Day 27 - Middle Splits Challenge
"
The process is loooooooooong; quitting won't speed it up!
"
This was a beautiful quote I saw over the weekend and one I need to keep handy as I work through all these goals.
It's quite easy (especially for me) to quit a program once results aren't being seen.
And the fact that I haven't abandoned this goal yet is a win in itself!
Sunday morning, I initially woke up early to exercise; I ended up convincing myself that my body needed the rest more.
So, I went back to bed and woke up later to prepare for church.
After church and our social gathering, we got back home and I was in the mood to start the session.
The Training
I completed a subset of the warm-ups because there were adults in the room and I didn't want to seem weird gyrating my hips in front of everyone.
I did also complete the hamstring & glutes' stretch as well as some horse stance.
I didn't want to spend too much time on warm-ups; so, after about 8 mins, I was ready for the stretch session.
The Experience
Something has certainly changed during the sessions; I'm still unsure if it's
- the lack of pressure, realizing that I wasn't gonna meet the goal in 3 days
- the epiphany I had a few days ago, regarding the need for rest days
- the start of front splits sessions
- the reduction in informal sessions
- the realization that the journey will take time
or simply a function of time and mindset.
I now expect the 1st set to be tight and slightly painful; as I stay on and ease into it, the muscles relax more and the legs begin to move apart, micro-inches by micro-inches.
By the 3rd set, I was enjoying myself.
Yes, I was still sweating and yes, I was feeling the burn; however, there was a calm feeling & acceptance that the pains were necessary for the goal to be achieved.
Sets 4 and 5 came and went quickly;quite frankly, by the 5th set, I felt I could still go for additional sets.
However, I stopped myself as I needed to complete the front splits and headstand sessions as well.
60 seconds later, I started the front split session; I spent 60 seconds in pose on each leg and 30 - 60 seconds rest in between.
I completed 2 sets of this.
From that, I jumped into the headstand position to work on my balance and lower torso.
Informal Sessions
There were no informal sessions as I designated Sundays as rest days, free of exercises & major stretches.
I also downloaded an app that allows me to measure the angle formed by my thighs while in stretching position.
I compared the angles in the oldest photo I could find with the latest photo I took and there seemed to be an improvement of about 10 degrees between them (had to approximate the angle in the older photo as the photo perspective wasn't adequate for a more accurate calculation).
I know that this goal will be over in 3 days and I would certainly rejoice that I stuck with it.
Based on all the knowledge I've acquired though, I will be starting another challenge that incorporates rest days and longer training sessions.
I can't wait to see myself in middle splits!