Buckle My Shoe, Twist & Shout

We know how to flex our spines. We do it every day. Bend forward, touch our toes, or maybe just knees, if the hamstrings are tight. Boost the groceries from the trunk of the car. Flexion. Strap little Johnny, or Jilataney, into the back seat. Reach across, make sure the child is tight. Flexion. Remove turkey from the oven. Sure, we’ve got it: flexion. Posture at the computer, on the sofa, sitting in a restaurant: flexion. All well and good, and that’s a start.

What about other movements, like extension (bending back), lateral flexion (bending to the side), and rotation (twisting)? Extension is useful for screwing in an overhead lightbulb because the maid forgot, leaning back and admiring the tallest Redwood tree in the forest (without falling over), or drawing your foot back to kick the winning goal for the soccer team you ambitiously joined last year. Lateral flexion is reaching down to pick up reading glasses that you dropped on the side of your chair, swaying with the crowd (alcohol helps here) during a concert other than Bach, or snagging hors d’oeuvre from a passing waiter. Rotation is reaching back to retrieve your overnight bag from the back seat of your boyfriend’s (or girlfriend’s) car, looking back to see who’s following you down a semi-lit-shortcut-to-your-house, or reaching behind you to the table on which you left your glass of Dom Perignon champagne.

We need more movements than flexion. We need to move every which way we can. Life involves all movements. When one or several are lacking, we don’t move well. If we don’t move well, we’re not inclined to move at all. Then we discover that we can’t move. It hurts. See how this goes? It’s a slippery slope. Don’t go there.

Move everything in every direction every day. And start now.

That’s Aging Intelligently