Stretching/Yoga

Key Insight

● From ages 20 to 49 we lose 10% of mobility every 10 years, and after 50 this increases more and more. Yoga and stretching significantly help keep these percentages from occurring or reduce them as much as possible. Stretching is also preventative for many injuries and reduces inflammatory processes, stress, hypertension, depression and anxiety. Studies show that yoga helps preserve brain function in old age.

● Yoga has a somewhat strange reputation in our region as an "Eastern" practice that is "not in line with Christianity", and it is also seen as a female activity. Both aspects of that reputation are nonsense. Yoga is a practice of active stretching and relaxation of muscles. Men and women have muscles. And “Eastern” and Christians have muscles. Of course, yoga can be used in religious contexts, but so can anything else (fire, water, the sun, bread, wine, sacrificing people on the cross etc.). Women need stretching, but believe me men need it even more after the gym. Very few people stretch after training, and even fewer stretch properly after training. I don’t know good stretching or yoga exercises, so yoga is my best way to do them. After yoga I feel immeasurably better, back pain from a broken vertebra almost disappeared. Once or twice a week can easily be added, best right after training (gym or cardio).

● The human body did not evolve to sit 8–12 hours a day in a chair, and most of us do exactly that. If we cannot avoid sitting (and we’ve discussed some techniques on how to do this) then physical activity and stretching are the only options to try to minimize the damage.