STRETCHING is good for keeping you fit and healthy during 2023 !

 I WISH YOU PEACE and HAPPINESS during 2023.

I stretch out several times each week to keep my body supple, and my back straight. Over Christmas, my grand daughter Emmy (aged four) joined in: “Yoga with Grandpa” is what Emmy called it. I call this specific workout “airplanes.” To keep flying, Emmy needs to grasp my feet with her bent knees …. a skill she has yet to perfect.

Health pages in newspapers and magazines frequently debate the benefits (or not) of stretching. Claims that “stretching does not help avoid strains and sprains,” refer to sports like jogging, where warming-up is included in the very act of starting to jog.

Stretching is definitely good before and after dancing. The Royal Scottish Country Dance Society has promoted warm-ups for 100 years. Founder Miss Jean Milligan was a sports teacher.

Anyone watching professional athletes before a match, will see them warming up to loosen their feet and ankles, stretching leg and arm and back muscles to reduce the risk of injury. Claims that stretching has no value, make little sense to me.

In any sport that requires your muscles to make sudden and unusual muscle movements – like dancing a pas de basque – it is beneficial to warm your muscles and joints beforehand. That is why we do RSCDS warm-up exercises before classes: we tune-up the feet and ankles, knees and hips, back and shoulders, calves and hamstrings ….. and then we start our evening with a gentle dance: maybe a waltz, or a reel where we start by walking and warm up to gentle dance steps.

DANCING IS GOOD FOR YOU ! STRETCHING IS GOOD TOO !

Dr Samantha Smith a specialist in clinical orthopaedics at the Yale School of Medicine, is in favor of the RSCDS style of stretching (even if Samantha herself has never heard of RSCDS !!!). In Hannah Seo’s end-of-year article in the New York Times, Dr Smith says stretching can loosen tight muscles. 

These days, if I do not stretch out before I go to bed, my evening of Scottish dancing will give me cramps in the night. In fact I sleep with woolen stockings after dancing to ensure my calf muscles do not seize up, and I wear  my warm Xmas slippers. So Happy Holidays: stretch to stay fit and healthy !