Precerpt from Grandma's Ninja Training Diary: When a Simple Exercise Becomes a Revelation
My tenant has sciatica at 38. Early, but not unusual anymore. I suggested that she try glute bridges. She did not know what they were. So, I showed her — casually dropped to the kitchen floor and demonstrated: 10 standard 10 single‑leg lift right 10 single‑leg lift left Easy. Routine. Something I don’t think twice about. She seemed nonplussed, stunned, and turned to my son's caregiver who was in the room with us. "How does she do that?" she asked. The caregiver shrugged, “I don’t know. I cannot.” And that’s when it hit me: They were telling the truth. I did a little research and learned that most adults today cannot do a single‑leg lift glute bridge. What?? They’ve lost the functional strength to move their own bodies! I had assumed these two ladies were unusually out of shape. But no. They are normal. It’s the baseline that has shifted, ostensibly because young folks lead more sedentary lives than did my generation. But not able to slip to the floor and do a single-leg-l...