Squad Day 67: Blade Week 4- Kick Boxing Time
I got a late start today, I spent half the night tossing and turning, and unable to get comfortable. The snow is still around, and the temps are still pretty chilly, and my 34 year old body doesn’t approve of any lingering chill. I love winter, but I spent years abusing my body and now it’s all beginning to catch up with me, and sometimes that translates to my body aching like I got hit by a bus.
Some Magnesium lotion, and a couple extra hours in bed, and I’m ready for the day. Now that I’ve been spending so much time on body awareness in Valkyrie Squad, it’s becoming second nature for me to just listen to what my body needs and respond accordingly. I never feel guilt or shame for taking a few extra hours of sleep, or taking a rest day when my body needs it, or eating something a little differently because my body is asking for it. Learning to understand my body’s cues and responding properly has been such a game changer. I handled the cold that swept through my house without ever getting sick, because I listened to what my body needed and provided those things without question. My gut health is impeccable right now, I never have indigestion or bloat anymore, because I started noticing trigger foods and tracking inflammation responses subconsciously. The value of learning this about my body, I can only hope that I can teach this level of body awareness to my kids now, so that they know their whole lives, how to care for their bodies and minds, and never ignore it.
So far, my experience of doing Kick Boxing anything for Valkyrie Squad is more conditioning exercises than anything else. Moves that target smaller supportive muscles to strengthen form and and function during the higher impact work that involves throwing punches, and dodging, guarding, as well as kicking and throwing knees. All that fighting work takes a lot more muscle conditioning than I ever realized.
That being said, I have a feeling that today’s workout is more than conditioning, the calendar tells me it’s 35 minutes long… and being that this is week 4 of Blade, and I know Sam likes to up the intensity in week 4, I’m pretty sure there’s more work involved. So let’s get Monday going right, and hit the mat.
I was not wrong.
Today’s workout was like Boxing Tabata, combining boxing drills and strength training, with active rest moves in between. The Strength portions were less about speed and more about controlled movement. Boxing drills combined some known punch combinations, but added some kicks and knee drives to them, and pivots and shuffle backs, so we worked evenly on both sides.
There’s still snow on the ground outside, albeit melting down now, but I wasn’t too keen on slush landing on me off of the trees around the porch, so I stayed inside to work out today.
Those kicks have me questioning my hips again, because by the 3rd round it was really hard to even lift my leg up to kick, let alone add it to combinations. I got through it, but it was like repping to failure, eventually I could barely lift my leg to kick and I had sweat running into my eyes, a completely undesirable burn. My youngest two kids were mimicking me through drills, throwing punches and kicking with me, it was so cute, and just the confidence boost I needed to keep pushing. Those kicks though, oh those hurt towards the end. I’m definitely going to take a minute to do some hip mobility later today, because they took the brunt of today’s workout beating.
I was shaking through the final strength portion of the workout, which was mostly upper body with the weights, focusing on shoulders and back. My kids were my cheerleaders, watching me drip sweat and grimace through some of the shoulder presses as we finished up.
I now need a shower, or a hose, I would be grateful for either. That was one helluva workout to kick off the week. I can’t wait to see how I feel about in 4 weeks, when I reach it again, how much I’ve improved, as I repeat Blade again.
Now it’s time for one more frolic through the snow with Madame Floof, she’s loving the cold stuff. I can barely lift my legs, so I might just let her run circles around me in the yard.
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