Stretching II
How am I even able to run, now I’m so incredibly old?
Okay, I’m 37. Well, it’s all thanks to dutiful stretching. I am without doubt the most inflexible person I know, ballet school at the age of 11 notwithstanding. The podiatrist I visited said I had something like 11 degrees of movement in my hamstrings, which really doesn’t sound very much.
All of this no doubt contributed to my bout of Achilles Tendinitis last year, oh, and training for a marthon, hmm. But - stay cheerful, if you’ve got niggles, pains, aches, strains and stiffness, you CAN do something about it. I’m progressing to some yogic stuff now, but i’m so unpliable that I’ve already given up on yoga once in my life. On to the stretches. I’ll do these in a couple of posts, since there’s quite a lot to say:
There are arguments over whether to stretch BEFORE and/or AFTER running. At least for me, what’s worked and seems sensible is getting warmed up before doing any stretching. This may be less important for long slow stretches than for fast ‘dynamic’ ones, which I don’t really do. So, on a long run I usually stop after 10 minutes and do a bit of stretching, run some more and if you feel the fancy take you, do some more stretching! It’s also a good opportunity to get the camera phone out and take some snaps. It’s what you see racers do all the time - jog about a bit, then stretch, then race (not taking photos). Then get home, drink, eat some malt loaf, shower if you have to and get to the stretching.
Hamstrings: bend over a chair. That’s an easy one. The podiatrist gave me this one, though are many many variants. Just get a good book, lay it down on a chair, then bend over the chair, keeping your legs straight. Start gently but keep it up for about 15 minutes, stretching further but not so that it’s ever too difficult. This is also the kind of thing you could do at work, in a meeting, on a plane. However, clinical introverts like me tend to do it at home. When I haven’t got time for that, I just lie on the floor and stretch one leg over the other at 90 degrees to my body (or as near to it as possible, ie 11 degrees for me) against a sofa. If you haven’t got a sofa, go get one. Keep the leg straight, and stretch for 30 seconds plus, then switch legs (hint - you’ll have to turn around to do that).
To be continued . . .
June 7th, 2006 at 8:45 am
I must have missed the ballet school.
Do you ever get twitchy legs? I did 2.5 hrs excercise on Sunday - since I normally do nothing this was a bit of a shock to the system… That night, when I went to bed, my legs were on fire, and felt as if they were still twitching - not restful at all. I thought excercise was supposed to make you sleep well…
June 7th, 2006 at 10:28 am
Twitching legs? Yes, I had them last night too!
Apparently this is sometimes caused by lack of zinc in the diet (lost during exercise). The good news is that drinking chocolate is full of it, as are oysters. So make yourself an oyster chocolate smoothie before bed. Yum.
I found it really hard to get to sleep when I was running evenings or even late afternoons, which is partly why I switched to early morning. I guess your heart rate has just gone up too much and adrenalin is still flowing around. It’s really annoying, but your body does get used to regular exercise, your heart adapts and you start sleeping again.
2 1/2 hours sounds like a lot from a standing start!