I awake long before the alarm goes off. It's sad really, I think to myself as I recall the days when two alarms were required to ensure that I was up at the appropriate hour. I make a quick visit to the bathroom before I shuffle downstairs and start the coffee maker.

Then I move to the living room to begin my routine. First comes the stretching accompanied by the Chi breathing techniques that I learned and memorized many many years ago. Chi breathing is no big mystery. You inhale through your nose and exhale through your mouth and your tongue is curled against the room of you mouth. You do not expand your chest but pull the breath into the pit of your stomach.

My joints protest these movements but soon the pain vanishes and is replaced by resolve.

The shoulders are first and are pushed past the normal range of motion for someone my age. The forearms and wrists are next. They too are held in what would be considered by many as an awkward positions for about a minute and there are four separate exercises for them and it is repeated three times.

By the time I am warmed up the coffee is ready and I take a short break to fill my cup before I continue. As I lack the space and money for a real weight bench I now employ the Dynamic Tension exercises, it is a fancy name for isometrics and the concept is simple. I am sure you all have lifted something heavy from time to time and can recall what your muscles felt like when doing it?

Dynamic Tension is just that. You are fooling your muscles into believing your lifting something heavy when in reality I am using a wooden walking cane. I simply copy the routines I did in the gym when I could afford to attend a real iron pumping gym.

You exhale as your contract your muscles and inhale as you reset. Three exercises per body part and ten repetitions per set. I then drop to the floor. My back and knees that were injured during my law enforcement days protest the loudest, but I ignore them. I pull out the sit-up machine and push out one hundred sit ups.

So why do I inflect this daily painful routine on myself? Is it all for vanity or a feeble attempt to hang onto my youth?

Maybe its a combination of both. Prior to my injuries I was in pretty good shape for my age. The Prednizone and months of forced inactivity ruined it. This routine will ensure I will not become one of those men you see in the supermarket that cannot walk upright and lean on the shopping cart as they move through the store.

You cannot turn the clock backwards but this small routine will slow it down some. Remember your Mom telling you to stand up straight and not slouch? Take those words to heart lest you be like those you see that cannot stand up at the counter of any establishment and have to lean on their forearms.

After a hot shower I sit and enjoy my coffee while I ponder what the day may hold. That's my routine. You can develop one of your own and it does not take more than a half hour out of your day and the benefits will be noticeable. What the mind can in vision the body can become.