Add flexibility to exercise regime

Once upon a time, I prussicked out of a mineshaft; a pitch of 50 m (can't find the blog post...). That is quite a lot! And it was a bit awkward to come off at the top. It was a capped shaft, and the rope was fixed to the ceiling. You have to somehow hang underneath the anchor point and wrestle your way up to a shelf so close to the ceiling you can not sit on it. By the time I got to the top, my muscles were very tired, and I was struggling a bit. I got there, of course, but I decided there and then it would be best if I were a bit stronger. So I decided to work on that.

Not much later I ordered a chin-up bar. This is many years ago now! But I still use that chin-up bar every day. And that was where my morning routine started. It has grown since. I added push-ups because they seem to be very good for you. And I later added core strength exercises, as it seemed silly to have strong legs from running and strong arms from pull-ups and push-ups, but be weak in between.

I later had to add stretches of my gluteus maximus as otherwise it seizes up during everyday activities such as walking to the shop. But I had started to notice I am a bit stiff in general these days. And that isn't good for anything, really! So I decided to do a bit more stretching every morning. I googled some exercises, and I started doing them. I am still in the stage where I am trying several things out to see what works for me, but I intend to keep doing some flexibility exercises every morning. Hopefully, I will for instance be able to touch the ground with my fingers when I am standing with my legs stretched, in the not-too-distant future. My morning regime is still only a few minutes, and even if it were half-an-hour that would be okay. I like keeping my body in reasonably good shape!

Going underground for the first time in a long while, by the way, was also a good reminder of why I do this sort of things. It is winter and I haven't climbed in months, and I barely ever go underground, so my daily life just does not involve any activities that require upper body strength. But if you then want to suddenly be able to hand-over-hand up a rope, you had better kept your strength up artificially! And I suppose that getting into a mine like Parc, which is mostly gated, is a lot easier when you're not a stiff rake…

Wonky picture of me failing to touch the ground