Matt's Movement Log

[Matt Chung]

Day 213 of stretching and flexibility

• Tonight's block - Shoulders and Neck
  • Extend arm at 45 degree against wall and rotate opposite direction - one of the first times I could feel the stretch not in my shoulder, but in my pec
  • Internal rotation with band strapped around door knob - can really manipulate the orientation so that I really feel the stretch in my problematic area (deep in anterior part of shoulder)
  • Laying down with arms across shoulder with (same side) leg resting at 90 degrees
• Yesterday I was a volunteer for my friend who was taking her "practical" exam in sports massage and she noticed left shoulder sits higher than right shoulder
  • During her assessment, she had said she noticed that when I stand in a neutral position, my left shoulder sits higher than my right
  • That makes sense and aligns with what I have been noticing recently, that when I dance and get sweaty, my t-shirt droops towards the right (i.e. right shoulder lower) and I had originally thought it was my right shoulder that was more tense but perhaps my left is tense in its own way as well (she thinks that I might be holding tension in my traps)
• I skipped working out tonight but both my left hip and right foot (plantar fasciitis) still bothering me and I wonder if I am not allowing my body to rest enough since increasing both the intensity and volume of strength based exercises

[Ned]

3 hours ago, Matt Chung said:

I skipped working out tonight but both my left hip and right foot (plantar fasciitis) still bothering me and I wonder if I am not allowing my body to rest enough since increasing both the intensity and volume of strength based exercises

Sometimes the rest is the training.  I still hope those settle down for you soon. 

[Kit_L]

6 hours ago, Matt Chung said:

I skipped working out tonight but both my left hip and right foot (plantar fasciitis) still bothering me and I wonder if I am not allowing my body to rest enough since increasing both the intensity and volume of strength based exercises

Yes..

Please remember one of the golden rules: training/exercises is only the stimulus. Adaptation happens when you rest, eat, sleep, and life—IOW, the not-training part!

[Matt Chung]

Thanks for the words of encouragement and reminder, that sometimes (perhaps often) the growth/healing happens during periods of rest. As a consequence of these reminders, I'm now reflecting on the increase volume of training and it's quite clear that I have not injected enough time to rest. Over the past 3 weeks, I've been more or less following this routine:

1. Monday - 1.5 hour intense solo training (and stretching) - jump rope (3 mins), strengthening and conditioning of lower body, ankle weight based dance exercises, dance drills
2. Tuesday - 1.5 hour dance class (and stretching)
3. Wednesday - 1.5 hour intense solo training (and stretching)
4. Thursday - 1.5 hour dance class (and stretching)
5. Friday - Stretching
6. Sat - (Limbering)
7. Sunday - 1.5 hour intense solo training (and stretching)

Up until a few weeks ago, I had not introduced the 1.5 hour intense solo training sessions. In short, again, probably too much volume and intensity. I guess my body is definitely not like what it was in my 20s, where I could just train everyday with little to no consequence (although I am probably paying for it now). Side note: have found it hard mentally / emotionally to rest since I have seen (and others have witnessed) the substantial uptick in dance skills; the increase in ability had reinforced my desire to train even more. Put differently, I had some worry thoughts that the work I've been putting in — both strengthening, techniques, stretching — would "regress" if I rested for (subjective and skewed here) too long.

In any case, just woke up with still some aches in my left hip and a tiny bit in my right foot so going to cancel the 1.5 hour training session and just stretch today and/or just perform relaxation.

Finally, thanks for the reminder to rest. Doing that now...

[Kit_L]

25 minutes ago, Matt Chung said:

that sometimes (perhaps often) the growth/healing happens during periods of rest.

No, it's possible you've misunderstood me. Growth and healing ONLY happen during periods of not-training (rest, sleep, eating, and the rest of life). This is an inviolable rule. Not sometimes, and more than often!

[Matt Chung]

> No, it's possible you've misunderstood me. Growth and healing ONLY happen during periods of not-training (rest, sleep, eating, and the rest of life). This is an inviolable rule. Not sometimes, and more than often!

Loud and clear: rest, sleep, eat, life 🫡

And I wonder if the concept of "growth and healing ONLY happen during periods of not-training" applies more broadly. That is, I know we are discussing strength training and stretching but I do wonder if this applies to other things in life, like other arm forms (e.g. dance) as well as cognitive/academic efforts as well. And is probably yes. Anyways, I digress...back to the topic of stretching:

I do wonder I myself would benefit from injecting more periods of rest between not just strength training but stretches as well. More specifically, right now I am "stretching" (C+R) every day, albeit different muscles group. So I wonder how my body may respond to perhaps swapping 1 (or more) muscle groups (where I C+R) and simply just limber. Anyways, just a thought and will tweak and refine and reevaluate.

 

[Matt Chung]

Day 215 of stretching and flexibility journey

• Today (Dec. 17) - Followed a guided 14 minute relaxation script from ST wiki
• Yesterday (Dec. 16) - Followed a guided 17 minute relaxation script from ST wiki
• Tonight (Dec. 17) - Planning on (after dance class) stretching hamstrings and hip flexors and quads

I skipped training yesterday (Monday) and substituted vigorous exercise (and stretching) with relaxation/meditation follow along. Similar to how I approach stretching, I am (re) approaching relaxation despite not perceiving any "immediate" change: I know overtime I'll benefit from it and taking yet another leap of faith. Like many others, I am sure, sticking to relaxation ritual comes much harder than sticking to a stretching routine.

Related to this, I think my recent chronic injuries serve a useful signal; they are serving their purposes, trying to get my attention that I need to take my foot off the pedal, so to speak. Which reminds me of a quote from Rich Roll's podcast episode I listened to recently, the guest sharing:

"I love to reflect on what's my body trying to say to me right now because I get a lot of cues from my body. I believe the body whispers to us before it really starts to scream"

I think my body, right now is doing a little more than whispering, but not yet screaming (but pretty close). So in short, I want to take a moment and question whether these symptoms I am experiencing are a byproduct of over training (again, probably yes).

[Matt Chung]

Day 219 of stretching and flexibility journey

Full time single parenting last 3 days (daughter is on Christmas break) so unable to get as much dedicated stretching time in as normal. That being said, tried to include her as part of my warm up and (hamstring + hip flexor) stretch (C+R). What I'm trying to do as of late as well is before stretching, I spend a few minutes warming up the body for about 5-10 minutes, producing just a little sweat (I sweat both easily and a lot) and my leg muscles tend to (and continue to) have much better initial range of motion.

 

[Matt Chung]

Also, tiny victory today. In the dance style I practice, I rarely do "floor work". However, as the universe would have it, today I participated in a 4 hour workshop where doing floor work was the main theme. And to keep this post short: I was pleasantly and quite surprised of the lack of pain and stiffness from crawling around and dancing on the floor. In fact, today someone said "you have knees of steel." For the past ... 6 months or so, since I've gotten into stretching, I've more or less avoided doing floorwork (e.g. breakdancing) and shifted my attention towards becoming more supple. But I think all the stretching — along with the uptick in strengthening lately — has prepared my body to a point where I was comfortably able to squat and move around more supple than I have ever moved before.

[Kit_L]

On 12/16/2024 at 8:17 PM, Matt Chung said:

More specifically, right now I am "stretching" (C+R) every day, albeit different muscles group.

Yes—IMO, that's too much C–R work. While you may be working different muscle groups, you are using the CNS each time you practise. 

On 12/16/2024 at 8:17 PM, Matt Chung said:

So I wonder how my body may respond to perhaps swapping 1 (or more) muscle groups (where I C+R) and simply just limber.

Yes—the only way to know is to try it! What is the downside? You are not going to suddenly lose all of your many improvements by taking it a bit easier – this I can assure you is accurate.

On 12/18/2024 at 12:47 AM, Matt Chung said:

I think my body, right now is doing a little more than whispering, but not yet screaming (but pretty close). So in short, I want to take a moment and question whether these symptoms I am experiencing are a byproduct of over training (again, probably yes).

A serious question. The answer is "yes". In my view it's better to operate with the "no regrets" principle as the guiding one, because the opposite is regret city. When I was teaching workshops a lot, I used to say to my students, "pay attention now because you cannot go back in time". Enough said?

There is another dimension which I don't speak enough about, probably. When you have been stretching and practising for a sufficient length of time, your body will need more recovery time following a serious stretching session (because you will be getting closer to the ultimate capacity of the human body in whichever range of movement we're talking about), not less, but the difference is that your ordinary daily life ranges of movement will simply look flexible to observers, even if you're not doing anything to enhance it. You will be different (and you already are). Maintaining your current range of movement will not leave the body sore, so no need of any special recovery. Most dancers that I know only have one serious stretching session a week, and it's only on their relatively weak spots – say front splits, or side splits. All of the work that you do in dance and the other things that you no doubt will play with as well will use that new range of movement and by itself will keep you flexible at any current level.

Now there will still be goals that you want – and so they're the ones you work on and the frequency of this in my experience is once a week. So for example if if I was going to start to regain side splits today, with my background and my current range of movement in the whole body, I would train the two or three exercises that lead to this skill once or twice today and then not again for at least a week. In the interim periods though, I would do things which use the range of motion that I am trying to improve but this would be limbering not stretching. I know you've read the article where I talk about the difference between limbering, stretching, and mobility, but the key thing here is if in the practice session today you're improving your range of movement, even if it's only momentarily and by a small amount, that is what you need to recover from. Recovery takes time.

The final point is a somewhat somber one – the Mexicans have a saying, 'pay now or pay later'.

[Matt Chung]

Thanks for the thoughtful message Kit.

> Yes—IMO, that's too much C–R work. While you may be working different muscle groups, you are using the CNS each time you practise. 

I'm very open to reducing the number of days in which I perform C-R work. I had originally spread the stretches across multiple days however I'm now re-evaluating my "program" and willing to experiment with "one serious stretching session a week". I'm curious though, if there's much difference between doing 60 minutes of "serious stretching" across 3 muscle groups (e.g. shoulders, hip flexors, hamstrings) versus (3) days of 20 minute sessions C-R where each day dedicated to a single muscle group?

> When you have been stretching and practising for a sufficient length of time, your body will need more recovery time following a serious stretching session

Although I am only about 7 months into stretching, I think I'm sensing that my body requires a bit more recovery time. At the risk of rewriting history, I feel these days that when I do C-R work on hip flexors, I'm sore for much longer, in the order of days, when compared to when I started hip flexor stretches months ago. Just an anecdote.

> Most dancers that I know only have one serious stretching session a week, and it's only on their relatively weak spots – say front splits, or side splits.

Will probably try switching from multiple days to single day. That being said, at this moment in time, I *feel* that I have so many / several "weak spots" and I suppose my ambition currently exceeds what my body is capable of handling. But zooming out a bit, although I want to have well be flexible all around, I would say that the most problematic areas tend to be (once right) now left shoulder and left hip + right foot / plantar fasciitis. Adding to the ambition is the fact that this past weekend (as mentioned in the last post) I was able to dance on the floor with relatively no pain and no restriction and at first reinforced my desire to training as I have been. Nonetheless, I will adjust and start reducing load. Now.

> Now there will still be goals that you want – and so they're the ones you work on and the frequency of this in my experience is once a week. So for example if if I was going to start to regain side splits today, with my background and my current range of movement in the whole body, I would train the two or three exercises that lead to this skill once or twice today and then not again for at least a week

I spoke too soon. This answered my question that I was preparing to ask, about having multiple, parallel goals.

> The final point is a somewhat somber one – the Mexicans have a saying, 'pay now or pay later'.

Will pay now.

The biggest take away from this past week has been: rest.

Thank you everyone, again.

 

 

[Kit_L]

2 hours ago, Matt Chung said:

Just an anecdote.

No, a critical data point for you. Any story about stretching is only about the person who is doing the stretching. This individual reaction also accounts for the differences between us, our lifestyles, and all the other things that we're dealing with. Only your reactions are meaningful data, and in an area where we believe the scientific method is the underlying discourse of our communication. This individual reaction is discounted because it is personal – explicitly because it is personal.
The great problem with the scientific method, and I've written about this extensively both at Masters and PhD level, is that for all sorts of relatively naïve reasons, the subjective dimension of experience has been explicitly (now implicitly) devalued and undervalued and in fact realistically cannot be part of any scientific inquiry into anything. As I have argued elsewhere, statistical analyses by definition can only tell you something about the nature of a group, and nothing about any of the individuals within it.

When something is asserted on the basis of a statistical analysis what that cannot tell you is whether or not you belong in the group for which the technique was effective or you are outside the group and thus was not benefited by the technique at all. Only direct personal experimentation can show you where the truth for you lies. And various sophisticated statistical analogies are the core techniques used by researchers these days.

My counterpoint this is that the purely subjective is the only thing that's meaningful at a deep level for any individual human being and the skill that is required is simply to do our best to communicate about this. There's more but I've got a very big day ahead of me and I need to stop here.

You and a few other members here are doing the world an immense good service, in my view, because you are grappling with this difficulty. Over time, it 's easy to see that there is a trend, and that the trend is that you and the others are becoming more flexible, even though the progress as you have observed is stop–start, at times, and that the inner experience is becoming the teacher. I have been arguing as effectively as I can for this direction of focus ever since I started working with the body. The longer story that is developing here will be immensely helpful to any beginner.

My deep thanks to you and the others.

[Matt Chung]

Day 221 of stretching and flexibility journey

Note: A longer post since I am taking a little detour from following my block that I created on September 10th (about 100 days ago). This is a retrospective that will feed into a new block that I am programming, which more or less will revolve around more strengthening and more resting.

In light of the recent injuries, I'm taking a moment to pause and perform a mini "retrospective" of my 221 stretching journey. The first 100 days, I followed the starter program, running through the course twice. Following that, I programmed my own routine — focusing on shoulders, hip flexors, hamstrings, ankles — that I followed for the last 100 or so days.  Feels like a moment to recenter, re-assess ... so over the past 100 days, here's a brief summary

Summary

Wins

• September 10, 2024 - Day 117 - Created my own block to focus on shoulders
• November 6, 2024 - Day 173 - Measured about 10-15 degree increase in ROM of hip flexors
• Oct 07,  2024 - Day 145 - 24 years of right shoulder rotator cuff pain disappeared overnight, only after 4 weeks of starting shoulder focused rehabilitation
• November 25, 2024 - Day 193 - First ever extreme sensation / pop (i.e. fascial adhesion gone) during left side bend

Negative experiences

• November 7th - Day 175 -  first time in life started developing plantar fasciitis in right foot - correlates with uptick in (about 3x volume) in physical conditioning and dancing
• Chronic pain in left glute medius / TFL when swaying hips to the left

Recent observations

Perhaps these recent observations (over last couple days) due to 1) taking time off to rest and 2) following relaxation scripts for the 7 days or so

• Pelvic imbalance - I just started noticing that when I'm standing (e.g. typing, on the phone), there's often a pelvic tilt, my right hip dipping below the waist, left hip above the waist, which feels as though I am stressing my left hip (similar to pain during the hip sways). Similarly, when I'm walking, I feel my left glute less engaged (or perhaps weaker) than my right. Another observation still is that when directing my attention towards deliberaty engaging and flexing my left glute during certain activities, I could reduce the pain in my left TFL (or glute medius)
• Almost virtually no plantar fasciitis pain this morning - over the past 3-4 weeks, waking up with plantar fasciitis has been the norm. But this morning, virtually no pain. Can this relate to the most recent changes? Last couple days, I've been doing two things: 1) Squashing my calves, especially my (right) archilles hill (excruciating but tolerate pain that I can relax through), with a broom stick. Second, I am performing heel raises and eccentric heel drops, strengthening my ankles, feet and calves.
• The more I perform relaxation exercises, the more I become aware (and sometimes annoyed) with tension held in my body - giving myself grace and compassion and gentle, kind reminders to body to relax (especially the left cheeky shoulder)
• I'm recovery from a cold caught over last few days - it's that time of year. fortunately, not as intense as the chest infection (lasted about 3 months during the summer, due to overwhelm from the financial divorce process that I'm grateful is now over)

Where will my attention go over the next few weeks?

Though I haven't fully constructed the block yet, here's some initial plans that I'll likely following for another 4-8 weeks.

• Right knee pain felt during squat + shifting weight over right knee
  • Action plan: strengthening of (right) foot, ankle and calves
  • Observation: no pain when heels remain planted on the floor, pain only felt when shifting weight over knee and transitioning to tippy toes, likely an activation of ankle and calves
  • Observation: could be related to the fact that about 20 years ago, I snapped my right ankle, never fully rehabbing the ankle
  • Observation: when I deliberately engage and flex my right hamstring, the pain subsides
  • Believe that pain has little to do with flexibility and more of lack of strength
• Left hip (e.g. glute medius or TFL) felt during hip sway
  • Action plan: strengthen left glutes and/or TFL (not sure which of the two)
• Left shoulder pain when left arm lifted straight above head
  • Action plan: similar to resolving right rotator cuff, I am going to basically use the wall where you press both palms directly into it and then try to flatten the chest. Things brings on the pain that I want to address

[Matt Chung]

Day 221 of stretching and flexibility journey

Spent about 30-45 minutes reflecting and reviewing my journey thus far (see previous post)

• Today did limbering (no C-R work) mainly on shoulders
• Listened to my body today, legs WAY TOO sore from this past weekend's (4 hour) dance workshop
• Finished 50% of 18 minute relaxation script before both my dogs started barking due to mail man knocking on the door
• Will probably move relaxation practices from mid afternoon to in the evening (or first thing in the AM) since I'm noticing that after 5 minutes into relaxation, I end up falling asleep (or feels as though I have fallen asleep)

 

[Kit_L]

26 minutes ago, Matt Chung said:

The more I perform relaxation exercises, the more I become aware (and sometimes annoyed) with tension held in my body

You have to picture me here, just smiling! Thank you for this reflection; it's priceless. Time spent on learning how to relax deeply is never time wasted.

[Matt Chung]

> You and a few other members here are doing the world an immense good service, in my view, because you are grappling with this difficulty

I think message landed at just the right time. Because there are times (more than once, perhaps often) throughout this stretch journey where I get seduced into believing that there's linear path, one-size fits all program (thanks Instagram for targeting stretching ads at me) that accelerates the progress and eliminates possibilities of running into brick walls, so to speak.

In fact, yesterday I got an Instagram ad for someone (someone who seems very knowledgeable with good intentions and has interviewed Kit on a podcast before) who sells a flexibility and strengthening program; in this ad, there was a before and after of an individual, the comparison made just 3 months apart, where they were able to get into a full front split position.

Again, seductive.

Fortunately, today, I ended up accidentally clicking on @Nathan post from 2022 and watched about 1/3 of a 3rd part 3-hour podcast between Kit and Yusef and I extracted some insightful nuggets from their discussion and ultimately, that conversation served as a gentle reminder for me to return back to my own practice.

[Matt Chung]

Oh and last idea for the evening: build my own little (indoor) sandbox of pebbles and gravel.

Ever since summer ended, it's been too cold so I stopped walking on pebbles and gravel at my nearby park where I walk my dogs. And after watching the YouTube video between Kit and Yusef, where plantar fasciitis was discussed, I'm having the thought tomorrow of stopping by the garden center and picking up a bag (or two or three) of pebbles and gravel and building a little sandbox at home where I can strengthen my feet. I had half jokingly thought of using legos (sounds painful) but legos felt too predictable and would offer less randomness than varying pebble, rocks, etc.

[Kit_L]

23 hours ago, Matt Chung said:

'm having the thought tomorrow of stopping by the garden center and picking up a bag (or two or three) of pebbles and gravel and building a little sandbox at home where I can strengthen my feet.

An excellent thought! Learn to balance on one leg while standing on the pebbles in the sandbox—while trying to keep the foot as relaxed as you can. 

[Matt Chung]

Day 225 of stretching and flexibility journey

Summary: "The duo that causes all innovation. Desperation and frustration." Tiny victory today: put together my own little indoor garden for barefoot walking on uneven gravel/stones (YIKES)

• Still recovering from 4 hour (floor work based) dance workshop 6 days ago
• Limbered shoulders (particularly left shoulder) and continued to do foot strengthening exercises (i.e. calve raises, eccentric heel drop)
• My right foot + calf + ankle feels more flexible than left, but weaker
• Constructed my at home indoor garden, consisting of various types of stones purchased at local garden center (was fun activity to do with my daughter)
• Daughter's feet are WAY stronger than mine, and less sensitive to walking
• Biggest takeaway is creating little mounds, adding enough unevenness and entropy otherwise not enough noticeable stress on feet
• Was cheeky and grabbed a handful of thicker stones from neighbor's front guard that were overflowing into walkway
• Tried lightly hopping on one foot and that brought on some major "YIKES ... OUCH", in a good way
• Will be interesting to see how reinstating this as a daily habit, combined with foot strengthening exercises, will play a role in addressing plantar fasciitis
• What's interesting is after walking on the stones, I feel temporarily relief immediately after; similar relief brought on by rolling foot on a ball (which I've read recently that it may not be advisable since this may irritate or stretch the fascia even more unnecessarily)

Some more reflection on what brought on plantar fasciitis to begin with

• 6 weeks ago, the pain also coincides with my adoption of 1.6 kg ankle weights used while dance training
• Introducing new exercises (too much volume) like jump roping for 3 minutes and 30 seconds hopping on one foot
• Increased volume (2) 1.5 hour classes per week to (2) 1.5 hour classes per week plus (3) 1.5 intense training

 

[Matt Chung]

Tangent: also love this little touch on the website, the banner at the top. Wishing everyone happy holidays as well

[Matt Chung]

Day 227 of stretching and flexibility

Normally, when I wake up in the morning, I feel pain in two areas: left hip flexor (or TFL) and over the past six weeks or so, plantar fasciitis in my right foot. But today, tiny victory: practically no pain in right foot. I think there's multiple reasons why its healing:

• Resting - Took a week off of dancing (feels like forever, but in the grand scheme of things, worth it)
• Walking on my at home gravel setup over the last 3 days - I do wonder: will I need to walk on gravel for the rest of my life if I want to prevent plantar fasciitis from creeping back in?
• Strengthening exercises (i.e. standing on tip toes, eccentric heel drops)

I have the urge to jump into training again and at the same time, I think I'd like to ease myself back into it.

Currently exploring strength based programs

On another front, I realize that over the past 227 days, I've more or less set aside strength training. I've always had aspirations of doing certain moves and holds from gymnastics, and I'm somewhat drawn to signing up for gymnastics bodies (although I have read numerous threads about ST being banned there). Another program I am looking into is GMB fitness since many of the movements — capoeira like – are similar to what I want to incorporate in my dance. Still another option I am looking into is stepping through the book "Overcoming Gravity", a book that I've seen a few comments where Nathan recommends them.

Similar to the starter program here on ST, I could benefit from some structure for strengthening. And then I can imagine, again similar to stretching, creating my own blocks and programs.

[Ned]

There are also a couple of monkey gym circuits on youtube that might also be of interest.  Here's one of them.  It's my impression (from having tried it at one point) that I'd need to work up to the full volume over multiple sessions or else start with some regressions in the pdf it links to in the description. 

 

[Matt Chung]

> There are also a couple of monkey gym circuits on youtube that might also be of interest.  Here's one of them.  It's my impression (from having tried it at one point) that I'd need to work up to the full volume over multiple sessions or else start with some regressions in the pdf it links to in the description.

Whoa. Thanks for sharing @Ned. This is on par with the type of strengthening I'm looking for! The L-sit at 18:00 (ish) minute mark, one of my long term goals (resharing my vision board as a reminder for self)!!! Naturally, I'll skip over the partner based routines (e.g. shoulder stretch at ~6 minute mark) but the rest looks doable.

 

 

[Gareth O Connor]

As regards the L-sit you'll get there

[Matt Chung]

Day 228 of stretching and flexibility journey

• Mostly limbering (shoulders, neck, hamstrings, hip flexors) this past week, giving my body some time off since even after 7 days, my body is still extremely sore from the 4 hour dance workshop and I'm learning to listen to the body despite resting for that many days does not come easy or naturally
• Throughout the day, I will walk on my at home gravel (also, my daughter and I love finding new stones when we're out and about and adding it to the collection)
• I had thought that C-R was the only way to increase ROM however what I'm experiencing is that even as a result of my "limbering" my ROM is increasing and part of that has to do with the fact that I'm able to relax and hold the positions longer. That is, for certain body parts and positions, I'm finding that I'm holding and relaxing sometimes for minutes and the limbering is producing some soreness (not a bad thing). Perhaps I'll reduce the duration of the holds during future limbering sessions

My daughter and I collected a handful of stones while we were out and about and added them to the collection

Day 01 of strengthening journey

Thanks to Ned's suggestion, I went ahead and followed along the monkey gym circuit and read through the corresponding handout guide (super helpful cues and reminders to tighten EVERYTHING in the body during certain holds). As I'm typing this out, I am SORE in a different way than the soreness that typically follows C-R, in a way that reminds me of my weight lifting days.

• Sort of wish I started monkey gym sooner and at the same time, holding off until I could confidently feel certain muscles engage (like hamstring) is conducive to using proper form
• During the first round of L-Sit exercise, could not lift both feet off the ground, not even for a split second - love this because I know that, as part of the journey, I'll be able to lift them off the ground in the coming months
• My core is weaker than I had anticipated - every time Olivia prompted "curl up a little further" I would cry a little inside, my abs begging for mercy
• Will poke around monkey gym follow along - YouTube recommendation engine suggested a hip flexor and glute strengthening, two areas of mine that I'm finding are quite weak (more supple though, thanks to last 7 months of stretching)
• Looking back at the footage, I notice that during the "hollow" position, I am compensating since, compared to others in the video, my butt sits higher. Next time, I'll lower my butt position while still doing the tail tuck (helpful cues by the way)
• Seeing all those folks at monkey gym, I am inspired ... and admire and envy of their ability. I know I am on my own journey, own path, but it is motivating seeing so many strong individuals.
• Resisting the impulse to buy more books (and do more research) to come up with the "perfect" circuit and for now, just want to get started and build momentum. Of course, I value accumulating more knowledge however I often fall into the trap of thinking and researching and end up procrastinating
• Could not finish last set in circuit, when Olivia said "Let's do 5 more of these", my body was already (beyond) fatigued by then and I threw in the towel