A month or so ago I began doing Scott Sonnon's "Warrior Wellness" workout (
http://www.rmax.tv/warrior.html) at the urging of "Stickfighter Joe", who Sneaky and others may remember from "Self Destructed Forums" and other venues. Joe had sung the praises of the program for awhile. He and I have an almost eerily similar history of injuries and I knew from playing with him at seminars that things that worked for him often worked well for me. So I decided give it a try as part of my recovery from a recent injury.
The program is available on video or DVD and is billed as the "Head-to-Toe, Cradle-to-Grave Joint Mobility System!". I noticed improvements almost immediately. I'd been doing exercises given me by the physical therapist at a Dartmouth Hitchcock Med Center and while they helped (and may have laid the groundwork for the gains I made doing the "Warrior Wellness" exercises), it was after I began following Sonnon's program that I noticed real progress.
The other night, my mother, who's ill and unsteady on her feet, stumbled and began to fall face forward into a butcher block counter. To catch her I had to do a sort of sideways lunge and dip. It's too difficult to explain, but it involved a sudden awkward sliding movement and I had to catch her full and already falling weight (admittedly not very great) while in this extended lunge position and then lift her back to standing.
A month ago, I'm not sure that I'd have had the balance and flexibility to pull it off. Now, this is hardly a super human feat, but for any who are either recovering from joint injuries, or through age or sedentary life style have lost flexibility and ROM, I urge you to give this program a try.
It's not a demanding routine. Essentially just a series of movements going through the full range of motion, through the various planes that your joints will allow you to move, and then reversing direction and repeating. Doing it is enough to break a sweat, but nothing too taxing if you are recovering from an injury.
For anyone already in decent shape these would serve more as a warm up and should serve to reduce the risk of injury.
There are three levels of exercises shown, and I've done only the beginning level. Joe's been doing them for over a year and is really pleased with the results. There's nothing particularly martial about any of the movements and the name, IMHO, is more marketing than anything else, but I'd recommend the program.
HTH
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