I always feel the muscle ache just above the knees when I do either of those exercises. I suppose that's a good thing; I used to have knee caps that shifted (they still do, but I don't do anything that aggravates them - patellofemoral syndrome if you want the medical term) and building those muscles was one of the things my physiotherapist recommended I do way back in high school. As you can guess, I listened well (NOT). I am still seeing the same physiotherapist 15 years later at various intervals for neck, back, shoulders, whenever I mess something up and still not doing the stretches or exercises he gives me. I go for a week or two until I feel better, and then stop until the next time I mess something up. It's usually the same four injuries on a cycle of repeat. I'm sure I'm not the only one who does this. We tend to only take action when something is painful, we wanted to restore our bodies to pain-free, but we don't tend to take preventative measures. If I did my exercises, I could strengthen the muscles enough to prevent further injuries and I wouldn't have to keep going to physio every time I slept on my neck wrong, or picked something up the wrong way. IF...
Maybe that can be a goal with all of this "going to the gym" kick I'm on: I can start doing the exercises I'm supposed to to fix the injuries I already have. I had a terrible car accident several years ago and I've never fully recovered (my own fault). The woman ahead of me slammed on her brakes at a green light because the "don't walk" hand started flashing. I will admit I was probably going too fast and also too close behind her, but I crashed into her van hard enough to total my car, and send me into the windshield. The airbags did not inflate properly, but there is no way to prove that. It's neither here nor there at this point, the point is I haven't been doing my stretches for a very long time, and that can be part of my goal in going to the gym - maybe finally fix what I've already been working with. It may not seem like it from my posts about going to the gym daily, but I am incredibly LAZY.
It makes keeping up any sort of routine a little challenging. But we're trying...
Today's fitness training focused on arms and legs and a lot of repetitions. We did some lunges and squats, in a number of variations. I learned what a Bavarian squat is - it's not nice! You raise the back leg on something like a step, and do your squat from that position. It increases the stretch through your thigh. Ouch! I also learned what an Arnold (press? raise?) is. Named after Mr. Schwarzenegger it involves lifting weights but also doing a sort of arm press in front of your face. Really cool. The woman beside me really struggled with it - but she also had reasonably sized weights whereas I had my little lightest-thing-in-the-box set. (Yeah, still a pansy, some things take a while to change). I want to feel comfortable with the different movements before I start adding weight. I know that's going to make it take longer, and I'm going to have a harder time seeing results right away, but it also means I am making sure I have all of the movements right before I go into macho "look at me do all of this" mode.
Which kind of reminds me of this morning's Aqua fit class. There was this woman there who was all determined to show off that she is super fit, and every exercise she's trying to jump higher and get half her body out of the water - for instance we do jumping jacks and you are so far submerged that only your shoulders are really coming out of the water. Except that she is about my height and standing in shallow water that comes to below her breasts, and trying to show off that she can leap great heights. That's not how Aqua fitness works. You would actually get a tougher/more intense workout by putting yourself into deeper water, and trying to do the movements while keeping your head stable and not moving about. The more of your body that is submerged, the more intense the workout. (see, my "how to be an instructor" lessons have stuck with me a little!) Sometimes, I find it really frustrating when I realize some of the "useless" information my brain decides to hold onto while discarding stuff I actually need. Side note: my seizures sometimes erase chunks of my memory, and it is really hard to work with; firstly because I can sense where there is a hole in my memory - like there is something I should know but I can't access it so it makes it even more upsetting when I know I should know. I had a seizure during March Break and came back to school after the break; I realized I didn't know where my classroom was, nor what my students names were. It was really frightening. It's also one of those things that you are afraid to ask for help on because it shows a weakness that others can feed off of. So I had to discreetly look up my classroom number and referred to the students by pointing and nodding instead of calling out names, until it all came back to me. It took about a week. Secondly it's aggravating because I find people around me are constantly using these "gaps" against me. We'll get into a discussion, and I'll be arguing against them - usually about something that happened, which I remember quite clearly, and their response is "well you have memory problems, so you don't remember". My seizures don't invent new memories, they put little gaps in my existing memory. Sometimes I'm lucky and they come back - like my students names. But saying that to me is like an instant dismissal of anything I have to say. Like I said, I know where the holes are, I can tell when there's something I'm missing, so someone arbitrarily dismissing what I am saying in that manner because it disagrees with their own point is insanely insulting. I've had to tell members of my family (obviously not my kids) that if you are going to use that against me in that way, then we are going to be done talking. They always seem so surprised. "What? I didn't say anything mean." No. You just instantly stated that you have completely dismissed any validity to anything I have to say and will only accept my information if it coincides with your own. Obviously, you don't need anything I have to say, so we don't need to talk anymore.
Back to fitness;
When you try to hold your place in water that is moving in this type of environment, you are engaging your abdominal and core muscles much more trying to hold the position steady. So in the case of "jumping jacks" it's easier to launch yourself into the air and bounce back down, especially once you get momentum going. What is much more difficult, is to turn the leg motions into a slide while holding your core in place. So I have a little bounce, enough to get my feet of the bottom, and then I am abducting my thigh muscles (I want to say hips?) to push my legs apart on an even keel, and then pulling them back into center. Meanwhile my arms (hands flat) are pushing the water away and towards me - all under the surface of the water. It's a much tougher and more meaningful workout. But that's cool, bounce around super fast with no resistance and call it a workout. If you want to do that, go and join a Step class. The instructor kept trying to tell her to go deeper in the water and she absolutely refused. I think she realized she could not get as much lift from the deep end, without realizing this would actually mean a bigger workout, not that she "can't do it". I kept my mouth shut. Each person is entitled to their own view of a how a workout should go (me included!) and she was definitely rockin' it and having a blast powering through all of the movements much faster than the rest of us. She did go a little deeper than her original "spot" - as one of the tallest she had originally been in the shallowest water, and moved somewhere to the midway point at the instructors prompting, but hesitated to go any further. I stayed in the deep end and tried to activate my core as much as possible. I am certain I will be feeling this in my abdomen tomorrow morning. I already woke up with them a bit sore this morning (and totally unsure why because I don't remember doing anything that focused on them). Aqua fit was first, so I worked my abdomen in the morning, and then came back for more punishment with the strength training and conditioning in the evening. I'm feeling really good.
With the personal trainer, I feel like I did a much better job of keeping up than last week. Another case where I may not be seeing any visual results, but I can feel the difference when I do certain activities. The training had a similar structure to last week's (different stretches, but similar) and yet I was able to get through more repetitions of the series than the week before. My legs still ached and I found the squat lunge section really challenging, but the rest was easier. I didn't have a lot of sections that I really struggled to do the action. I think next week I *might* try to use a heavier set of weights. The other girl in the session still lapped me in the activities, but I'm OK with that.
I'm also thinking I might try to up my game and go for a Boot Camp style class. I think it is going to be similar activities with the weights and the stretches, which is probably closer to what I need. And I can't continue my current stream of one intense workout day and then two "recovery" style days where I am still getting a workout, but I am not pushing myself to the same extent or working the same muscle groups.
Tomorrow; Yoga Tune Up again!
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