Wednesday, October 12, 2011

The Perfect Storm - Round 2

Saturday saw my first return to see Mark Kane and continue my implementation of plan 'x'. Don't ask why it's plan 'x' as I don't really have a reason other than it's easier to refer to something if it has a name. Besides, plan 'x' sounds sorta cool like it's an x-men experiment and I'll come out the other side strong as hell but with some sort of abnormality like poor vision and a slight onion tolerance. I'd rather have a tolerance to wild animals though.

Anyway, it was time to begin work on the areas of concern that were highlighted by the assessment; more specifically my back and glutes. I fall into the 'I sit all day and don't do shit' category when it comes to daily, general activity. Therefore, one thing that tends to happen is my glutes tend to switch off or go to sleep. The trouble is they stay that way and when I try to ride a bike or perform any complicated sports move they don't contribute as they should, leading to reduced performance. We began with some simple exercises to wake up the lazy ones and then moved on to a few more advanced exercises that are designed to engage the entire core but also focus on my weak areas. One is called the Inchworm. Essentially, you begin in a downward dog type position and slowly slide your hands out in front of you as far as possible but still remaining stable. The back must remain flat and not sag; hold for a few second and return. It's basically like a really hard plank.

We also did Mountain Climbers, but these were very much unlike the ones we did all day in the Infantry. These are designed to increase one's ability to resist rotational forces with the core so the movements were preformed very slowly. To me these weren't too bad until Mark had me do them on an instability ball. Nice.



We meet again this week and are going to start a bit of work in the gym to progress things a little. Should be interesting; drive on soldiers, drive on.

C

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