Kyalii

Omg I am so glad to see I'm not the only one who feels absolutely terrified of stretching after a hamstring injury!!! I tore mine in June while stretching (in a somewhat stupid manner, but dancers stretch in stupid manners all the time, so you know), and pretty much anything that moves my leg above 90 degrees in any direction is like RED ALERT DANGER SCARY. I can't even remember what it felt like to stretch before my injury anymore >.<

Well how 'bout that. Thanks!

Yeah.... I definitely read the "Read this first" post second (because I am bad at following directions) and saw that a little too late. I tried editing the post, but it won't let me edit the title >.< Next time for CERTAIN I will do this!

I can't believe it's a new challenge already! Hi all, I'm Lisa, and after your guild member shaarawy encouraged me through the last challenge, I decided that maybe I could fit into the assassin's group rather nicely. I have a pretty eccentric fitness practice--I dance ballet 2-4 times a week and I'm training for my third degree black belt in tae kwon do (just call me Natasha Romanov). I also swim, and often find myself doing random bodyweight workouts before TKD class. It's been an interesting year or so for me: I tore my hamstring this past summer, which set me back a TON, and also found myself battling severe depression, which didn't exactly help either. So, last challenge was all about getting back in the game, and overall, it went pretty well. This month, I'm going to focus on increasing and expanding the base of fitness that I started to redevelop last month, and also developing some habits that should (hopefully!) help prevent injuries, since I seem to be so gosh darn good at getting injured. SO. Without further ado, I present to you: THE CHALLENGE Goal 1: Flexibility. Dance and TKD both require a fair amount of flexibility, which is something that has never come naturally to me. After I tore my hamstring, I stopped stretching almost entirely, both out of frustration and fear (I tore my hamstring while stretching, so that's cool). I've been stretching sort of haphazardly for about a month now, and I've seen minor gains, so now I'd like to focus more on it. Flexibility Challenge: Perform the same stretching routine after every TKD and Ballet class. I've chosen a group of stretches that I like from a martial arts flexibility book and written a routine, so I always know what I need to do. It takes about 10-15 minutes to do. Goal 2: Strength. Although my ultimate goals require more specialized strength (higher kicks for TKD, higher everything in dance), I know I need to make sure my foundation is solid first. Strength Challenge: Two bodyweight workouts a week. Each HAS to have at least one plank in it. It can be tough for me to actively schedule bodyweight workouts because we sometimes do them in TKD, and I run the risk of doubling up and not getting enough rest. So, by doing two, I can schedule around the lack of predictability in TKD (don't do one on Tuesday? Okay, let's make sure I request one on Thursday and Saturday). I hate planks so much but they're so darn good for what I want to do, so I'm making it an additional challenge/requirement, because I can, that's why. Goal 3: Don't forget Cardio! Ballet and TKD are great, but I find that neither really helps improve cardiovascular endurance, which is something that is really helpful for both activities. And you know, for life and stuff. These days, my cardio of choice is swimming since I'm so hard on my body in other areas of my life. Cardio Challenge: Swim 2x a week. Increase swim distance by 100 yards each week. Last challenge, I swam 1000 yds 2x a week, and that went well. I realized, however, that my brain was getting stuck at the 1000 yd mark, so now I'm going to work to move past that. 1100 first week, 1200 second week, 1300 third week, 1400 first week. That's it for now! See y'all around soon

I can't run anymore (too many achilles issues--I save my legs for tae kwon do these days), but I can cheer people on! But only if there is pie.

Here we are at the final stretch! Last week was not great, fitness-wise. I think I was fighting off some sort of illness (my fiance was sick all week), and I spent all of last week feeling exhausted and run down. I didn't swim at all as a result, but I did do my ballet warmup and my pushups, even though they weren't pretty. So now that I write that out, I guess it wasn't THAT bad. I'm feeling better this week, and I have enough energy to focus on my nutrition again, which is key to me being able to meet my fitness goals (I have a horrible tendency to either not eat, or eat way too much unhealthy food--food is really hard for me, guys). On the plus side, I got all of my law review stuff done on time!!!! YAY ME!!!!!

Okay, well just knowing that somebody is checking in actually helps a bit--I adjusted my calendar to match new dates, and I got my last assignment in on time! Yay!!! Next assignment will need to be taken care of starting Saturday so it can go out by Tuesday, so I'm just putting that out there now. I'm awesome at public guilting

Hmmm, that isn't a bad idea at all. Problem is that I just like the fitness stuff so much more than -real- life! Maybe I need to rope my fiance into this... see if she can some up with a carrot for me

In the US, it isn't unless you're working 20+ hours a week on top of being in school

Hey peeps! Just dropping in to say hi! I live in St. Paul, although I spend a fair amount of time in Woodbury because my Tae Kwon Do studio is there If you all ever do a meetup, I'd be down!

Can you tolerate legumes? Beans are a super cheap source of extra protein that would pair well with your brown rice, and would help ensure that you're getting the proper amino acids you need to build/repair muscles. Dried beans are cheapest, but unless you have access to a stove and a pot, or a crock pot, they can be difficult to cook. Canned beans are a little more expensive, but do the trick. I'm both a poor student and always pressed for time, so I usually cook up a pound of beans and a pound of rice on Sunday and eat that with a cheap vegetable like collard greens for lunch every day for a week. Also, I don't know where you live, but if you're in the United States, a lot of dollar stores have a small freezer section these days, and you can usually find packs of frozen veggies there for only a dollar, which is AWESOME. Frozen veg is pretty much as good as fresh, but a lot cheaper. You can microwave it in the bag if that's all you have access to, but you can also saute them, or even thaw them out, drain, and roast them (I do this with frozen brussel sprouts all the time). If you don't have access to a freezer, most dollar stores usually have canned veggies too--again, not the best, but better than no veggies at all!

What about a group that shares what they've learned at the end of a month, or just some random dancing, good, bad, or otherwise? Maybe as like a mini challenge?

Yeah, I've definitely made my instructor a believer in the dance/martial arts cross training. He was super skeptical when I first told him what I was doing, but 2 years later, he can't deny how much I've improved... :-D ALSO, here is an early week 2 update! Dance goal: perform 3 rounds of a warmup/strengthening routine before each dance class. This is going well! Part of this routine involves a plank, which I had planned on starting at 45 seconds, and increasing in time as I felt stronger. Well, this week I did a 50 second plank! So... yay, five extra seconds!!! I'm getting a little concerned about some of the foot exercises, because I think they're exacerbating the effect that the extreme cold weather is having on my formerly-injured-but-sometimes-still-gets-inflamed-achilles, so I think I might sub them out this next week in exchange for eccentric heel drops and some extra calf stretching. I don't want to stop working on my feet entirely, but maybe I'll do one round with the feet and two with the heel drops. We'll see. Tae Kwon Do goal: perform a 100 pushups workout 3 times/week. This is going swimmingly--the last workout I did called for ten pushups, which I haven't been able to do ten unmodified pushups unbroken in quite a while, but I managed it! I'm glad my pushup strength is coming back quickly. Twenty, here I come! General Fitness goal: swim 1000 yds or more 2 times/week. This is also going... swimmingly (hah!) I very much wanted to skip today's swim, because I was feeling all depressive and anxious, but I finally managed to drag myself over to the pool about an hour after I had originally scheduled my swim for today. So I'm super proud of that. Of course, I immediately channeled all of my emotional energy into my swim, which was a TERRIBLE idea because I gassed myself on the first half and had to do the second half feeling like somebody had attached lead weights to me, but I made it through. So, my two swims for this week looked like this: Wednesday, I did 100/200/100/200/100/200/100, and today I did another 3x50/2x100/1x150 ladder. OH. ALSO. Despite my gassed state of being, I decided to challenge myself and do negative splits on the last 3 50s--something I've never actually attempted before (I never said I had good judgment). But to my surprise, I DID IT! I dropped 5 seconds off of each 50 at the end, for times of (don't laugh, actual swimmers, I know I'm beyond slow) 1:05, 1:00, and then :55. So, cool! Life goal: Create calendar with all of my Law Review Editor assignments on it by January 10, and complete all of my assignments on time. HAH. You know how I'm doing SO WELL on all of my fitness goals? Yeah that would not be here. On the plus side, I have the assignments I needed to complete this week done, but I in no way shape or form did them according to my calendar. I'm struggling with this. Any advice much appreciated.