I have to write about this topic. I’ve raised it with numerous friends who are in my age bracket. Let’s call that the “post-60 crowd.” You can probably extend that on either end of 60 a bit.
The trend has been noticeable for several years, hence the age bracket definition. The issue is: threading your feet through your pants without falling down. Or, to be more realistic, how difficult it is to get your feet through the workout pants, jeans or dress pants, without catching your toes and becoming a contortionist. Why is this?
Let’s start with the morning ritual. You get up, do you normal start-of-day things, and at some point meander over to your clothes drawer to pull out a pair of stretch pants you wear to work out in. Simple enough.
They are made of soft fabric. Easily malleable. Ten years ago, you hopped right in and were off.
Not so today. Something has happened to turn your toes into clubs. They seem to have become immovable objects, unable to react to the sliding on of the pants with grace. They choose to catch the sides of the long pants and adhere the way thorns do. Stick and stay.
This, of course, causes you to lose balance. You stand on one foot. “Okay, this is easy enough.” All of a sudden, your toes are caught on the side of the fabric and you find yourself falling towards the bed. As you topple over, like a tall building that was just dynamited (TIMBER!!!), you put out your arm to catch yourself on the edge of the bed, straining your shoulder and elbow socket, while bellowing at the dog to stop make you lose your balance. Damn dog.
Really, it’s about aging and losing flexibility and balance. It’s hard to stand on one foot. Combine that with actually trying to do something while standing on one foot -- like inserting the other foot into a constricted space and making it go where you want it to go intuitively – and you have the coming disaster.
Seriously, I have had this discussion with many people in my age bracket and trying to put on your pants while standing is a significant issue. Why not sit?, you ask. Duh. We do. But it feeds the view of ourselves being old codgers, which we are, but somehow want to not fully label ourselves that way yet. Maybe we’re partial old codgers (POCs).
In the OLD days, I would stand up and abra cadabra, shove each foot through in seconds, and off you go. Oh, for those bygone days!
When does the syndrome start? When you turn 59? Is 65 the magic year? I don’t know.
All I do know is that this affects everyone I’ve spoken with in this age bracket who is willing to honestly share the difficulties they have with their feet sliding into pants. Us POCs have one more thing to worry about that can lead to head injuries. The AARP needs to get on this and cover the syndrome, along with solutions.
We need to develop some form of toe flexibility exercises. Stretch, twist, rotate. That will help, but (sigh), sitting down and acting like a true old codger instead of a POC seems to be the best solution.
Now, don’t get me started on pulling your socks off while you’re standing up. That’s doom.
The trend has been noticeable for several years, hence the age bracket definition. The issue is: threading your feet through your pants without falling down. Or, to be more realistic, how difficult it is to get your feet through the workout pants, jeans or dress pants, without catching your toes and becoming a contortionist. Why is this?
Let’s start with the morning ritual. You get up, do you normal start-of-day things, and at some point meander over to your clothes drawer to pull out a pair of stretch pants you wear to work out in. Simple enough.
They are made of soft fabric. Easily malleable. Ten years ago, you hopped right in and were off.
Not so today. Something has happened to turn your toes into clubs. They seem to have become immovable objects, unable to react to the sliding on of the pants with grace. They choose to catch the sides of the long pants and adhere the way thorns do. Stick and stay.
This, of course, causes you to lose balance. You stand on one foot. “Okay, this is easy enough.” All of a sudden, your toes are caught on the side of the fabric and you find yourself falling towards the bed. As you topple over, like a tall building that was just dynamited (TIMBER!!!), you put out your arm to catch yourself on the edge of the bed, straining your shoulder and elbow socket, while bellowing at the dog to stop make you lose your balance. Damn dog.
Really, it’s about aging and losing flexibility and balance. It’s hard to stand on one foot. Combine that with actually trying to do something while standing on one foot -- like inserting the other foot into a constricted space and making it go where you want it to go intuitively – and you have the coming disaster.
Seriously, I have had this discussion with many people in my age bracket and trying to put on your pants while standing is a significant issue. Why not sit?, you ask. Duh. We do. But it feeds the view of ourselves being old codgers, which we are, but somehow want to not fully label ourselves that way yet. Maybe we’re partial old codgers (POCs).
In the OLD days, I would stand up and abra cadabra, shove each foot through in seconds, and off you go. Oh, for those bygone days!
When does the syndrome start? When you turn 59? Is 65 the magic year? I don’t know.
All I do know is that this affects everyone I’ve spoken with in this age bracket who is willing to honestly share the difficulties they have with their feet sliding into pants. Us POCs have one more thing to worry about that can lead to head injuries. The AARP needs to get on this and cover the syndrome, along with solutions.
We need to develop some form of toe flexibility exercises. Stretch, twist, rotate. That will help, but (sigh), sitting down and acting like a true old codger instead of a POC seems to be the best solution.
Now, don’t get me started on pulling your socks off while you’re standing up. That’s doom.