Scissor Kicks take II

Okay, so I don’t hate scissor kicks; I just can’t DO them.   There are at least 2 different work outs so far that they are in (bonus ab workout and bonus lower leg workout if I remember correctly).  Workouts moves are a sore spot with me.  The one time I tried my mother’s work out DVD The Firm, I  cried, screamed, and punched something, or threw something; either way it was gigantically frustrating.  Why must I lunge, squat, put my arms up, twist, and remember to keep my abs in, shoulders down, and oh yeah BREATH?  I’m not a gymnast, I’m not a contortionist, you’d think they would make this stuff easier.

But that’s not what working out is about.  It’s about pushing yourself physically to do things you haven’t done before.  It’s about pushing yourself mentally too.  I’ve read about people using exercise as meditation or as their only time for themselves.  I haven’t come to terms with that side of exercise; it’s still a chore for me.  It’s still a struggle to get all the parts down and I don’t every time.  And every workout isn’t perfect, I realize this.  Even though I don’t do it 100% I still think it’s better than nothing.  Right?  There are still moves I can’t do so I do a lot of the “beginner” or “modified” moves.  If there isn’t a modification I make one up.  Because my balance can be waaaaay off, especially when I need to stand only on my left leg, I have to do the modifications for forms sake — there are certain moves (hinge forward with weights while pushing arms down to ground and pushing one leg straight back) that I think I could do if not for my knee.  That move in particular I do the modification because when I didn’t I hurt my back a little.  I would rather suck up my pride to do the modification rather than fuck myself up so bad I can’t do any work out.  This is not an excuse.

Beginning the dreaded exercise

The first day of exercise in phase one was killer.  For three days I could literally not even sit on the toilet;  I had to place one hand on the window sill and the other in between my legs, easing myself down.  Work was especially rough because the toilets are much lower there and no window sills to grab ahold of.  Then there was the fact that I was walking funny.  I’m not exactly sure what was wrong with my legs but they weren’t working right and my knee buckled a few times (not even the bad one!).  Luckily, it wasn’t a busy night.  I did some running around but it was mostly calm and we were well staffed. 

I didn’t give up.  Even though I could barely sit down, I forced myself to do all those lunges and all those squats, every day, until my rest day.  My muscles felt much better by day 4.  By day 5 I was a brand new person.  This is not to say I did these exercises 100%.  There are still moves I can’t do or can only do so much before I feel like my arms and legs will fall off.  I still do the “beginner” moves on some combonations (especially the crab crawls, jumping jacks with straight punch up (but I use weights for the first set), water 3 (or war 3, I can’t undestand Jenna when she says this), and all the moves that are supposed to be done in plank (arm lifts to front and side, shoulder taps, and knees) to name a few.  All pushups are done on my knees and even then I can’t do all the tricep ones.  But I LOVE LOVE LOVE that type of push up.  Miss Jenna, who instructs the video is right when she says we don’t use those muscles all the time so I love that they force us to use them (but I still can’t do a full 30 seconds let alone hold it for very long…I TRY).

I’d like to really lay it out, detailing what moves I can do, which moves kill me, improvements I’ve made, and when I wish I could reach through the screen and strangle those women.  For now, this is all you get 🙂

Any excuse will do..

When I was a freshman in high school I worked as a bus boy (bus girl or bus person just doesn’t sound right) at a local restaurant.  It was a very busy Friday night and my co worker (a total D-bag) decided he would rather go to the sophmore dance rather than work his schedule.  Needless to say, I was running my ass off to try and keep up.  While running around I felt a pop of some sort in my left foot and ever since I’ve had issues with that foot and knee.  It’s been part of my excuse as to why I wouldn’t exercise.  The one program I had bought (beachbody something or other) included a lot of lunges and squats.  I gave up after one try because it hurt my knee too much.  As the weight piled on, it just got worse so of course, I couldn’t do it.  Tredmill was too boring.  It’s too cold to walk outside.  I need better shoes.  Then of course there is the fact that I am a nurse now, on my feet all the time.  I have heel spurs which have caused me legitimate pain but have gotten better with different shoes.  Occasionally it will act up, my foot goes kind of numb, yet throbbing at the same time, hurting to even rest my heel on the bed, I need to prop it up.  Heels spurs usually occur because of plantar faschitis, which is also a bitch.  After a period of rest, standing on my feet causes a 7 out of 10 pain and I can barely walk.  Again, it’s gotten tolerable with better work shoes. I am luckily not one of the unlucky ones who can’t find a shoe and the spurs get so bad they need shots.  I’m not there yet thankfully.  But it’s still an excuse.

I decided, no more excuses.  I’ve been doing the P.I.N.K. exercises no fail every day I’m supposed to.  Lunges, squats, plaits and all.  Well, I lie.  I switched the day of rest when I’m extremely tired from work, but I always make up for it by not resting on the day I was supposed to.  The reason I’ve held out on an exercise one day is not for the knee, but being exhausted.  The problem with all diet/exercise programs I’ve come across is that they never account for people like me.  No, not fat people.  People who work night shift.  I work 7p-7a three days a week (some times more, or I’m on call) so I’ve had to modify the program to fit my schedule.  But that is another excuse — being tired.  Then again, those of you who work nights know what I’m talking about and those of you who don’t, well you have no idea what it’s like and what toll it takes on your body.  Another excuse…

I’ve been trying to work around it.  I know myself–I can’t wake up early, so I do them when I get home.  On a night I go into work that I haven’t worked the night before, I get up in the am, do a work out, shower, have a protein shake, go back bed (which is hard sometimes), then to work.  Sometimes on those days I can’t get up early enough and I end up sleeping right until work (again, if you don’t work nights, you have no idea how this is so totally possible to do).  I’ve actually only done that twice so I think that’s okay and I always make up for it!

No, I’m not always perfect.  We went on vacation (walking, but no work out video, and don’t get me started on what I ate), then we visited my in law out of town (lack of sleep, staying later in the day that we usually do).  There will always be an excuse. What you have to do is just get over it.  So it didn’t happen today.  Okay.  Do it tomorrow.  I’ve had to learn not to beat myself up about it.  Those negative thoughts I have about myself will only make it worse.  If I tell myself that I’m worthless and will never get healthy then that is exactly what will happen.  I just need to accept that fact that today, I didn’t do a work out — I did yesterday and the day before, and every day the week before, I will tomorrow.  I won’t take another rest day, this is my rest day.  (for the record, I did actually do a workout today, but did not last Sunday — hence, no rest day today which is when it’s supposed to be.  These are just the things I tell myself when I switch up the rest day).

If you take one thing away from my ramblings it’s this: don’t beat yourself up.  Get over the bump in the road and carry on; don’t let it hold you back or destroy the confidence in your ability.  It’s one day.  It may sound so hokey but there really is power in positive thinking and visualizing what you want — it will eventually come.

*I’m not some Positive Polly.  I think about a million bad thoughts a day.  It takes time and training to be positive.  At least for me.  I’m TRYING.