you want a straight back because you want to be moving your torso at the hips, not your spine for that stretch. It’s much like the “lift with your legs, not your back” mantra.
Daibhid C
Fun fact: I have been hearing that mantra all my life. Every time I had to lift something heavy as a kid, someone would say “Remember, lift with your legs, not your back!” and I would have no idea what they were talking about, because I was lifting with my arms. But they’d say it so authoratively that I wouldn’t want to question it, so I just nodded.
Then, in I think my late 20s, I got a warehousing job. And naturally, we had to do was watch a health and safety video on Correct Lifting Technique. And this actually said “If you stoop over to lift something,you’re putting too much strain in the wrong places, you should bend your knees instead.” And I was like “Ohh, that makes sense. Is that what people meant the whole time?”
Zak
Yeah I worked briefly at lowes and we had a video that did the same and I had a similar moment. I’m pretty sure people just you know heard the thing and then parroted the thing, but had no concept of the thing because they were all lifting wrong as well.
Mark
I worked in the back room at the post office for a while. Not only did I get similar training, I worked in the same area with a guy who had lifted something wrong (at least) once and had to have his spine pinned. I still remember that lesson!
TCS
The wording never made sense to me either until I was shown! But my thinking was “How can you not be lifing with your legs? They hold everything up!” lol
jflb96
It’s also not always true. If something is light enough, you should lift with your back for the exercise.
Lazarus
And now after decades of that advice knee injuries are rampant. Heavy lifting is a strain no matter how it’s done. Now some factories are working on equipment so no bending or crouching is required.
I am apparently 39 and am definitely out of shape. I am also hypermobile and can do this easily… Can also put my hands down flat on the ground with straight knees and presumably back. Am assuming that the hypermobility is my secret advantage here.
I like that you give fun song suggestions, but I looked up this song and SWEET JESUS that is a disturbing music video. I thought the flipped over roach was a maybe little cruel and strange for a music video for a song just about sex but, I was able to just brush it off as a weird minor one off thing for the sake of art. Then they started crucifying a monkey and defiling a pig’s corpse and now I am wondering who the hell directed this thing.
Yeah as I understand it NIN kinda blew up in some circles because of a video made for the Broken EP that was never officially released, Trent had second thoughts about it and only gave a few copies to friends, but copies were made of those copies and urban legends spread and the copies only got degraded and fuzzier as they were copied and watched again and again, going viral but only among people who had heard how fucked up it was and wanted to see it for themselves, separated only by the recording artifacts from something that felt so *real*.
So I expect that Closer was an attempt to recapture some of that magic, and it *was* played on MTV a lot, but heavily censored.
To confuse things further, some of those songs should be, like, a break-up song about having a blazing row, but you’ve got the argument that will shut your ex’s down completely. That’s the closer.
Daibhid C
(I really don’t have the energy to check if any of them are.)
Thing is, it’s not actually “a song just about sex”. Wikipedia summarises: “Lyrically, “Closer” is a song about self-hatred and obsession; to Reznor’s dismay, the song was widely misinterpreted as a lust anthem due to its chorus”.
I love the post modern jukebox cover. (Also the same guy— Kenton Chen) covers another song called Closer and I would so buy an album of him covering lots of different Closer songs.)
Weirdly despite being a very tall, overweight, 30 yr old dude I’m very flexible. My doctor is always surprised how easily I can bend over or frog sit. In my younger days I could even do the splits.
I can still touch my toes, and I turn 40 next year. I was the kid who got excited when they pulled out that board to measure how far you could reach for the fitness test, because that was the one thing I was good at in gym class.
I’m just bendy enough to be fun, but not bendy enough to be worried about joint hypermobility.
I’m flexible in weird ways. Not gym-type stretching flexible (much less yoga), but I can, say, be carrying a full armload of stuff out to the garage from the house, and then reach up with my foot to grip the door handle with my toes, open the door, and pull it towards me with my toes, all without ever being at risk of losing balance.
…. but also if just stand up or turn around wrong I can spontaneously halfway dislocate one or both of my shoulders. I don’t know if that counts as being too flexible or not flexible enough, but it sucks either way.
sounds like hypermobility, yeah. https://www.ehlers-danlos.com/what-is-hsd/ diagnosis is still kinda problematic (or if you’re canadian, impossible/useless) but if you find other people online you can learn stuff that might help. Muldowney protocol is a good place to start for keeping your shoulders in.
(also, PSA: losing the flexibility doesn’t mean you’ve lost the hypermobility disorder, especially if you lost it because your muscles are so damn tight they’re causing other problems)
just flexible enough for my body to completely fall apart when I was 29ish ? hypermobility disorders suck. gabapentin has helped, though (that and finally un-dislocating my own neck after 7ish years of doing other joints myself and searching in vain for a physiotherapist/chiropractor/anyone who could actually help)
…Muldowney helped too, but I’ve been avoiding getting back to it because it’s tedious as fuck, and I’m doing well enough to get away with avoiding things 🙂
In my teens I could scratch my ears with either foot, back when Gerald Ford was president. In 2011 I was doing yoga and fell out of a pose and stuck my right foot in my ear and pulled some ligaments. That hip has hurt ever since.
No it wasn’t.
I don’t read any other comics.
I don’t even know what that is.
I just misread the strip when Joyce left Sarah in mid monologue to talk to Jacob.
My read on Becky’s whole feud with Dorothy has always been that she thinks Joyce feels a way about Dorothy that she’ll never feel about Becky despite how much Becky wanted her too.
I’m not sure how she’d react to that being confirmed.
148 thoughts on “Toes”
DarkoNeko
hi Dotty !
Ana Chronistic
Me: “How can people not touch their toes?? Lemme demonstrate”
*creaks in Old Person*
Me: “…n/m”
Ryan
And what’s with the straight back?!? That defeats at least half the purpose.
I could barely wave at my toes yesterday. Today, touching the floor. Tomorrow, who knows. The Olds is no fun.
Casi
you want a straight back because you want to be moving your torso at the hips, not your spine for that stretch. It’s much like the “lift with your legs, not your back” mantra.
Daibhid C
Fun fact: I have been hearing that mantra all my life. Every time I had to lift something heavy as a kid, someone would say “Remember, lift with your legs, not your back!” and I would have no idea what they were talking about, because I was lifting with my arms. But they’d say it so authoratively that I wouldn’t want to question it, so I just nodded.
Then, in I think my late 20s, I got a warehousing job. And naturally, we had to do was watch a health and safety video on Correct Lifting Technique. And this actually said “If you stoop over to lift something,you’re putting too much strain in the wrong places, you should bend your knees instead.” And I was like “Ohh, that makes sense. Is that what people meant the whole time?”
Zak
Yeah I worked briefly at lowes and we had a video that did the same and I had a similar moment. I’m pretty sure people just you know heard the thing and then parroted the thing, but had no concept of the thing because they were all lifting wrong as well.
Mark
I worked in the back room at the post office for a while. Not only did I get similar training, I worked in the same area with a guy who had lifted something wrong (at least) once and had to have his spine pinned. I still remember that lesson!
TCS
The wording never made sense to me either until I was shown! But my thinking was “How can you not be lifing with your legs? They hold everything up!” lol
jflb96
It’s also not always true. If something is light enough, you should lift with your back for the exercise.
Lazarus
And now after decades of that advice knee injuries are rampant. Heavy lifting is a strain no matter how it’s done. Now some factories are working on equipment so no bending or crouching is required.
Raznaak
I’m 32 and heavily out of shape.
I can still touch my knuckles to the floor with both my back and knees straight.
Miri
I am apparently 39 and am definitely out of shape. I am also hypermobile and can do this easily… Can also put my hands down flat on the ground with straight knees and presumably back. Am assuming that the hypermobility is my secret advantage here.
Ana Chronistic
I am… more than that =| and whatever I used to be able to do, I can’t anymore T_T
NGPZ
*plays “Closer” by Nine Inch Nails on hacked muzak*
True Survivor
I like that you give fun song suggestions, but I looked up this song and SWEET JESUS that is a disturbing music video. I thought the flipped over roach was a maybe little cruel and strange for a music video for a song just about sex but, I was able to just brush it off as a weird minor one off thing for the sake of art. Then they started crucifying a monkey and defiling a pig’s corpse and now I am wondering who the hell directed this thing.
Chaucer59
Reznor designed the video himself.
NGPZ
Heh I never saw the music video, and wow 😮
modulusshift
Yeah as I understand it NIN kinda blew up in some circles because of a video made for the Broken EP that was never officially released, Trent had second thoughts about it and only gave a few copies to friends, but copies were made of those copies and urban legends spread and the copies only got degraded and fuzzier as they were copied and watched again and again, going viral but only among people who had heard how fucked up it was and wanted to see it for themselves, separated only by the recording artifacts from something that felt so *real*.
So I expect that Closer was an attempt to recapture some of that magic, and it *was* played on MTV a lot, but heavily censored.
ktbear
If you have problems with NIN’s video I could suggest Halocene’s cover instead.
Thag Simmons
It’s a very different vibe to the song called “Closer” that I’m more familiar with.
Thag Simmons
There are entirely too many songs called “Closer”
Daibhid C
To confuse things further, some of those songs should be, like, a break-up song about having a blazing row, but you’ve got the argument that will shut your ex’s down completely. That’s the closer.
Daibhid C
(I really don’t have the energy to check if any of them are.)
Opus the Poet
The video for that Lemaitre song is seriously Foxtrot Uniform.
deliverything
Thing is, it’s not actually “a song just about sex”. Wikipedia summarises: “Lyrically, “Closer” is a song about self-hatred and obsession; to Reznor’s dismay, the song was widely misinterpreted as a lust anthem due to its chorus”.
Nicoleandmaggie
I love the post modern jukebox cover. (Also the same guy— Kenton Chen) covers another song called Closer and I would so buy an album of him covering lots of different Closer songs.)
khn0
Crucifying the monkey is unlikely, given that known animal activist Nivek Ogre was one of his early models…
Opus the Poet
They didn’t hurt it, It was just tied to a cross, but not like hung up or anything.
khn0
Exactly.
Nono
I haven’t been able to touch my toes bending over in at least a decade, I think.
DarkoNeko
saame
Angel
lol well, as long as you can bend down good enough to tie ur shoes hopefully it should be fine
Max
Even when I was a kid I couldn’t do it.
Raise your hand if you just stood up and tried it yourself.
Lumino
Never been able to. My mother’s side of the family has long legs and short arms, so it’s a consistent problem on that side.
foamy
I haven’t been able to do it since my age hit the double digits.
june gloom
Bisexual vibes off the charts.
jeffepp
The poly here.
GreyICE
This would be a hella cute poly relationship.
FlamestAndLight
Dotty: “This is my girlfriend 🙂 and her boyfriend >:|”
UrsulaDavina
Or Hetroflexiable or Saiposexual.
Opus the Poet
Yes that seems to be Joyce’s case, she wants to F*ck their minds, in a nice loving way.
Steelbright
Yeah seriously relating to Joyce here (in both a thirsty and poly way): everyone is so hot and i also like them all as people oh no halp
Taffy
This is weird
Rose by Any Other Name
Oh my yes.
Sirksome
This is when we discover this is the first time Joyce has bent over in her entire life.
Kyrik Michalowski
I admit, I can touch my toes, but it hurts to do so. Still I try to do so every day when I stretch.
Just don’t expect me to be very stretchy. Anyone here particularly flexible?
Sirksome
Weirdly despite being a very tall, overweight, 30 yr old dude I’m very flexible. My doctor is always surprised how easily I can bend over or frog sit. In my younger days I could even do the splits.
Ryan
Frog sitting is manageable, so long as I’m not expected to stand back up. It’s a one way trip.
Masumi
I can put my entire hands on the floor.
I can, however, not stand with straight legs and also have my spine be in the shape it’s supposed to have – nope, my lower spine bends way forward.
So… Yesn’t? Only flexible in relatively useless ways XD
Ryan
That’s primarily a back stretch for me. Straight back does not compute.
Tawdry Quirks
I can still touch my toes, and I turn 40 next year. I was the kid who got excited when they pulled out that board to measure how far you could reach for the fitness test, because that was the one thing I was good at in gym class.
I’m just bendy enough to be fun, but not bendy enough to be worried about joint hypermobility.
Reltzik
I’m flexible in weird ways. Not gym-type stretching flexible (much less yoga), but I can, say, be carrying a full armload of stuff out to the garage from the house, and then reach up with my foot to grip the door handle with my toes, open the door, and pull it towards me with my toes, all without ever being at risk of losing balance.
…. but also if just stand up or turn around wrong I can spontaneously halfway dislocate one or both of my shoulders. I don’t know if that counts as being too flexible or not flexible enough, but it sucks either way.
Inahc
sounds like hypermobility, yeah. https://www.ehlers-danlos.com/what-is-hsd/ diagnosis is still kinda problematic (or if you’re canadian, impossible/useless) but if you find other people online you can learn stuff that might help. Muldowney protocol is a good place to start for keeping your shoulders in.
(also, PSA: losing the flexibility doesn’t mean you’ve lost the hypermobility disorder, especially if you lost it because your muscles are so damn tight they’re causing other problems)
Inahc
just flexible enough for my body to completely fall apart when I was 29ish ? hypermobility disorders suck. gabapentin has helped, though (that and finally un-dislocating my own neck after 7ish years of doing other joints myself and searching in vain for a physiotherapist/chiropractor/anyone who could actually help)
…Muldowney helped too, but I’ve been avoiding getting back to it because it’s tedious as fuck, and I’m doing well enough to get away with avoiding things 🙂
Opus the Poet
In my teens I could scratch my ears with either foot, back when Gerald Ford was president. In 2011 I was doing yoga and fell out of a pose and stuck my right foot in my ear and pulled some ligaments. That hip has hurt ever since.
cbwroses
Didn’t she just do some backflips off panel several strips ago?
How is she so inflexible now?
Kyrik Michalowski
Uhhh, what backflip? You sure we are talking about the same Joyce?
Angel
well she did ‘teleport’ up a tree. maybe her abilities are comedy based lol
Reltzik
That, plus some panic-fueled adrenaline.
cbwroses
Never mind.
That strip said “slipping away”.
For days I’ve thought it said “backflipping away” and wondered why she was THAT excited.
jeffepp
That was Soggy Cardboard. Different comic.
cbwroses
No it wasn’t.
I don’t read any other comics.
I don’t even know what that is.
I just misread the strip when Joyce left Sarah in mid monologue to talk to Jacob.
DailyBrad
I can’t touch my toes, but I also do not give a shit about that.
Now, I guess we get to see how homoerotic this all winds up getting. My guess is, quite.
Kyrik Michalowski
If Joyce comes out as bisexual, Becky might explode… Actually I’d love to see that; whenever she is comfortable to announce it of course.
Kyrik Michalowski
This was not supposed to be a reply, sorry. ._.”
DailyBrad
I mean, it’s fine, it went along with the homoeroticism mention, so if you hadn’t said anything, I’d have thought nothing of it, honestly!
Thag Simmons
My read on Becky’s whole feud with Dorothy has always been that she thinks Joyce feels a way about Dorothy that she’ll never feel about Becky despite how much Becky wanted her too.
I’m not sure how she’d react to that being confirmed.
Opus the Poet
Becky has Dina now, she’s (almost) over Joyce.
butts
damn she’s just like me forreal
Ray
CALLED IT 😀
True Survivor
Are you a steak? Because that was very well done.
True Survivor