Little Pains and Little Gains

This past week my theme has been flexibility. I’m glad I did this!

Rather than worrying so much about numbers I was working on specific parts of my body, and not just flexibility but strength as well. In other words, strengthening and lengthening. Also, since my back and shoulders have been such issues, I worked on them. Thus, I’ve been alternating core and back one day, then arms and shoulders another day, then hips and legs the next day, and repeat. This makes more sense to me from a health and fitness perspective anyway, and my body seems to be responding to it well. There is still pain but not as much. The joints feel like they’re loosening up a bit too, which feels a little weird in some ways, good, but weird. I guess I’ve gotten too used to the tenseness of these areas, probably as a response of the body to protect itself.

Giving my body a chance to rest these areas for a couple of days in between sessions focused on them seems to help too. I don’t feel like I’m breaking myself in and attempt to accomplish my goals.

This also means that I’m using these as my equivalents for my pushups and sit-ups.

It took a little bit of research to figure out what exercises to do, but by making this my focus for this week it was like I gave myself permission to work on this to the exclusion of other goals, and that made it possible to finally get it done, rather than floundering around trying to do everything.

I’m thinking of keeping flexibility as my theme for next week as well because I would really like to get rid of this back and shoulder pain, and it seems to be working.

Numbers So Far This Year

Pushups/equivalent: 1560/ 25000

Sit-ups/equivalent: 1140 / 25000

Hand Form: 93 / 1000

Weapon Form (Contact Staff): 7 days

                  Neck wraps: pretty reliable now

                  Stalls: getting there but not reliable yet

                  Halos: will be next after Stalls

RAoK: 84/1000

Sparring: 85 minutes

Kilometres: 125

Memorize Mastery:

Nurture Relationships:

Journalling: 31 days

Blogging: 7 posts

One-on-ones: 3 + 4 more booked

Improve Flexibility: 17 days

Forward Bend: can touch palms to the floor when warmed up enough

Deep Squat: still can’t keep my feet flat on the floor but I only need to raise the heels about an inch (on slant board) to do it.

Help with Level 1 Classes: 3

Decluttering: 4 days

Art: 24 days

Reading: 1 / 12 books finished

Dog Training: Thinking of making this the theme for the week after one more of flexibility.