And THIS is why doing a warm-up PROPERLY is so important!

[mo-mentum]

Just over eight weeks ago I started the C25K program, and after a week of me talking about it to hubby, he decided to join in too

He's not a big fan of 'wasting time doing that stupid warm up stretching thing!'. So when i did my usual set of stretches before the 5 minute warm up walk, he joined in half heartedly. He also seemed to think that doing all the exercises twice as fast was a good idea to get them over with.

To cut a very long story short, since week 2 he's had to watch from the side line due to an achilies injury (carrying my water bottle along the beach on holiday - bless him) while i ran through weeks 5 and 6. Yesterday he saw the physio, who was very positive about his recovery and gave him a set of exercises to do. Thankfull the importance of how many repetitions and how long to hold the stretches, as well as how far to push it was spelt out in no uncertain terms. The upshot is hubby is now doing 10 exercises per night, which are improving his achillies, and he's recognised that this takes a good 30 minutes to do properly.

I hope to complete W9R3 on Sunday or Monday, and I don't expect hubby to start the program for another few weeks, which just emphasises how long you can be out for if you don't warm up properly.

Here's a link to a fairly comprehensive set of stretches if anyone is interested: coolrunning.com/engine/2/2_...

Happy, and healthy running peeps! Mo

[Leyther1 Graduate]

Oh dear, hope he recovers well and gets back into it. I do do a few stretches but will have a look at that link, thanks. Wow graduation run next week, brilliant! I'll look out for your post

[psarapsych Graduate]

Ohhhhh what a great and informative post Mo. The truth of the matter it's that in general, women are better at taking their time and fulfilling instructions like this lol! Certainly, my OH, if he were to do sthg like this, would certainly nudge at the idea of a stretch but want to get on with the task in hand straight off.

Your post reminds me to spell out exactly what my OH needs to do before i take him for skiing lessons. He'll just think that all he has to do is get into the boots and get on with it !! hmmmm.... Better start mentioning the stretching exercises now - thank you!!

Sooooo huge CONGRATULATIONS to you Mo and well done keeping up to speed on your holiday :-). That badge will be yours in no time, Sara

[notbad Graduate]

Good post Mo, I used to be one of those no stretching people until my calf muscles started to protest. I use the the same exercises set as you've posted and find that stretch 2 was particularly good. Just read your post psarapsych, well some women are better at this kind of stuff, some of us not...