Juliebarkley gets flexy

[juliebarkley]

My workplace was supposed to open this Thursday, but we just learned that it won't, so we will be farmed out to other locations and won't know what hours or at which location we will work until shortly beforehand. All subject to change at any time, of course. Since I now lack any semblance of predictability in my schedule, I am going to keep my challenge relatively simple and focused this time around. This will be the first challenge ever that is entirely (or even mostly!) fitness-based! I will try to keep my various habits going, but I am not going to kill myself to do so.

 

My goals this time around:

1. Don't miss workouts. This is pretty clear, I think? I should be doing Monday, Wednesday/Thursday (depending on the week), and Saturday.

2. Improve flexibility. (Thanks to @Red1263 for the idea!)

3. Do a chinup, pullup - one of those pully-up things, you know.

4. Do parkour rolls (weather permitting - I don't do wet grass) to fight dizziness. I'm doing four in a row, alternating sides, in quick succession from a full squat position. Probably I'm going to increase the numbers rather than the starting height.

4. Continue posting here every day. Preferably on both my own and at least one other thread.

 

I'm letting the NF blog guide me entirely (except for workouts; I've been getting that from here). I've signed up for the chin-up challenge that just began, and I'm going to work along with challenge here, the videos here for flexibililty and also the benchmarks and whatever else here. This is a very loose plan, and subject to change.

 

Starting benchmarks in the spoiler; edited as I do them:

Spoiler

 

Chinup: I got through all four levels of the challenge benchmark test, but cannot to do a full chinup. I can get about halfway up with hands in supine position, and very nearly all the way up in neutral position. I am using rings, so my pull work is done almost entirely from neutral position.

Toe Touch: about 37cm; I measured with a knotted string, so it may not be perfectly accurate. I could touch the ground with fingertips pretty flat.

V Sit and Reach: 1cm.

Forward Splits: 126cm left, 129cm right

Centre Splits: 128cm

Trunk Rotation: left 46cm, right 46cm; this was hard to judge as I had to keep my arms the same distance apart and back as straight as I could, but moving out of position was very easy.

Trunk Extension: 44cm

Back Scratch: right 10cm, left 5cm

Shoulder Rotation: 85cm

Straight Leg Raise: left 80cm, right 80cm - but I don't trust my measurer's measurements

Butterfly Stretch: 6cm, but I don't think it's physically possible to go farther without cutting pieces off of my thighs. My legs are flat against each other along their whole length.

 

 

[Jean]

[WhiteGhost]

Following for sure.  Can't miss your first workout challenge  

[PaulG]

A fellow fitness freak foraging for flexiness?! FOLLOWING!!!

[juliebarkley]

1 hour ago, PaulG said:

A fellow fitness freak foraging for flexiness?! FOLLOWING!!!

Haha! Good to have you along! I just noticed that my challenge title is the same as yours. You claimed it first; let me know if you want me to change it. Else we are twins this round.

 

11 hours ago, Jean said:

10 hours ago, WhiteGhost said:

Following for sure.  Can't miss your first workout challenge  

 

Welcome as always!

 

I have two goals for today. Work my way through the forums and check out the new challenges, and finish the flexibility benchmarks in the starting spoiler. The rolls will happen too. And today should be exercise day. Well now I feel like I have a full schedule!

[juliebarkley]

I have done the rolls. It was after dark by the time I got to them, because it took me a while to go through the whole forums. So no handstands today. I have also just finished exercises. Those single arm and leg planks are going to be the death of me. Now I am going to take a shower, have a nice walk in the night, and work on the benchmarks.

[juliebarkley]

I am not going to be able to do rolls today, as it is raining and it doesn't look like stopping any time soon. I might be unable to walk today too, as I have just received two tornado and severe thunderstorm warnings on my phone. I did finish all of the benchmarks and update them. Basically, everything that resembles a split or needs straight legs is pretty bad, and the rest is mostly pretty good (I think). If anyone has any tips on where to go with the butterfly stretch, I would appreciate it. I can't see how I could improve it except by getting my knees even lower, and they're already pretty low to the ground.

 

So what shall I do today? It's a bit up in the air. I just got off my regular Sunday business group call, and my internet is deteriorating badly due to the stormy weather. I can take notes off of the tabs I have open to give me a better plan to work from for this challenge. I can do that even if I lose internet. Or power, for that matter. If I have good enough internet, I'll watch some of the videos too.

 

Other than that, I plan for real-life stuff that doesn't need the internet: sewing elastic straps on masks, working on books for a bit. Maybe hitting the repair pile. Maybe reading. Maybe cleaning off some of the tables that have gotten piled up with random objects. It's really going to depend on the power/internet situation.

 

I have managed to give out six promo codes for my audiobook in return for an honest review already, so that is a win too.

[juliebarkley]

I collected the yoga poses and stretches from all of my open tabs, so now tomorrow's goal is to do them all at least once, figure out which feel like an actual stretch and how long they all take, and work out something resembling a plan for flexibility, however loose. I am not sure if I should be doing anything extra towards the pullup goal. My current thrice weekly workout is quite upper body heavy and the pull exercises I am doing are plenty hard enough. I suspect I could do a pullup (probably just the one) if I had a bar, but I'm training with rings, so it must be a ring pullup to count.

 

I seem to have reliable internet again, so I will check out the first flexibility video as well. And maybe do my daily Duo, since I wasn't able to earlier. Turns out the predicted tornado/funnel clouds didn't cause huge damage - some damage to trees, that kind of thing - but there were some pretty impressive pictures/videos on Twitter and Facebook. We're no longer in danger, but it's still quite stormy out. So that makes a freezing cold spring followed immediately by a scorching summer, a lengthy drought, a worldwide pandemic, and now tornadoes. Perhaps one of locusts swarms ravaging Africa will wander over here next.

 

Other than that, I mostly stuck to the habits that I have been building. My employer decided that employees need to have at least two masks per day, but the ones they are issuing to employees are made of thick denim or fleece. This seems incompatible with comfortable wearing and breathing, so I have a bunch more to finish up. I had a random pile of elastic, so I played with it to figure out what length would work best for each type, cut the straps, and married them up with the mask bodies in a nice colour-coordinated way. The sewing will have to wait till tomorrow. They're quite pretty because they are made from a pack of quilting samples that I ended up with somehow. So fancy.

[raptron]

6 hours ago, juliebarkley said:

So that makes a freezing cold spring followed immediately by a scorching summer, a lengthy drought, a worldwide pandemic, and now tornadoes. Perhaps one of locusts swarms ravaging Africa will wander over here next.

Just 2020 things. Loool.

 

6 hours ago, juliebarkley said:

They're quite pretty because they are made from a pack of quilting samples that I ended up with somehow. So fancy.

Oo, fun!

[JuiceeTarget]

Nice challenge. Way to embrace the uncertainty and go with the flow.

I'd love to see pictures of your masks...

[Red1263]

 

Glad to see that you're working on your flexibility! And I am rooting for your progress!

[juliebarkley]

10 hours ago, raptron said:

Just 2020 things. Loool.

What scares me is that there are still five months of 2020 to go.

 

6 hours ago, GoodDoug said:

Nice challenge. Way to embrace the uncertainty and go with the flow.

I'd love to see pictures of your masks...

Thanks! I'll put something up once I've got them done. Ask and ye shall receive.

 

58 minutes ago, Red1263 said:

Glad to see that you're working on your flexibility! And I am rooting for your progress!

Thanks, Red! Did you manage to touch your toes?

 

I have done nothing yet. I have been so tired all day. Yesterday too actually. I slept decently though maybe a little less than normal, so not really sure why. I'm still going to try to get things done, but my motivation is low because zzzzzz. It is raining again, and I'm full from our street's annual spaghetti dinner. None of this is helping me feel more awake.

 

I really do need to get to work on things though. Especially the masks; there is a deadline of sorts there. I promised someone I would send them a sample reading from their book tonight too. Send me energetic vibes please. I will need them to get myself off my butt to exercise tonight.

[Jean]

[juliebarkley]

The chi worked! I did get my exercises done yesterday. The pull exercises are starting to pay off and I think I'll be able to move up the pullup progression this time around. I'm noticing improvement in the pistol progression too - I'm on assisted pistols, and at the moment I need more assistance than I'd like for a set of 6, but fresh I can do several with only light assistance (mostly for balance). I still think the plank exercise is not designed for human bodies and I'll be glad to see improvement eventually. I'll be even gladder to move back to 3 sets of 4 as I am certainly not moving up this time.

 

Turns out my tiredness yesterday made me forget the things I actually did do. I got a couple of handstands in early (they were unremarkable) and was getting ready to do my daily rolls when my boss called. Work location and times are changed again for everyone in our branch. At least this week shouldn't change on my again, but I won't have a schedule for next week until Thursday or Friday although at least I know the location. After that it's all up in the air. And they're changing the services we are offering, so I guess we'll see how that plays out. Anyway, after that I did the rolls and increased them to 3 per side. There was some dizziness for a few minutes, but nothing like I got when I did three on each side early in the last challenge. Progress?

 

I did not do the flexibility exercise testing that I had planned, but I did watch through the week 1 videos here and take notes to add to my collection. Testing is still on the schedule for today. I think my plan is to put each exercise on a card or list and pick a number of them to do every day, randomized from the list, with reductions based on number of hours worked that day. Like, maybe 20 exercises for 1 minute each, but remove 1 for every hour out of the house or something. That should keep it from being overwhelming and also keep it varied and fun.

Did my recording, but haven't edited it yet. Must do that today. Got no sewing done either; that will also be a today job. I did take a picture of where I'm at with the maskmaking for the curious:

Spoiler

 

It doesn't show it in the picture, but the on the one in the upper left corner, the gold that make the snakeskin pattern is a bit shiny.

 

 

But right now I'm going to decide if I want my daily walk enough to take it in the rain. I'm leaning towards yes.

[Red1263]

On 8/3/2020 at 5:58 PM, juliebarkley said:

Thanks, Red! Did you manage to touch your toes?

I did actually! Although I didn't do an official write up of my thread.  

[juliebarkley]

3 hours ago, Red1263 said:

I did actually! Although I didn't do an official write up of my thread.

How dare you keep us all in such suspense? Seriously though, well done!

 

I have just finished testing out all of the yoga poses/stretches! There is at least one (pigeon pose) where I have to basically faceplant on the ground to get a stretch, but there is a stretch there to find. I removed six that either did nothing for me or felt sketchy. There is still plenty of variety in there.

 

No rolls or handstands today because rain.

 

I got my recording done and sent to my friend from the accountability group. She's writing a book about her relationship with her father and asked me for a sample read. I got an email back that she thought it was beautiful and made her cry. It may be too personal a book to hire someone out to read, but I have given her an option to think about at least.

 

The mask sewing is coming along. I have the elastics all pinned now, and two are finished. There were bias band strips on the skull patterned one due to it being the guinea pig and ending up shorter than ideal, but I am going to try to take it apart and finish it properly because I don't like how the bias bands look. I think it will be fine a touch short. It'll only be like 1cm different than the others if I do it by hand. I'm getting two things done at the same time my listening down my too-large collection of podcasts while I sew.

 

Now that the stretching is done, back to the sewing. Night all!

[WhiteGhost]

2 hours ago, juliebarkley said:

There is at least one (pigeon pose) where I have to basically faceplant on the ground to get a stretch

Isn't the pigeon stretch designed for your back leg?  I use that one (or maybe I am thinking of half pigeon? IDK) for back bending strength/hip flexor stretch so the stretch comes from leaning BACK rather than forward.  

 

Did you end up walking in the rain?

[raptron]

7 hours ago, WhiteGhost said:

Isn't the pigeon stretch designed for your back leg?  I use that one (or maybe I am thinking of half pigeon? IDK) for back bending strength/hip flexor stretch so the stretch comes from leaning BACK rather than forward.  

Usually it's for front outer hip, WG. But you definitely get back hip flexor involvement if you go back instead of forward.

 

 

[juliebarkley]

8 hours ago, WhiteGhost said:

Isn't the pigeon stretch designed for your back leg?  I use that one (or maybe I am thinking of half pigeon? IDK) for back bending strength/hip flexor stretch so the stretch comes from leaning BACK rather than forward.

48 minutes ago, raptron said:

Usually it's for front outer hip, WG. But you definitely get back hip flexor involvement if you go back instead of forward.

I have not researched beyond what was in the video, and I'm a newb at yoga and flexy stuff. They did two versions, one with legs in what they called 90-90 position, then lean forward, and one with leg bent 90 in front of you, but elevated on a chair. I did not feel any more of a stretch from the elevated position than the ground one. However, the stretch I am getting is more in my lower leg, so perhaps I am doing it wrong? I can lean back almost to the ground as well, with the stretch being in the inner thigh this time. Google tells me that pigeon pose is usually done on the floor with a straight back leg, so I'll try that.

 

*tries* I can still rest my forehead on the ground, but there is more of a stretch in the outer leg this time. However, my back leg on the hard floor does not like this position so well.

 

8 hours ago, WhiteGhost said:

Did you end up walking in the rain?

I did. It started to rain harder after I left. I got wet. But it was fine. I did discover that my shoe repair had failed, so I got wet feet.

 

I got four masks done last night, so more sewing is on the cards again today. But I have enough at least not to be worried about having any for tomorrow and Friday.

 

I'll test out my makeshift flexy system today. I may have to tweak it. Got to be flexible with the flexy system.

 

[WhiteGhost]

11 hours ago, raptron said:

Usually it's for front outer hip, WG. But you definitely get back hip flexor involvement if you go back instead of forward.

 

 

Haha, this is why no one should ever come to me for flexy advice  

 

10 hours ago, juliebarkley said:

Got to be flexible with the flexy system.

Solid (but not rigid) advice

[juliebarkley]

50 minutes ago, WhiteGhost said:

Haha, this is why no one should ever come to me for flexy advice  

Well, when you heard the words "pigeon pose" it meant something to you, so you're ahead of where I'm starting from

 

Did three parkour rolls on each side and was only briefly dizzy. Will I be able to level up again so soon?! I also found it cool that when rolling over one shoulder (I think the right), I was landing back on my feet with no effort on my part.

 

Exercise day happened. Nothing spectacular worth noting, either for good or bad.

 

I tested out a trial unit of the flexy system: pick three stretches and do each through twice, 2 minutes each (1 minute for each side). It seems to be a manageable length or around 15 minutes to run through, so I'll try 2 units per day when I'm not working and one when I am for the rest of the week and see how that goes. Today I did standing splits, pyramid pose, and supine twists. The first two gave me goood stretches, as I would expect as my straight leg flexibility is not good. The supine twists stretched my arms a little on one side, but not much else. I'm not sure that this position is supposed to give you a big stretch though - I think it's more to maintain spine mobility.

 

I have been spending most of the day getting things ready to go back to work, it feels like. Finding and collecting things, making food, checking the schedule, and so on. I am trying to predict what the procedure will be so I can go in ready to work. I haven't worked in the location I am going to for almost a year, and the morning is just training on the new procedures resulting from the pandemic. I'm trying to guess some of the content of the training so that I can come prepared, since some of those procedures impact my planning, like whether we have access to the staff kitchen to heat up food, or the lockers to store things. I don't even know where to go when I get there exactly, or if I will be able to unlock the door. It's all taking way more mental energy than it really should.

 

I also put a little oomph into my effort to get an Esperanto D&D game going. I sent out three Facebook messages, and very quickly got three positive responses. I was very surprised that everyone that I messaged was interested and at how quickly I ended up with enough players. Frankly, I was not prepared for the speediness. They seem pretty excited and I am getting a lot of questions about character creation and rules now (they are all new to 5e and most new to D&D, I think), so I'd better pick an adventure fast, get my Beyond account set up and get this puppy on the road. And start creating a vocabulary document too, so we don't have to write crap like: Mia "wizard" uzas la sorĉon "Acid Splash". Ĉu ĝi sukcesas, aŭ ĉu vi devas kubĵeti "save" kontraŭ "Dexterity"? 🙄

[WhiteGhost]

31 minutes ago, juliebarkley said:

Mia "wizard" uzas la sorĉon "Acid Splash". Ĉu ĝi sukcesas, aŭ ĉu vi devas kubĵeti "save" kontraŭ "Dexterity"? 🙄

That made me laugh as I was envisioning an entire session of that  

[juliebarkley]

2 minutes ago, WhiteGhost said:

That made me laugh as I was envisioning an entire session of that  

It could totally happen without a word list! Gnome warlocks and constitution saving throws aren't normal everyday vocabulary for most people. Though they have been for me lately.

[juliebarkley]

Got home from work totally wiped out from not getting enough sleep the night before. I did my parkour rolls and attempted a couple of handstands, took a walk. Then I went to sleep for a while and spent the rest of the evening trying to sort stuff out for the Esperanto D&D game and hoping that I am not scaring off my players. We are going to do Sunless Citadel. I could do the flexibility stuff now, but I think sleep is probably more important.

[raptron]

Woahhh, you're going to play a whole campaign in Esperanto! That's neat.