sylph

[sylph]

I'm sylph.

 

Given my preferred choice of exercise, naming myself as an air elemental seemed appropriate. 

 

Been at this for a few challenges now, and into fitness/working out/health for quite a bit longer than that. Lately I've had the niggling feeling that the challenge format isn't doing me much good; my habits are well-ingrained and I'm generally happy where I am. I wind up creating some manufactured goals just to fit into the expected structure. As an experiment, I'll be backing off from the 6WCs for a bit and keeping everything here in one continuous place instead.

 

As a bit of history for any that don't know me, I've been working out/lifting heavy things on the regular for about 10 years, now. It ebbs and flows, but I know my way around the weight room. Goals change from being super lean to lifting REALLY heavy things to doing awesome bodyweight things to building cardio endurance, but I'm usually getting some kind of workout in at least 3x/week (some times I go crazy with 6x/week but those moments of madness typically pass quickly).

 

About two years ago I discovered aerial silks and love it <3 Upside down and 20 feet in the air? Yes, please. A bit odd for a woman afraid of heights. Since then, I've taken classes/lessons on the regular and performed twice:

 

October 2014

 

August 2015

 

I'm at a bit of a crossroads at the moment in my silks work. My schedule doesn't fit for the class level I'm currently working at. I had 'solved' this by taking private lessons with my instructor. Well, she just moved 5+ hours away to go to circus school for the next 9 months (I hope she comes back when she's done!). I haven't quite figured out my plan going forward. I love the silks, but also feel a bit stagnant as to progress (it's not really something you can teach yourself!), so expect a bit of occasional whining/angsting on that topic.

 

So yeah. Welcome aboard. 

[raptron]

[starsapart]

Oh yeah, more sylph goodness to stalk!

[sylph]

Friday morning circus is the Best Thing Ever.

 

So, it sucks getting up at the butt crack of dawn (or two hours prior to sunrise, in this case), but I love circusing in the morning. (Who knew?)

 

M makes for a great morning workout buddy. She's not too chatty, works hard (so pushes me to work hard), and has excellent ideas for ridiculous circuits to punish ourselves with once we've done technique/skill work on our own.

 

Today I worked on a bunch of off-side climbs. Ugh. And off-side hipkeys. Double ugh. Worked on a couple old drops that I haven't done in a looooong time.

 

While M finished out her agenda for the day, I did some wall handstands. AND I TOTALLY HELD A HANDSTAND FOR LIKE 6 SECONDS!!! Okay, so they're 'handstand seconds' which probably means it was closer to 3 seconds instead of 6, but it felt like a long time between heel bumps on the wall AND I managed to make small adjustments to keep it going on more than one occasion.

 

Then I did it again.

And again.

Then I was too tired and my fourth attempt was laughable. 

 

 

But yay handstands!

 

Then circuit:

Straddle leg lifts: Left leg x 10, Right leg x 10, both legs x 10 (ouch)

top-half straddles on the trap x 5 (and then another set of 5)

Meathooks on trap (2 each side)

Nutcrackers on trap (2 each side)

Core work--balance on a silks knot with your feet apart and try not to use your hands/arms to assist (hah!)

Trap pull up/let me downs--did one and had a very loud complaint from the elbow so didn't do any more. I'll probably have hip bruises anyway.

Splits--2 mins each in left, right and middle splits

 

Now I'm at work and it's lunch time.

[raptron]

Niiice.

[sylph]

Niiice.

It was awesome.

 

 

 

 

I'm seriously not a morning person, but something about circus before work just does good things for me. Of course, I'm super tired today, but it helps my mood enormously and gives me one more thing to look forward to on Fridays.

[sylph]

Oh, and at one point yesterday, M told me that my straddle invert was "perfect."

 

One of them, out of the 20 or so things yesterday that involved a straddle invert, but hey, I'll take it!

[ghostinthemachine]

I have no idea what most of the exercises you're talking about even are, but aerial silks sound like so  much fun! I'll be keeping an eye on your log

[sylph]

I have no idea what most of the exercises you're talking about even are, but aerial silks sound like so  much fun! I'll be keeping an eye on your log

Hey thanks and welcome aboard!

 

Some of the exercise names are definitely unusual. Add that to the fact that different aerialists have different names for the same (or very similar) skill, and it gets extra confusing.

 

And aerial is pretty much the best thing ever. I highly recommend it to EVERYONE!

[sylph]

Leg workout: DONE

 

Squats

Lunges

Leg Extensions

Ham Curls

Abductions

and Mason Twists for abs

 

plus a little stretching to ease the DOMS that's starting to creep in from yesterday

[Mad Hatter]

Nice job on the handstands!

 

I usually hate working out in the mornings, but maybe I'll try a bit of morning pole sometime. I like the idea of circusing in the morning.  

[sylph]

Nice job on the handstands!

 

I usually hate working out in the mornings, but maybe I'll try a bit of morning pole sometime. I like the idea of circusing in the morning.  

I've never been a morning workout person either, but somehow this is different.

[sylph]

DOMS. All the DOMS. I have them.

[sylph]

Suggestion to self: You feel better when you drink less alcohol, so perhaps drink less alcohol and feel more better more often?

[karinajean]

oh hi!

[sylph]

oh hi!

[raptron]

Oh, Picard.

 

I'm glad you've found a good morning groove and great workout partner relationship.

 

How are the DOMSes?

[sylph]

Oh, Picard.

 

I'm glad you've found a good morning groove and great workout partner relationship.

 

How are the DOMSes?

DOMS are fading, yet still making themselves known when sitting or walking up stairs.

 

 

 

 

Note on this week's schedule: Destiny, the Taken King expansion dropped today. There will be no silks tomorrow or Friday and likely minimal activity that doesn't involve a PS4 controller in my hands. Pardon me while I turn into a hermit for the rest of the week.

[QuirkyDM]

Handstands are awesome- I miss them. Once the slack line is gone for the winter, I might pick these up again. Great job.

 

Hey, wasn't Friday your "always a rest day will not do any exercise no matter what day?" I guess silks trumps rest.

[sylph]

Handstands are awesome- I miss them. Once the slack line is gone for the winter, I might pick these up again. Great job.

 

Hey, wasn't Friday your "always a rest day will not do any exercise no matter what day?" I guess silks trumps rest.

Yes, but that rule was for after-work workouts.

 

 

or something.

 

Friday morning circus still means my Friday evenings are free, which was the main goal of that rule. After a full work week, I wanted to give myself permission to not have to workout.

[sylph]

Note on this week's schedule: Destiny, the Taken King expansion dropped today. There will be no silks tomorrow or Friday and likely minimal activity that doesn't involve a PS4 controller in my hands. Pardon me while I turn into a hermit for the rest of the week.

Hermit-ing over, kind of. I'm at least back at work. So much Destiny last week, it's a wonder I didn't start dreaming about it. (hubs did though, which was funny)

[sylph]

Plan for today was to get a workout in after work. However, my day has worked out such that I've eaten a bagel and a Twix bar so far today. This is not appropriate workout fuel.

 

Our cafeteria at work has changed vendors and now can hardly be even classified as a cafeteria. There are maybe two things that I've eaten there that haven't made me feel at least slightly nauseous after eating and they are out of both of those things today. Also, they are out of Diet Coke (!). Again!

 

My meeting schedule today worked out that after seeing the NOTHING that the cafeteria had to offer, I did not have time to walk down the street to get some actual food for lunch (except, surprise! that meeting was cancelled, so I actually could've eaten. Trolololol). So, not knowing that my soon to be cancelled meeting was going to be cancelled, I had a Twix bar out of the vending machine. Now I feel not hungry, but kind of gross. It's almost three o'clock and I don't really have time to walk down the street to find food before my next meeting either. grump grump grump

 

I won't have access to any actual food until I get home, so I have to choose between working out on an empty stomach or not working out at all. Working out on an empty stomach typically ends badly for me, so I apparently will not work out tonight, and plans tomorrow evening mean no workout then, either. So my next workout will be open gym on Wednesday. grump grump grump.

 

And to top it off, hubs told me that he saw my nature box package sitting on the porch this morning. Apparently I missed it. I could've had whole wheat raspberry figgy bars instead of a Twix and now I has a sad. and a grump.

 

So yeah. Hi everyone. I'll probably get around to all your threads when I have more food and less grumpy.

 

 

Also, despite being ENTIRELY sedentary for the last 5 days, I lost 3 lbs in a week. I apparently ate nothing while video games ran my life. I'm worried that this was largely muscle, but hoping a lot was just water/GI bulk and I'm not actually as weak as a kitten. I'll find out I guess (But not before Wednesday).

 

 

 

 

 

I'm going to go be grumpy over here now.

[raptron]

I definitely dream about video games if I spend a ton of time in one. 

 

Any chance you could pop out for a bit of food before working out tonight? And I totally get you on the food-related sadness. Not being able to get a good lunch is really the worst.

[sylph]

 

Any chance you could pop out for a bit of food before working out tonight? And I totally get you on the food-related sadness. Not being able to get a good lunch is really the worst.

Didn't have the chance, unfortunately. I did eventually get dinner, though. Just not in time to get a workout in.

 

Today I had time to pop over to Kroger to buy lunch for both today and tomorrow as well as some emergency desk food. Also, brought my nature box stuff to stash in my desk. I'm like a squirrel hoarding food right now.

[starsapart]

Emergency desk food is AWESOME.  I have a mini pantry at work.