I was pleasantly surprised to find an Austrian Airlines "Sit & Fit" card at my seat. They contained illustrated instructions on "How to Travel Better with a Long Distance Work-out. I was advised that I could keep fit on long haul flights, even with long periods of sitting and not moving around.Pat Zapletal, Austria's No. 1 Fitness Lady together with Austrian Airlines have devised the following suggestions and training schedule. Do each exercise two or three times every two to three hours. Be aware of your breathing. Don't eat more than you really need to, drink lots of non-carbonated mineral water and limit your alcohol intake.
Exercise 1:
Move feet up and down.Make circular movements three times inward and three times outward.Put your feet back on the floor and relax.
Exercise 2:
Lift your feet slightly off the floor and bring your toes up towards you.
Hold this position for 3 seconds.
Put your feet back on the floor and relax.
Exercise 3:
Lift your heels off the floor and tense your calf muscles.
Hold that position for 3 seconds.
Put your heels back on the floor and relax.
Exercise 4:
Tense your whole body from your toes to your shoulders.
Bring your shoulders forward and hunch your back.
Hold this position for 3 seconds.
Take a deep breath and relax.
Exercise 5:
Stretch your body upwards while seated.Hold the position for 3 seconds.Take a deep breath and relax.
Exercise 6:
Pull up your shoulders, alternating between left and right.
Rotate your shoulders three times forwards, three times back.
Take a deep breath in and push your shoulders into your seat.
Breathe out slowly and relax.Before heading for those far away places around the world, and doing the Keep Fit exercises, the stress and strain of packing and carrying those bags to the airport or hatbox and giving them to a porter has been made much less difficult and easy on the body. I remember looking for those new fangled trolleys in London many decades ago when I was faced with the dilemma of ending my tour with very heavy suitcases. That was before the introduction of wheeled luggage approximately fifteen years ago. Currently, more expensive bags with four wheels are being manufactured and sold by the leading luggage makers, except for Tumi. Tumi feels that even though they are less likely to tilt forward and fall over, they are hard to control on hilly surfaces and could become "runaway" bags. Currently, I have an attic filled with the impossibly heavy all leather suitcases and a complete set of hardly ever used matching Lark luggage minus wheels.After years of squeezing as many passengers as possible, Delta and American have added a little more space between seats in economy, and Jet Blue advises passengers that seats in rows 11-26 have two extra inches of legroom between the seats. But business class on both British Airways and Virgin Atlantic have seats that convert into flat beds. Unfortunately for me, I just can't sleep on planes and the luxury of spacious flat beds are wasted on me. But the keeping fit routine and wheeled luggage are definite aids to less stressful sojourns.Copyright by Marcia AbramsonE-mail: mascribe@aol.com
