Things Are Startin' To Stretch

Bagged Yoga today after the first few sun salutations and popped in X Stretch instead. I'm still tired and what I really needed today was a thorough stretching session. It occured to me that I haven't ever done this workout in its final form. I did the test version, of course, but this was a little different. During the X each time I stretched I'd done Debbie's Slim in 6 Express Cool It Off dvd, just because it's shorter. X Stretch was just what I needed.

I stretch daily but almost never long enough, which is a chronic problem. Stretching is boring. Thing is, whenever I do it I feel so good I say to myself that I'll stretch more. Rarely happens. Whenever it does my performance goes up and my injuries abate. Today's session was prompted because while climbing last Sat my knee locked up doing the above move. I have a problem in my knee that's been there for years. When I'm stretching enough and warm-up properly I don't notice it. But whenever I neglect it for too long I have something bad happen. This is generally during a climb when all of my weight is sitting on it, or when it's twisted as I'm starting to do in this pic. It usually siezes up, locks, causes me to fall off and then swells up. Luckily, it's never happened in a dire situation--actually, it did once and I was luckily able to hold it together for one more move to a big hold where I could both get protection and shake out my leg. This weekend it was a minor problem only as I was able to clip a bolt, hang, and shake it out. But it was enough to get me stretching again.

A cycling coach once said "if you don't have time to stretch you don't have time to train." Very few of us pay attention to this. Those that do, I'm certain, out perform everyone else.