A new audience, and some achievements


After school today, my wife read yesterday’s blog post to my girls (replacing their names, to reduce their confusion). They were apparently quite entertained, but immediately demanded to know what I’d written about today. So now I have a new audience to worry about. I suppose that means less swearing. I also changed the theme of cushtie.com today (it’s not changed for a few years so I felt it was time…)
This evening I had another physical training session at Boulder Movement. It was harder than last week; my trainer finds ways to make one legged squats, lunges and hanging from the chin-up bar more challenging. Much more challenging. It’s also mystifying to me how little my heart rate climbs during these sessions. I might be breathless after trying to lift my own body weight, but my heart never even gets to 100 bpm. Am I super efficient or just weak?

At the end, we did stretches. Perhaps as a result of years of shorinji kempo, and a nasty hold where you pull somebody’s arm and rotate it while immobilising the shoulder, some stretches don’t stretch the expected muscles at all. So stretching my bicep is a bit harder than one would think. Or maybe I killed all the pain sensors in my shoulders years ago.

(Actually, La Serpiente may be a natural for MMA. More than once she’s jumped on me recently and done a fairly effective arm bar on me. Is she training in secret? Will she or Stone Cold Destroyer be the first champion in the family?)

Anyway, after that session I was pretty exhausted. I did two problems that I haven’t managed before (on a slab, where, because the wall is slanted away from you, rather than overhanging, I’m worried I’ll slip and hit every bolt-on on the way down) which was satisfying, and then I went home and tried to juggle with three balls, as I’d managed to juggle with 2 successfully for ten attempts in a row. I managed to get all three balls up in the air and then caught at least once out of 10 times, so I’m feeling well on the way to completing resolution number 2 on my list this year.

And so to bed.


One response to “A new audience, and some achievements”

  1. I’ve never thought about measuring heart rate when attempting pull ups (I can’t do them from dead hang although I’ve been trying for ages. I can only do them from standing.) I’d also assumed that it must be the most rate raising thing I do. Oh, apart from spin biking. I’ve realised that cycling in the winter is rubbish – it’s always dark so you can’t really go for it in case you hit a pothole or a patch of glass. There’s a gym in Brighton that has MyRide machines, they’re amazing. I didn’t realise there were bouldering based workouts, that sounds like a good combination.

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