FEELING GREAT: Don’t just stop, keep moving when dealing with stiffness

"Swimming, bike riding and walking are all fabulous ways of preventing flexibility problems.”

Ok, let’s talk about “flexibility”. It’s your ability to stretch and the ease with which you can freely move or bend.

Without some degree of flexibility, life can be a bit more difficult than you might like and if you’re 50 or over, you’re probably already beginning to lose it on a daily basis.

As you do begin to lose flexibility in muscles and joints (have you tried touching your toes lately?) you’ll notice increasing difficulty with the simplest of things, such as putting socks and shoes on.

Or getting in and out of the car without a struggle and even doing some household chores.

And those next-day aches and pains, the ones you feel after an active day spent walking or doing things in the garden, are caused by a lack of flexibility too.

So, if it’s affecting your life in any of these ways, it might help to know a little bit about why it’s happening and what you can do about it.

The big problem is this: not many people are open to the idea that you can increase your flexibility.

It’s as if stiffness and a lack of freedom of choice when it comes to movement are an inevitable age thing.

And sure, they are – to some degree! But that doesn’t mean you can’t slow down these effects or even reverse them. So, how do you go about reducing the impact of muscles and joints getting stiffer and tighter by the day?

It’s really simple: don’t stop! Because the temptation is to think that because you’re feeling tighter and stiffer, you should stop and wait for the stiffness to go.

More often than not, that’s the worst thing you can do, and rarely does it do anything other than get worse.

Swimming, bike riding and walking are all fabulous ways of preventing flexibility problems as you get older – even if you only do each one for 30-40 minutes, three times a week.

My own routine is often to stretch at the halfway mark, and then again at the end of my bike ride or run.

I’ll find a nice place to pull over (preferably with a nice view to enjoy whilst I’m doing it), and stretch all my shoulder, back and leg muscles for about 10-15 minutes. It feels great when I’m done! Another way you could improve your flexibility is to find a yoga class – and attend it regularly.