Yeah I said it. I’m done with pretending that stretching in the summer is the best thing since sliced bread. It’s irritating beyond belief and drives me up the bastard wall for all the reasons that I’m about to list below.
First off, as previously mentioned in last years’ blog The Perils of Summer Poling, I do not massively despise the heat. I much prefer Autumn and Winter season wise, but I do not detest summer, which I think is quite the mark of maturity seeing as I’m pale as fuck and get sunburnt when an advert for a TUI holiday comes on the TV. However, I stand by what I’ve said on many occasions, the heat is only lush when you have nothing to do. If you’ve got the day off work, a fridge full of ice-cold beer and a pleasant, outdoor area to have a chill in, then fill your boots with sunshine you lucky fuck. However, if you have work to do, errands to run or worse still, any form of exercise to partake in, the heat just straight up isn’t your friend unless you want a rotten dose of heat stroke and exhaustion. I know getting vitamin D and what not is beneficial for you, but the heat just knackers me out big time and makes me want to have a solid nap. The last thing I feel like doing when it’s bobby boiling outside is putting myself through the agonising pain of stretching.
Also, trying to get to a comfortable temperature when stretching in the heat is a bloody impossible task. When it’s Autumn, Winter and even early Spring, and you’re a tad on the chilly side when you begin your stretching, you can easily negate that problem by initially wearing a few more layers and training harder to ensure you’re warm and able to sink into the stretches. You can’t fucking do that in the heat can you?! A few week’s back we had a heat wave here in the UK, so I rather sensibly wore my teeniest pole outfit to my online stretch class, to enable myself to maintain a decent body temperature and sink into the stretches.
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What a fool I was. I was so hot I felt half tempted to rip my own skin off like Robbie Williams did in that weird music video years ago. There was no way I could relax into the stretches like the sweating, hot and bothered mess that I was. Also I don’t think my Zoom class buddies would have appreciated seeing the flap onslaught that would be me butt naked attempting to box split, so for everyone’s sake I resorted to keeping my pole wear on and roasting like a rotisserie chicken.
“Oh but haven’t you tried doing your stretch classes outside? It’s delightful!” I hear you say? Yeah I fucking wish. For those of us who have no garden or in my case a garden which is a 20 foot by 20 foot concrete square with god awful wifi reception, doing the class outside is not an option. No amount of Yoga mats, fancy fairy lights and pot plants etc are going to make that an enjoyable experience. Therefore, I’m confined to stretching indoors with every window in the house as wide open as possible. Am I bitter about summer stretching because I can’t stretch outside and get cute as fuck, bendy wendy pictures for the ‘gram in my bikini on the lawn? Probably.
Also, shit the bed having sweaty hands when you’re stretching is categorically not the one. Yes, to an extent you’re not really stretching your hands, so one would assume that it doesn’t matter too much, but it fucking does. My clammy palms are slowly slipping to their doom when I’m busting out a downward dog, sliding right down my band when I’m stretching my poor, battered old hamstrings and have even been known to slip a little on a Yoga block now and again. To conclude, sweaty palms are nothing but an absolute fuck around when you’re trying to get your flex on.
Also, when all is said and done I didn’t notice much of a difference in how deep I could get into my stretches either. I may have sunk a tiny but deeper due to all the water guzzled whilst over heating (being hydrated makes you bendier kids) but nothing to write home about. Again, that’s probably because I’m an aggravated, grumpy old cow in temperatures over 25 degrees, so not relaxing properly, at least I can admit my faults I suppose!
Well that was a very jolly and positive little blog wasn’t it? I’m praying to the flexibility goddesses that there are no more heatwaves this summer!
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