Marion Freijsen A blog about Sports, Fitness & Health

A spring in your step

It’s a known fact – your body ages as you get older. It’s one thing knowing this, but I have sad news – it’s even worse experiencing it!!

Of course I am not THAT old – but I definitely notice that I am less flexible then I used to be. Because your cells don’t renew as eagerly as they used to, both your muscles and joints tend to become stiffer. But seriously – you don’t have to take that! You can actually do something about it.

First of all – you can stretch more regularly to keep your limbs loose. But apart from that, and massage and good food and all the other factors that help, you can use plyometrics to keep nimble. Travis, my trainer, makes me do all sorts of exercises that stress the joints. Impact can actually help flexibility. My knees, after a few months of doing these, are stronger and more loose then they have been for years!

Some examples of plyometrics for the legs (and believe me, these are tough, I did some yesterday and really feel my legs today):

find a low bench, straddle it so you stand with your legs on either side. Now bend your knees and jump up with both feet. As you land, bend through your knees again and jump down to your starting position. Don’t stop though, immediately after you land you bend through the knees and jump up again. Do 10 of these. Three sets (but do something else in between).

This will require two people. One person to sit down and laugh his/her head off – one to do all the work. So get a rubber band, swing it around your hips and let the “sitter” hold it. Crouch down into a low squat, scuttle away from the sitter sideways, keeping your point of gravity as low as you can. As you get to the furthest point of resistance, you start moving back slowly to the starting point. Do this scuttle again 5 times and then the other side.

Stand in front of the low bench – Jump over with both feet. Do this 10 times. Break and do it again, 3x in total.

Draw a line on the ground – about 3 m., 9ft. long. Stand on one leg, and skip from side to side from one end to the other. Make sure you skip on your one leg without touching the floor right to the end. When you get there, skip backwards from side to side till you get to the beginning. Do this twice! And then change legs… do the same routine again on the other side!