Novice Day 1: Valkyrie Squad
The way I got out of bed this morning could be described as nothing but enthusiastic. Today’s The Day I’ve been waiting for, for a month. Valkyrie Squad is officially launched, I’ve got all the gear I need to have for Novice, and Mindstilling audios are downloaded onto my phone like my favorite song. I made sure I was ready before bed: clothes set aside, water bottles full, headphones charged, mat, blocks, weights, and resistance bands at the ready. In fact, I had to use some Mindstilling breaths just to go to bed last night, I was so excited for my workout.
Unfortunately, I was so enthusiastic with my jumping out of bed, I woke my 5 year old, so I had to spend a minute convincing him to go back to bed, even though I was up. Ah, Motherhood.
I spent a few minutes reviewing the form videos and choosing my Mindstilling audio for the morning. Mindstilling isn’t technically on the schedule for the day, but I wanted to do one anyway. I was doing some reading this weekend about how Deep Breathing exercises are the most helpful for inner abdominal work, and repairing diastasis recti, which is what I’ve been trying to do with all those inner abdominal exercises for the last couple weeks. So Mindstilling has more than one benefit to me: calming and mastering the mind, and strengthening the inner core muscles. Talk about killing two birds with one stone.
Morning Mindstilling is so soothing, yet not in a way that makes me tired. The intentional exercise of the lungs and the mind brings a type of clarity that I didn’t know breath could really provide. I’ve been energized by deep breathing before, but the stillness… thats new.
Jumping back to those form videos- holy crap I’ve been doing lunges wrong my entire life! No wonder I constantly lose my balance, I’m straight up doing it incorrectly. I step too far back, and my knees are nowhere near where they should be in regards to my hips. The trick now will be to train myself out of this bad habit, because thats what bad form really is- the habit of doing a move wrong.
Photo by Miriam Alonso on Pexels.com
So begins Novice Day 1: Mindstilling to start, yoga flow, Inner Ab circuit (not scheduled, but my personal routine now), and the first Training Session. No equipment needed but the mat. I did not watch the first video prior to my workout, and it was almost entirely inner abdominal work. I learned really quickly that my range of motion through my ribs and my shoulders is tight, too tight. I could barely do the table-top to Wing Stretch because I could not open my chest enough. Gonna have to work on that- a lot. I really am like Emerie- my Wings are too tight to fly!
I knew it before, but my hips are a mess, an asbolute wreck. A lot of the work we did today focused on hip flexor work and inner abdominals, and my hips were popping and grinding all over the place and insisting that my low back come off the ground. I didn’t modify with blocks through the workout because I wasn’t sure if I would need them. I do. I can maybe do 4 reps max of any kind of toe tap or leg extension before my low back is aching and arching off the ground.
Once I finished with the first video, I did some more stretching, trying to open up my chest and shoulders, stretch my hips. We did “windshield wiper knees” and I could feel this intense pull in that tightness that wraps around my left hip- the stretch perfectly pulling that tight muscle group that causes me pain during the day. I’m gonna have to do more of those more often, I can feel the benefit to them just standing.
I didn’t break a soggy sweat this round, but I left the mat shaking from the effort I put into my hips and my abs. It’s also pretty cool out this morning, so I feel like that helped keep me from sweating bullets. As I sit here typing this, my core is tired and doesn’t entirely want to hold me up, this should be interesting as the day goes on.
Tomorrow I’m changing up my yoga routine- there are Valkyrie Yoga videos to go with our training, and I fully intend on doing video 1 tomorrow, which is about 41 minutes long, plus the day 2 workout video. Maybe I’m a little insane, but I prefer to call myself Ambitious.
Cooldown walk with Yrsa, she was slightly less unruly today than the last two days. We did 6 laps for funsies, I’m feeling extra froggy today after 2 rest days in a row. My feet are still cranky and achey due to the clouds and pressure zones moving through, but if there’s anything I’ve learned about having nerve damage so young, it’s that the pain isn’t something I can take off like a sweater. I just have to learn to take it with me.
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