Exercise your right to an easy morning work out

I know exercise is important. These days I’m content to walk the dog or go for a swim or a bike ride. That’s about it.

My days of jogging and playing soccer are over. Not that I lack energy, but I know I don’t have the same muscle strength to support knees and ankles and hips from being injured from the repetitive pounding of my feet on pavement, track or sports field.

Swimming is my main exercise of choice nowadays. I swim like a fish and can swim and swim and swim without exhaustion.

I routinely do 42 lengths and then a few mores lengths just for relaxation before stopping.

And when I quit, it is really because it’s time to be elsewhere or simply because I feel a bit bored and ready to move on to something new.

Walking is a great exercise, too.

I love walking around a lake or by a river or along a seafront, but mostly I walk the dog every day and I have the Runkeeper app that tells me how far and how fast and how well I am doing. I like the voice saying: Distance, Time, Workout Summary.

I’ve tried Tai Chi and liked it. Loved pressing against invisible walls and holding invisible medicine balls and pushing up against invisible ceilings.

With my imagination, they actually started to feel quite real – solid and heavy.

But I soon ran out of variety for this and couldn’t find any more that worked for me, so I gave it up.

My favourite warm up exercise now is Good Morning Stretch with Tara Davidson. This video included here was shot a few years ago but it is still very good.

I like her friendly attitude and her gentle approach. Very encouraging, non-judgemental and, well, natural and believable.

Other yoga exercise videos I considered were just too punishing. I also  felt the teachers were a little too conscious of their own involvement and fitness than getting us – the viewers – to learn something.

Anyway, I now find I know this routine well enough to do it alone in the garden without Tara’s instructional guidance.

If you’re looking for a gentle, easy, short (it takes 10 minutes total) morning or pre-gardening stretching routine to take away the aches and give your muscles a little warm up, this could be the one for you.

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