Ramblings

Insert Techno Beat Here

Move – slowly out of bed
Shake – the headache I woke up with
Drop – it like it’s hot

This morning was a tough one indeed. Don’t you just hate when you wake up with a headache? I do and I did. Luckily there were no weights involved in this morning’s workout. I actually skipped the assigned P90X for the day so I could do my new DVD. I heard about it through a 90 day splits challenge group to which I belong. It’s called Fit & Bendy and it’s by Kristina Nekyia, who is trained in all kinds of flexy stuff.

The DVD goes for approximately an hour and is broken up into 6 sections, I think.  It’s been several hours ago. First there’s an all-over warmup, followed by a splits warmup, stretching for splits, shoulder/back warmup, backbend work, and a cool down. I was familiar with all of the stretches in the video, however, each of them had its own little tweak that made it new. Mostly the new stuff involved PNF.

Realistically speaking, the all-over warmup isn’t enough of a warmup for me personally. I think I need to put in a half hour of cardio or something to that effect before I really feel warm enough to get a good stretch going. I would imagine that most folks would need a little more, but on the first time out, you live and learn. I’m not going to go through every single thing in the video, but there are hamstring, quad, and groin stretches in the splits part, working for both front and center splits as well as upper and lower back stretches in the backbend section.

At the end of the video, I was tired. Granted, it was also 6:30 in the morning and I was fighting a headache, but it’s more than just stretching and less than a full-on workout. The best part of it all didn’t happen until about 2.5 hours later when my body felt GREAT! I really and truly felt as though I was taller and just had better overall movement.

Let’s take an inventory by memory of the current list of items in the stretching arsenal:

·        Fit and Bendy DVD

·        Cleo the Hurricane DVD (Which I don’t use because I don’t find it to be safe for my body)

·        Valentino Brothers DVD (front split, side split, general stretching)

·        P90X (1,2,and 3) DVD (there’s some sort of stretching in each of those)

·        Foam roller

·        Lacrosse ball

·        Maxi-Flex stretching band (ha, go look that up)

·        Daily glucosamine/chondroitin (yummy fish oil burps)

With all of these things, one might imagine that I will certainly get that MF split soon. At least I better.

Porky Pig just popped out of a cartoon window and I second what he said.  That’s all folks!

Nearing The End

Countdowns. I love ‘em. And, as much as I love snowboarding, I am actually counting down to the end of the season. With Keystone having only 27 days left in the season and Breck having 34, and in those days, only 4 or 5 Saturdays remaining, the season is rapidly coming to a close. It’s hard to believe that the winter went by so quickly, and even though A-Basin will probably stay open till July, once we pass April 27, I think that snowboards will be put away until at least Thanksgiving, or the next session at Progresh.

Overall, it’s been a pretty decent season. I slid a few boxes and darn near killed myself. Found the testicular fortitude to go off of big jumps even if I didn’t get big air. Started learning how to deal with moguls on a board outside of just don’t get stuck in them. Worked on getting my carving down better on my toeside as heelside is already good to go. Got enough days in on the mountain to really make my season pass worth buying (I approximate that by the end of April, each of my days on the mountain will have cost about 30 bucks.) and Vail Resorts is crying because of my frugal ways. Next year, we may get involved in some other under the radar stuff that we only heard about this year. But until then…

It is time to move on to spring and summer activities – golf and possibly the trapeze. Yes, more activities that involve the poor wrists, shoulders, and hips that I continually bang up. I was considering not flying this year, however, I think that the stretch I get at the rig might be the only thing that keeps my shoulders stretched out. Still up in the air on that one. Ha! This could be the year that we get video analysis of our golf swings so that maybe, just maybe, I can figure out how to not send the ball flying out to the left and actually get out on the course this year. Third year’s a charm, right? Riiiiiight.

No exercise complaints this week since it’s “recovery week” meaning no weights. Just stretching and light cardio. Plus pole, but no Zumba, but maybe more pole to make up for no Zumba. Man, my life is rough, eh?

So much more to get done in this day. I hope that yours has been great so far and continues to be!!

The Trifecta of Pain

Wrists, shoulders, and hips – the unholy trifecta of pain. And of course, these locations are pretty much the focal points of my activities: snowboarding, trapeze, pole, golf.

I wish I had a video of the last two falls that I could then choose either to use slo-mo x-ray or slo-mo muscle-ray. Yes, I make things up. But it would be fun to see just how far my fingers bent back or to what angle my arm twisted in the socket. Good shit for sure. But hey, I did learn, or at least start to learn how to ride moguls.

Nighty night.

Lost One

Yeah, missed another day. Bound to happen. I’ll write more maybe Sunday night. Let’s just say I never come up here and leave uninjured. Weeeee!

The Hump Day Dance Is Your Chance

Ah, hump day. Also known as the day I walk like I have a hump in my back. Why? Because yesterday was plyo and then Zumba on top of that. So I don’t know if you’ve gone to Zumba or if your Zumba classes are like this one, but there are tons of squats and lunges along with jumping and grinding. So it’s like sexy P90X – pe noventa equis de sexo.

I got the side eye from the instructor because I missed the last two weeks. I think moreso because I missed the last two weeks after making a song request and then him having the song in there, lol. Good times. Man, he made the new song hard. It involves even more jumping. So I was all spring-loaded (ha, right Tony?) and so I was wide-leg-jump-squatting pretty high. The woman in front of me could see me in the mirror and was attempting to mimic the moves I was making. This was not a good idea for her. Damn near kilt herself. (that’s not a typo) I had to stop looking both in the mirror and straight ahead because she was really throwing me off. But hey, more power to ya for getting in there and burning some calories.

Well, we’re nearly at the point where one quarter of the year is behind us. Can you even believe that?!?! Perhaps now is a good time to review this year’s goals and see where we are.

·        Zero zero-word days on the blog – I have two. Zero was probably overzealous. I do have a life…sometimes.

·        P90X3 – Meh. I didn’t love it. I did it for a few weeks before kinda bouncing around with my workouts. I can say, however, that I’m back on the original P90X for 3 weeks and I’ll finish that through the three months.

·        More stretching – Check. I am keeping up with that AND making progress.

·        Get good at something – I still don’t know what that something will be. Possibly marksmanship since I really enjoy shooting.

·        Work on something professionally – So far this is a fail. I haven’t yet started looking at my Sharepoint stuff although I did start looking at PHP stuff. But, I also got a promotion which limits my time a heck of a lot so maybe it’s not a total fail.

·        Read more – Ouch. I’m not doing well with this one. I think I wanted to read at least 40 books this year and I am waaaaay behind schedule.

Ok, overall, I’m not doing badly. I swear, that no matter what, if I get those damned splits on at least one side before the end of the year, I’m calling the whole year a win.

Why am I so intent on these splits? Part of it is just to say I can since I’ve never been able to and I like to push the limits. Part is also that I might just participate in a competition later this year and flexy might be what boosts me from second to last place into third from last, lol. But you know, participant not competitor and I’m not gonna go out of my mind about the concept and it’s just going to be something I’m crossing off of my bucket list.

Well, I’m a mere 75 or so minutes away from relaxing for a few days. Posts through the weekend will likely be slim in the content section. See ya!