PiYo Day 28: Sweat

Can we talk about Michelle the Modifier's quads for a second?

Girl puts the fine in defined.

I remember having definition like that (not to that degree, since I have always been a curvy girl) when I was a rower. In rowing, you get 75% of the power from your legs; you literally jump off of the stretcher. Ever used the rowing machine at the gym and wonder why you strap your feet in? Now you know.

Jump, baby.

I can see a little of that definition coming back to the sides of my quads, and it's so freakin' exciting. It's little things like that that keep me motivated even when the scale doesn't move - which, by the way is still the case. I put on muscle like a champ!

I must be working harder, because I was a whole lot sweatier today at the end of Sweat. I think it was partially because Sous Chef was in the room, and I rather vainly wanted to impress him with my kick-ass awesomeness.

By the end, I was red-faced (which actually doesn't take much effort, God bless my Irish genes) and sweaty and out of breath, but not for long; another sign that I'm making progress? My recovery time is WAY faster than before. I can be completely out of breath one minute and the next I'm breathing normally again.

That's called conditioning, baby!

My back is not terribly happy today, but as counter intuitive as it is, working out and moving it around helped. When you're injured, you think, "I should lay down and rest." It's instinctive - something is wrong, let's stop and figure it out so we don't make it worse. But according to Dr. Fat Ass, with my injury, stopping is one of the worst things I can do. Unless I'm physically incapable, I need to be moving.

My back icing companion for the day.

And damn if he isn't right - days when I sit for long periods of time, or even nights when I am in
bed for longer than eight or nine hours, my back hurts. If I'm active, running errands or exercising, or moving around a lot, my back doesn't hurt.

Who knew?

On days like today, when my back is especially bothered, I take some meds and ice it. I usually have a furball or two who keep my company for the twenty minutes or so while I'm lying down icing. Other than that, I try to just keep moving.

Just keep moving; I'm finding that's the answer to pretty much anything.