Pluggers by Rick McKee for March 23, 2021

she’s doing Yoga, ain’t she?

Ohhhh yeah!!!

Second hardest part? Getting down on the floor. ;-)

Especially if the exercises are for back and leg pain.

Just taking care of the homestead is a good workout !

Don’t have to exercise to have that issue, just getting up after wiping down the baseboards or cleaning the outside of toilet is a well thought out activity.

Decades ago I told some friends, “You’ll be bald, fat and out of shape some day. I’m just ahead of the game.”

And the hardest thing about skating is the ice, when you come right down to it.

Rolling out of bed in the morning is easy… The hard part really is getting up off the floor.

I am a Plugger and have never had a problem getting up off the floor. I can still do it easily at 79. My only problem is convincing my friends to do the exercises that would allow them to do so as well.

In my exercise class, the younger ones are on the 3rd exercise and I am still getting up off the floor for the first one. That’s alright, don’t have to wait on me.

I haven’t heard of the upward dog.

When I reached Medicare age and had to take the ‘survey’ at my doctor’s office—a series of questions designed to make you feel really old and useless—I realized the only question I had to answer ‘yes’ to was the one, ‘do you have a fear of falling?’ and I realized that I had unconsciously begun to hesitate before stepping off a curb, going down stairs, walking across uneven ground, etc. Your body changes as you get older — you shrink, your feet flatten out, your center of gravity shifts (sort of like when you are pregnant), your joints aren’t as flexible, so you body reacts differently (and more slowly) to changes in footing and position and you move slower, hesitate at stairs, start carrying a cane/staff, and eventually you may start to ‘lean’ and shuffle. Doing my regular housework, garden work, etc. was fine for calories, but it wasn’t enough to stop that hesitancy, that unconscious fear of losing my balance. So I took up yoga with the goal of becoming more flexible and regaining my sense of balance. The yoga (just the exercises, no ‘omms’ involved) helped me learn a lot about the muscles I had been using (and not using) and how to control them. I realized after a few months of weekly sessions that I no longer stopped and looked down before stepping off a curb, I was going up and down stairs without one foot leading the way, and my cane/staff was being left in the car. And I was finding it easier and quicker to do my regular chores. The yoga (think of it as a combination of isotonic and isometric exercises) helped me understand how my muscles (are supposed to) interact and how to get them working together. I started yoga in September 2017. I still can’t do a good ‘Warrior 3’, and I will never be able to keep up with a yoga video, but I took up scuba diving in 2019.

Amen

The hard part is when your oldest child is invited to apply to AARP…

The hardest part is thinking up a good excuse to not even get on the floor.

I’ll drink to that…