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Taking Care of Yourself

As some of you may know, on November 2nd, I hurt my neck at the gym. It didn’t feel different than other times in the past when I turned it the wrong way, but after two days, I ended up going to the Emergency Room. BIG mistake. Growing up, playing sports, I had many trips to the emergency room. Throughout college, two more that I can remember. While living in Boulder, another two that come to mind. In our first five or so years in LA, I had been accident free… or perhaps I just toughened up and dealt with issues myself. I don’t know why I decided to head to the ER at Cedars-Sinai on November 4th. The doctor, who I won’t name, was your typical doctor. To be honest, I haven’t cared much for any of my doctors in the past. I give credit to one chiropractor and one eye doctor that I’ve worked with; everyone else seemed like a robot, or some kind of societal drone. This man was no exception and did nothing other than tell me to be careful, write some useless prescriptions and order some tests. 

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Tight Hamstrings? Try This

I would think it’s fairly accurate to say that many people struggle with tight hamstrings (those are the muscles on the rear side of your leg near the top). There’s a well-known secret that I can’t even touch my toes! Sure, we can blame it on genetics (that’s what I like to do) and that may indeed be part of the problem, but the other part is lack of stretching. Can you remember the last time you stretched? If so, great! Was it a good enough time devoted to stretching each part of your body? Probably not, unless you took a yoga class not based on strength. 

People, if they don’t ignore stretching completely, will only stretch for a short period of time. Maybe a quick swing of the arms or a grasp towards the toes. People think it’s a waste of time and that if they’re working out, they should focus on calorie-burning or strength-building, none of this stretching nonsense. Well, guess what–it’s absolutely not a waste of time. Stretching, becoming limber, and flexible will help you in any sport, any exercise, any movement. Also, stretching shouldn’t be easy (you’ll see Hungry’s pained face below). Let’s start off with a deep hamstring stretch–all you need is a wall:

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