Stretch-U
Not so long ago I threw in the towel on The Perfect Workout, which Kim had been doing and convinced me to do. It is a 20-minute high-intensity weight machine workout that takes you through approximately six weight stations with repetition until muscle failure. The theory is that this is the most efficient form of weight training that is also very time-effective. The problems I had with it were varied. First of all, it was in Poway, so it took me 30 minutes there and 30 minutes back to get to my 20 minute workout. So much for time efficiency. Then, there was going to the gym with my wife, which just never felt right. Kim is a strong woman, so its not about any gender bias, but rather just that going to the gym feels more like something we should do independently. Then there was the fundamental fact of life that I don’t like weight training and don’t like the gym. I’ve never liked going to the gym or lifting weights. I don’t mind using my muscles in the yard work I do, but pumping iron is just not something I tend to have done in life or tend to like. And finally, the only way out of that mini-gym’s parking area is right past a McDonalds drive-through and 10 times out of 10 I would stop for lunch at McDonalds. I have nothing against McDonald’s, but even I can grasp the irony and wrongness of that program.
I mentioned this in a prior blog when I dropped out of gym class and my pal Mike, who is a physician and ex-flight surgeon in the Air Force, emailed me and told me that working in my yard was better for me so long as I also added some form of stretching like yoga. I have done plenty of stretching in my day, but yoga has not been something I have never gotten into. I remember forty some years ago going to Pritikin for two weeks and learning how to properly stretch. I recall that when we were stretching our legs in the prone position, pulling the knee into the chest, we were told to do ankle circles. I asked why the ankle circles and was told that it was a very important stretch to keeping the ankles limber. I thought that was a load of horseshit and sort of silly since my ankles never seemed particularly stiff. Funny what forty years will do to a body. Today, when I lie down to do some stretching, I consider ankle circles to be one of the more important stretches that I do and since they are so relatively easy and painless to do, I tend to do them more than anything else. Go figure.
Based on Mike’s comments, I thought long and hard about taking a yoga class. It seems that our friend Melisa goes to yoga class twice a week at the local rec center. She does that because her 70-something mom, Judith, teaches the class. She invited me to join and I really have been thinking about it, but yoga seems to make me uncomfortable for some reason. I keep thinking I am going to be asked to pretzel myself into poses that I simply cannot do in my large-person form and that I will be one of those aerobics class jokes that look throughly out of place. They keep telling me its no big deal and that I only have to do what I can do, but that isn’t helping me not think about getting stuck in some sort of downward dog thing. As for stretching myself, I have done it a few times, but I tend to only do it when something really hurts or is particularly stiff, mostly when my back gets tweaked or something. So I remain in search of a commodious solution to my stretching and exercise needs. I have had trainers in the past who would end a session with some assisted stretching and I know how much I always appreciate that sort of thing.
That’s when my daughter, Carolyn, said I should go to one of the stretching clinics. I had never heard of such a thing. I consider myself a reasonably aware individual who knows about most trends even if I don’t jump on each and every one. But stretching centers had completely escaped my purview. When we looked it up, we learned that there were several different branded outlets near where we live, more towards the slightly more upscale San Marcos than the working man’s Escondido. I chose one called Stretch-U. I am a title and branding person so I kinda liked that name. It had the double-entendre of suggesting that they would stretch me out (as in Stretch-You) and perhaps that they considered themselves masters of the art of stretching and hence were a sort of stretching university. I found that clever, even if I was late to the stretching party.
I booked an introductory 40-minute session and went into a very open and pleasant salon that had four massage tables spaced out in the main floor area and a reception desk where one checks in. I can compare the physical plant to the chiropractic office that I went to a few years ago and the Perfect Workout salon. I know that brick and mortar are old school in a digital online world, but for personal services, the physical plant where you are being asked to spend your personal services time matters. Barber shops and hair salons figured this out long ago, as, I’m sure, did many gyms. If you are too upscale the clients feel like they are wasting their money so that the service people can live in the lap of luxury. If you are too gritty and stinky, you would rather be somewhere else. Its a very real balancing act. I always found the chiropractor’s to be too medicinal and I certainly found The Perfect Workout hole-in-the-wall to be too cramped (as though the time efficiency was enhanced by space efficiency). Stretch-U San Marcos seems to have found just the right balance. They are close enough to the main shopping area to be convenient, yet off to the side enough to make parking easy and uncrowded. The store is open and airy and the layout of the space is just right. I am close enough to others to not feel like I am getting pampered and yet far enough away not to feel that my space is being invaded. Stretching does not feel so very personal that I am embarrassed to be seen doing it either. It feels OK to be on a table being stretched out. I have only had men stretch me so far, but it is only a matter of time that a woman will be doing it since the staff is half men and half women. That’s OK too since they all dress alike and the room is wide open with no shadowy corners.
I look forward to my stretch appointments, which is a very good sign that I will keep doing it. I cannot be certain it is helping me yet but I feel reasonably limber and perhaps have less night cramps and soreness, so I am inclined to think it is proving to be worthwhile. It seems to fill a void between real exercise (no, I am not so delusional as to think my stretching sessions count as exercise) and massage, which I still get once a week. It’s different and, for me anyway, helpful in making me feel better on a day-in-day-out basis. So far I am more a Stretch-You person than a Stretch-University person though they have sent me one Sciatica stretching video which I am supposed to do as homework. The nice thing about Stretch-U is that I get to define it whatever way I want on whatever day it suits me. That sure seems to beat yoga for the moment. Now, onto looking into water aerobics for my next low-impact way to avoid the harshness of exercise that I don’t want to do, but probably need to do.