Novice 2.0 Day 37: Pivot!
Yesterday afternoon, after Sam and I both had slow and frustrating mornings, I sat down to chat with her real quick about my Novice 2.0 schedule. I told her that while I had noticed significant form improvements and progress, that I was feeling a little less than excited. The first 2 weeks of Novice are quite gentle, and after throwing myself into it for a month already, I found the workouts for the first 2 weeks of Novice to have zero challenge for me. The mobility additions are obviously helping quite a bit already, and I want to continue to do those, but what should I do to make it more intense?
Sam suggested that I move onto week 3, and start on it today, with the addition of the mobility and core reset workouts to stay focused on still correcting and healing the areas of weakness I have in my hips and low core muscles. Then, next week I will do week 4 of Novice, and if I still feel the need to ease into Blade, I can find some mash up of week 3 and 4 and do that. Week 3 and 4 of Novice hold a significant uptick in intensity, the level I feel I’m missing right now. I was so exhausted when I first did them, and so sore, and to be perfectly honest- I’ve missed it that sensation.
So today I begin Novice 2.1: week 3 of Novice + Mobility. I’m excited to really break a sweat and feel strong. I think that’s what does it for me: every time I hit the mat and grunt and groan my way through each move, sweating and trying to breathe, I feel stronger. I know I’m getting stronger with each session that pushes me and my muscles to shake and scream with soreness. I look and feel stronger, and I want a workout that challenges me to keep that going, and right now weeks 1 and 2 of Novice are just too easy with the progress I’ve made.
Do you see how customizable Valkyrie Squad is though? If I need to work on something because of injury or weakness- I can add or subtract or replace parts to reflect that. If I need to take a break because life is crazy-pants, I can do that, and am encouraged to! If I’m feeling low, disappointed in myself, frustrated, or terrified because I’m facing something that has broken me down in the past- all I have to do is pop into Discord and I have an army of women at my back, cheering me on, comforting me, relating to me, or filling my cup with their love and pride, pushing me to get up and get going. And Sam, that wonderful woman full of love and fight, makes time for all of us, whenever we need help or guidance. Mother of Valkyries, she’s always ready to figure it out and keep pushing us.
My rambling took a bit of a sappy turn there, let’s Woman Up and hit the mat.
I’m starting with 25 min of Core today, 25 minutes because I’m also doing Core Reset. I have a pilates ball now, so I am expecting a difference in engagement during moves like Hip Bridges. I noticed a week or so ago that when I lift my hips into Bridge position, my knees splay out and wide. A form issue that indicates lack of true engagement in the lower abdominal muscles during the move. When I tested out the air pressure of the ball and squeezed it between my knees, just from a sitting position, I felt the deep engagement of those muscles in a way I never had before, so I know it’s something I need to work on.
Annnnnd then I had technical difficulties. For whatever reason, no matter how many times I tried, I could not get my internet browser to do it’s internet browser thing. I couldn’t get the workouts to load up or the website to open, and my wifi signal kept dropping. So what’s a Valkyrie to do? She digs through her sleepy 6am brain to remember a 15 minute core circuit that we’ve done before, to piece together a decent workout.
Finished my workout with some angled Child’s pose stretches, Camel Pose, and Mindstilling Breaths on the mat.
I’m still going to try and load the actual workout again later and do that too, but for now, this was a good circuit to run so I still got my Me Time on the mat to set the tone for my day. I’m super proud of myself for piecing this routine together instead of just giving up and crawling back in bed because of some technical difficulties getting in my way. It takes a lot of discipline to be able to say “screw it, I’m gonna figure it out anyway,” and that’s something I’ve cultivated in the last couple months.
My headphones died towards the end of my workout, so I had to plug them in for about an hour to recharge. My son woke up literally right as I was lacing up my shoes, so Yrsa and I were delayed a bit for our walk this morning. The sun was fully up, and it had warmed up to about 52 degrees. A perfectly glowy autumn morning with brightly colored trees and tons of crunchy leaves to run through. Today is already shaping up to be a better day than yesterday.
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