Hi there!

[Ruusaan Ordo]

Hey nerds!

I'm brand new to this forum (obviously, otherwise I wouldnt be posting here, lol) and I am actually pretty excited to have found a community of geeks who also happen to be getting in shape.

A bit about me: I'm a military dependant, housewife, mother of one. I'm into video games, books, table top RPGs, Star Wars, Firefly, BSG, and much more. I also do costuming, SW costumes for the most part, but I've got ideas for so many more. I also want to learn parkour, and my husband is really interested in us both participating in either Spartan Races or Tough Mudders.

And 5 months and 22 days ago I had ACL reconstruction surgery. Back in June (2012) I started getting interested in learning parkour. About a month later I was practicing at the local playground, screwed up a jump, and messed up my knee. (This was on top of a Tae-Kwon-Do injury to the same knee, about 8 years before that.) I was given the choice by my doctor: I could sit on my couch and do nothing about my knee or I could bite the bullet, get the surgery, and be the kind of active mom I wanted to be. Guess what I chose.

So here I am, almost 6 months later, hoping to get the go-ahead from my doctor to re-start my parkour training and actually do something exciting with my life.

[NicoleCanoes]

Ouch.

 

Make sure you do plenty of strength and stability exercises for that knee. Reinjury is the worst.

 

Welcome to the group.

[Ruusaan Ordo]

I've been doing PT as often as I can for it. 3/a week for almost the entire 6 months, and for about a month before the surgery too. I am determined *not* to do it again, lol, the first time was bad enough.

[Jakob Kopfeld]

Hello Ruusaan Ordo

It's great that you found this place, you'll find that everyone here's really supportive of each other. One of the kindest places on the whole internet. Welcome to the Rebellion! I hope you have a pleasent stay here

 

Do you maybe have some goals, plans or your status quo you want to share? The more people know, the more likely you are to succeed, even if it's just random people on the internet.

[Ruusaan Ordo]

Let's see, status quo... I weighed myself yesterday and I was 191lb. I'm 5'7 and I would not call myself fat, but I also wouldn't call myself 'fit' either.

For goals, long term I want to be run at a 10' wall, scale it, turn around and help my husband up it. Short term? I want to be able to do an actual pull up. I haven't yet set anything more concrete than that. But until now I've been playing Oregon Trail by putting on a blindfold and heading west.

[Ruusaan Ordo]

Ok, so I've stuck to eating mostly fruits, veggies, and meats today. And I did a couple of sets of the Beginner's Body Weight Circuits.

Here were my results:

5 minute warm up of walking up and down my stairs, and around the large center column of our house.

BW Squats 20 - These were fairly easy, but since I've been doing leg presses in physical therapy, I'm not too surprised.

Push-ups 10 - I had to do these on my knees. And I can't go down all the way to the floor, but I'm still going to keep working to that point.

Walking Lunges 20 - Again, not managing to get my knees quite to the floor.

Dumbbell Rows 10 with 10 lb weights - For my right arm these were easy, for my left they were harder. Gonna crank up the weight on these next time.

Plank 10 second hold - This was the hardest exercise of the lot. But I wasn't even sure I could do a plank at all before today. Next week will be 15 second hold.

Jumping Jacks 0 - I'm not supposed to be jumping yet, so these will be skipped for now.

I also read through the Body Fat information. Based on pictures I'd guess I'm somewhere in the 25-35% range. Based on the US Navy calculator I'm sitting at 37%. The YMCA calculator is saying 23%. I want to be in the 21-24% range at least. I'm going to get my husband to help me do some pictures tonight, so I can compare how far I've come this time next month.

I can see what I need to improve, and now that I've made the first step the next day will be easier. My biggest issue is with push-ups. For as long as I can remember I have never been able to do a full on correct form push-up. Either my butt sticks way up into the air, or as I straighten my back my toes slide out from under me. The only solution I've found for this is to a)do my push-ups from my knees, or put my feet against the wall. Is there any other way to fix this?