I have been a big fan of Indian Club exercises for quite some time and use them myself and with my clients. As a matter of fact, you don’t need to use the clubs in order to get the most out of these exercises.

I have three pairs of Indian Clubs – 5-pounds, 1-1/4 pounds, 3/4 pounds each – but your upper body flexibility will improve without using the clubs. I’ve demonstrated a few of the basic moves that you can incorporate into your warm-up routine. If you have, or want to buy, Indian Clubs, great. But you don’t need the clubs to take advantage of these great exercises.

Take a few minutes everyday to practice these exercises and in a short time you will notice a difference in your upper body flexibility.

Incorporate upper body movements when doing flexibility exercises, use medicine balls and sticks and bend, twist, lean, lunge and squat.

The best flexibility routines will get boring. Plain and simple. It doesn’t matter what kind of exercise, they will get stale if they are overused and/or always performed they same way and same order. You can avoid making the extraordinary, ordinary by constantly adding variations to your stretching routine.

Here’s an example to get you started.
• Lunge with the right foot and rotate upper body with arms extended to the front and held at shoulder height
• Turn the head to the right
• Repeat with the left and alternate for 10 total repetitions

Add variety to the move by doing the following.
• When lunging with the right leg turn your shoulders as you reach across the right knee with the left hand
• Repeat leading with the left leg and alternate
• For added degree of difficulty move arms out of sync – one arm held in front while the other arm is held over head – while rotating your torso

Progress to doing the lunge while holding an un-weighted stick directly overhead or extended in front of the body and perform a variety of reaches and bends; to the side, over head, rotate towards and away from lunge leg, etc.

There are many different kinds of lunges and when you add a variety of upper body movements there is a practically unlimited supply of flexibility exercises that you can perform. Consistently change the order of these movements and even perform several different moves in a series to add more variety and complexity to your flexibility routines.

Keep these simple rules in mind and add movement to your flexibility exercises to keep your routines fresh, challenging and effective.

There are a lot of theories, myths and “Wives’ Tales” that deal with cures for jet lag and exercise is my cure.

There are a lot of cures for jet lag, from the simple to complex, scientific to goofy, medicinal, herbal and elemental.  Some are simple and others are complex and convoluted. Take melatonin, drink water, starve yourself take pharmaceuticals, wear goggles that shine light into your eyes and more.

I don’t travel all that much, but when I do I find the best way to get over jet lag and its associated problems is to grab a quick workout, sometimes intense, sometimes restorative. I don’t have any hard and fast rules – there’s no science behind cures for jet lag – but I listen to my body to determine what kind of exercise routine I’ll do.

If I’m on the road I usually intend to do a light workout – especially if I’m feeling laggy – and definitely start slow. Sometimes I perk up during the workout and wind up going pretty hard, other times nice and easy does it.  Also, sometimes the facilities don’t permit a heavy-duty workout, but any workout is better than no workout.

Calisthenics, dynamic flexibility work, a light run, an easy circuit training routine are all good strategies to combat jet lag.  Do something that gets you, and keeps you, moving for at least 25-35 minutes, incorporates whole body movements and has you changing elevations.  You know, get down on the ground, get back up…keep moving and get the blood flowing.

When I get back home my workouts tend to be more rigorous, usually because I’m glad to be home and that I’m familiar with my surroundings.  I just got back from Las Vegas and less than 2 hours after I we touched down I was on the local high school field doing what started out as a recovery-style run but wound up being a full-blown workout.

Felt great, ate great, slept great and I was back in the swing of things right away.  Exercise is a great cure for jet lag.