Another Awesome Day

Last night when I got home from work I had too much energy. So I turned on Pandora and got into my short shorts and a tank top and the no show socks (because you need the top of your feet free of sock). And I rocked out dancing with my pole for a good 40 minutes. It was awesome! And I do have bruises on the tops of my feet from gripping the pole. They don't hurt though :). Really working on the tucks because I'd really like to be able to do my first invert end of this month or beginning of next. But OMG do the muscles by my ribs and shoulders hurt! And my abs! From keeping my body horizontal to the ground I'm sure with all those tucks. By the time I turned off the Pandora, I'd already meet my activity goal for the day too. Quick rinse and off to bed feeling pretty awesome.

And then this morning, a nice slow swim. Monday I'll try to beat my record and hopefully even come in at under 38 minutes for a mile. But Fridays, just slow and steady with lots of breast stroke today. The water was perfect until the end of my swim when some guy jumps in to share my lane and starts talking to me while wearing BOXER BRIEFS as swim trunks! Dude... No. I told him I was done so he could have the full lane and finished my stretches, then he asked to race me doing laps. Seriously. I'm not sure if he was drunk or high or what, but he was not right in the head. Or maybe he was attempting to flirt and I just thought he was being creepy. Or maybe he is creepy because boxer briefs in the pool...

With the soreness tonight I'll go home and just finish up putting the laundry away and the other usual nighttime stuff before bed. When I wake up tomorrow it's another morning at the gym with my 15 lb dumbbells. Next week I can up to 20, for a total of 40 lbs! My legs will finally be able to feel the workout maybe at 40 lbs.

Meeting with my family tomorrow late afternoon for my nieces dance recital. Then hoping for a quick bite to eat with them before heading home and getting to the exciting task of finishing my glue removal. Getting there.

Hoping for a beautiful weekend for all of us! See you next week :).

Recovery Muscle Soreness is NORMAL

Busy weekend this past weekend. My dad came over and we got all the debris out of the bathroom and I cleaned my garage. Tossed a bunch of stuff in the dumpster before the guys putting in my tub have it picked up. Then I removed a bit of wallpaper glue (wallpaper is down). Sunday the Wildlife Center and some more glue removal.

And my back muscles are sore. I know I just had surgery less than 8 weeks ago, I get this and completely understand it. Most of this soreness is just general I haven't used these muscles properly in years kind of pains. The hard part is knowing what kind of pain is actually "normal". And when I'm overdoing things. It's been so long since I've had "normal" pain and I'm not sure that I recognize it well. This weekend was good because I know that everything I did was within acceptable lifting ranges and this should be considered "normal".

I have to know that I don't have to be terrified that every time I have soreness that I've re-injured myself, because I haven't. I have to know that when I say something hurts (like my erector spinae muscles that were ruthlessly pulled aside during surgery) that other people will worry that I'm somehow damaged again and I'm not. When in reality those muscles are just gaining strength again and like any muscle gaining strength I'm going to feel muscle soreness. You feel it in your biceps after doing a trillion bicep curls, I'll feel it where my muscles are weaker and are still gaining strength too. It's the normal process of building strength and muscle regardless of the location of the muscle.

I'm not damaged and doing normal everyday things will not suddenly damage me. I can ride my bike this summer and lean forward while dragging the bike trailer behind for my little guy. I'll soon be able to run/jog again. And hell, tonight I'm going home and doing some kickboxing on my heavy bag even though I swam a mile this morning (And new PR at 38:15, better even than pre-surgical best).

I just hope my family and friends stop looking at me like I'm going to fall over dead because I live an active fun and enjoyable lifestyle. I'm not that breakable. And I hate HATE when people make me feel like I can't live my life because I'll hurt myself. That is just not true.

Take away here, I'm awesome :). And I feel spectacular. And if I was allowed to run a marathon right now, I'd totally feel up for it!

Insanely Sore! Head to Toe!

So, as you can see from yesterdays post, I finished the carpet in my family room. I was sore yesterday, but today... OMG, so much worse! My shoulders are just crying and my hips are pure agony. This must be delayed onset muscle soreness. I was considering a workout today but when I woke up like this, forget it!

I haven't done a workout since midweek last week. We had a really bad stressful situation last week with day care and having to switch. I became overly stressed and then ate terribly and didn't work out at all. Then with this carpet replacing, I'm pretty sure that's a good enough workout for now. Tomorrow I'm skipping the workout because I'm returning all the furniture to the room. That will be another workout all in itself. Maybe I'll do a short walk if there's any time left before I go to work depending on how  long it takes to put everything together again.

This week I've done much better on not eating junk other than some Cheetos today. And I'm much less stressed now that we have a new day care provider for Baby Muddy. She seems very organized and nice :). Little guy did well yesterday with nearly no crying. He saved that all for me yesterday morning... Today he wasn't fussy at all and let me get some things done!

^^^ BabyMuddy staying busy while I do dishes :). 

The rest of my house looks like a disaster area because the furniture from one room somehow expanded and is now in three rooms... Trying to keep the half of the kitchen that isn't covered in extra furniture looking somewhat livable :).

Until this whole carpet laying business is done, I'm just going to hope someone drops a hot tub off at my place! 

OMG! DOMS!!!

So that pull up challenge...

I've been doing pretty well. I'm doing the 20 pull up challenge. And really just focusing on the eccentric part of the pull up :).

But yesterday I forgot to do them and did inverted rows under the counter at work. Yes, I got on the floor- under the counter- and did inverted rows.

I'm glad no one walked in on me doing that... I might have been given some strange looks O_O! And today, oh my, the soreness!!!!

I had some DOMS (Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness) after the first couple days and now doing the rows my shoulders are just in agony :). But it's a good kind of agony ;). If that's possible??

And despite popular belief, NOTHING, ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!!!!! makes it better :(. Despite knowing that massaging my shoulders for hours will really do no good, I'm doing it anyway :). Why not right?

Also, of course I'm very hydrated so anything in the muscle tissue should have been flushed out of my system.

Okay, maybe something makes it better... I think that a light workout helps, but that in no way is proven to help. So I'm going to do some counter push ups to keep things really mild for tonight.

Then tomorrow is another day of pull ups! YAY!!!

Getting Tough :)

And for the whole reason I'm blogging, getting tough ;).

Tough Mudder training starts in just a couple weeks.

 And I've been doing those pull ups, okay more so I've been doing the descending part of the pull ups. And OMG! My ARMS!!! And my SHOULDERS!!! The agony!!!! 

I'm feeling much less sore today than day 2-4. Today I missed doing the pullups so I did inverted rows under the counter at work. And I switched it up to 5 sets of 4 since the inverted rows are much easier than the eccentric part of the pull ups.

Also to prepare for Raw in January and no soda, I've moved up to two glasses of water this week for each soda. So far so good. I'm getting pretty excited for January! Anticipation :). Yay!!!