Again, this is not a traditionally politically oriented/current issues related post.  Nonetheless, it is important.

Over the years I have done that seemingly stupid thing where I spent money on a piece of exercise equipment but then only used it a handful of times’.  But now that I am working from home, I can chip away at body parts throughout the day so I dug deeper and deeper in my apartment and pulled out some really valuable tools and ended up being really grateful that I actually HAD spent that money in past years.

I never spent a huge amount of money on anything (the ‘why’ goes without saying and it’s not because I’m cheap) so nothing I’m going to talk about costs that much.

I have been in progressive discomfort the last couple of years down my whole left side and toward the end of ‘on premise’ working I really had struggled in a real good amount of pain and had to be  away from home like this for 10.5 hours a day (I would categorize this as some amount of torture).  

So the first thing I pulled out was an inversion device because I wanted/needed to be able to do more movement than I would be comfortable doing on my feet, and with all of the nerve endings in between.  I remember I bought it at Gaiam when they had more exercise equipment.  So if I search ‘Gaiam’ and ‘exercise’ on google this is what it looks like.

I can use this mostly to stretch my legs more freely in different directions and this was a great starting point.  I remember I bought it because it was advertised as a way to get more blood flowing to your head, so surely that happens as well (and has to be done in short stints).  

Now that I’ve got my muscles stretched a little bit, it makes more sense to use the floor to stretch them further with the resistance of the floor – but I can still get on this at times and it does feel good.  

Other things I’ve progressively pulled out of storage (and I am finding a real good use for all of them) are:  

The second most important tool for me is this Gaiam Ab Ball (this is how I searched in Google and as of today there is one available on eBay).

The reason this is so valuable to me (I think) is that there is something really disconcerting to me to not have something to hold onto when trying to do a (or more than one) setup.  I don’t know why holding onto this 8 lb. ball helps so much but it does and Lord knows I need it.  

I have another smaller (5 lb.) weighted ball that I’d bought from Gaiam that I use to do Russian Twists for the side ab muscles (but I’m sure I’m not doing it quite right – yet…)

I am using little hand weights (10 lb.) to work some arm and back muscles with different movements.  

I had also bought this stepper from Gaiam eons ago – for a little bit of sweat anyway.

And today I recalled, found, and pulled out ankle weights so I can wear these while doing different leg movements and can feel the work being done by leg and hip muscles.

So these are all small things but with them together, about a weeks time, chipping away, searching for exercises or stretches for different muscles that I can feel need it, I can see and feel a little progress.

I do want to point out that stretching has been as important for me as repetitive movements and I read yesterday that most people make the mistake of not holding a stretch long enough – that you’re not really stretching your muscle unless you hold it for 30 seconds.  So this means that every time in my 49 years that I’ve stretched I really didn’t stretch anything – good to know.