Squad Day 36: Hip Mobility & Functional Movement
Oh the Mondays, I’m definitely feeling the effects of sleeping in all weekend and doing minimal workouts. I know rest days are important, but they always make my Monday’s so hard to get up. I think I’ve yawned 12 times already in the last 30 minutes.
Today marks week 2 of Novice 2.0 and we start the week with Hip Mobility and Functional Movement. I’ve noticed such huge improvements in my flexibility and my ability to move through my range of motion in my hips already, and my pain levels have gone down significantly since I started Valkyrie Squad. Doing all this mobility routinely throughout the week since Novice 2.0 began a week ago, has only added onto it. I no longer feel that tight band of muscle that wrapped around my left hip and ached all day. My low back pain is so minimal I have to remind myself that it was even there. I do still catch my posture slipping sometimes, more so when I’m tired. But I’ve been really good about holding myself properly and engaging my low core almost constantly to try and train myself out of the bad habit of slouching.
I ran into a fair share of mental challenges this weekend, between birthday celebrations and family members testing my patience, Mindstilling was a priceless assistant for me. Several times I found myself facing my eating disorder, and more often than that I was faced with snide remarks or abrupt dismissal of my differing in opinion. If it weren’t for those deep breaths, things could’ve gotten sour in a hurry. I didn’t want to stain my son’s 5th birthday weekend though, so I just breathed. And breathed, and breathed. I breathed some more this morning before I hit the mat and felt that stressed out part of me melt into a puddle, like a cat who found a sunny spot on the floor to lounge.
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Hip Mobility followed after Mindstilling, and I couldn’t help the small cringe during those first few rotations. My Glute Medius is incredibly weak, and it only takes one or two rotations before it is glaringly obvious. I could literally take a single finger and stick it right into the muscle during the rotation and show you the small singular space that the ache occurs. Meanwhile I’m also focusing intensely on keeping my pelvis forward and not “letting the bowl spill,” mid rotations, as my hips want to drop in the front every single time. Hip mobility always reminds me of the two weakest spots I have, and why I’m doing Novice 2.0 and not Blade.
Functional Movement required some weights, so I grabbed my 10lb set and got myself ready. I’m hoping for some improvement in some of these moves as I work through them today. I’ve seen improvement in every workout so far, and this week we have Functional Movement scheduled a couple times. I’ve not thrown my back out in over a month now, and I’m pretty sure these workouts have something to say about it.
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The fact that I even did this work out with a 10lb weight in each hand, speaks volumes to the strength I’ve built over the last month. I did each dead lift, press, row, with both weights and while I did have to stop briefly to remove my hoodie in the beginning of the workout, I didn’t have to stop or take a break at all. It felt kind of easy, I was sweaty and slightly out of breath when I got to stretches at the end, but I wasn’t shaking or dying as I got off the mat.
I have to say though, I really should have watched the main workout videos first before I wrote in all the mobility additions for Novice 2.0, because today’s Functional Movement workout had hip mobility in it, and I’d already done hip mobility to start! I did this to myself all last week too, and while some extra mobility work isn’t ever a bad thing, I still find that those specific muscles are super tired during the bulk of the actual workout, and I feel like I might be messing it up a bit for myself. I need to review my schedule and maybe even talk to Sam later about what I can do to change things up or make them more challenging for the rest of this week. I know that Week 3 of Novice we get a significant uptick in intensity, and I’ve been craving that intensity since I started 2.0. I guess I’m just worried that I’m not getting enough of that oomf in this week to keep me going strong. My improvement since the first time I did Novice is so great that last week I felt almost zero challenge, and this week feels similar, even with the dumbbells’ weight increase.
Today is most definitely a Monday and I’m feeling it. I struggled to get myself going, to get dressed and go workout, felt a little unsatisfied with my workout, and then when it came time to walk Yrsa, her leash had disappeared. I spent 20 min sneaking through a house of sleeping people so I could find her leash and kept coming up empty. In the end I found a rope to use as a makeshift leash for our walk, and then halfway through the first lap I realized I had forgotten our plastic bag to clean up after Yrsa. Had to stop in the house to grab one, and go clean up, and then continue our walk. And I didnt’ realize it until after I rewatched the recording of our Warrior Walk and Talk for Tiktok, but my hair looked suspiciously like bedhead and my headphones did nothing to help it. Yrsa’s herding instinct was out of control for most of our walk today and she kept trying to zip off after something moving or noisy and yanked me around all over the place. I have rope burn on my hand from our makeshift leash and her trying to chase every speck that moved. Oi, it’s a rough start today.
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I’m going to take a hot hot shower and make some fresh tea and hope I can reset the day. Worst case scenario we throw in the towel on our schedule for the rest of the day and I sit back and spend it reading Throne of Glass.
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