Slowly Stretching Sunday
I’m doing Yoga this morning. I have been watching the DVD and practicing some of the moves, so today, I’m adding two new moves.
I have to tell you that since my friend gave me the yoga mat, I have increased the amount of stretching that I do. It is really easy to get in the habit of not stretching our muscles. I have always stretched my neck muscles because of my neck and back injury. But, I have neglected my arms, belly, and legs. Now that I am doing Yoga and it is all about the stretching, I am also paying attention to how my muscles are feeling.
For my lower back, I get on my hands and knees and arch my back and relax it. This move is supposed to increase the muscle strength in the lower back and sides. You can do this standing up by standing a little away from a sturdy chair or the cabinet counter and placing your hands on the back of the chair or the edge of the counter and leaning over a bit and doing the same arch and relax. When I am doing the dishes, I do this before I start and after I finish.
This evening, I am meeting my dance partner and we are going to practice our foxtrott. He is a friend to the couple who own the dance studio where we take lessons and they let him have the key so we can practice. I keep telling him that he is obsessed with dance. We are not the best dancers in the club; in fact, we are not even the top three. That doesn’t bother me but it does drive him crazy. He wants us to get as good as the top dancers, a husband and wife team. I keep reminding him that I am not a good dancer but he says you will be if we just practice. Actually, we go there and do a little practice and then we sit in the floor and gossip about our dance club colleagues. HA! I’m on to him; he just wants to have something to do on Sundays that doesn’t involve watching some stupid football game with his husband.
Well, today, work on stretching---especially you Susan. Get those muscles stretched so you can speed up the removal of lactic acid buildup in the muscle fiber—that’s what makes you stiff and sore. Stretching creates added blood flow to the area and the byproducts (lactic acid) are quickly picked up and taken to the liver and kidneys for destruction.
Exercise builds are strength which in turn builds our coordination and that creates a confidence that we lose as we get older. Children and young adults do not need to move cautiously on ice or over rocky surfaces, but we know how easy it is to fall. But, when we build up our muscles, we gain equilibrium that goes with balance and all of the cordinating things we lose as we get old.
I love pool exercises but cannot do them because of my asthma. The chlorine from the indoor pools causes me to have asthma attacks. Totally sucks. I can swim outside in the summer and do but the winter is too cold here to go outside. Although, last winter, my friend and I hiked one of the trails at Devil's Den and we came up to a lake that was hidden by the brush and trees and no one was around and she said, I'm gonna take a quick swim. I said, you will freeze and she said, no I will get my heart rate up. I said, you're crazy and she said, dare you. We both stripped off our clothes, ran into the lake, and tha****er was witches tit cold, and we splashed, ran out, shiverred and our teeth chattered and we put our clothes on and pratically ran back to the highway to our car. When we got to the highway, a park ranger saw us and said, you ladies were not out there swimming were you. Both of us had dripping wet hair, and I said, no, we put out heads under the water fall. He laughed and my friend said, he saw us skinny dipping, and I said, no way. She said, he had to have seen us. Then, I said, bless his heart. No one that young and handsome should be exposed to this much old and saggy.
