If I’m being perfectly honest, I was hoping to take this month’s health update post to talk about a 5K run that I was hoping to compete in, but sadly with the restrictions only just being lifted, that wasn’t an option. I have been working out hard, but I thought I would talk about something else this time.
Everyone ready for a big admission? Something I don’t like talking about but is still a thing for me? I’ve never been able to touch my toes. I don’t mean like when I’m sitting down and whatever, but when I’m standing with my feet together, I have never been able to bend over enough that I could touch my toes. It sucks, but it’s never really bothered me until this past year. Over the past year, I have been feeling more and more like It’s a simple thing that I should be able to do. I’ll admit, part of it was because I was overweight (my Gut would prevent me from bending that far), but it’s also because I’ve not been the most flexible person in the world.
1) Being bendy is not natural to me – As a blogger and a desk jockey/office worker, I’ve never had to do a lot of flexible work. I know all about “Sitting is the new smoking,” and being more stagnant is terrible for us in the long run. But as an office worker, there is very little I can do about that. I have a standing desk in my office, and I try to stand as much as possible, but for the first half of the year, at least I have found myself sitting for hours more and more. To fix this, I’ve decided that I want to become more flexible.
2) You better believe there’s an app – So as a result of wanting to be more flexible, I’ve started to see a Massage therapist. My thinking was that I would be getting a relaxing massage… It turns out, what I got instead was a person who was able to relocate my muscles from their current position to where they are supposed to be. Not only that, but after she would spend time “working on me” and assembling my body to make it “more human,” She gave me homework which I’m doing (or trying to…. I’m new, and sometimes I miss my practice). These home assignments were things I need to do to improve my overall posture and improve my flexibility. To help with this, she directed me to an app (of course, there’s a tech side to this….It is me, after all) which showed me which exercises I needed to do and gave me the order to do them in. What I like about this app, called PhysiApp, is that it also comes with a quick video for each exercise which shows you what to do and how to do it.
3) Made it a daily practice – Over the past year, I’ve found that I have been getting stiffer and stiffer, and I’m not too fond of it. To (hopefully) fix it. I took a couple of peloton classes that do whole-body stretches, and I did the practice for a while, but I have to admit, I fell off for a while. Part of my Physiotherapy homework was doing daily stretches and exercises to improve my posture and flexibility. While I’m writing this post, I’ve been doing it for about a week, and I decided that I would take a day off and not do the homework. What’s the worst that could happen, right? Uh…well….The following day I was in quite a bit of pain in my lower back to the point that the only way to fix it was to (ahem) do my homework. I am now resolved to do my exercises daily because slacking isn’t worth the pain, and I certainly hope to see some improvement by the time this particular article posts.
I have to face the fact that I’m getting older, and while my overall weight loss is helping with my flexibility, I have to practice being a bit bendier to maintain what progress I’ve made. I’m really enjoying what benefits the small changes I’ve made in my life have given me, and this is just one more. With the app that I’m using, It’s straightforward to maintain (and improve…hopefully) my flexibility so that I can keep doing the things that I’m doing now for years to come.
How flexible are you?
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