Fitness

[wellinghall]

O wise FList, I need your help.

I want to get fit. No, scrub that - "fit" is far too high a target to aim at. I want to get a little bit fitter, and lose the couch potato status I seem to have acquired over the last few months. I do have some physical issues which complicate this - knee, feet, shoulder, nose, lungs, to name just the most obvious - but they don't have to keep me welded to the settee.

Does anyone have any suggestions for:
- some sort of fitness program I could follow? - in fairly easy steps, please!
- some sort of (realistic!) target I could aim at?

Comments

[pellegrina.livejournal.com]

That sounds interesting - what other exercises were involved? I have insanely tight hamstrings (can hardly reach past my knees without bending them) and weak wrists, but exercise that can be incorporated with reading or watching TV would be less dull. Most of my previous attempts at exercise have come unstuck due to sheer boredom, or doing in my wrists.

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

I've got absolutely the thing for you to exercise your weak wrists (never thought I'd recommend an exercise machine):

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=TY-000-PB&groupid=253&catid=886&subcat=

[sigisgrim.livejournal.com]

A couple of blokes at work have got these. They stopped using them when the rest of us collapsed in fits of laughter; it just looked like they were having a very active masturbation session! :-)

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

VERY active!

[gramarye1971]

I tended to experiment to see what worked best for me. It's very much a matter of 'Does this feel good to stretch?' or 'Do I feel like I'm using some muscles I don't normally use?'

One of the things I used to do was to lie on my back on the floor with my feet up on the sofa (so that the backs of my legs were on the cushions and my knees were bent 90 degrees), and lift my hips off the floor to tighten the muscles of my lower back and abdomen. Arms and shoulders stayed flat on the floor -- all the lifting and holding was done with my abdominal muscles.

The key, I think, is to remember to breathe the whole time. ^_^ Otherwise, you just make yourself feel sore and out of breath.