Ryland thinks my push ups are funny. (you have to turn it way up to hear his laugh.)

After seeing my form, I can see why.

I had done 10 before this.

Remember that I’m just starting to do real (hands on floor instead of desk) push ups for the first time in around a year.

He’s also amused by bicycle crunches.

And he gets mad at me because I won’t let him eat my toes.

And my wrist felt tight, but not in the kind of pain that meant I shouldn’t try them. I’ve lost so much push up ability that I wasn’t even able to do 1 on my toes. I got down and couldn’t get back up. I could only do 5 on my knees, and yet I could do 24 with my hands on a desk.

I also did some various exercises while holding Ryland and rode the bike for 5 miles in 17:21.

why are you not able to run? i’ll stick with you! :)

I had a pain on the top of my right foot since summer ‘11. I decided around Christmas that I would take a break from running and anything else high-impact until Ryland is 6 months old, which is when I can safely run with him in the jogging stroller. I was only able to run 1 or 2 times a week once the days got short, so it wasn’t really worth prolonging that injury. I think it’s pretty much better now.

What I did I spend most of the day doing so far? Making this skirt.

Details on my hair blog.

Also:

I love run recaps and daily life posts. One thing I always wonder about is what you do for strength? Maybe more detail on that?

The reason you never hear about my strength workouts is because I haven’t been doing any except for some abs here or there, and I never type out the details for those, I just say, “I did some ab stuff.”

But since you asked…

I did some ab stuff before working on my skirt. 

First I did 10 v-ups to a boat pose hold. Then I did a set of hundreds, which didn’t burn at all, so that was a waste of a minute or two. Then I did this thing where i did an elbow side plank hold a 5 lb weight in my other hand. First I extended the weight up then brought it down to touch the mat for 5. Then I started the same, but brought the weight under my body toward my base arm for 5. Then I switched sides.

Then I thought about how I had stopped doing push ups because I was scraping so much, and then I stopped scraping because my wrist was hurting a lot and then my allergies got bad and a runny/ stopped up nose + a dust mask is asking for trouble. Since I still can’t scrape for maybe another day or two, I decided to give some push ups a try.

Remember, I have to do them with my hands on a desk because of my wrist.

First, I wanted to see how many I could do since I haven’t done any in so long. I did 25, not bad for taking about a month off, though I was up to almost 40. I decided to match with v-ups, so I did 25 of those, too.

Then I did 15 of each.

Then I cut my spaghetti squash in half.

Then I did 12 of each.

Then I decided that I needed food because I was getting shaky.

Today’s WOD: Push-up (hands on desk) test: 34! I only lost a few reps from before camp. V-up test: 35, which means I can get back to the plan of matching reps.

Then I made up a workout as went along that I could do barefoot. Everything is 10 reps for each side:

• Chair step-ups with 10lb biceps curl 
• slow bicycle crunches 
• squat to front kick with forward punch holding 5 lb dumbbell 
• double side leg raises 
• plank rows (5lb the first time and 10lb the second) 

I did all that twice with no rest then did 20 more v-ups and 20 more push ups. It all took 21 minutes.

Then I did some stretching and sort of yoga poses. I was able to get to 150 or 160^o with a middle split (so maybe I measured with a protractor). I practiced forearm headstands (since I can’t do regular ones any more) on the wall and held it off the wall for 6 counts. My legs were only straight for 1 or 2, but that’s still progress. Eventually I’ll get it without the wall and take a picture.

Next, I did a bridge, but didn’t want to hurt my wrist, so tried going down to my forearms and I manged to do it without falling on my head.

After all that, I scraped for a whole hour (a record!) and finally showered and shaved. I skipped shaving longer than usual because of my bumps. I didn’t cut myself on them a single time. Yay.

I decided I wanted a photo of my bridge thing, so I went outside to do it. I finished just in time because as soon as I went to check it in my camera, my neighbor walked into his backyard. I tried to get another one where I wasn’t looking, but my ring got caught in my braid and I couldn’t get the remote pointed right.

Smile Friday!

I got all my push ups & v-ups done:

25+29+25+25+36= 140

Thank you, v-ups for enabling my abs to still be semi-visible even though I’m still up a little in weight.

I had to pick up a couple things and got hungry even though I had lunch not long before I left. I was right by a Sonic, but I didn’t get a Reece’s blast, which is probably my #1 secret food thing- even when I’m not hungry. I went home and ate here.

Still no leg pain, so I’m good to go with the hiking. Speaking of which, I need to get my camera pared down and make sure I’m ready since we’ll leave pretty soon after Jeremy gets home.

My last set of 32 v-ups, unless I miscounted. They get pretty sloppy once I get tired, but the first 16 or so are pretty tight (though blurry in the video).

Week 4, day 1 (level 3) of push ups & v-ups: 21+25+21+21+32=120

They were hard today.

Feel free to critique me if you like.

Yep. Another outfit picture. 2 things about this:

1. This is not what I wanted to wear. I wanted to wear my flowy, high-waisted skirt with the ovals with my bright red shirt, but because of my eating the past few days, it was tight on my waist and created a muffin-top thing that you could see since my skirt was tucked.
2. Does the scarf look silly? I just wanted something interesting

Now for my day…

what I had planned after baby-sitting (crossed-out=accomplished)

• Call the tag office to get a new sticker (Jeremy has to do it because it’s in his name)
• push ups & v-ups (20+25+20+20+28=113!!! I’ve now doubled my starting number)
• some laundry (3 loads washed)
• take pics of the jeans for the give away for small people
• read my Bible
• pick up milk
• put away the things I brought home from school
• eat healthy stuff all day because I shot up to 136.0 this morning
• Gospel meeting at 7 pm

was one of those days where I felt like I was eating SO MUCH, but I don’t know if it really was. Let’s see: Kashi GoLean w/ milk | 2 doughnuts w/ coffee | flat out wrap w/ turkey, spinach, & provalone, apple, carrot, strawberry Greek yogurt, bite of another teacher’s chili cheese fries | clementine | shrimp, potatoes, salad | popcorn w/ milk | Arctic Zero.  No idea what it adds up to. Not really worried about it. I may even eat 1 more time before bed.

One of my coworkers did comment, “Look at Nikki over there crunching on her carrot while we’re all chowing down on chili cheese fries.”

WOD:

Week 4, Day 1 of 100 push ups (hands on a desk) with matching number of v-ups

18/22/16/16/25= 97 total. 

If I can control my eating for a couple days, all the v-ups are going to make my abs ripped. Or so I hope.

My wrist is grouchy today.  Even doing the push ups on a desk made it hurt a little, though usually it’s fine. :(

Jeremy has stuck with the push ups, too. I write out his reps at the beginning of the week. He’s nearly doubled what he could do at the start. Tonight I told him that I could tell a difference since he started doing push ups, and he said, “Yeah, I’m pretty huge now.”

I said, “I wouldn’t say that, but you definitely have more muscle than before.”

He’s always liked to joke around like that.

Week 3, day 2 of 100 push ups (level 2) with v-up reps to match (I’m going for 100 v-ups, too. That will be pretty hardcore, I think.)

14

19

14

14

22

total=83 plus a 15 sec v hold at the end

My shoulder feel so dead. I’ve never felt the push ups in them this much before.

100 push ups Week 2, Day 1 complete!

This time the abs I mixed in were v-ups and side-double-leg-raises. I did the same reps for ab stuff as push ups

14/14/10/10/max(at least 15- I did 18!)=66 total

That makes 198 ab reps.

I still had some left in me, so I added 40 reverse crunches with my shoulders held off the floor and a 1 min. plank, so really it was 138 ab reps + the plank.

I decided to do v-ups every time because it would be awesome to be able to do 100 of them.

Jeremy got his push ups done, too. He’s actually on Week 4, day 1 because he started on week 3.  He saw me doing the v-ups and asked if they were hard. I told him he should try and see. 

He said no, but I got him to do 1 just to try and he tipped over. 

Today was not a good food day, so I get 1 point for Lindsay’s challenge.

Me between Sunday school and worship yesterday and then after my run

I don’t know if you can see the bit of purple in my hair, but it’s a silicon headband I got from the dollar tree. $1 for 3 and it didn’t budge during my run. No flyaways in my face. I highly recommend them for people with smallish heads. Of course it didn’t help with the sweat dripping in my eyes.

lots of rolling hills

You know how it feels when it’s been cloudy and raining, and then it stops raining, the sun comes out, and it heats up 10 degrees while it feels like the water in the puddles has turned to steam? That was yesterday. I also rolled my ankle because I got too close to the edge of the road where it slants sharply, but I didn’t hurt it.

Saturday, I did week 1, day 3 of 100 push ups, plus abs.  This time I did butterfly sit-up to standing with no hands for the first 2 sets and regular butterfly sit-ups (CrossFit style minus the abmat) for the last three. I also did fast bicycle crunches, counting each right-left series as one rep. On the last set, I switched to super-slow bicycle crunches, which are about 5x harder than quick ones.

The numbers: 11/15/9/9/13

so 57 push ups, 26 butterfly-stand-up-sit-ups, 31 butterfly sit-ups, 44 bicycle crunches and 13 super-slow ones.

This was just a smile for the camera. I was not feeling good:

The pain is pretty sharp and poked me some tonight while I was trying to mop.  

Please, please, please be gone by Wednesday when I run again.

My tiny, crooked pig tails.  I forgot to pack things to use for putting my hair up, so I had to work with what I had.

After I got home, I restarted week 1 of 100 push ups. Jeremy’s actually starting on week 3. He got his done, too.

I mixed it up with some abs. My push up sets were 10/12/7/7/9. I do them with my hands on the desk because of my wrist.

In between each set and after the last I did abs with the stability ball.

My first thought was to match all the moves with the push up reps, so for the first round I did 10 ball passes, 10 double reverse crunches, 10 side planks with the ball between my feet (each side), and 10 side leg lifts with the ball between my feet.

My shoulder was hurting, so I switched it up for the other rounds. Rounds 2,3, & 4 matched the push ups with ball passes and something I kind of made up where I held the stability ball with my legs between my thighs & calves and like doing a reverse crunch. Then I put my hand behind my hand and twisted from left to right imagining trying to bring my shoulder to my opposite knee. 1 twist each direction was 1 rep.

The last round I did as many of each of those as I could. I did 12 ball passes before my form got bad and 30 twists.

Total that makes 45 push ups and 154 ab reps.

I’ll do mine on the desk & he’ll do real ones.

He was talking about how he wants to get stronger, but he forgets. He also said that he knows that when people have others helping them, they do better and that I have my “tumblr buddies” but he doesn’t have anyone but me to remind him.

He also said he probably won’t run with me much because he’s afraid he’ll get skinnier.

I did day 1 on Monday, but when my allergies got really bad, all the sneezing made my back hurt, so I didn’t do it any more this week. I’ll start over with him this Monday.

Since I was able to do 15 in my classroom, I started on level 3:

10

12

7

7

max-12

total= 48

plus the 15 I did at school makes 63. I’m really going to be feeling it tomorrow.

note: These are push ups with my hands on a desk because my wrist does not allow me to do full push ups.  I do bring my chest to the desk for full range of motion.

That’s all the exercise I did today because my back has been hurting a little/ feeling weird and I don’t want to take any chances.

29. Yoga

I was thinking tree pose before it was suggested, but I still wanted your input.

Then I knocked out 15 push ups with my hands on a student’s desk. (The kids are at P.E.) I wanted to see how many I could do. I used to be able to do more than this of full push ups.  I’ll just build back up with these modified ones and maybe some day I’ll stop re-injuring my wrist.