<p>The current thinking in fitness circles is that static stretching provides, at best, a short term improvement in flexibility and that better results come from consistently doing dynamic “mobility” exercises, i.e. moving joints thru their full range of motion. The little NROL4A warmup sequence I do three times a week is designed to provide this kind of dynamic mobility activation for all of the major joints in the body. If you had asked me after a week or two, I would have said I didn’t see any improvment. Ask me now, after doing it for nine months, and I can see improvment in every area.</p>
<p>One of the simple ones is a walking crossover toe touch. Take three steps, crossover one foot in front of the other, then bend down to touch the toes. Take three more steps, crossover with the other foot, and bend down. Here’s the non-walking version:</p>
<p>Over months and months, I have just gotten more flexibile doing this kind of simple stuff. I can’t quite put my palms flat on the ground in front of my feet without a slight knee bend, but I can grab my toes.</p>
<p>This one is my all-time favorite toe-touch stretch. I think it was popularized by physical therapist Gray Cook. Five of these before every workout stretches just about everything - ankles, calves, knees, hamstrings, hips, shoulders. Probably the single best way to get the flexibilty for a deep squat:</p>
<p>There are two elements to flexibility: what your joints and muscles can do and what your brain and central nervous system think they can do. These sorts of dynamic stetches work on both.</p>
<p>Hi All! Back from a vacation out of town and hit the gym this morning! Did hike 3 days in the woods on cross country ski trails. Did at least 3 miles each hike. Today I worked out for 90 minutes to get my cranky knee moving. Biked and did weight machines, pushups and dreadmill . Feel so much better but will be sore tomorrow I bet. </p>
<p>idad…you will do great on your 5K! Even though I just walk them I really enjoy them. It is a nice family time even though I walk by myself. Good Luck!</p>
<p>That hip squat is good! Unfortunately, my knees are already at risk so I think it would be a stress on them. I wish I knew about this exercise 15 years ago.</p>
<p>I’d been doing the NRLW squats, but never realized the point of touching your toes and squatting from that position first. Also the importance of pushing your knees out. My knees feel better after doing these exercises BTW.</p>
<p>If I could only do two exercises for the rest of my life, that would be one of them. The reverse inchworm would probably be the other, maybe including a pushup in it for a little shoulder workout.</p>
<p>When I started 18 months ago, I had a gimpy knee and squatting was a motion that I avoided completely. My brain would not allow me to do it because of knee. If I needed something off the bottom shelf of the fridge, I wouldn’t squat down to get it. I actually had to put a knee down and kneel on the floor. I had just felt my gimpy knee “buckle” too many times to bend it like that.</p>
<p>Turns out that it wasn’t a gimpy knee at all. It was a total lack of ankle and hip flexibilty combined with poor leg strength (and being too fat). As that stuff improved, my “gimpy” knee went away. I now have absolutely no problem squatting down with the tops of my thighs below parallel to the floor with no complaint from my knees at all. It’s a vivid example of how the brain and the body can work together to convince you that you a particular motion will hurt and how easily that can be overcome as long as you don’t expect overnight results. </p>
<p>That hip mobility warmup is the perfect way to improve things. It won’t fix up BC Eagle, with bone on bone grinding in his knee. But for a vaguely gimpy knee that “catches” or “gives out” every once in a while, improving the other stuff (ankle and hip) will make a huge difference. Just make a habit of doing five of them a few days a week or even every day (with no weight, they aren’t going to make you sore). Don’t force it. Nice and easy, go as low as you can comfortably, hold it for a moment and push the knees out a bit each time. </p>
<p>It was funny. After a few months, I noticed how hard that exercise had suddenly gotten. I couldn’t figure it out. I’d been doing it for months; why was it getting harder? Then, I looked and realized that, without even noticing, I was now squatting down way below parallel. No wonder it was “harder” to push back up from there! </p>
<p>It’s still my second warmup exercise before every workout. Lately, I’ve been focusing on trying to be really tall and upright in the back (instead of bending forward) and getting my arms more directly overhead before pushing up. That’s an overhead squat position, minus the barbell.</p>
<p>Yep. I actually bend down, grab my toes, and then try to completely straighten my knees, feeling the hamstring stretch. I don’t force it, just a nice dynamic stretch.</p>
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<p>For reasons that are above my head, pushing the knees apart allows the body to squat deeper. Dan Johns has a drill where he actually coaches people to grab the toes and squat down like that and then use the elbows to push the knees apart. They invariably end up much lower. He actually has them do that for like 30 seconds and they often end up so deep that they can’t get back up! So he does it with partners behind them to pull them back up! This whole area of what the brain thinks we can and cannot do is fascinating stuff. Huge for us older folk.</p>
<p>6 miles, pace: 9:53, HR 140. Did a 9-minute stretch and situps routine early this morning and will do some light weights at home tonight and maybe a video with my wife tonight.</p>
<p>Good luck with your 5K Idad. You’ll have to take a photo of your T-shirt and post it here.</p>
<p>I’m on the mend. Wound clinic docs are happy with the way my ankle incision is healing. There’s still debating on whether I should do the pressurized wound gizmo. </p>
<p>Was able to walk almost 3 miles today. I’ve been avoiding exercises in NRWL like squats and lunges, until my ankle felt stronger. As I was watching the video I-dad posted, I went ahead and followed along and felt fine–a little stiff, but my ankle was strong. </p>
<p>Recovery is slow and I’m anxious to get back to the gym. My trainer called and suggested that I put my gym membership on hold, which was a good idea because I was paying the monthly fee even though I wasn’t using the gym. When I called, the office rolled the hold back to June!</p>
<p>Excellent news, Bromfield. I can’t wait to see you back 100%</p>
<p>Am getting really excited about idad’s race. He should definitely post a pic with the t-shirt!</p>
<p>Will refrain from my boring rant about my lack of flexibility – suffice to say, Gumby I ain’t.
There is really only so much you can do with stretching, no matter how consistent you are, if you are flexibility challenged to the degree I am. The most effective forms of stretching I have found, by a long shot, are PNF stretching with a trainer or other victim, and stretching on a vibration platform.</p>
<p>I cried in my beginner yoga class because the position holds were so painful.</p>
<p>Dynamic Warm up and stretches: Sumo squat to stand, inchworms, world’s greatest</p>
<p>4 rounds:
20 Plyo split squats
20 Medicine Ball slams (14 #)
20 Butterfly situps with Medicine Ball</p>
<p>9 minutes 50 sec</p>
<p>4 rounds with 1 minute rest between exercises</p>
<p>Overhead press with 35# bar
Static (?) leg raises (holding self up on bar in a dip position and bringing legs to vertical)
Kettle bell swings 18#</p>
<p>292 reps</p>
<p>Kettle bells were too light. Leg raises very difficult, because of… hamstring flexibility issues…</p>
<p>bromfield: Glad to hear that your ankle is finally on the mend. What an ordeal this has been for you.</p>
<hr>
<p>I took advantage of nice weather this afternoon (67 degrees and sunny) for my fourth and final “tuneup” walk/jog on the 5K route. They have all the markings spray painted now, so I even know the exact turn-around spot now (instead of “15 feet east of pole #2010”). I did the extra 200 meter jog at the start again, then the usual alternating 400 meters walking and 400 meters jogging. Picked up the pace today and knocked over a minute off of Sunday’s time, mostly by keeping the pace up even on the final three harder intervals.</p>
<p>This has been a good, productive diversion, letting me increase the length of my jogging intervals from 320 meters to 400 meters, while at the same time, increasing from five intervals to six intervals on a 5K route, and adding more uphill and less downhill. Programming these interval workouts on the Garmin makes it so easy. From here, it would be piece of cake to start increasing the the jogging intervals (say from 400 to 425) and decreasing the walking intervals (from 400 to 375), but I think I’ll leave well enough alone for “race day” on Sunday. I don’t plan to jog anymore this week. My legs are tired. I have a cap of one or two walk/jog outings a week and I’ve now done four in the last eight days. Too many, but the weather forecasts looked like I might have limited opportunities.</p>
<p>I did five minutes of that Pilates Abs workout (it’s 30 minutes total) and I’d say that it was harder than I expected it to be. The workout is from the Exercise TV folks and I think that I grabbed it off YouTube and put it on the iPad. Most of their stuff on YouTube is not free - but you can go to Hulu or Bing and watch their stuff with commercials. I also found out that they have a free iPhone App - I assume that it turns your iPad or iPhone into a viewing device for their workout along with commercials.</p>
<p>I set up the iPad with a different workout (arms and shoulders) for today and she’s going to give it a try later on. She’s wanted a workout for arms and shoulders for a while and the iPad is a really convenient way to try out workouts in a convenient way. You can put it on a table for standing exercises and then bring it down onto the floor for floor work.</p>
<p>One thing on shirts - it would be nice if there was a shirt company that made euro-cut shirts. The Adidas shirts are pretty nice but I’m finding that there’s still a lot of room in the torso when I have a shirt that fits in the shoulders. I’ve seen many pro tennis players with this problem. Some guys wear the skin-tight stuff but I don’t know if I want that kind of feel - it’s a pain to take off when you’re soaking wet. I should probably ask on my tennis forums.</p>
<p>Extra effort today in the gym. One of those days where I had a hard time focusing and my HRM wasn’t getting a signal. No idea why it wasn’t working. Biked and did dreadmill. I am sore in my lats from working out yesterday. It is such a beautiful day here! Will get outside later for another short walk and to enjoy the sunshine while I can!</p>
<p>That’s an interesting article. Yes, all the manufacturers are jumping on the minimalist bandwagon, at least calling some of their shoes minimalist, even if they aren’t really… I don’t think Nike Frees are minimalist, although I like them and they are certainly a different feel from a structured shoe. Brooks Pure Project shoes are coming out right now- mine are on the way to me. They aren’t a true barefoot shoe like Five Fingers, but should be a good lightweight, unsupportive shoe.</p>
<p>[whinge]- I walked " too much" around Vancouver the last few days & my knees are paying the price so I had to skip Tai Chi this morning<a href=“it%20was%20fun%20though-%20we%20stayed%20by%20Stanley%20Park/English%20Bay%20&%20they%20have%20a%20great%20path%20along%20the%20beach”> /whinge.</a></p>
<p>I did wear relatively good/flat shoes- but I usually have to alternate shoes every day & I only wore my five fingers one day, since it was pretty wet & chilly. ( & I didn’t want to look * too* geeky)</p>
<p>I have been absent from this thread for a while, mostly because things have been pretty much the same for me in terms of both eating and exercise. But I checked back in today because D and I have decided to both participate in a 5K event in February (it’s at Disney World, which to be honest is a lot of the appeal–but I will take motivation where I find it these days, and it will be great to do this with her). I am thrilled to see that idad is forging this trail so I will just follow along. The event requires a 16 minute mile pace, which I can easily do on the treadmill but I need to figure out how to jog outside. I know that sounds silly but honestly I much prefer to be indoors on my treadmill. Advice?</p>
<p>Amesie…I found that my pace was faster outside in a 5K…maybe the excitement??? And also I made a playlist that had fast paced music that fueled my speed.</p>
<p>If you are jogging on the treadmill, you should be able to do a 16 min/mile pace outdoors without too much trouble. I can walk at that pace if I really crank it up and push.</p>
<p>The one catch: I understand outdoor running/walking is harder than treadmill running/walking – largely because the treadmill motor is providing the “forward” power for you where as outdoors you not only have to go up and down, but also propel yourself forward.</p>
<p>I guess my only advice would be:</p>
<p>a) Do the walk/jog intervals. That really is a proven way to transition from walking to jogging and makes it really easy to slowly ramp up by jogging more intervals or increasing the length of the jogging intervals or jogging faster.</p>
<p>b) Walk before jogging each time out. This has made a big difference in the way my legs feel. I typically walk a half mile and one hard hill before the first jogging interval. I’m breaking this rule this week with a short 200 meter jog to start, but that means a comprehensive warmup beforehand. Overall, trying to jog right out of the driveway has not been happy/happy for my legs.</p>
<p>c) If you can find some dirt or grass or trails that are smooth enough, it’s a lot easier on your legs than pavement. It’s slower, but less impact. That’s been a big transition for me this week, going to all pavement. my normal route has two or three jogging intervals on trails and three on pavement.</p>
<p>d) Crank up the incline on your treadmill a little bit to better simulate outdoors.</p>
<p>e) Pay attention to pain. I’ve been on the lookout for any signs that I’m hurting myself with this jogging and have been prepared to stop. Other than the same minor shin split discomfort the first few times that I felt when I first started walking, I’ve been fine. I only feel it on the first jogging interval on pavement. It was worse when I hadn’t warmed up first.</p>
<p>The runners will probably have better advice than I do. I’m certainly not a runner and don’t expect that I ever will be. I just see it as a good outdoor option for interval conditioning.</p>
This whole area of what the brain thinks we can and cannot do is fascinating stuff. Huge for us older folk.</p>