As the head swells, so it deflates . . .

As I was preparing to come here to post about how proud I was of my performance at boot camp this morning, I found an article written by some fitness guru in which he went off about the fact that he often sees floppy burpees being done incorrectly and/or with poor form. I then realized that my performance would probably cause him to blow a gasket.

HOWEVER, 8 weeks ago I could barely do ONE floppy burpee and I HATED-HATED-HATED them with a passion! Regular burpees were bad enough, but floppy burpees (a burpee w/ added push-up) just seemed like unnecessary torture. Each time the coach would tell us that we had to do them, I would whine like a baby and imagine forcing her head into a toilet.

Amazingly, at some point over the past 8 weeks I learned to keep my mouth shut and surrender to them, for fear that expressing my hatred was resutling in more frequent punishment.

Anyway, one of this morning's boot camp exercises was to start out doing 10 floppy burpees followed by one push-up. Then 9 floppy burpees followed by 2 push-ups . . . working your way down to one floppy burpee and nine push-ups. Get it? Good.

Well, I completed the entire set, folks. Oh yes I did!! Granted, I did modified push-ups for the push-up part, but I do get my chest all the way down to the ground (and I plan to start working on full-body push-ups soon).

For some of you who are more fit - or for those who haven't actually tried floppy-burpees, this might not seem like much. For me, this is HUGE. And I didn't whine OR imagine the coach's head in the toilet! And in fact, when the coach asked if it sucked, I told her it wasn't all that bad! (Though I am now convinced that I was still half-asleep and didn't know what the heck I was saying, as it caught up with me later and I was forced to take a cat-nap on the couch at around 2 pm!)


Below is a link to a quick video of a floppy burpee for you to enjoy. The problem with my form, btw, is that I put my chest and thighs all the way down on the ground before jumping back into the squat position, rather than remaining in the plank position - so some of the benefit to the core is lost (and the lower back might be overly stretched?), but given my core is my weakest area, I'll forgive myself for now. And I'll work on improving my form in the future. :)



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W5oXadjFAlQ

Gimme 50! On each side!

About 5 weeks ago, I signed up for a local Fitness Bootcamp. Five weeks. Yay me!! I haven't been able to make every session that I'd planned to, but I've gone every week and I'm sticking with it.

*For clarification, I have completed five weeks so far, but I signed up for a year - so this is a long-term gig*


It is held outside at a local park - which I really love - except for when the blazing sun is beating straight down on my head after the first 30 minutes of hard work.



It is hard, for sure, as I have not been this phsycially active in . . . gosh, ever? LOL Well, at least since I've been driving and didn't have to rely on walking to get where I wanted to go! So it's been a while. But I feel good about it - and because of it. And I'm finding it to be an interesting emotional experience in ways that I didn't expect.



And it's really fascingating to see how different people react to boot camp.



Some people can *look* relatively fit and really struggle at first, while others who appear to be in much worse shape can really hang in there and kick ass from the start.



And I can't help but wonder how much of it is psychological, ya know?



Of course there is a physical element as well . . . obviously, two people can be equally overweight and have very different lifestyles, with one being a virtual sloth and the other being regularly active (and a non-smoker, I bet!), which would of course explain the differences in performance.



But it also has plenty to do with attitude.

Who has the best outlook? Who is enthusiastic? Who is more afraid? Stuck? Desperate? Driven?



I am learning so much about my own thinking and self-talk through this experience. It's been quite enlightening and a little empowering.



I tend to pay so much mind to my weaknesses (cardio/endurance) that I barely leave room for much else. But I am also beginning to recognize that I have stengths! Imagine that. And it's really been fascinating to see how I perform compared to others. And I don't mean in a competitive way (I assure you that I am not there yet!), but simply in observing how different our bodies really can be - inside and out. It has been eye-opening - in both good and bad ways.