antique dealer – a socially comfortable slot – and it gave me a chance to earn a little more in my retirement than the other options.

Even before I retired I started telling folk I was an antique dealer. Which means that the day I was given the chance to retire I was ready – with a new sense of identity that made the transition pretty darned painless.

And then I immediately started on filling out my “sense of identity”, amping up my exercise time, developing my own routine focused on what mattered to me – core, balance, and functional fitness. And I “entitled”, or promised myself that I could practice the dulcimer an hour a day.

Today – thriving clock business, 19 technical articles published on the techniques I use, becoming nationally known in the hammered dulcimer world, a certified personal trainer and leading around a pack of folk at the gym. Any one of these aspects could give me a sense of competence and sense of identity. Taken together they leave me a very fulfilled old man.

I have slowly come to realize that much of what I write is really focused on people in their mid-40′s – who are smart enough to realize that one day they will need to be happy when given the chance to retire. Those folk have to start developing their competencies before they retire – I suspect it would amaze you how many folk my age tell me they wished they had started “doing things” when they were younger – when they would have found it easier to learn. OK, in truth I think that is a massive cop-out. This last couple of weeks I have set up my main workbench so that I can host webinars – and show folk what I am doing with 4 web-cams – one of which shows what I am working on through a microscope. This meant evaluating webinar programs, figuring out how to handle 4 webcams, well, figuring out lots of stuff. Then, late last week the national clock association committed to promote and host my first webinar. Think this makes an old man feel good?

Skills, feelings of accomplishment, happiness. Step one is to do something. No. Not just do something – do whatever you do the best way you can – develop skills – make things happen – make folks around you proud to know you – and find the sense of accomplishment that doing something really, really well will give you.

Not sure who won the superbowl, but I do know I am ready to run a webinar from my bench!

Another thought – yesterday two guys in their 20′s wanted to know more about the workout we were doing. They wanted to know if the things we were doing would give them definition and make them look more like me – really fit and ripped. These 2 young guys wanted to know how to look more like a 58 year old man. And, when they found out I was 58 – well, they really had a bit of a hard time believing that.

Sense of accomplishment – happy – like you probably can’t even imagine.

It’s difficult to figure out how to describe the way I feel at the end of my workouts. Typically I have between 1 and 6 people work out with me on any given day. Most days, like today, I put in 30 minutes on a stationary bicycle to get my cardio – and wave to perhaps 15 or 20 folk as they arrive or leave. Then its off to my informal stretch class – with between 1 and 5 folk. Next is the main workout – Mark was there today and we did a killer leg workout. Donna showed up 30 minutes into the workout, and hung with us for about 2 hours. By which time she and Mark had to leave. But in the mean time Sue, Michael, and Ashley showed up. So, well, since they were there, and since Sue had bought a set of gymnasts rings – well, I put in another hour with them.

I’m sure I have talked about how it feels to have people want to work out with me – how just plain flattering it is, and how much fun it really is. Work outs like this are not the exception – I am lucky enough to have gathered a very diverse group of folk who appreciate my workouts and who want to improve their strength, balance and core while strengthening their backs.

Is this the same as watching a football game with a bunch of folk (I was reminded that superbowl was this Sunday – hence the question)? I have to respond with an emphatic NO! Workouts are about being healthy, about losing weight, becoming stronger, they are about camaraderie engendered by doing things with others, facing challenges and keeping each other safe while improving ones physical well being. Working out can involve watching someone you are working out with succeed, and helping others grow. Unlike watching sports on TV – and getting ones “fulfillment” from watching athletes do their thing – working out is about the best thing you can do for yourself.

I don’t have a TV, and I really am not much impressed with the thought of watching someone else play a game when I could be doing something that improves my physical well being. To me exercise is all about doing something oneself, developing skills, and deriving deep, satisfying happiness.

I honestly am at a loss to figure out how to get across how good it makes me feel. Instead I have included a couple of pictures and a short video of my doing pushups on exercise balls. This is a new one for me. Matt manned the camera (that’s him in the mirror) and Ashley provided the audio. Click on the words “Old Man Pushup” below to download the video.

Old Man Pushup

When I retired I gave myself two promises – that I would get to work out as much as I wanted, and that I would make time to practice the hammered dulcimer. These two activities give me a massive dose of satisfaction.

Somehow I have managed to keep myself motivated – and have reaped the satisfaction that has come with seeing my body transformed into a more fit, more functional tool. And my hammered dulcimer playing continues to progress – I LOVE TO PLAY.

One of the things that both of these activities have given me is the chance to share my passion with others. Which means also somehow sharing the motivation.

One of the ladies at the gym, mid-20′s, fit, but also focused on getting more fit. She has gone from being able to do push-ups to being able to do push-ups with her hands on one basketball, her feet on another basketball. An oh-my-lord achievement. Another lady – in her 60′s, has gone from doing a few push-ups with her knees on the floor to doing push-ups with her hands in gymnasts rings and her feet balanced on a basketball.

Somehow these two ladies motivate themselves to keep on pushing – keep on improving – and I am lucky enough to be able to perhaps help in a small way with my enthusiasm.

But, the real reason I wanted to jot this quick post was a chat with the lady I am teaching to play the hammered dulcimer. I don’t charge much for lessons because honestly I love teaching someone who wants to learn. But, this morning she commented that she almost thinks that the low cost of the lessons has made her work harder to succeed. She realizes that I teach her because I love to see the progress she makes – and she doesn’t want to disappoint. She commented that, if she paid more she could use the excuse when she didn’t practice that it was ok – since she was paying me. But, paying little she wants to make sure she lives up to my expectations.

She has made absolutely amazing progress over the last year. And she practices religiously.

Reality is I would not teach her if she did not make good progress – teaching music lessons really is a labor of love for music. But, seeing her progress is fantastic recompense.

One more short story and I will get to working on a clock mechanism that is calling to me. Was once sent to a plant to look into a problem. I spent a couple of days getting a bit of background information, but mostly I tried to get to know the folk at the plant. Came back and my boss asked me lots of questions about the problem – most of which I could not answer. Which slightly aggravated him. OK, it REALLY AGGRAVATED HIM! I ended up needing to explain to him that I was approaching the problem in the way I believed would be most effective – reminding him that I tended to get things done, but had to include that caveat that he and I did things differently. This particular event occurred early in my time working for this gent – and resulted in our developing an effective relationship – one based on his expecting me to perform, and my meeting his expectations in my own way.

There are other stories I could relate about my meeting folks expectations – because they trusted that I could do what I said I would do.

The take-home messages from this rambling post?

Having high expectations for oneself can be personally motivating.

Having high expectations for others can change their world for the better!

Read a quote from Goldi Hawn regarding aging – “You have to truly grasp that everybody ages. Everybody dies. There is no turning back the clock. So the question in life becomes: What are you going to do while you are here?”

This morning was my morning for giving a hammered dulcimer lesson. My student is 62 or 64 – so, well, she is not young. Or is she? She decided a year ago to buy a dulcimer from me and to start taking lessons. She practices a lot, and has made phenomenal progress – and absolutely loves the times she is playing.

Will she one day be the best dulcimer player in the world. Nope. For that matter neither will I. Does she get satisfaction and happiness out of playing, even when it is tough making time to play? Yes.

Do I get a lot of satisfaction from being part of her becoming a better player – YES – in a big way!.

This week I received an e-mail from a gentleman that also stuck with me – in part he wrote “I only wish I had started earlier so that I could have been purchasing tools along the way and learning so much more about clocks.” and “My father worked until his early 70′s, and just a few months before he passed away last August, he would walk a mile every day, ride a stationary bike and play golf whenever he could. He did not want to “freeze up” his muscles and not be able to get out of his recliner. So your blog/video is a wake up call to me and I appreciate hearing and reading your thoughts on aging!

I’ll try to read all your technical articles on clocks and try to get some exercise in my life.”

My philosophy, if I can grace it with such a high-falutin title, is that satisfaction and happiness come from doing. There was a time that I tried to tell people who wanted to sell me the hammered dulcimers that they had not played – the ones they bought with every good intention so many years ago – I tried to get them to play. I was very up front about the whole thing – I am trying to foster more players BECAUSE IT IS GOOD FOR THEM IN SO MANY WAYS! Any more I tend to just negotiate a price I can afford and buy the dulcimers – and try to make sure that when I sell one that the person buying it has the resources they need to get started playing.

Pity I can’t motivate others – all I can do is try to share the wonderful sense of fulfillment and happiness that comes from doing things.

My message in this rambling post – Live your life – it’s the only one you get. 58? Fine, then by 60 have a firmly established exercise routine and find something that demands work to develop a skill and ability. Invest in yourself – it you need tools, buy them – and use them to develop a skill. Start small, make the commitment, and remember that buying things is not the goal – learning a new skill is the goal.

It’s a cold morning, the sun is rising, making the lake look a bit mystic with the mists rising, and there is an eagle heading down the lake. I need to pack up a dulcimer to ship to a lady in Nebraska, I need to finish up a mechanism, I need to unpack another that is back for a cleaning, and today is push-up day – so I need to do roughly 600 pushups. I need to live life and celebrate being 58!

Oh, before I forget – I had a visit from a young man (he’s younger than I am anyway) who loves old musical instruments. I shot a short video – check it out – http://www.snclocks.com/TheRestofourWorld/Hammered-Dulcimers/Don-Wages-and-his-Instruments/27588920_6DGZ5q#!i

I want to share a few things that stick out in my mind from recent workouts – hopefully these will give you some idea why I am so very satisfied with my time at the gym.

Today, toward the end of my workout 3 young men came up and wanted to chat. They started out saying they were amazed by the variety of things my group does, and were curious where we got our routines. And then one of them said “You guys are the only people in this gym who always seem to be having fun”.

Think about it, a guy pushing 60 having fun working out with a bunch of kids in their late teens and 20′s. Oh, plus a 53 year old, and several ladies, ranging from mid 20′s to mid 60′s.

Then, last week, I had to leave early (5 pm, only a 3 hour work out that day), but Maia, a lovely lady in her 60′s had just shown up and wanted to work on pushups with her hands or her feet on an exercise ball. Matt (19 years old) jumped right in. Now picture this – a 19 year old spending time helping a 60′s year old on pushups???!!!

Another time – I had noticed a guy watching us periodically – he finally got brave enough to come try our routines for a bit. He asked me, after a couple of days – “Why do you do this – what’s in it for you?” He seemed to find it hard to believe that I do what I do because I love working out.

Today, just finished doing pull-ups and chin-ups with a 30 or 40 pound dumb-bell between our feet. Oh, when going up we also lift our knees to our chests. Great exercises those. But, turn around and one of the young guys is already hoofing the weights back to the rack, across the gym. So very considerate.

When we work out we focus on making everyone feel a part of the group – part of this is the way we fist bump each other after every set. Part of it is the way we give positive reinforcement as we each do something tough. Part of it is the way we count for each other, and make appropriate comments as we get near the end of a set to spur each other on. Part of it is understanding that it is inappropriate to make comments like “I can do it, I can’t believe you can’t”. Funny how little bits of guidance can keep people very positive, and those positive vibes just build and build.

Don’t get me wrong – there are folk that don’t really fit in – that don’t get it. One guy, wanted to drop weights after doing one-arm presses – too heavy for him to set down carefully. And he wanted one of us to hand him the weights at the beginning of each set. I tried to gently explain that we don’t drop weights – if we can’t handle the weight we don’t use it – we go lighter – we focus on form over big weights.

Safety was more important than keeping up with some one else. He was trying to match the weight a couple of us were using but was clearly not quite up to it. He didn’t come back.

Which is ok – he really was not adding something positive to the group. Callous – not really. One time one of the old guys who watch us work out commented that, since I was heading up the group it was my responsibility to make sure that the people in my group kept safe and were courteous. I thought about it, and realized that, for the good of the group, he might actually be right.

I have spent a bit of time working with a 70 plus gentleman with some balance issues and a lot of joint pain. I have guided him in doing some steps from one BOSU ball to another while holding onto a rail. And, I go through a 25 minute stretch routine with him 3 or 4 times a week. Today he told me his joint pain is gone – as in the pain that was making it very hard for him to walk normally is gone. OK, still has the balance issues, but he is walking better. Know how good this made me feel? Do you have any idea???

Is what we do for everyone? No, not really. We don’t focus on building muscle – we focus on building a balanced body. We don’t lift weights that are as heavy as we possibly can handle. Instead we make the lifts more challenging because we intentionally lift in unbalanced poses – forcing ourselves to develop more control, balance and core strength.

And, each day, I have someone who wants to work out with me – who is making progress, and who appreciates what I am doing.

And this makes me happy. Five days a week.

I wish I could say that one day I just decided to start stretching and knew right off the bat what it was I should do. Didn’t happen that way. But, good news is that I read a lot, and I tend to try things out to see if they seem to help. So, over the last several years I have been building up my stretching routine. Is it the greatest ever – not so much – or, more precisely – no.

Does it work for me – do I have fewer aches and pains, can I turn farther, and feel better during and after exercising – YES! So, for me, it is a good thing. Funny though – recently, as I was leading a group of 4 of us older folk through my routine a lady joined us who actually knew what she was doing. She gave us some great pointers. And, I was feeling pretty self-conscious – my simple routine – how would it stack up against the program a pro would develop.

Perhaps with time I will find out – but what I came to realize, as I finished the routine, was that each of the people that stretch with me are there because it is doing them some good. One old guy (honest – even older than me) is walking better. Another has virtually eliminated hip pains that were plaguing him. Anyway, at the end of the session each of the people came up to me and thanked me for taking the time to help them stretch.

Lesson here – my taking the time to hold a session each day, for 25 or 30 minutes, is really making a difference for real people. Is it the best in the world? No. Is it the best in these peoples lives – actually it is.

I was especially touched with am elderly oriental lady who doesn’t speak that well, a lady whose name I still haven’t figured out. Today, after our session, she applauded me, and the other guys joined in.

Bit of a digression, but it seemed important as I was writing this.

In case you haven’t found it yet, I do have a website – SNClocks.com. On this site you can learn more about me than you could possibly want to know. If you were to look long enough you might find my “Stretching for Us Older Folk” gallery. Or, you can follow this LINK Just click on the triangle in the middle of the larger picture.

I just reviewed the video – and I have to admit I look pretty stupid doing stretches. But, it will give you an idea of what I do, and how much my cats help.

My routine hits the rotation of the back a lot. Because my work out routines are so focused on my core, I definitely can tighten up my back: It feels so good to spend 20 or 30 minutes and find that I am flexible again. Of course, there are times when, after a particularly good abs work out, I manage to get a cramp in my abs – so perhaps once in a while maybe I go a little far in my abs workouts. But, cramps aside, it is amazing how much strain and stress these simple stretches work out.

Don’t have cats – I promise, the stretches will still benefit!

Let’s talk for a moment about the physiology of stretching. The purpose of a stretching program is to relax a muscle and work it through its range of motion. Muscles should only be stretched after they have been warmed up. Flip side, one should not stretch just after a long or strenuous workout when your muscles are likely to be fatigued and dehydrated. Rehydrate and rest before stretching.

Stretching is done to relax the muscles and the connective tissue. To stretch effectively we have to overcome a natural safeguard that is built into our muscles to keep them from being damaged by overextending too quickly.

Muscles contain receptors called “spindles” and “Golgi tendon organs” that act together to protect our muscles. The main purpose of the spindles is to respond to stretch in a muscle and, through reflex action, initiate a stronger contraction to reduce this stretch. This pretty effectively limits how far you can quickly stretch a muscle: The spindles resist quick stretching of our muscles.

The Golgi tendon organs cause reflex relaxation of the muscle and its opposing muscle. If the stretch is held long enough, the Golgi tendon organs allow the muscle to relax. This lengthens the muscle and allows it to remain in a stretched position.

OK – so much for the physiology of spindle cells, Golgi tendon organs and the like.

We have all seen people stretching by twisting back and forth at the waist – swinging from one side to the other. Or by stretching and then bouncing against the limit of their stretch. This is called Ballistic Stretching. This kind of stretching actually make the muscles shorter and tighter by activating the stretch reflex and have been found to contribute to the risk of small muscle tears, soreness and injury. Let’s not do these.

What we want to focus on is a slow gradual stretch though the muscle’s full range of motion until resistance is felt. This is called Static Stretching. The stretch should be done slowly and carefully to the point of slight pull or slight discomfort. It should not be painful.

Bottom line is that it takes time to stretch. I was taught in my Personal Trainer certification course that one needs to hold a stretch for 20 to 30 seconds to get muscles to relax. Some sources say that the Golgi tendon organ starts to let the muscle relax after only 6 seconds, but that one must continue to stretch for 20 seconds or longer to get a good stretch. Some sources say as long as 2 minutes.

Probably the easiest way to think of this is to try to stretch a little bit farther each time you take a breath while stretching. As adults we breathe between 12 and 20 times per minute if we are not exercising. When I am stretching I count my breaths, and typically hold a stretch for 10 to 15 exhalations, while seeing if I can stretch just a bit farther each time I exhale.

Stretching is not a competitive sport. Flexibility differs with each individual. Your goal should be to achieve a good level of flexibility for you, not to match anyone else’s level. This was brought home to me last week when a lady joined our stretch session and gave us a few pointers. With 35 years of yoga behind her she is an exquisite example of the benefits of stretching. Believe me, I can only dream of being as flexible as she, but that doesn’t keep me from doing my best to go just the least bit farther in each of my stretches.

The take home message from this posting: If you do a fairly complete stretching routine it can easily take 20 to 30 minutes. And leave you feeling so much better it is almost unbelievable. Oh, and reduce the risk that you will pull a muscle!

My next posting will discuss some of the stretches I do and why I feel they are important.

I used several references for the above, but pulled the most information from Team Oregon Stretching Reference

Perhaps five years ago I began to make a change. Like most lasting changes in my life, this one started slowly. I started taking perhaps 3 minutes while soaking in my morning bath to do some simple stretches. I did this on the blind faith that they must do some good – at least Kelly kept telling me they would.

At that point I could not reach my toes – in fact, I couldn’t come within 6 inches of my toes.

Since then I have gone through a slow increase in the number of stretches and the time I make for stretching each day. At this point I am spending 10 to 20 minutes each morning stretching, and, weekdays, 20 to 30 minutes guiding 2 to 5 other people in their 50′s to 70′s through a stretch session. In addition to giving me a chance to enhance my flexibility, I also get a chance to amuse one of our cats. Max is pretty convinced I do these stretches so he will have a new place to curl up for a bit.

What does all this mean? In terms of aches and strains – they are pretty much gone. As in, even with the ridiculously strenuous workouts that I enjoy, I am not having chronic back pain, shoulder pain, knee pain, I am just not experiencing the problems I did in my 40′s and early 50′s. While it is true that some of the more strenuous days will result in muscle soreness the next day, I am not fighting the long term pain of stressed joints, ligament and tendons.

Now I can not only reach my toes, I can wrap 2 to 3 inches of my fingers around my toes. Most amazingly (at least to me), I can now turn around far enough to see behind me when I back up a car.

Just like my exercise routine, my stretching routine has grown as I learned more, and as I recognized the need for more focused stretches. I won’t even begin to act like I am a pro at this all – I just know it works for me.

I’ll talk a bit about the physiology of stretching in my next post.