Breathing and Stretching

​Do this before any form of exercise or warm up!

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Before exercising, in fact before anything, you should start your day with stretches and breathing exercises. There is no better way to start your day and anyone can do this regardless of their current health.

Stretching well sets you up for a pain free day by helping to alleviate stress and tension on your muscles and joints. It also helps to oxygenate them. In fact, stretching actually sorted out a crazy problem I once had with my ankle that my GP couldn't help with.

In 2006, I was Photographing a wedding in Gibraltar. At one point, I had to run downhill with my heavy camera bag on my back and as I did so, I heard a pop in my left ankle followed by incredible pain. I had a bursa which is a kind of aneurysm in the tendon.

About 8 years later the injury had produced a small, calcified lump on the back of my ankle which was causing a lot of pain, even when relaxing. At the time I was highly inactive and sitting most of the day.

I went to my GP and the only advice they could give was to take a paracetamol once a day for 30 days and go back in a month. I laughed and walked out.

This really pissed me off so I paid £160 for a series of 4 sessions at a private health clinic and the very first thing they did was to check my calf muscles. They were as tight as a drum from sitting all day.

So I was shown how to do two simple stretches in the morning and evening for 15 seconds at a time. By visit number two the following week...the pain had completely gone and they even offered a refund on the last two weeks as I was now sorted.

I was so happy that I declined and completed the four sessions. The pain has not come back in more than 6 years.

It angers me that a private doctor knew exactly what the cause could be and a simple, drug free treatment that could sort it. The GP simply wanted to peddle their pills.

​Breathing Exercise

Anyway, start your day with a series of simple stretches on all parts of the body and deep breathing exercises. One technique is the 1-4-2 method...

For example, breathe in for four seconds, hold for sixteen seconds and breath out for two seconds.

You can do any multiplication of this building up as you improve your lung capacity and try to do it ten times, three times a day. Morning, midday and evening before bed. It's simple and can be done anytime, anywhere.

However, once again, start slowly with lower numbers and build up gradually to the point where you can hold your breath for longer periods. This will also help enormously with other, more strenuous exercise.

​DISCLAIMER - Nick Stubbs and ATP