Saturday, August 21, 2010

August: Hot as hell but great workouts!

This week's workouts at Roll 2 Walk were awesome! I rocked it this week and I have some proof. You'll see. You didn't think I was going to show y'all right away, did you?
Monday I get to the gym and almost right off the bat Gray said my posture looked better. All I can say is that I'm becoming more aware of the position of my shoulders in relation to my back and the little bit of massaging that I'm doing in my neck must be helping it. We started my workout on the floor. I did the the rolling exercises, the oblique reaches, and the hip flattening exercises. After that, we either got on the table or we went into kneeling, I can't quite remember. When we went into kneeling I did extremely well. It was the first time I didn't have to come down because of bp (blood pressure, not British Petroleum) issues and I had my upper body most of the time. It was phenomenal, I was very proud of myself. After that, it was the same ol', same ol', not that that's a bad thing, I'm just figuring y'all don't want to read about it.
Tuesday was rough. How rough? Well, I had bp issues while I was standing and kneeling, I was extremely tired out, and my muscles were sort of sore and worn out from the day before. At the time I didn't really have a clue as to why, I thought maybe I was getting sick, but now that I think about it I most definitely was dehydrated. At one point I was really frustrated with myself. It's crazy how I was dehydrated but at the same time freezing my ass off. But that's how it goes when you have a SCI (spinal cord injury).
After I was done with my workout I went to a community "physical therapy" facility to try out an FES bike. It's a recumbent bike but electrode pads are placed on my quads, hamstrings and my glutes and when the bike is turned on my muscles receive an electrical stimulation in the motion of riding a bike. The overall objective is to ride the bike myself without the help of the stimulation. I had five tries to get in an hour of riding. I only got to 30 minutes but apparently that was good for the first time.
My Wednesday workout was awesome. The only thing that really stands out is the kneeling that I did. It was near perfect. It was like Monday's kneeling but better. Well, you'll see in the video below. What's happening is I'm using my triceps (which I don't entirely have) to keep myself from falling over, my shoulders are down and away from my ears, and when you see Chad take his hand away from my hip I have control over my hips. Meaning, my glutes and core were keeping me stacked on top of my knees. It was BAD ASS! I couldn't believe it. I still can't wholly believe it and I've watched the video so many times I've lost count. Just watch. You can't really hear what Gray is saying and I don't have editing software (nor the money to buy some) to fix it.
I gotta say, I still got a booty. If my back wasn't over-arched I think I wouldn't look so flat chested. Oh well... I'm being a bit vain, sorry about that.
Should I post video or photos more often? Leave a comment and let me know.
So that was my three day week – a bunch of awesomeness! Since school starts Thursday I don't know when the next time I'll be down in Austin between now and December. Maybe I'll be down there for weekend or two, we shall see. 
As always, please, please, please donate. Funds are running low and I'd really like to continue with this progress. Please [Insert puppy dog face here]. Thanks.