Join Together With The Band

     Welp, last night didn't see any working out, but I was determined not to let tonight pass without some movement. We celebrated Valentines Day with Chinese food, so with a belly full of rice and chow mein and various apps, I rolled myself downstairs for some leg work with my trusty bands. Here's what got done:

 WALL SIT / BALL SQUEEZE:

15 second wall sit x10

(done while squeezing a 10" exercise ball between knees)

WALL SIT / BALL PULSE:

wall sit with 10, 1 sec pulses (10" ball) x10

GREEN BANDED SQUATS:

10 x3

PURPLE BANDED QUAD EXTENSIONS:

20 x3

5lb LEG EXTENSIONS:

10 each leg x4

••••••••••

And that's that. Not much. That being said, I've worked out twice this week which is 100% more than what I did last week. I would say that's progress. Now I'm going to have some Valentine's day dessert. Don't judge me.

Not Ready For the Glue Factory Yet

     Welp, I've not been doing much. Everything kind of fell apart, but that seems to be a cyclical experience for me, so I'm not terribly surprised. Emily lost all interest in working out so I lost that little bit of motivation, and I just frankly gave up. However, I can't ignore the fact that I feel like complete and utter dog shit and I know it's from lack of movement. Allow me though, just a moment of venting and self-pity.

     My body hurts. It fucking huuuuurts. My knees, no matter taped, wrapped or naked as a baby are in pain with all that I do. I know I need to strengthen them but when even sitting on the toilet has earned a grimace, things have gotten kind of bad. So, I've become timid of doing anything. Believe me, my logical brain knows that doing nothing is the worse the thing, but the emotional part of my brain has a strong dislike for pain, so it opts for doing nothing. 

     Now let's discuss my neck. There are mornings that I wake up feeling as though my neck has been snapped from my body and hastily reassembled by a blind, mentally challenged monkey. Those are the mornings when I know that I'll be fighting with a migraine, but I suck down some ibuprofen and carry on because, well, I'm more stubborn than the migraine is.

     Add those pains in with the menopausal hot flashes, mood swings and GERD (yes, that can be caused by menopause too - AWESOME), and you can guess that I'm less happy than that stupid Camper you always hear about. I'm so weary of fighting every damn day just to have a good day. I just am weary. 

     OK. I vented and had my moment. Now what? I don't know. I can say that I worked out today. I did 30 minutes of some kettlebell training. I tried to hit the major bits of me while staying away from anything that would overload my knees too much. Frank and I have worked out sporadically, but I haven't logged it because sporadic doesn't amount to much.  Look, I can say that I'm going to become disciplined like I used to be and work out 4 or 5 days a week, but I can't promise that to anyone or most of all, myself. All I can say is that today I moved and tomorrow I will try again. 

     I know we hear all the time that we shouldn't judge others and we shouldn't judge ourselves by others, but I think you have to have that sounding board to make any sort of progress. You have to have an ideal, a goal, a target to shoot for and you have to be able to accurately identify that target. I see other women that are not just overweight, but obese and I can identify that I do not want to be that. Please don't hit me up for being mean. I'm not denigrating them as people. I'm saying, physically, I don't want to be that. I hear them talking all sorts of nonsense about their "diets", and I can identify that I want to be more knowledgeable than that. 

     I have 2 prime targets now - don't be obese, and be knowledgeable about nutrition. Good. With the targets identified, I can go about trying to plot a course to get to them. And that my friends is where I ALWAYS screw it up. Because I have the knowledge. I'VE BEEN THERE BEFORE! For crying out loud, I have photographic evidence! I just have to foster that discipline. I'm not sure that I can anymore. But of course, I will try. 

     I'm an old horse, but I'm not a dead horse....yet. So While I'm here I have to keep trying. 

     Here's what I did tonight:

35lb KB SWINGS:

(25 x4) 4x

35lb KB PUSH PRESS:

5 each side x 4

70lb KB DEADLIFTS:

10x4

35lb KB BENT ROWS:

5 each side x4

••••••••••

Was it a lot? No.

Was it the most I've ever lifted? Hell no.

Was it better than sitting on my couch playing "Township"? Abso-fucking-lutely.

See you tomorrow.

Never Quit

     Tonight was a rough one in the dungeon. At first, I wasn't going to work out with Em because I wasn't really feeling it. But she gave me the pouty face, so I reluctantly changed my clothes, and went downstairs.

     We started with some pushups. That's when it started - the "I can't do it" attitude. Boy, if anything pisses me off it's the way she gives 1% effort and then throws her hands up saying "I can't do it". I got her through 3 lackluster sets and then decided we would do some shrugs. She did them, but let's just say her set of 20 went awful quick and when I did the last set of 25 with her, with me counting, she finished before me. Go figure. 

     I had decided I would teach her dumbbell deadlifts because she's just not strong enough for much else. But she told me she couldn't stretch to reach them on the floor. **sigh**.  Alrighty....hey, let's do some stretching. What could go wrong with that? And that's when I lost my shit. Zero effort to try and stretch further than she thought she could. Absolute crap. So, I told her I was done. I stormed upstairs, pissed beyond belief but now, I didn't want to quit. I'm tired of fucking quitting. I marched myself into her bedroom and told her that I was going back downstairs and if she wanted to join me, she could, but I was not going to force her. She did not join me. 

     After all of that bullshit, here's what got done:

PUSHUPS:

Em: 3 crappy sets of 10

Me: 10x3

SHRUGS:

Em: 15lb x10, x20 (questionable), x25 (also questionable)

Me: 30lb 15x2, x25

This is where it all fell to shit and Emily stayed upstairs. I continued on alone.

DEADLIFTS:

(135lb x5) 3x

155lb x5

185lb x3

205lb x1

135lb x5

SWISS PIKE:

7x3

BAND HIP ADDUCTION & ABDUCTION:

Purple band adduction 20x2 (each leg)

Purple band abduction 20x2 (each leg)

     And that's all I did. I was surprised that I got those deadlifts done. I haven't deadlifted in months, but they felt OK. After I was done, both knees were fairly sore though. We'll see how they feel tomorrow. Not as much as I should be doing, but at least I tried. I'm very disappointed in Em tonight. As much as I cuss and swear and get agitated, even she admits that I never quit. I may walk away and vent, but you'll always see me turn around and finish what I was doing. OK, maybe 99% of the time. But her attitude is something that I've never had. I just don't understand it. I suppose we'll be having a discussion about it at some point. 

     I've started physical therapy for my knees. I don't plan on doing a ton of appointments. I have 3 scheduled and that will probably be it. My knees travel weirdly, and it's worn down the cartilage. My doctor said I should wear either KT tape or braces on both knees, every day. I'm doing the KT tape, but I'm not totally sold. The physical therapist told me that I may want to consider McConnell tape because it's stiffer. I go back on Friday, so we'll see.

     Basically, all of my muscles and shit are tight. My IT band pops on my hip relentlessly and something else is popping in my back. I have a bunch of stretches that she gave me. Blah blah blah. All I want to do is get to a place where I can strengthen myself enough that I'm not in such pain just crouching down to get stuff from my kitchen cabinets. I hate feeling like an old woman, I hate being so overweight and I hate being weak. I also hate being hungry, so I'm going to eat.

It's Your Body - Control It

     Tonight Emily and I got down in the dungeon for a quick session. It wasn't as productive as I would have liked, but it was something, so I won't complain (too much).

     If anyone has ever worked with a young teenager, then they understand how difficult it can be. Or maybe, it's just my daughter being difficult! It's not an attitude thing; she's been very receptive and open to being taught how to do things. It's the fact that she seems to be disconnected from her own body. It's as if she isn't aware that she can make her body move in certain controlled ways. For instance, trying to get her into proper position for a bent row. It's not a terribly difficult position, but she set up like a limp noodle with slack legs, back like a turtle shell, and torso twisted to the side. When I told her to flatten her back, she had no idea what I was talking about. Now, I know that some of that can be attributed to just not having the muscle and strength. That other bit though, boy it's odd. I had to tell her that she was in the control of how her body moves and that it wasn't just going to automatically happen. I wonder if it's a teenage girl thing; being awkward in her own skin. Whatever it is, we're working through it and I have no doubt that she'll improve and excel. 

     Here's the little bit that we did:

DB BENCH:

Em: 3lb x10

       (10lb x10) 3x

Me: 25lb x10

       (30lb x10) 3x

BENT DB ROWS:

Em: (10lb x10) 3x

Me: (30lb x10) 3x

 After this we took some time to work on Em's ability to plank on a swiss ball. I'm not logging any reps or sets for her on this. 

SWISS BALL KNEE TUCKS:

Me: 10x3

HANGING KNEE RAISES:

Em: 10x3

Me: 12x3

     And that was about it. Teaching her how to bench took some time but she's a quick learner. Her energy wasn't up where it should be today. I was lucky to get her down there because she had actually fallen asleep after she got home from school. I was proud of her for at least pushing past the initial desire to skip it and to grind it out. 

What's In A Name?

     Day two of joint training is in the books! Emily has done well enough to earn her gym nickname. It's a rite of passage in our dungeon. Well, I've made it a rite of passage. I gave one to Frank after we had been working out for a while. He was dubbed Frankie 10 Rep because no matter that man is supposed to be doing, he does 10 reps. It's maddening, but I've learned to roll with it. Tonight, Emily was bestowed with the illustrious name of.... Gumby. She likes it.

     Here's what Gumby and I accomplished tonight:

PUSHUPS:

Emily: (x5) 3x Tonight, she did them on her toes so there was improvement there.

Me: (x10) 3x

CHEST PULLS:

Em: Black Band (x10) 1x

       Purple Band (x10) 2x

Me: Purple Band (x10) 2x

       Green Band (x10)1x

FACE PULLS:

Em: Purple Band (x10) 3x

Me: Green Band (x10) 3x I could have and probably should have, bumped up in either the resistance or the reps on both pulls. These were honestly too easy.

V Sit:

Em: (x10) 3x She struggled with these, so they weren't technically v sits. She did a combination of leg lifts and sit-ups.

Me: (x10) 3x I struggled with these as well. I got my legs and arms up, but my arms definitely traveled more than my legs did! We both need to improve on this one.

SWISS BALL PIKE:

Em couldn't quite do these. She did try, and I give her full credit for that. She ended up doing just basic planks.

Em: 13 seconds, 18, 14, 16, 20, 25, 30, 40

She started out telling herself that she couldn't do it. I got her to buckle down and grind and she improved a lot!

Me: x5, x7, x8 This one shocked me because they had become so difficult. They're still one of my favorite things to do, but it was a smack in the face how far I had regressed.

SMALL BALL HAMMY CURLS:

(the balls we used were about 8" I believe)

Em: (x10) 3x This was another one that was a struggle for the girl, but she gritted her teeth and kept getting them one by one. We did have a good laugh while she was doing it though. Her body was getting tired, so as she was trying to pull her legs towards her, her entire torso did some weird spastic thing, lol. Priceless.

Me: (x10) 3x

SPANISH SQUATS:

Em: Black band (x10) 3x I tried this squat technique with her because she's having a hard time grasping the right form. This actually seemed to help. One of the biggest problems she has is her knees caving in. Having the band around her knees was a good way for her to understand the idea of "pushing your knees out"

Me: Green band (x10) 3x I did these with my sleeves over the KT tape. Of course, there was the god-awful grinding noises, but there was no pain, so I was happy with that.

HANGING KNEE RAISES:

Em: (x10) 3x

Me: (x10) 3x

     And that was that. I'm very pleased and proud of her improvement just in this short time. Not just in her physical ability, but her mental ability to focus and give a little more just when she thinks she's done. It's a good thing to see. Gumby may turn out to be pretty tough!

Set An Example

     Emily signed up for a class called "Leadership". It's the precursor to Jr. ROTC. If you do well in this class, then you earn your uniform and such. Part of this class is a physical fitness test. It was definitely a sign to me that I needed to seize upon this opportunity not only to help my girl and pass on some knowledge, but to also buckle down, join in and set an example of how you fight your way back on track. 

     We did a simple little fitness test of all body weight movements, just to get an idea of where we're at. She did a good job. Me, well....we all know where I'm at. But hey, I've grown quite fond of humble pie. Here's what got done tonight.

***ALL MOVEMENTS WERE TIMED AT 1 MINUTE***

SIT UPS:

(straight leg)

Emily: 20

Me: 20

PUSHUPS:

Emily: 6 - toes

           14 - knees

Me: 17 - knees

FAT GUY PULL UPS:

Emily: 19

Me: 13

BW SQUATS:

Emily was unable to any squats with proper form, so that's on the docket for next time. I'm going to need to research some teaching techniques.

MOUNTAIN CLIMBERS:

Emily: 25

Me: 50

ADDUCTER BAND STRETCHES:

(black band)

Emily: 60 - left

           57 - right

Me: 40 - left

        45 - right

ABDUCTOR BAND STRETCHES:

(black band)

Emily: 50 each side

Me: 35 - right

       33 - left

HANGING KNEE RAISES:

Emily: 23

Me: 18

     Next session we'll work on squats and the basics again. Once she gets a little stronger, we'll add some weight with small dumbbells. Right now, she's awkward in her body and that's normal. I know once she gets a taste of strength, she'll focus more. 

Where's Otter?

     Where have I been? Well, nowhere good, actually. Let's see, I've been in pain, for starters. I've also been wallowing in self-pity and doubt. I took a lovely jaunt through depression and self-loathing and then I somehow ended up in the doctor's office. Only one of those places was productive. 

     I'm not going to rehash all of my destinations; I've been to them all before and they all still suck. Luckily, I'm never very inclined to stay in any of them very long and I always manage to trudge my way back out again. I can say there are better places to spend your time. Let's talk about the doctor's office though. 

     A little over a month ago, after a marathon weeding session in my garden, I found myself unable to bear weight all that well on my right leg. Within a few weeks, if I wasn't sucking down ibuprofen every 4 hours and keeping my knee wrapped tighter than a bull's ass in fly season, I couldn't walk at all. So, like any intelligent human, I called my primary care to be seen for the crazy pain that I was in. they wonderful at seeing me a week after I called (please read that in the sarcastic tone in which it was written).

     She did nothing aside from poking and prodding and then referring me to an orthopedist. Another week or so rolled by and then I went for x-rays and my consult. She confirmed what I had really already known. I have chondromalacia and patellar maltracking.  Fancy ways of saying that my kneecaps don't move correctly, and my cartilage is all chewed up. She said on a scale of 0-4, 4 being the worst condition, I'm currently at a 2 or 3. I'm certainly not incapacitated, but definitely at a point where I need to take some precautions. 

     She gave me the option of either wearing braces on both knees or using KT tape on both knees. I opted for the tape because it's much less cumbersome but I'm not sure I'm using it correctly. I'm scheduled for some PT in a few weeks, so I'll have them show me how to do it correctly.

     In the meantime, I'm trying to get back to doing something. My muscles are ungodly tight, my body just hurts in general, and honestly, my mental state could 100% use the boost of serotonin. I've been a miserable dink to my family, and they don't deserve that. I don't make any secret of being an emotional person. Well, maybe I do like to keep that close to my chest (emotions can be seen as a weakness), but it's true; I'm an emotional person. Working out gives me an outlet to release some of those excess emotions, whether they're positive or negative. I just can't skip it anymore. For the sake of everyone in this house, I need to stay active. I'm not saying I've been miraculously changed into some super disciplined machine, but admitting the issue is the issue is the first step. 

     All that being said, I schlepped down to the dungeon right when I got home and did some upper body and core work with just a tiny bit of leg work. I'm still trying to figure out what I can and should do. I'll learn more after PT. Here's what got done:

SHRUGS:

30lb x50
BENCH:
Mid x10
Wide x10
Mid x10
Narrow x10
UPRIGHT ROWS:
(Bar x10) 4x
PRONE REVERSE FLYS:
(10lb x10) 4x
SEATED OH PRESS:
(Bar x10) 2x
Bar x6, x4
Bar x7, x4
DUMBBELL HAMSTRING CURL:
10lb x50
SWISS BALL KNEE TUCKS:
(x10) 4x

     And with that, I'm done for the night. I'm waiting for the Man of the House to come home and then we'll have some dinner, and some lovely, strong coffee and enjoy some downtime with each other. Maybe I'll even be able to get the girl out of her room to watch a movie with me!