Connection

I wasn't in a fantastic mental way when I arrived at the gym. I was a little late and it really bothers me when I'm not on time. And it was because my stomach wasn't doing so well, and that always rises my emotions to bubbling just under the surface. After I got in the basement and put my bag down, I was on my way to my usual stretching spot and Brian winked at me and did a quick grin. I took a deep breath and the bubbling under the surface simmered down. :-)

He strapped me odd on Cable Rows because it's been a while since we did them and neither of us really remembered exactly how we used to do it. But, he 'pulled up a seat' on an exercise ball right next to me while I was doing my sets, so nothing could go wrong, even though it felt awkward.

The last exercise we did, we've never done before. It was an experiment. While he was strapping me, I felt pretty unstable and grabbed for his arm a couple of times. He looked up at me and gave me a look like he was kind of taken aback. He said "Wow. I haven't seen THAT look of nervousness for a long time." As soon as he acknowledged it, I was able to make a comment and talk about it, and it went away. Then I actually was able to enjoy the experimentation. And I even came up with an easier way of doing it so that we can continue to do it in the future.

I love days like this. It's a solid friendly reminder that we are a team. We're a small team, but, a team nonetheless. It's my favorite kind of day. There aren't many days like this when we're in the competition mode. It's too tense and I am too spastic. haha. But, it's awesome when we get a little break and just get to relax and mess around with stuff instead of having a structure.

Cable Rows - 130 lbs., 12. 140 lbs., 12. Then we went back to 130 lbs., for 3 sets of 10, and Brian had me focus on squeezing my lats and tucking my elbows and holding it for a second before the next rep.
Cable Iron Cross - 90 lbs., 4 sets of 12.
(Experiment) Single-Arm Sidways Pulldown - These made me real nervous because there was nothing to my back. But, I really felt them and really loved the exercise. Brian put me on the preacher curl bench but took out the pad that you put your arms over. Then he put a couple of folded over floor mats over the metal where the pad usually goes in for me to lean over and I reached up over my head for the cable and pulled down. He wasn't going to have me keep doing them because he didnt know how to get me turned around with out unstrapping me and taking most of our time to set me up for each side, but, i pulled my chair over and leaned on it for the other side and it seemed to work out just fine :-) I really like them even though they made me nervous. I love when we find more things to do. :-)

<3 Stretching <3