Way too many people seem to go through their entire day in a half-asleep daze, without even fully waking up. Some people don’t even stretch in the morning – much less do an organized routine of dynamic stretches – and yet they wonder where all of their childhood energy and flexibility has gone. They follow their little daily routines – wake up, eat, go to school / work, etcetera, and then crash and relax at the end of the day. Chances are they have a dead-end job that they hate, or they hate school, and their mind does not get stimulated hardly any throughout the entire day, much less their body.
You should get some kind of exercise every day – an organized stretching routine is the bare minimum. If you’re interested in really developing your flexibility and doing real stretching routines – which is incredibly useful for nearly all sports, but especially martial arts / gymnastics – then you really need to check out Thomas Kurz’ Stretching Scientifically: A Guide to Flexibility Training. This is the best book ever written for flexibility training, hands-down. And no, I don’t get any money for saying that. It covers dynamic stretching, static stretching, isometric stretching, and more. Just doing a small dynamic stretching routine in the morning and a relaxed, static stretching (yoga-like) routine at night will have you well on your way to improving your flexibility – not to mention your well-being in general.
On a side note, I ran across an interesting video a while back called the “Fuzz Speech.” It discusses exactly why we lose flexibility as we age. (Be warned, it includes footage of cadavers in a medical setting – but it’s not bloody.) In any case, it will definitely make you want to stretch every day.