Solitary Fitness - You Don't Need a Fancy Gym or Expensive Gear to be as Fit as Me. Charles Bronson

a bit ambitious for the new starter but something to work at. It keeps the spine in good shape.

      REMEDIAL STRETCHING

      • Touch your toes with your fingers without bending the knees

      • Stand up and down on tiptoes

      • Holding on to a chair with one hand, bend at the knees and touch the floor with your other hand while keeping your back straight

      • Reach out, try to touch the ceiling with your hands and then stretch

      • With your hands on your waist and your legs slightly apart, bend from side to side

      • Look straight ahead and raise one leg out high in front of you while keeping it straight (hold on to a chair to keep your balance).

      • Try to touch your ears with your shoulders.

      • Rotate your head in a circle, clockwise and then anti-clockwise.

      • At shoulder level, hold your arms out straight at the sides and make small circular movements with your arms, gradually becoming larger and larger, but slowly.

      As time goes on, you will develop your own, and more advanced, movements, stretching a little further each time. A little trick is to hold the stretch for ten to fifteen seconds at the most painful part, so long as it’s just muscle pain and not a joint or tendon pain.

      Those of you with a weak lower back – and let’s face it, that’s the place where pain usually gets most people – you will have to strengthen it. If you’ve got a weak lower back, it’s no good doing sit-ups to build up your abdominal muscles. Below is a lower-back stretch, only using the arms. Work up and down, holding at the top and pushing back a little further each time.