Warrior Woman, Gym Rat WHAT???

I suppose one really important part of my life, the time I spend exercising, has not made it up on my blog very often. In my early blog posts, I used to add a brief synopsis of my daily exercise goals and back then, it was pretty much all about running. I have been a runner most of my life. I became injured from running in high school, started taking yoga classes and became a yoga instructor at 17. Yoga made it possible for me to run again and basically my fitness regime involved running and yoga.

Last year in nursing school, because 20 college credits and being the Mama of two small boys wasn't enough,  I entered the 911 fitness challenge with hubby and started lifting for the first time in my life. I was bored. I wanted to hate it. I decided I was doing it just for quality time with my hubby. It grew on me. I felt strong. It was challenging. Challenging is appealing to my innate personality.  I don't want to admit it but... I love it.

OK, there I said it. What, you can't read that font size?  Well then, for further clarification,  "I am a gym rat."

 I don't know how it happened, but there is something about lifting that is empowering. I feel strong, and I love it. One of my favorite parts of the day is heading to the YMCA, seeing all the friendly familiar faces, racking my weights, and challenging myself to do better than the last time.

The weight training was a little short lived because I had been having issues with my hip since Tadpole was born and the pain was getting unmanageable. I stopped every form of exercise this past October, and made a commitment to healing my body. I went to physical therapy and followed all of the rules. My physical therapist told me if I stopped exercising he was convinced I could get better. At that point I was willing to do anything to reduce the pain. I had to grow a lot. I never realized how much my flexibility had become part of my ego. The physical therapist told me my flexibility and the laxity of my ligaments was my biggest issue and was why I had to let go of being gumby. I also had been experiencing so many health issues I started taking an objective look at my diet. Once again I had to let go of my ego, as I gave up my vegetarian lifestyle. I am slowly moving into a 100% primal diet. It has been mentally and spiritually challenging, but the physical benefits I can not deny.  I am finally not miserable all day suffering from chronic pain. My hip only bothers me sometimes now, which to me is nothing short of a miracle or a very dedicated physical therapist who had faith in my ability to heal and was patient enough to allow for this to happen. Since March, I have been back to lifting and light running, but still seeing my physical therapist.

After a few weeks in the gym, Rock and I decided to start a 12- week program, Jim Stoppani's 12-week shortcut to size. When Rock sent me this workout, the title alone freaked me out. See not too many married couples workout. A lot of people argue that men and women need to do different types of exercise. Besides a few differences that Rock and I work into the week, I am calling their bluff on this and saying it is one of the best things we do for our marriage. I compromised and gave the workout a go. I actually really enjoyed it and was happy with the results. I was reluctant to move on four weeks ago when we were finished with it.

When Rock came to me with the idea of doing a 5-3-1 program, which is a program focused around compound lifting, I was skeptical(sounds like a theme in this post). I realize we exercise at the Y, which is not a very accurate assessment of the gym world, but still, I am the only female at our gym that squats in the cage with real weight.
I read over the workout and looked at him "100 chinups/pull-ups a week??? Anywhere between 75-85 squats (including warm-up) a workout?"

I kept reading the rest and once again I decided to give it a go, because working out with Rock is better than working out alone. I am definitely the compromiser in our workout world seeing as he has yet to take up running with me.

So far, this workout kicks ass and in 3 short weeks I am able to do 4 consecutive chin-ups on my own so I guess doing 100 of them a week with assistance really is paying off. I squat like a champ and I think if we ever get around to baby number 3 I am going to be able to squat and catch my own baby like a birth Goddess (if your wondering where that came from, then you are new to this blog, and you don't know that I am a doula and an aspiring midwife) Most importantly,  I feel stronger mentally, physically, and spiritually.



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