The background.
As a younger man I considered myself to be a pretty physically fit individual, able to carry heavy loads over long distances, and in fairly short order. I never really suffered with the usual training injuries of pulled muscles, strained ligaments etc, and consider myself quite lucky in that regard. Lucky that I never had any issues with my physical health (outside of injuries caused), which gave me a sense of indestructibility that later on would lead me to be short sighted and disregard the long term effects of proper care and maintenance.
You see, 25 years ago, when I moved to Norfolk to start my family, I stopped all forms of training and exercise, not gradually over time with a warm down period, but quite literally overnight. I should have known better, in fact I did know better, but I didn’t pay much attention to the better part of my judgement and experience, I had other, newer concerns on my mind.
The next 20 years or so saw me take on a completely different life as I built and grew my family, foregoing any consideration as to my own physical well being. Well, to cut a long story short, and following a few further injuries caused, I have since come to learn the true cost of my ignorance, folly, and flagrant disregard for my own wellbeing.
On to today.
In the last few years as part of my personal growth and development, I began engaging in some basic physical fitness training. For a while all was well as I gradually built myself up and started to train on a regular basis. But it didn’t last. At this point I have to say that I do suffer with a mild case of osteoarthritis in my hips and knees. This does cause me a certain amount of pain and discomfort when exerting myself, but for a long time I mistakenly believed that it was the only cause.
The last two years has been filled with a huge number of pulls, strains, and other various injuries.However, It transpires that some of the pain I’ve been feeling is not from the arthritis, but from the fact that I’ve lost an amazing amount of strength and mobility in the complex structure that makes up my hips and connected structure. In the normal course of daily life I don’t generally experience any issues outside the low level ache of what the arthritis causes. However, a return to exercise has highlighted the shocking lack of mobility and muscle tightness that causes a lot of the pain I feel when they’re activated through stretching or exercise, and I’ve had to deal with quite a lot of pain in doing so.
So why write this, why talk about my issues like this? As an excuse? As a reason to bemoan my situation to garner a little sympathy? In short, no.
It’s to highlight the fact that with only a basic amount of stretching incorporated into any training or exercise regime you can easily avoid many of the issues that will cause you pain and injury. Not only that, but it will make you stronger in the long run (no pun intended).
Talking to, and reading about, what many of us guys do to exercise, it’s become clear to me that many of us neglect the stretching aspect of exercise in favour of strength and endurance. This is fine, but only to a point. Without proper flexibility we become linear and unidirectional in movement, and therefore strength, limiting our bodies to a reduced range of movement, and therefore increasing the risk of injury as we move outside that range when circumstances demand or cause it.
From my own personal experience I have come to learn this lesson far too late, and at a cost to my personal health. However, it’s never too late to try and do something about it, and the sooner you start the better.
I’m 54 years old now, and any progress for me will inevitably be slow and arduous because of my previous short sightedness and folly, believing that I still held on to some of my former glory. I didn’t.
I would urge in the strongest terms possible for anybody reading this to carefully consider this aspect of their physical training. To include some form of mobility and stretching regime into whatever form of exercise you do. And if you don’t do any other exercise at all then at least just stretch, your body will thank you for it later, that much is guaranteed.
Ten to fifteen minutes of quality stretching every other day is all it takes to keep you from suffering with tightness in the neck and shoulders, reducing the likelihood of tension headaches, and to open up your hip mobility giving you greater ease of movement preventing you from becoming stiff and tight, and reducing the likelihood of any training injuries.
Given that we engage in an activity that requires us to walk long distances over uneven and rugged terrain, and very often with heavy packs, it makes sense to look after our physical health. Having strong and flexible hips, knees, and ankles, will also increase back strength and stability, all the things we require to engage in the activity we call hiking.
So come on guys……..stretch 🧘🧎