Up and at 'em, down and out

While I don't actually work out, loyal readers know that I walk for 45 minutes to an hour a solid five days a week, and often six. Indeed I have walked as many as seventeen days straight. Yes, I count. What else are you supposed to do when walking seventeen straight days? Besides, that sort of thing feeds on itself and sort of encourages exercise. I mean that.

Admittedly I don't watch my food as well as I should. Oh, I watch it. I just watch too much of it and then eat it all. Too fast. Especially corn and potato chips, although a few chocolate fudge cookies might find their way into the mix. They're a great follow up to a dry salad.

I'm reasonably active for the proverbial man my age. I do not live a sedentary lifestyle. I'm active at work, lifting things and moving them around, loading and unloading my van and the like, walking from place to place routinely at the Shop. Stairs are no problem. I go up and down them as if they're made for getting between levels. My joints don't bother me as a rule: there's only the occasional body aches and pains which, I am told, are the rule and not the exception as I age. Sure, my back bothers me with annoying regularity. But remind yourself what I just said.

My point here is that I don't think I'm in bad shape. Then why has it become so hard to get in and out of cars?

I love my van, and with no small reason. Besides needing one for my job, I can get up into a van and then down and out with ease. Getting down into a car and then up out of one can be, well, even I find it funny as I struggle to bend my body just so to make it happen. I don't remember having to twist myself a full one eighty before, trying to find the right angle for entering a car or excising myself therefrom. 

This may be precisely what a man searching the landscape for an excuse might say, but I do believe that cars are lower than they once were. The old cars I used to drive before vans became the biggest part of my driving regimen didn't seem so close to the ground. Is it about aerodynamics? Just let me get into the car and the extra ballast and will see to that.

So I wonder: is it a matter of flexibility? Do I need to work on that to become more agile and make the ups and downs of car entry and exit easier? How might I do that?

The first friend or family member who says 'yoga' will be disowned. If you are not a friend or family member I will make you one simply to disown you. In the meanwhile I will be content with 'cars are lower'. It makes sense to me.