Flexibility and Balance 101

Unfortunately, we don’t just need cardio and weight training to be physically fit humans.  We also need flexibility and balance.  I touched on this a little bit yesterday in talking about Pilates, which is a good way to improve both flexibility and balance, but it is not the only way.

 

Flexibility first.  I have bad news.  Most of us are getting less flexible all the time.  This is because we tend to skip even maintenance in this area.  How many workouts have we ended without a stretch?  I think we assume it’s not necessary because it feels good; we assume that all fitness things need to be unpleasant to be effective.

 

So how do we turn this around?  First:  exercise is not a punishment.  If it hurts a lot, we are doing it wrong.  (Sometimes it’s a bit uncomfortable, but that’s different.)  Second, we learn how to do flexibility right.

 

There are various schools of thought about stretching.  Personally, I think doing static stretches first thing in a workout is a good way to get hurt.  We want to warm the body up a bit before we stretch those muscles, which means we can do a little walking or we can do dynamic stretches (think of things like high knees, or windmills, or twists) if we want to do some flexibility work before our main workout.  There is some data to suggest that doing flexibility first reduces our weight lifting performance, but we may not care about that if we are not going for a world record.  I prefer to stretch after other workouts, when the body is good and warm.  It is best to stretch whatever muscles we have been using for our workout and science says holding stretches for 30 to 60 seconds works best.  Alternatively or additionally, we can add a flexibility practice like a yoga or Pilates class to our routines, but please note:  flexibility is one of those things that works best if we do it every day.  Five minutes can make a big difference.

 

Balance is a life skill.  We are all getting older and one of the major predictors of mortality in older people is falls.  Good balance is basically insurance against icky stuff like hip fractures.  I have good news:  balance is easy to incorporate into our daily routines, both in and out of our workouts.

 

In our workouts, we work on balance any time we do core work or asymmetrical work.  All those single leg exercises we do are for balance, as are things like single arm clean and presses and woodchoppers.  Our work on our pretty princesses and all our other core exercises help with balance, too.

 

However, we can sneak balance practice into regular life.  We all (I hope!) brush our teeth in the morning.  If we stand there on one leg, we are practicing balance.  Same deal for doing the dishes or waiting in line at the store.

 

A safety note about balance work:  start slow and easy and make sure that there is a counter or sturdy piece of furniture to hold on to if necessary.  We don’t want to fall while we’re learning.

 

We can do this.