How to exercise when it’s too cold to work outside

South yard at Couchwood, this winter

             For a healthy eighty-year-old person used to working in the yard, extended and extensive below-freezing temperatures put quite the quietus on things. A selection of inside exercise follows:

            1.Walking through this drafty house hunting for my jacket, neck scarf and head band.

            2.Bending to the gas-log-fire remote is another, bending or squatting to turn up the space heater is another. Bending to check the cat’s food and water dishes is yet one more.

            So, I decided to make a list of ways to exercise while sitting in front of the fire. OOPS, there goes a full cup of coffee onto the floor! That flimsy little table! Drat! I run to the kitchen for a handful of towels. The floor finishers said not to let water stand on the hardwood. Then I bent, one knee on a throw rug, the other on the floor (ouch!), and wiped with large arcs (upper arm exercise) till the towels were wet, but the floor was dry—and cleaner.

            Fussing greatly at that too-small, spindly-legged table, I swapped it for an oak TV tray. There. Replaced coffee, with care. Now to the daily paper while sitting in a rocking chair, fireside.

            3. Stretch upper body while reaching for a sheet of the paper that slid out when turning pages.

            4. Do arm lifts when folding back pages, reaching high overhead. Laugh when you read an ingredient in a BBQ recipe is “a 3-pound boneless pork lion roast.” That was just plain (plane) funny!

            5. Side-arm-sling: After reading, flinging the papers on the floor by the door. Stretch high from the waist while flinging.

            6. Occasionally stand and walk to the coffee pot. No cardio-work here, but it’s too cold for such and too hard to do inside. Oh, with leg muscles, kick the footstool out of the way before rising. Keep path clear. No falling as part of today’s exercise. Sixty steps round-trip to and from the kitchen (where’s a Fitbit® when you need it?)

            7. Sit, then twist whichever foot is closer to the footstool to bring it back to center. Stretch and flex feet from their positions on the footstool.

            Repeat as needed until paper is read, puzzles are solved and it’s time for breakfast. Or brunch. Or lunch.

            Then, after a snuggly warm and restful nap, and if the temperature has risen any at all, take a hiking stick and, wearing sturdy shoes, with your phone in your pocket, and ears covered, take a trip—another 100 steps back and forth—to the mail box. If the wind’s not too fierce, on the way back, stop and take in the wonderful world in your purview. Smell the wood smoke, exult in the berried holly, watch robins forage and fly.

             Be thankful that this season’s cold will soon be gone, the common daffodils will burst out of the ground, and pink japonica blooms will pop open.

              

Son Eric's frozen birdbath with bluebirds - this winter

c 2018, PL dba lovepat press, Benton AR