Sunday, August 2.

My youngest brother and I got posts up for mom's clothes-line. I'm especially happy about this because it gives me something to practice stuff on. Each side is made up of two 4x4 beams planted vertically in the ground about 6' high with a 12' 4x4 across the top. If I can figure out how to get on top I can work on balance, and maybe lose some height fear. Of course there's pullups and chinups that can be done on them, and when I get better, muscle-ups. Does anyone know of any other workouts and exercises I can do on them?

Friday I got two hours of freeway driving in. I've never driven our van that fast, and it took a lot of concentration not to wobble all over the lane! Anyway, I can't wait until I can find a better job so I can afford to have my own car! Then I can go to jams, and gyms, and... the possiblities are endless! 

Saturday I served breakfast, then did half a cook shift. I worked on something related to one legged squats. Every time I had to squat down to get cereal off the bottom shelf of the cart I concentrated on lifting myself up with one leg. I still had the other leg on the floor for balance. All the chopping for cooking was very painful on my wrist. Serve-out was hard, what with the AC still not working in the kitchen, and the twisting required of my wrist to dish out food.    It's not so painful anymore, but I still get a sharp pain with any sudden movement or moderate amount of stress. I have like a heat rash on it too, now, from having it wrapped up while working. Oh well. 

Served breakfast this morning, and will be serving supper tonight. Other than that, it looks like today will be a rest day. I'll probably try to get some pushups and situps in later, but I'm feeling kind of sick, so I don't know...

Thanks a million Carolyn!!

I forgot to thank you earlier for the article you linked me to "How ling did it take you to get good." That really helped. It's good to know that I won't be judged by others for being so... lame.

The plyometric article did help. I'm going to just work on vertical jumps for a few days. And burpees. I can barely do a burpee, and it's very jerky and disconnected, but I'm really hoping to get smoother soon. I think maybe I'll leave out the pushup part for a bit and just get the down-out-in-up part.

Yes, I do keep my arms out in front. One of my brothers told me to do that. I didn't know if it was really for any reason or not.

Monday, August 3.

Today was an angry, frustrating day. But I learned something good from it. I am much stronger and daring when I'm mad. I had kind of noticed before, but I was usually too angry to pay any real attention. I can lift things I would probably not even try to pick up other wise. If I could figure out how to feel like I'm angry without being angry and channel that energy... I could improve much faster! 

Walked another mile yesterday. I feel better today than last day after I ran!

Thursday, August 21.

Went to the chiropracter today. My left shoulder blade area has been hurting for a few weeks, and lately it's been rather raw feeling. I've been using a tennis ball on it, which hurts like crazy, by the way, but it hasn't seemed to help.

Anyway, I guess an upper rib was out of place. My shoulder still burns and feels very raw atm, but hopeuflly it'll get better. Also got my neck fixed again, and asked him about my wrist.

I used to sprain it all the time. There were a few years, around 11 or 12, where it seemed like my wrist was never out of a bandage. I guess as a result the ligaments and such are loose and my wrist is weak. He yanked and wiggled my wrist a lot, and pulled on my fingers, and, WOW! it HURT! He couldn't get it to stay at first. He'd keep setting it, but it'd pop right back out. He finally got it to stay, and I was told to wrap it in athletic tape or an ace bandage or something as soon as I got home to restrict movement for a few days. Then he gave me exercises to strengthen the wrist muscles.

That's all I have for today. No workout. But I'm sooo happy my wrist might stop hurting!!

Aw, I haven't figured out how to get the list thingy to work yet.

Monday, August 8:24

Sleep- 7 hrs. 45 mins. + attempted 8 min. power nap before work.

Mitchell Lewis recommended I get "moleskin" to help me continue walking, etc. in spite of blisters. I have not yet managed to find any.

Did not get any running in today. :\

Wrist was feeling a little better today. Was assigned to train a new employee at work today, which meant less stress on the wrist than there would be normally.

Workout:

Warmed up with 20 jumping jacks.
One of the wrist exercises I'm supposed to do is squeezing a rubber ball. I couldn't find any, so I used wadded up socks. Squeezed 4 socks in each hand while doing the following:
Tried 8 tuck jumps to silent landings. I can't seem to get enough height in my jumps to have time for a tuck and a proper landing.
So, I switched over to jumping from a squat and landing into a squat, then jumping from that same jump. I think that's called a squat jump? 3 rounds of 6 of those.
Did the APK warmup agility work, using 12 squares instead of 10. Forgot how tiring that can be, despite how simple it sounds! My legs felt almost totally useless.
End sock squeezing here.
10 situps. Gut's a little sore from yesterday.
All that barely took 10 minutes.
Ended with some stretching. Concentrated on relaxing into each stretch, and holding it for at least 30 seconds. Got so relaxed and calm that I almost fell asleep, and it startled me badly and got my heart racing all over again when my little sister banged into the room yelling "Deborah, mom wants you RIGHT NOW!"

It can work grip if that's an area you're lacking in. But other than that there's no real reason to not try and do something while you're hanging there.

Wednesday, August 26

I tried some jumps yesterday, trying to jump my hips above my waist, and putting my weight on my arms. That really hurt my wrist, so I quit. I really hope I'm doing the right thing babying it... I'm kind of afraid that I'm babying it too much and I should be working it harder.

Randomly throughout the day I did jumps attempting to touch the ceiling, not just brush the tips of my fingers on it. I got there once.

After work and an intense house-cleaning session, we kids got permission to go to the park! I ran, but couldn't breathe by the time I reached the park. Last time I ran I could make it to the park and around it once before being that breathless. Cautiously played a little hoops with my youngest brother, then led him and my youngest sister balancing on the edge of the short wooden wall around the playground. I went as fast as I could. I tried running for a little, but I couldn't keep my balance that way. I think we went around 6 or 7 times. I was surprised at how difficult it was for me to keep my balance when turning corners quickly. Thinking about it now, it makes sense. 

I conquered something tonight! There's a jump at the park I've been trying to make for a few months (not that I get there much). It's probably 2 1/2 feet across and maybe a foot high? From the wooden border around the playground to a park bench. It's really not a big deal, but whenever I try to do it, all I can see is me missing it and banging my shins, or twisting my ankle, or going too far forward and hurting myself on the back, etc. I made that jump today, and six more times. After the first 3 times I managed to land it almost silently too! I wanted to do it more, but we had to get home. If I get to walk home from work tomorrow, I intend to stop there and nail it a few more times.

We took the long way home in order to drop a brother off for dog sitting duties. I ran twice more, concentrating on breath control. I haven't figured anything out that lets me continue for any length of time. I also worked on pushing forward with my feet, not up so much. I've noticed before that I can take much longer steps and go faster, but I keep blocking myself from that because I have this fear I won't be able to move my legs fast enough to keep up, or miss a step or something, and will land on my face.

Also did some backward rolls. After several failed attempts I managed to complete one, landing on both knees, not some kind of sideways, one kneed thing. That got my wrist hurting again. 

Thanks a million, Carolyn! 

Thursday, August 28

Sleep: 8 hours.  That's plenty of sleep, but I felt sleepy and tired all day long anyway. 

Pretty much a rest day.

Did 2 rounds of:
13 calf raises
13 shin raises
13 calf raises with toes out
13 shin raises with toes out
13 claf raises with toes in
13 shin raises with toes in

+ More jumping to touch the ceiling. It was all barefoot jumping. I couldn't manage to jump as high as I could the day before.

Your joints and such will thank you better if you focus on proper diet to help you drop the weight (if you're not doing that already).

It would probably be a good idea to also focus on a baseline workout program a couple times a week (maybe APK WOD or something) in addition to your training.

On diet:
http://www.americanparkour.com/smf/index.php?topic=12681.60

Wednesday, September 2

Got up early this morning. Did NOT want to get up, but did it anyway. Hadn't eaten anything but two packets of saltines since 2:00pm yesterday, so I grabbed a stalk of celery while I was getting dressed (It's the only vegetable I could find besides carrots).
Ran/walked, according to my pedometer, 1.13 miles in 23 minutes. Took a different route this morning. Did more running vs. walking than I did last time. Still haven't figured out a breathing pattern that works. Worked on keeping my feet pointed straight, and not swinging my arms sideways. Was about 300 meters from home when I thought I was going to pass out from dizziness, and wanted to do nothing more than collapse on the sidewalk and throw up. I had to get home before dad got up and found out I wasn't there, so I didn't take a break, but kept going. I don't think I've been so hot in my life! My neck and right arm hurt really bad. I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong there... I threw up twice and dry heaved a few times, then lay on the tile floor because it was cool. Maybe eating celery before running is a bad idea? I felt like I had a really bad case of the flu. Ended up semi-sleeping for an hour, and got in trouble anyway for sleeping in so long. :\
A good thing from it, stumbled across a piece of a concrete barrier that is the perfect height for me to try to vault! Plus, it's not in a terribly visible place, so I won't feel like the whole world's watching me.

I did a modified version of the APK WOD. I tried negative pullups the first two minutes, but that wasn't really working. If I use the boy's bunk beds, I can do inverted rows (I think that's what it's called?) with my knees at a 90 degree angle, and pulling chest to the bottom of the top bunk, so I switched to that.

First minute: 1 negative pullup
Second: 2 negative pullups
Third:  3 inverted rows
Fourth: 4 inverted rows
Fifth: 5 inverted rows
Sixth: 5 inverted rows (Terrible form here. Actually only finished 2).
Seventh: 1 inverted row
Eighth: 2 inverted rows
Ninth: 2 1/2 inverted rows (couldn't get myself up all the way)
Tenth: 1 inverted row (That was HARD!)

5 crackers to settle my stomach
1/2 cups oats (I didn't have time to cook them or anything) with 1/2 cup milk and lots of cinnamon, + 1 cup green tea.
Tuna salad without mayonnaise on lettuce.
Grapes
Hamburger patty made with mushroom, olives and oats added + beans.

Thursday, September 3

No workout to report.  I Really wanted to try that 10 x 100 meter run to see if I could do it, but didn't get done with everything early enough to get to it.

Food:
Granola
Zucchini peelings from a project my sister was doing.
2 cups spinach boiled in a small amount of water with an egg mixed in. Ate everything including the juice.
Handful of pepper-jack cheeze-its. Wow! I've been craving bread stuff the last two days, and those tasted sooooo good! I thoroughly enjoyed that!