Brian’s fitness journal after a brain stroke
Let me tell you about my complicated relationship with Morning vs. evening stretching.
It started last Christmas, when my father gifted me a stretching machine. Very thoughtful. Very assembly-required. I finally got around to building it in early January, and I do mean finally, because the manual was less a guide and more an abstract art piece. After a heroic battle with diagrams and ambiguous bolts, I prevailed. And since then, I’ve been stretching every single morning.
Here’s the thing: I used to be flexible. I did gymnastics when I was young, and my body was the kind of effortlessly bendy that people either admire or find slightly unsettling. Then I had a brain stroke, and the long recovery that followed left me stiff in ways I was determined to undo. I started running in 2016. Added resistance training over the past few years. And now, stretching, because what good is a strong body if it snaps the first time you reach for something on a high shelf?
So I’ve been making real progress. And by “real progress,” I mean: every morning, I hit 180 degrees on the machine and feel like an absolute champion.
And every evening, I fall about 10 degrees short, and the machine silently judges me.
This is deeply puzzling. I am the same person. I have the same legs. The laws of physics have not changed between 7 a.m. and 8 p.m. And yet, morning me is practically a contortionist, while evening me is more of a… determined rectangle.
The only meaningful difference I can spot is this: in the morning, I stretch after my planking session and a round of floor stretches. In the evening, I skip straight to the machine. Could a minute of floor work and a plank really account for a full 10 degrees? It sounds almost too simple. But sometimes the simplest explanation is the right one.
So tonight, I’m running the experiment. Floor stretches first, then the machine, and we’ll see if I can finally crack the case of the mysteriously stiff evenings.
Science waits for no one. Neither does my stretching machine.
Until next time,
Still searching for my 180, one plank at a time