80 Days Strong: Blade, Round Two
Alright alright, it’s time to kick some major booty.
It’s Monday, and I’m feeling extra peppy. I’m officially out of the first phase of my cycle and have moved on into my Follicular phase, which means it’s the perfect opportunity to start Blade again. Look at that timing, it’s flawless: one phase ends and here we are on Monday ready to dive head first into it.
Blade Day 1 is in a kick in pants, it’s hard from the get go and super sweaty. There’s a ton of challenging variations of moves in there, including those staggered push ups (pure hell). If my memory serves to be correct, this workout is sweaty, like there’s a small puddle gathering under my face on the mat, kind of sweaty. I’m down.
I’ve never taken such a long rest period and then jumped back up to get into it, it’s always been the deal breaker for me, the long breaks making me want to give up entirely. But I’ve come too far already, and I’ll be damned if I don’t get back up and into it. I love Valkyrie Squad, I love how it makes me feel, and the progress I can now see and feel physically and mentally, are far too astonishingly great for me to turn my back on it. I’m excited to see and feel my progress repeating this month, and how much I’ve already grown- it just shows me how much more amazing I’ll be by the end. I live for this now.
I’ve been using my rest period well, at least. Long as it was, I had to keep myself steady and I utilized the heck out of the Valkyrie Yoga and form/Bonus videos the whole time. I watched Sam really closely during her Boxing Form videos to see if I can catch where I’m doing things wrong, like when I’m throwing that up-elbow, and always cuff myself in the side of the head. My husband has a background in martial arts, so I got his help correcting that too, and I think I have that figured out. It’s so simple, literally just a turn of the wrist sends my elbow up properly and without my fist colliding with my ear. Hopefully I have fewer headaches this month on account of it.
I woke up feeling pretty froggy today, a little on the groggy side when the alarm first rang out, but as soon as my feet hit the floor today, I knew I was getting on the mat, and it got me so excited. My husband was looking at me like I’d grown another head, or had been abducted by aliens, because I am anything but a morning person, and yet this morning I was singing and dancing while I got his lunch ready in the kitchen. I got dressed immediately and was primed and ready to go. I had maybe been hoping for a warmer morning to get outside and workout, since all the snow is gone and it’s only mildly soggy out there, but alas, a wet 36 degrees is not my favorite for working out. I can and will walk in it, but a mat workout is less fun. Maybe as winter progresses I can move myself outside for Motus drills or something, but even as sweaty as Day 1 Blade is, I didn’t want to experience that outside. So inside, sweaty af, is where it’s at today.
So, Mat: check, Weights: check, Blocks: check; will to survive the sweat session that this is: check.
But first, let’s stretch, because 34 years old.
It did in fact rain all freaking day yesterday, and as energetic as I’m feeling today, I know that this is the perfect set up for an injury if I don’t stretch and really warm up first. This workout is hard and I know it, and even if I’ve progressed some insane amount in the last month, I want to be limbered up before I do something like tweak my back, or throw a shoulder. And so some mat-wallering is a requirement.
I grabbed a short stool that we have around to use as the platform for the curtsey lunges, because the foam blocks are just too soft for me, and it gives me crazy balance issues. I started on the block and had to pause to grab the aforementioned stool, because I was falling all over the place. The stool is a bit taller, so it had it’s own set of challenges, but at least I wasn’t falling all over the place trying to achieve one rep. I had my 15lb weight in hand, bumping it up 5lbs from the last time I did this workout. And oh, oh boy did I feel it immediately.
The next set were those staggered pushups, and I made it about 4 reps in before I had to drop my knees. Thats 4 solid reps more than the last time I did this workout, so I’m taking it as progress. I also had a flashback during these pushups, where I wondered if this one of those sneaky circuits that Sam likes to do; where she takes us halfway through it, and then goes “Oh yeah, we’re repeating this whole routine!” I received confirmation of that during the split level squats we did next. Sometimes, I hate it when I’m right.
I didn’t notice a ton of marked improvement for today’s workout, but I have to remind myself that I legit just took a week off from working out, and with the rain, and my allergy exposure this weekend, I am still dealing with some inflammation, and all of those things can affect my performance. I will say though, that my endurance has improved in a noticeable way, because I was panting, gasping for air, and my body was sobbing out sweat the first round. Today, I could handle it. It wasn’t easy, and there were a few times when I was like “whaaaaat thee f*ck!” because I wanted it to be way easier than it was, but I wasn’t dying or feeling like a fish out of water. So I’m taking that as a win.
Another takeaway though, is that I need to be spending the same amount of time on Core Rehab this round, as I did in Novice 2.0. While I know that inflammation played a key role today in my balance issues, I actually struggled to find my core and engage it properly during several moves. I’ve also been experiencing some low back pain again, and it’s because I’ve slacked a bit on my pelvic correction. So going forward, I’m going to be getting back into Core Reset every day before I start the scheduled workout. I know it’s going to make me even more tired, I’m just going to have to resign myself to a perpetually early bedtime to keep up with my early morning ass kicking.
I’m definitely going to spend a lot of time today hydrating and stretching, and I’ve made myself a little star chart situation for my Mindstilling, so I can try and be better about utilizing it daily and not just when I’m stressed out.
The Sky is beginning to lighten up, so I’m going to layer up and get outside with Yrsa for our walk before the kids wake up. It’s been glorious actually, since it’s so much darker for longer in the morning, the kids have been sleeping later. Don’t get me wrong, I love their little smiley cherub faces when they run to me with open arms in the morning, but I also savor my quiet morning time for myself, because it’s the only time to myself I have. Anywho, gotta get going before someone wakes up and demands pancakes.
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