Important Note:

• Always start your exercise regimen after a warm-up and stretching schedule, especially of the plantar facia from the sole of your feet, up your legs and back to the top of your skull.
• Also do not sit immediately after your exercise schedule. This may lead to your heart over straining to pull up the blood pooled in your lower leg muscles and even lead to a fatal collapse. You should keep walking slowly till your body cools down and your heart rate returns to normal. This allows the major muscles of your legs to keep flexing and so support your heart.
• Excessive sitting and general sedentary behaviour is equally, if not more, harmful than foregoing an exercise regimen, so make the effort to stand up and move around more through out the

Posture:

It is important for your spine and your abdominal organs that your posture, both when sitting and more so when standing or walking, be erect, centered and balanced.

While sitting keep the back straight and upright and if bending forward, bend from the hips with the back always straight.

While standing thrust your pelvic girdle slightly forward, at the same time hold yourself erect as if the hair on top of your head is being pulled up, with your shoulders square, chest out, chin parallel to the ground. Also pull in your stomach a little and keep it under a slight but constant inward tension.

Also while walking, walk erect, walk straight and balanced, with your toes pointing straight ahead or at most slightly outwards. Also while walking roll off the balls of your feet especially that under the big toe.

Make all these points a habit and you will soon note the difference in your health and balance and in how others see you.

Massage:

A weekly full body massage will help loosen your muscles and joints and also make you feel relaxed yet energized. A gentle lymphatic massage every 4^th or 5^th week also helps ensure better flow of lymphatic fluids throughout your body, enabling cleansing of lymphatic ducts and also helps in detoxification and improves the function of the immune system. You may get massage done in the morning on your ‘Feast’ day or at any convenient time on the ‘Fast’ day.

Health and Fitness measure for longevity:

Measure your general fitness and get an indication of your longevity in an easy manner by undertaking the sitting-rising test (SRT) as invented by Dr. Claudio Gil Araujo, this is a simple sitting and rising test calling on you to move from standing to sitting and then rising back up to standing in a smooth motion without relying on the use of hands or arms or knees or any other external help. The test is an indicator of a person’s physical fitness, including factors such as balance, muscle composition, muscle strength and flexibility.

The test uses a 10 point scale. Movement of sitting or standing are each scored on a scale of 1 to 5, and 1 point is subtracted if a hand or forearm or knee or side of leg is used for support. Half a point is subtracted for loss of balance. Results showed that those with a score of between 0 and 3 are more than 5 times as likely to die within the next 6 years than those who scored between 8 and 10.

The SRT has been validated and proven to be reliable. As Dr. Kelvin Chew, the Director of Changi Sports Medicine Centre says – “It would be useful as a simple screening test to identify those who need more exercise, especially given our ageing population”.

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