Tenner Week Aug 2014: Day 6: Stretch Out Sat

Today’s another opportunity to look after your physical wellbeing, and it’s a part of health and fitness that’s often forgotten or overlooked – but it’s very important.

The activity for the day is to spend 20 minutes working on improving your level of flexibility. It isn’t something that can be completely changed overnight, but two or three sessions a week for around a month brings a noticeable improvement to most people.

By and large these exercises are usually completely free, so being skint is no excuse not to try. As aerobic exercises burn fat and increase stamina, and weight-bearing exercises improve tone and often build muscle too, we often focus only on them at the expense of flexibility. However, flexibility can be as important as stamina and strength.

So stretch out a few of your main muscle groups today. Go very slowly, and don’t force anything or make sharp, sudden movements. Lean gently into each stretch and take your time, and don’t overextend yourself. You have twenty whole minutes to do this so there’s no rush.

You can try:

• Slow, gentle forms of yoga (Iyengar is especially good for not straining the joints)
• Some of the exercises in pilates matwork
• Warm up and flexibility gym exercises: try these from LA Fitness

If you have any problems with your joints, muscles or connective tissue, please check with your doctor before starting any fitness regime.

What’s happening here

For FreebieFriday yesterday I managed to bag myself a free sample of MAC Prep + Prime makeup base, which was a nice premium sort of a treat. I also had a no spend day, although I have to admit that I normally get out more on a Friday and usually do something sociable, even if it’s just going out for a coffee or a pint somewhere. Well, yesterday I didn’t get to do anything like that and I’m going to be honest, it made me feel really quite stir-crazy and grumpy. The feeling passed eventually, but it wasn’t much fun at the time.

While I’m not a total coffee head, my usual Friday coffee definitely helps me with my productivity, and I regularly take time out around that time to sketch out ideas and make notes for various projects. Not surprising that I ended up feeling a bit antsy then – that particular cup of coffee usually has a positive payoff, and the change of scenery’s good for the creative process too.

In the evening I watched two and a half hours of television, which was my first time properly watching TV all week. I really enjoyed it, and had been looking forward to watching those specific shows that we’d pre-recorded.

Today I’ll be doing some standard warm-up and warm-down exercises in the morning, and hopefully will get out for some fresh air after that. Then we have some friends coming over for dinner, so that’ll be another no-telly evening.

Total spent so far: £7.67

Total TV watched: 2 hours and 30 minutes

How’s your Tenner Week budget coming along? Are you going to make it?