Ah travel, a chance to get out of your rut and into your groove. Oh, to gander at startling horizons, take wrong turns and find surprising places and bombard your senses with the unexpected, delightful and unusual. Unfortunately, unless you’re on a yoga retreat, things are not so expansive for the major muscle groups of your lower body. Travel often involves a lot of sitting on planes, trains, Venetian gondoliers, elephant’s backs and cars.

Sitting is the world’s most popular form of hip tightening. Walking, whether up mountain trails, along the River Seine or between rides at Disneyland tends to tighten up the hips, hamstrings and calves. Though walking is still great exercise (do as much as possible to counter-balance the chocolate croissants and other traveling delights) in isolation it can cause a body to be tighty, tight, tight.

Having tight hips is the leg equivalent of fingers that are mostly stuck together and can’t move freely forward and back or side to side. Try walking with six-inch steps and you get the idea. Tight hips not only limit your range of motion, they can lead to lower back pain and injury. Tight hamstrings and calves also bring about back trouble and the feeling that you are about 30 years older than you actually are. Additionally, tight calves and inflexible ankles can cause “shuffle walk”, sprained ankles, loss of balance and an increased risk of falls.

Whether you are leading a pack llama up a steep slope, rafting down the Colorado or waiting in line at the Met losing your balance and falling over is not what you want to be writing about on your postcards.

The moral of the story is that it’s important to keep up with a basic stretching routine while you globe trot. Try spending 15 to 20 minutes in the morning or evening loosening up and reconnecting with your body. It’s a great opportunity for a little break from the maddening crowds and will keep you healthy and seeking out new horizons for many years to come.

What we could all learn from fit, long-living, mature Asians:

The best workout clothes is whatever you have on right now

When I see the Asian grannies and grammpies hoofing down the street or tai chin’ in the park they are wearing comfy street clothes. These are clothes they might wear for the rest of the day, which makes being active more integrated and less of a hassle. This can be difficult if you work at a fancy pants job, but on weekends or casual days make an effort to dress up your workout clothes or loosen up your street clothes to promote outfit cross-training. As a wise, probably Asian person, once said, “Wearing clothes one can move around in promotes moving around.”

Walk, walk, walk and then walk some more.

It is a well known fact that the reason why the chicken (and the duck) crossed the road was to escape the older Asian lady with the shopping bag and intent look in her eye. I often see women who appear to be in their 70’s walking to and from the store with heavy bags of groceries and other assorted necessities or daughters in their 80’s helping 100 year-old mothers with their daily constitutionals. Older Asians walk for exercise and to get from point A to points B, C and D. Loading walking is a great way to increase and maintain bone density, which greatly reduces age related fracture risks. As we have all heard time and again walking in general is wonderful, low-impact, mood enhancing cardiovascular exercise. Just try and think of someone you know who walks everywhere and is depressed.

Move in every which way

Most Asian fitness systems are based on moving the body gently in every possible direction. Tai Chi and yoga are great examples of this philosophy. We live in three planes of reality and we should train to move in all of them. In contrast the average gym routine is only one or two dimensional and doesn’t prepare us for the real world which twists, jumps and turns unexpectedly.

Anytime, anyplace

Older Asian people will exercise anywhere at anytime. You can spot them in parking lots, yards, schools, parks and more doing their thing. They don’t usually require any special equipment (except for fans for swords) and so they don’t have to worry about getting to they gym or remembering their workout gear. I have often envied their apparent lack of self consciousness as they don’t appear to care who watches them or what anybody else thinks. Cheers to that!

The more the merrier

Most often older Asian people exercise in twosomes, threesomes or bigger groups. I often see them walking together, taking part in tai chi classes or sword fighting side by side. Their culture openly appreciates the power and energy of community to enhance any activity. Working out with others can add pizazz to any fitness routine.

The year of the fat bunny

Older Asian people are hardly ever overweight. Maybe it’s because of all of the daily activities or because they tend to eat a healthier, vegetable based diet or because they are so busy taking care of their chubby, video game playing grand children. Whatever the reasons keeping a healthy weight is easier on the joints and all other major body systems and is a key component of vigorous aging.

In our culture of fitness fads and hype we could all learn something from these unsung heroes of health and longevity. We salute you Asian elders!

To the casual observer it would seem that housekeeping and physical flexibility don’t have much to do with each other; with the possible exception of twisting yourself into knots trying to nab the dust bunnies behind your couch. In fact, stretching is one of the best ways to tidy up and set right a disorganized body. A well designed flexibility program lengthens the body, opens up the joints and returns us to a natural posture. A well stretched body is much like a freshly cleaned house just before the first party guests arrive, primed and ready for anything. Putting away your socks and taking the dirty dishes to the sink also keeps the body warm, which makes stretching more effective. When used in an interval fashion both of these modes compliment and intensify the effectiveness of the other.

I have recently developed a “stretch and straighten” routine that I do most mornings. The basic format includes two stretches, done back to back and then two items put away. I then repeat the same two stretches; attempting to go a bit deeper the second time around, and then return two more items to their proper places. I do 10 different moves, twice each for a total of 20 stretches and put away at least as many errant objects. I hold each stretch for 15 to 60 seconds.

After the workout my body feels limber and loose and my bedroom looks great, the floor as clear and uncluttered as my mind. This system works best for the type of person who enjoys multi-tasking and who doesn’t feel wrenched when switching between different activities.

Here are a few guidelines for creating your own “stretch and strengthen” routine:

Choose stretches that work more then one muscle group or target flexibility and balance at the same time. This will save you time and keep you challenged. It’s a good idea to take a few yoga classes and borrow some of their moves as most yoga stretches are multi-dimensional. It also helps to choose moves that flow from one to the other. This will make the routine more enjoyable and effective. An example from yoga that illustrates this is a downward dog into a cobra. Pick up a yoga or flexibility book to get lots of ideas and for quick reference.

Be flexible with yourself on the tiding part of the routine. If you accidentally get caught up in doing all the dishes and lose the flow of your stretching just turn off the sink and come back to it. The dishes will wait for you to complete your next two moves. Also, don’t try to do any major housecleaning while you are doing your routine. It’s more about eliminating clutter and creating order and less about sponges and giant bottles of 409.

Put the stretches that you really enjoy at the beginning and end of your routine. You will remember these most and they will keep you coming back. It is also important to choose moves that target the areas that you are tightest. For most people this is the long muscles of their legs (hips, hamstrings, quadriceps and calves) and spine.

My routine:

Warm-up:

Body Lengthening: reaching one arm at a time toward the ceiling.

Mountain Pose

Runner’s calf stretch (up against a wall)

Pick-up 2 items

Hanging shoulder stretch (arms on my dresser)

Forward bending

Pick-up 2 items

Arms overhead side bend

Half-nelson shoulder stretch

Pick-up 2 items

Standing hip stretch (with opposite twist) both sides

Backward bend

Pick up two items

Angry cats (on my bed)

Baby pose (on my bed)

Have you ever stopped to consider the way people talk about the act of stretching? They say things like:

“I have to stretch,”

“We should stretch, right?”

“It’s too (cold, hot, late, windy, insert favorite excuse here) to stretch.”

They hardly ever say:

“It’s a great day to increase my range of motion.”

“That was some awesome strength, let’s combine it with some killer length.”

“I want to be as flexible as Gumby on a griddle. Let’s stretch Pokey!”

I say lose the word stretch and all of its negative mutations. Pursing flexibility is really about “range of motion training” or “motion training” for short. Flexibility work trains your muscles, bones and joins to operate in fuller ranges of motion, giving you freedom of movement and protection from injury.It’s time to think about flexibility as a positive, desirable part of your fitness life. Here are a few excellent phrases to get you started:

“Sorry dude I can’t bench press now. I’m focusing on motion training today”.

“Gee honey, maybe if you did more motion training you could scratch you own back.”

“Wanna see me grab my toes? That motion training is really paying off!”

It’s time to show flexibility some respect. Why is it that running without stretching is considered a workout and strength training without stretching is considered a workout, but flexibility training is not (usually) considered a stand alone workout. This is a shame because range of motion is every bit as important as endurance or strength. Without healthy, flexible joints and muscles strength and endurance activities become impossible. A flexibility session is every bit as important as any other component of fitness. Take this moment to consider how you really feel about stretching? Do you think it’s slow and boring? Is it something to be endured like taking out the trash or cleaning the bathroom? Do you check out and day dream when you’re stretching or are you fully present and aware of what’s going on with your body? Are you doing the same stretches you learned in junior high and do you wonder how long you’re really supposed to hold each position? Consider how much time you have invested in revising your flexibility routine, learning new stretches or setting new goals and you can see why you might be bored, confused or both. Come back next week for ideas on how to spice up your flexibility life and make motion training a valued part of your fitness routines.

Ignoring a nagging, chronic pre-injury is a risky proposition, especially in a weight bearing joint. That is because once you are feeling pain in your precious knee, hip or ankle lots of damage may have already been done.

Cartilage, the miracle substance that lines the articulating surface of joints and allows bones to move pain-free, has no nerve endings. It will suffer in silence, allowing itself to be worn away, eaten alive by misguided inflammation or other wise destroyed and not utter a peep. Think of chronic inflammation and swelling like cartilage dissolving acid. As it attempts to clear out other foreign bodies in the joint it will also eat your joint cushions for lunch. Pain is not usually felt until the bone and nerves below are exposed. Things you should not ignore or tough-out:

• An old injury to a major joint that is chronically swollen. For a good rule of thumb compare the size of the battle ax joint to the more innocent one.
• Decreased range of motion in a major joint.
• Pain that is minor and tolerable, but chronic.

Wait too long to have an old injury looked at and you may find yourself like me, forced to undergo surgery and endure a long, psychically painful rehab. I spend most of my time on my couch with my leg elevated making conversation with my monkey slippers and praying to the bone gods that the seeds planted in my cartilage lesions will grow. Pay attention to that that amazing body of yours before its too late, good advice from the bone gods, right monkey slipper, left monkey slipper and me.

Someone burgles your house; breaks a window, comes in, makes a royal mess and helps themselves to whatever they like. So you do what anyone would do: call the police, and if it’s really bad, some professionals to help you deal with the mess. But what if after a day or two none of them wanted to leave? What if the cops ended up on your couch asking how many cable TV channels you get and if anyone in your neighborhood delivers donuts? What if they started helping themselves to whatever was in the fridge, borrowing your clothes and sleeping in your bed (on your side no less). What if the cleaning crew just kept scrubbing, through the paint on the walls, the finishes on the furniture and the porcelain on the bathroom fixtures? What if they turned out to be obsessive monster’s who seemed to gain super human strength from the inhalation of toxic clearing fumes and wouldn’t ever stop no matter how sweetly you asked?

This scenario is a crazy shut-in’s dramatization of what happens to your body when it sustains an injury, also known as the inflammatory response and what happens when that response goes awry. Shut in because I just had a second knee surgery to try and get the damn cops and cleaners out of my knee for good.

The inflammatory process sets in motion a cascade of chemical reactions. At the site of invasion cops called mast cells get the ball rolling by releasing the chemical histamine. As any allergy suffer knows histamine causes things to leak and on cue plasma seeps out of nearby cells in order to slow down invading bacteria. This is one cause of inflammation’s tell tale swelling. Then ass kicking cops without pot bellies called macrophages begin terrorizing unwelcome germs, parasites and viruses. When macrophages get busy they release a chemical called cytokines, which sends a signal back to headquarters that reinforcements are needed. Soon the site is jammed with cop like immunity cells bent on the destruction of unwanted invaders. The cleaning crew is right behind to dissolve any thugs or unwanted materials in their wake. This well orchestrated immunity response prevents infection and destroys any unwanted bodily invaders.

But sometimes the process doesn’t shut down in order to allow healing to begin. For whatever reason, and there are many, the cops and cleaning crews don’t leave and chronic inflammation sets in. When this happens the processes that were designed to keep the body safe eventually begin to destroy it, as healthy tissue is irritated and destroyed by the ever vigilant immunity cells.

I had chronic inflammation in my right knee and the cops and cleaners took a bunch of my cartilage, the smooth surface on your leg bones that allows your knee to move pain free, before I finally had my swollen knee looked at. There had been a battle going on in my knee for years, ever since I had had my original ACL replacement surgery, and I had chosen to ignore it. The inflammation had caused some stiffness and warmth, but it had never been (too) painful. I had chosen to ignore it because I didn’t want to be told that I couldn’t do all the things that I loved to do. This was a mistake.

Chronic swelling and inflammation in a joint is a sign that something is really wrong. The bodies healing mechanisms are being overwhelmed and may be turning on the healthy tissues as they attempt to heal the perceived (or real) injury. So if you have chronic swelling in any joint, even if it is not painful, get it looked at by a good orthopedic doctor. If it helps to motivate you imagine a crazed housekeeper scrubbing your joint with a piece of iron wool. Call now my swollen friends, call now.