up one level
---

2018-05-01

A Continually Evolving Stretching Exercise Routine As Needed

By author Morgan Jassen

tags: #stretching

This blog post is a story that tells of a continually-evolving progression of finding a stretching/exercise routine that works to fit in my life and keep me healthy.

Years ago I ran daily and did calisthenics.

Then for years I didn't exercise.

Then I ran and didn't run, for a month here or there.

More recently, for months I walked daily to stretch and stay fit.

Then I got injured my foot and couldn't walk.

I moped to myself for a while that I couldn't walk.

After a few weeks of no exercise, I started doing simple stretches for three 15-minute sessions per day.

That worked good for a while. But I felt I needed a better cardio workout to get strong and to get sweaty. (by that I mean to exercise muscles and heart and circulatory system, which is accompanied by sweat, and therefore get more healthy)

So, a couple of months back, I changed my stretching routine. My foot still healing, so I added calisthenics.

I found, and felt, that I was probably too weak to do full push-ups without hurting myself. So I started with sets of three knee pushups, three stomach crunches, three swim stretches, and three 3-lb bicep curls.

I didn't really break a sweat, but i could feel the muscles stretching. I did this for a week. The next week I did three sets of each. The next week I did ten sets of each.

A month after that, I was doing fifteen sets of seven-rep calisthenics and I'd gradually added quadricep squats to the other four exercises.

At this point, it was a better workout, but all told it would take me 45 minutes to do them.

I got overwhelmed and started skipping the workout because it was too long and so too daunting.

So what then?

I went back to ten sets of 5-reps for the 5 exercises. Bingo! My time to do the entire workout is back down to 30 minutes. It's manageable.

Also, at one time, a friend suggested we shoot hoops daily at lunch time. I did that for a few months, and took walking out of my daily exercise schedule because the basketball hoop game was more exercise than the walking had been!

Another time, someone else showed me some yoga stretches. Whenever I was hanging out with them, I ended up doing those instead of my usual runner's stretches. It worked out well for a couple of weeks in a row!

What the previous two paragraphs point out, is that it's also possible to change exercises to fit around social interaction. It can be a benefit where one can network at the same time as stretching/exercising.

Since having originally written most of the above, its been about a year. The past few months, I've been doing 20-minute-long walks on a daily basis, on and off as the weeks have gone by. Also, in the cold winter and no gym membership, and added on to those another personal additional reason why I can't leave the house, I started doing circuits in the Living room and up and down stairs, that adding up the paces make up a 1-mile indoor daily circuit.

The conclusion is that over the decades, years, months, and weeks, one can change one's workout to be *whatever* fits in with one's current lifestyle and fitness goals.

At various points my workout routine has been early morning, morning, lunchtime, evening, late evening, or some combination of these. I've found that it's sometimes been necessary to change the time of day, in order to fit the stretching in with the rest of my life.

I would add though, as a side note, from personal experience from having gone a couple of years while not exercising and while also sitting daily at a desk day-job, that I'd not recommend that. I'd recommend to always maintain some physical activity and don't go more than, I'd say at most some few weeks, without having an activity routine.

It's good to exercise but it's also good to change one's routine to do whatever stretching/exercises/activity fits in one's life at that point. Furthermore, don't worry if all one can do is one knee-push-up, or even just some arm stretches. That is something and can contribute to good health. It might be necessary to slowly add reps or slowly add weight, in order to get to a better workout later. But that's not needed in the first few weeks or months just starting out after a long sedentary stretch. It might be necessary to first add flexibility of muscle via stretches, before then proceeding to be able to start doing strength training.(even light strength training)

In conclusion, as the years and weeks go by, it's good to exercise and stretch, but not only that, it's good to adjust which exercises and stretches that one does, as well as when one does them, and who one does them with -- this helps to fit stretching / exercising into one's life, keep doing the stretching, and stay healthy!

Note: This post was pre-published on Apr 19, 2018.


[2018-09-01 edit: Moved from https://i̶n̶v̶e̶s̶t̶o̶r̶w̶o̶r̶k̶e̶r̶.̶c̶o̶m̶/2018.php?2018-05-01#2018-05-01 to https://i̶n̶v̶e̶s̶t̶o̶r̶w̶o̶r̶k̶e̶r̶.̶c̶o̶m̶/blog2018/2018/05/01/a-continually-evolving-stretching-exercise-routine-as-needed/ ]
[2018-Nov. Note: This blog post was republished in November 2018 at https://i̶n̶v̶e̶s̶t̶o̶r̶w̶o̶r̶k̶e̶r̶.̶c̶o̶m̶/2018/ ]