Chasing my Dreams!

Anyone who knows me, knows that I LOVE a Challenge – especially in the fitness world!
I thoroughly enjoy “dominating over this body which doesn’t work 100%” (my ‘WHY’ I do what I do!) and once I discover something new I am able to do…I love to push the limits of it!

One day during 2015, I discovered the Plank…

Its a lot harder than it looks…trust me!

I started off seeing if I could make it to 30 seconds..meh…easy! haha.  Over time, I thought, you know what I’m going to set myself a Challenge here – so I put “#177. Perfect a 3 minute plank (without a break)” on the bucketlist.  Game ON! (Truth be know, I was going to put 5 minutes as the target – but, 3 minutes seemed enough of a ‘first target’ to strive for!

I started working at it at home inbetween my PT sessions…

…over time, I started to find even 1 minute easy!  “Hey…this really is within my reach I’m sure, one day!”

During a PT session, with Mike timing me – he boomed out
“30 seconds”
“1 minute”
….”1 minute 30 COME ON you’ve got this!”

I ‘broke’ at the amazing mark of 1min 57secs…WOWzers!! SO proud…SUCH hard work! haha

At that stage…even if I never made it to the 3-minute mark – I was SO, so proud of my efforts – being SO close to the 2 minute mark, I was very determined to break that time!
So, the work continued late 2015 – into 2016…at home, and at my gym sessions (solo, and PT)

My health then started to take a turn for the worst (it had been for a while but I pushed through, until I had no option but to face surgery) – I was booked in for major surgery late February 2016.  The last thing I was capable of at this stage was stretching and holding all the muscle groups which holding a Plank requires.  The Game Plan will have to change…

Fast forward to mid-2016, post-surgery and into recovery mode.  My medical team gave me a big NO (for life) as to whether I could continue doing full Planks (plus other exercises I had my eye on/had been doing already), or to push my body incredibly hard in certain areas as I had been previously – I can still ‘push hard’ but in different ways than before. From now on, my approach to my Fitness Goals has to be more of a ‘slow(er) and steady’ approach, instead of ‘fast and furious” so as to protect the repair work, and this ‘newly structured body’ of mine.  This was a big shock to me (I knew some things would change post-surgery, but I was too busy dealing with the very tough road I went through medically etc to actually process it privately in my mind). I absolutely LOVE pushing my body hard through anything and everything I throw at it, fitness-wise and I know I will miss pushing that hard in all areas) – but you know what, creating your Dream/ultimate life requires a certain amount of sacrifice.  I was very, very happy to go through major surgery (and its difficult, still ongoing recovery) and to forego/change my fitness technique if it meant getting permanently rid of the regular horrid pain and fatigue I been submitted to for a very long time, previous to the surgery.  Quality of life is SO important to me..if it means that I had to change things up, and permanently let go (and grieve, because that’s exactly what happened) my ‘fast & furious’ fitness approach I had been doing for so long (and Planks, as I LOVE doing them and trying to beat my previous time) – so be it.  As long as I am still able to be as active as I was before, and still strive for my Fitness Goals (and in some ways over time, I’ve become more active/strong (and definitely healthier!) because of saying goodbye to the issue which the surgery fixed…yay!) having to let go of some things/ways was fine with me!

Now this is where my Mantra, “Anything is Possible….in your own Way” comes in!

Imagine my surprise when, late August during a PT session with Belinda (I now have two awesome PTs – Mike, and Belinda), she brought the Swiss ball over to the Floor area where I was working, and introduced me to the ‘half-Plank’.  Wow….so I could still do a modified Plank?  I could not believe it…I was SO happy about this! I had accepted in my mind that Planks were a no-go zone – so to have it back in my life, in some form…well, this was just awesome!

It may look like I’m just relaxing against the Ball…but trust me, this was hard work – that’s a moving/rolling surface! Awesome to be doing a (modified) Plank again!

Suddenly, the fact that I had to ‘let go’ of not only aiming towards my 3 minute Plank target, and of the full Plank altogether – this did not matter one bit – doing them was BACK in my life! “oh Plank, how I have missed you!”

Thank you so much Belinda for re-introducing me to the Plank!

(this is crossed off the List now, as I have achieved what I wanted to achieve with it…even if I didn’t quite get to 3 minutes, I am very, very happy with the 2min10secs I achieved before I had to ‘let go’ of the full Plank). The fact I achieved that close to 3 minutes, in the state my health was in at the time, pre-surgery – yep, very proud of my efforts!

ANYTHING really IS POSSIBLE…in your own Way!