Ever have trouble bending down to pick up your dropped cell phone or DVR remote control? Has it been years since you attempted to look under your bed because it’s to hard to flex?
You are not alone. But it’s time to do more stretches and flexibility exercises because there’s more to gain than comfort cleaning out your cat’s litter box.
Gizmodo: People Who Are More Flexible Tend to Live Longer, Study Finds
To address this gap, the researchers analyzes data from over 3,000 middle-aged people enrolled in a long-running project in Brazil that began in 1994: the CLINIMEX Exercise open cohort. People in this study underwent extensive evaluations of their health and physical fitness, which included tests of their flexibility.
The project also continued to track their health over time, including if and when they died. Based on results from tests that measured people’s range of motion involving seven joints, the researchers created a body flexibility score (higher score=more flexible), which they coined “Flexindex.”
Overall, people who had a higher Flexindex were less likely to die during the study period than those who were less flexible. Women tended to be more flexible than men, and there were differences in flexibility-related longevity between the two groups. After accounting for other factors like body mass index or age, less flexible men were nearly twice as likely to die than highly flexible men, while less flexible women were almost five times as likely to die than highly flexible women.
I’ve been hiking in my neighborhood as rehab for my broken knee, but outside of weight training, I always feel like I’m not doing enough.
Time to stretch.
