Dear LPG, 

I was looking through the internet recently and, even though the information there was some fifteen years old by the time I read it, an old newspaper article I found tells that over 50% of adults cannot touch their toes.   I must admit that it has been a while since I have even made an attempt to do that, and I am assuming that the internet’s idea of an adult will be someone much younger than me in my mid-70s.  I also noted the lack of detail.   I am still not sure if they are talking about managing to touch you’re the toes while you are standing up, but the message that shone out is that, for all the gyms and fitness classes people take, if the statistics I read are true for the average younger adult, where does that leave us oldies?

We all know that things slow up as we get older and, like the average person many of us who used to attend an exercise class at least once a week and have not got around to getting back out there again yet.   In general, Covid has truly got us all out of condition.  Two years of staying at home can’t have done us much good.  It is so easy to get out of the habit of doing any exercise at all.

Hopefully, and arguably, all that pandemic stuff is over now or, so we are being told.  The big problem is where has it left our bodies in the fitness stakes?  I found a video designed to help you measure where you are up to.  I had a go and found that some of the things I thought would be easy are a bit harder than I remember, but it was interesting to see what I could do.

I thought that perhaps some of you LPG readers might benefit from a bit of a measuring session of your own although, having had a go, I suggest that you find someone to join you.  Having someone there to hold the tape and count the repetitions while you get on with the exercise can only be helpful and, if you both have a go you will have someone to measure your performance against and someone to let you know if what you are doing looks as if it is a bit too much of a challenge for you.

Then you will have a bit of an idea of where you need to start from to get those fitness levels up a bit, a reason to see the step counter register a slightly higher total for the day (if you have one of those smart watches yet), not to mention something else to occupy your mind. 

AP, Forest Hill

AP shares the online article that got her thinking…

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…and the YouTube measuring stick that inspired her to do better…

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