STRETCHING is good for keeping 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 granddaughter Emmy (aged four) was staying and she 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 athlete 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 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!
When I was playing rugby football at school, we were not allowed to touch a ball for the first two weeks in September. Rugby is a contact sport. We could practice our skills, but the sessions focused on general fitness before we were allowed proper ball contact. After long holidays, our muscles needed pre-rugby stretching!
So yes - I believe in stretching. Stretching is beneficial before – and after – Scottish dancing.
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 that my calf muscles do not seize up.
These stretching positions are recommended by Tom Foskett, sports therapist. The only one I do not use is the one where you place your forehead on your knees. Even as a young teenager, I could not manage that position ….. although my grandmother could still do it at age 75.
Samantha Smith’s research shows that stretching is good for balance, and for keeping joints and muscles healthy. “… having good balance, having good coordination” are important goals for all of us to strive for. Stretching helps us keep good balance, and so does Scottish dancing. Dancers are healthier, better coordinated and better-balanced human beings.
Dancing and stretching will keep you Fit and Healthy during 2023!