Just when you thought it was safe to keep taking a lighthearted attitude toward your pitiful result in the V-sit reach exercise, along comes this gem from the New York Times.

In a post on their Well blog under the headline, “Phys Ed: Can Touching Your Toes Test Your Arteries?” writer Gretchen Reynolds answers thusly: pretty much.

“A provocative new study published this year in the journal Heart and Circulatory Physiology suggests that there may be a novel way to test at least one element of your heart’s health right in your own living room… Sit on the floor with your legs stretched straight out in front of you, toes pointing up. Reach forward from the hips. Are you flexible enough to touch your toes? If so, then your cardiac arteries probably are also flexible.”

I’d hate for anyone to accuse my arteries of being intractable, but is it really that big a deal?

“Cardiac artery flexibility is one of the less familiar elements of heart health. Supple arterial walls allow the blood to move freely through the body. Stiff arteries require the heart to work much harder to force blood through the unyielding vessels and over time could, according to Kenta Yamamoto, a researcher at North Texas and lead author of the study, contribute to a greater risk for heart attack and stroke.”

In that light I would say that you don’t have to tell me twice about the importance of stretching, but I’m sure numerous friends and family members who have been badgering me about it for years—occasionally while I was supine during one of my back “episodes”—would point out that apparently you have to tell me about 700 times. Anyway, this time I’m going to do it.

Of course, it’s appropriate to point out that my current regimen basically consists of trying to look cool and detached as I hop around for balance stretching one quad at a time before soccer. That and a hamstring stretch or two, a couple of twists, a touch of the knees… and I’m ready to go. (See “back episodes” comment.) This is partly because we tend not to enjoy the things we’re not good at, and partly because, to borrow a term from Hans and Franz, my friends and I grew up with much more regard for flex-ability than flexibility.

The notion of yoga has come up many times, and a coworker recommended Yoga: Your Home Practice Companion to me as a good place to start. I don’t foresee a feet-to-head scorpion pose in my future, but the book does have the encouraging tone and full-color, stretch-by-stretch photography that a novice like me needs. I’m opting for the 20-minute beginner sequence that will find me performing such stretches and/or ’70s dance moves as the corpse, the sun salutation, the head-to-knee raise, the fish, the shoulderstand, and the neck stretch.

Friends, I can hear you laughing. Family members, don’t think I don’t notice that sniggering. But I’ll say it anyway: I am going to do this every single day. Yes, this time I mean it. I am really going to incorporate the stretching I so desperately need into a daily routine. Don’t tell Hans or Franz, but I am pumped up!

Presidential Active Lifestyle Award Progress Report: I logged at least 30 minutes each day this week and wrapped up my second week on the road to the patch. Highlights included my first stint on a Stairmaster since the Clinton administration (the reference seems fitting) and a glorious debut for my Thursday-night indoor-soccer team, who dispatched FC Google in convincing fashion. Google has an office here in Ann Arbor. How their team is not named “Search and Destroy” I’ll never know.

Related posts:

1. Not Exactly Reaching the Next Level
   *sigh* Having admitted to being The Least Flexible Person on the Planet, I was determined to start stretching every day. And while I can say I’ve done so more in the past three weeks than...
2. Making Tracks
   When I first started this challenge, I admit that I didn’t think doing at least 30 minutes of exercise each day for five out of seven days a week would be that big a deal....