Physical Training

So, I went in for my first real physical therapy appointment aka I "hit the gym with my personal trainer". You may remember we were focusing on my upper back muscles. It was all about contracting those shoulder blades. I assumed an upper body work out would be a cake walk. Have I mentioned that I'm wrong a lot? Hard is light years away from what this was.

I started off on the hand bike (which is exactly what it sounds like). He set it for 10min at a resistance level of 2. In my head I was scoffing at his lack of faith. I actually contemplated asking him to bump the resistance level up a bit. I mean come on, a two?!? I'm Miss Upper Body, arms are kind of my thing. I kept quiet though. I was to pedal forward five minutes and backwards five. I was to focus on "pulling rather than pushing." No problem, I imagined a stubborn child pulling against me toward a parking lot. My PT wonders off at that point to do who-knows-what and I notice the horrible music playing for the first time. No distraction or motivation from that crap. The first five minutes got rough around minute three. I thought reversing my direction would be easier. Not sure why I thought that, uphill/downhill? Wrong a lot. I was fatigued when the timer went off and that was only the warm up!

Then we go over to a mat and he proceeds to teach me the exercises above. They don't look like much, but let me just say, "Holy Crap!" I was down right ashamed. My PT had two things to say about that: First, the more developed you are in the front, the harder it is to build the muscles in the back. Second, the PT had a professional body builder (with extremely developed pecs and such) who was unable to lift his arms at all during the first exercise. He claims the man was so embarrassed he never returned. I don't know if the body builder thing was true, but it made me feel a little better. It's amazing how entangled your sense of self can get with your physical attributes.

It wasn't all discouraging he did remark that there was definite improvement from my evaluation to this appointment. He said it with a sense of genuine surprise. His surprise, surprised me. I explained that he told me to squeeze my shoulder blades together as many times as I could each day until I came back, so I did. Cutting coupons, squeeze my shoulder blades. Folding laundry, squeeze my shoulder blades. Sitting at a red light, squeeze my shoulder blades. At any point when it occurs to me I squeeze my shoulder blades. I also reported a slight decrease in pain. Again he seemed stunned and said he was glad. I guess most people don't go home and follow instructions. Gold star, me.

I was completely...I don't know what I was. I was angry, frustrated, annoyed, a little bit relieved and really freaking tired. I felt like it was a total waste of time and money if all we're going to do are a handful of exercise I can do at home by myself (unlike my lower body PT stuff). I felt weak and frustrated by how difficult it all was. I was certainly relieved that I knew the cause of the problem and how do something about it. I guess sexy back muscles and perky boobs are a plus too.

Re-Charging the Batteries

Today's Molecular Monday topic was you guessed it batteries. Before we got science-y we did some word work. I noticed over the course of the last two weeks that Isaac reads every word on the dictionary page rather than using the guide words. We look up any work we come across that he doesn't know and then I pick one to be a bonus word in his writing prompt that week. He gets a .30 bonus on his allowance if he properly uses his bonus word. Anyway, this morning I gave him his first ever dictionary scavenger hunt hoping it would be a fun way to improve his dictionary speed.

He did well, but I printed it off the computer and two of the words there were questions about weren't in his dictionary. We looked those up in mine later. After that he wrote a story about going into space and what he'd pack, how he'd prepare and where he'd go. It turned out lovely, maybe my favorite of the summer. He had an eclectic packing list as expected, but his preparations were fairly logical. Then he took his rocket ship for a tour of extreme weather in space (mainly Mars and Jupiter). He even got his bonus word in there (it was scavenge).

Then after lunch it was science time! We read about Volta, discussed the evolution of batteries and made a lemon battery.

It wasn't as exciting as I'd hoped. You feel a litte tingle so you've produced a current, but that's it. Mike and I looked, but couldn't find his voltage meter last night (which would have read .01). Apparently, it take 5 lemons to light an led bulb and would take 5,000 lemons to power a flashlight. The last picture is an illustration from The New Ways Things Work. It's a farmer harvesting giant lemons on mammoth back he has a zinc spear and the mammoth has a copper spear and when they use them on the lemon they get a shock. It's a wonderful book and we read the actual information below the humorous picture to end the experiment.

After that experiment Isaac filled out his physical activity pyramid with his exercise plan for the summer. Then we did a heart rate experiment. Which taught Isaac (after several tries) how to take a pulse. It taught me that Isaac is woefully out of shape! One minute of running in place and he was acting as if he'd run the Boston Marathon. After jumping jacks and incorrectly executed push-up he was acting faint. It was one minute each with rest in between. Daily laps around the yard from now on. Here he is contemplating his exercise program while munching a carrot stick.

To wrap up our day he's reading. I messed up. I requested all 15 of the summer reading list books at once because they all had between 60-200 holds on them already. Well, they started to come in 3-4 at a time. I just let him have them all regardless off due dates. Oopsie. Clearly, he should have only been able to read the ones due back soonest before I gave him the next group. So, with two he hadn't read due back Tuesday with no renewals I gave him a "Two Books in Two Days Challenge". I told him if he could read the two books between Sunday morning and Tuesday morning when we go back to the library he gets a $10 bonus on allowance and a whole day off from chores. He's well over halfway there. Go Isaac go!

Home Exercise Program

It's called being a mom. I'm up by 7:00am everyday (not weekdays, everyday). I get up and start moving. No slinking out of bed and shuffling to the kitchen to sip coffee. From the first little pitter patter of Riley's feet I'm moving. First some bending and stretching during “put the toddler on the potty”. Than standing and reaching during the “making breakfast”. Than a quick rest while she eats. Then bending and reaching for the “gathering of clothes”. A lot of aerobic exercise getting her dressed and even more of it finagling into my clothes.

Standing at the sink doing dishes I shift my weight a handful of times to make sure I'm not favoring the "good side." Dishes and counter cleaning is all about endurance and balance. Picking up toys and entertaining Riley raises the heart rate. Nap time is the cool down for round two.

After nap is a brisk jog down hill. A literal walk to meet Isaac after school. Some juggling the kids' needs for dexterity. Dinner prep and sometimes some writing time for brain flexing. Then the energy runs out, you refill and it's the triathlon of bath, bed and last chores. Then collapse into bed so you can repeat exercises tomorrow (plus actual physical therapy, grocery shopping, returning library books,etc...)