Bowling, painting and the wonders of MORE

So Saturday was a scary day. And it would be scary for anyone with back problems. *insert menacing music here* Bowling, shopping and painting!

Saturday was when we celebrated our newly 7yo and newly 11yo sons birthdays. We went bowling. Yes, bowling. Because well... you know... I'm a glutton for punishment. As someone with chronic back pain bowling isn't top of the list of wise things to do. But my sons were so excited so I bowled. I stopped in frame 8 but should have stopped after frame 6. My back just got too tired. So the moms and I went shopping at Goodwill next door. So bowling, then standing and walking for over an hour, the back to bowling and walking around the arcade.

Then we return home and I.... paint until 2 AM. Two coats on one wall, a coat of primer and a coat of paint on the front door. Around 1 AM when waiting for everything to dry for second coats, I decided that my only chance at walking in the morning was doing T-tapp MORE. So I did it. And went back to painting fully expecting to wake up with one of those bad back morning.

Instead I woke up to the sound of angels singing and a great back. Insert awe inspiring music here:
I felt great. No different than any other day. In fact I kind of felt better than any other day. I truly believe that t-tapp is my savior with these back problems. Adding to that, my bad knee. Almost 2 years ago I slipped and fell and hurt my knee. With my weight, and running on the treadmill, etc. etc. it never healed. It was always hurting in the morning and when doing stairs, hiking on rough terrain, things like that. Well MORE has a few lunges and lots of plies. But with the t-tapp technique of knees out, tucking, leaning away from the lunges, not only do my knees not hurt from t-tapp they are feeling better all the time. Truly amazing stuff.

Lest I forget: (oh and assume that I pretty much do PBS at least once a day in the morning)
Workouts:
Wed Jan. 5th - MORE Instructional
Thurs Jan 6th - MORE Instructional
Sat Jan 8th - MORE
Mon Jan 10th - MORE
Tues Jan 11th - MORE and Broom

Instructional 1, Back Pain and MORE

Okay so as a precursor to Charlotte's coaching I gave Instructional 1 a try again after 2 months or so on Saturday. A. it was hard. I was sweating and exhausted after. I forgot LOL. But unfortunately there is a B.

B. I woke up Sunday unable to walk. Now granted, Saturday also had some things going for it like I cooked a whole turkey dinner and was on my feet with a guest here. But still, I woke up with the worst back pain I've had since my great stair rail falling incident. It took many hours to even be able to walk. But I HAD to since my husband was asked to give the sermon at church since our pastor was out of town.

So needless to say I now have Instructional 1 phobia. And since Charlotte's workouts have you go through the Instructionals some, I was upset. Monday, yesterday, when I was supposed to start, I just didn't. I started the course but didn't workout at all.

Enter the Moms and her MORE.

My mom got MORE for Christmas and isn't um... that excited to start. So within minutes of getting her home from the airport I snagged it. Yes, it is now home with me. I just spent the last couple hours while everyone watched tv watching MORE on the computer with headphones. WHAT A TREASURE it is! I am honestly blown away by the sheer VOLUME of what's on it. I don't think people realize everything that is on it.

Besides a full Instructional, it has videos on how to get out of a chair, how to walk properly, how to get off the floor and how to step up stairs. BUT then it has a full MORE workout (20 minutes), a special newer at home with T MORE that's 27 minutes, an upper body workout with a broom, a 10 minute SATI type workout, and a sitting workout. Dude. Everyone should own this!!!!! The idea of being able to crank out a 9 minute workout when I need to or do a modified TWO (which is what the MORE is) for 27 minutes.

Okay rave over. I just had no idea it was going to be quite so great DESPITE Trish saying a million times how amazing it is.

SO I did the MORE Instructional tonight. It was great. Had lots of breaks. But had so many tweaks and form reminders that BWO+ doesn't. Aside from modifications on PBS and T-tapp Twist, it has a small set of lunges (which was just enough to feel a burn but NOT hurt my knees and hopefully back) and a tiny Balance Sequence as well. I think it's going to be a great workout for me for a while.

The ONLY thing is......... how will my back feel tomorrow? Tune in tomorrow and find out. I'd LOVE to be able to do a MORE Instructional Bootcamp without hurting my back. Love.

Workouts

Before I forget lol.

Tuesday: PBS, t-tapp twist, lawnmowers and Hoedowns

Wednesday: PBS, TTT, OIP/HF full version, Hoedowns - *note* when I went to bed it was the first time I have gone to bed where when I relaxed my back I didn't have ANY pain. Those stretches from OIP/HF were amazing.

Thursday: PBS, the stretching from OIP/HF - *note* was hoping to wake with no back pain but both the baby and Garrison were up most of the night in bed with me and I hardly got any sleep. I was a tad sore but not horrible. Who knows how I would have been should I NOT have done the OIP/HF

Friday so far: OIP/HF stretching, PBS - Woke feeling pretty good! Was a tad sore but NO weakness in the back! So did the OIP/stretching and some arm movements before getting out of bed and was actually ABLE to do PBS after that. I NEVER can do PBS in the morning. Will be doing the full OIP/HF tonight I think. Wait it's New Year's. We'll see.

Doing at least a little

So last night I was feeling sore. I mean it was Christmas Adam (Because Adam comes before Eve after all). Definitely a busy day. Town day, hitting raw milk pickup, Walmart, Whole Foods and Lifeway then home to clean up. All in the midst of chaos on the roads. And off-topic but still.. people drive CUH-razy trying to get their last minute gifts. Cuh-razy. So by the time I was going to bed (way too late but we won't get into that) I could tell my back was SORE and was going to be even more sore the next day. But man it was late. Late late. So I decided to do the unthinkable.

Well unthinkable for ME anyways. I didn't do a whole workout. I actually braved the world unknown to us all-or-nothingers and did the bare minimum. I did PBS (Primary Back Stretch) and TTT (T-tapp Twist). I was even too tired to do any Hoedowns. But I figure since those are the two most back rehabilitative exercises that was worth giving a shot.

The verdict? I was okay this morning! I was hardly sore. I was even a tad stronger than some other days. So I guess this is step 1 for me in my quest to kill the all-or-nothings. And look, it doesn't take but a few minutes to do PBS and TTT. It doesn't. So I will be doing it everyday no matter what. Period.

Wait. HA! Did you read those last sentences? I took my victory against the all-or-nothings and ruined it. I just committed myself to doing it everyday no matter what. Yeah. It's a sickness.

Hiding my head in the sand

I have come to the realization that when things are bad I bury my head in the sand and hide. No posting on the t-tapp forums, no talking to my HK friends, and of course... no blogging on my new t-tapp blog. So here we are. Time to shake the sand off, buck up and hop back on the wagon and any other cliches you can think of.

I took a good week off. I don't know why I do it. Well I don't know why anymore than I know why I eat 10 cookies instead of 1. Or none. Wouldn't eating none and feeling fine be just amazing? Anyways, so I didn't get around to tapping for a week. I was feeling invincible back-wise. My back just was feeling great (after the week of tapping before!) and I just let myself not do it. Do we know where this is going? Yeah, my back became a MESS after a long day in town, at the store, then cleaning my mom's house. No tapping+hard work=downright painful and hard to walk in the morning. Sigh.

So this week I started again. Monday and Tuesday I did BWO+ (okay I did Basic + Tempo which is a version of BWO+ but it's my favorite). My back was still stiff in the mornings but hey I could walk and make breakfast for the kids. I was on a roll. And again the feeling of invincibility crept in.... and Wednesday I tried to do the lunges after BWO+ (I got my TWO DVD 2 in the mail that day!!). I know, I know, I have a bad back, a back that makes it hard to walk at times, and I know that overdoing it is a recipe for disaster. But I'm an all-or-nothing gal. Sue me. So needless to say my body wasn't so happy the next morning. Was discouraging to have done my t-tapp and have my back hurt. But I did push it past my comfort zone and I know it was the cause. But discouraging nonetheless. I really want to be able to do TWO.

I did B+Tempo last night but was still sore this morning from the day before so today I'm taking a full day off. I did PBS (Primary Back Stretch) today with the kids and will do brushing before bed. But I am hoping that a full recovery day (though I admit it took everything I had not to pop in SATI (Step Away the Inches) and do that). but hopefully this full day will help me to really get my back ready to tapp again tomorrow. Less is More is SUCH a hard thing for me to comprehend. I hear it said on the t-tapp forums a million times but it's SO hard for me to embrace. I've always been the "add as many plates to my barbells, run as fast as I could, working out twice a day is always better than once" person. It's time to retrain my thinking on this!

Workouts for the week of December 13-17th:
M - BWO+ Tempo
T - BWO+ Tempo
W - BWO+ and lunges from Instructional 2
Th - BWO Tempo & body brushing
F - Day off/PBS and body brushing

Weight: 212.2 Sigh. I know that measurements matter and weight shouldn't but when you're over 200 lbs seeing that scale goes down is a great thing. I WILL have it down next week. And if I don't I'm sure I'll pretend this blog doesn't exist :)

Month 1 update and chat

So as soon as I started this blog Thanksgiving rolled around and I just well.... ate whatever, didn't workout for a week and well you know how that goes right? I'm certainly not the only person in the world who does that kind of stupid thing and lives to regret it. Right?

I think sometimes we do things because we need to be reminded of just how crappy they make us feel so we get re motivated to NOT do them. So after a week of no t-tapp I woke one fine gorgeous Sunday morning unable to walk. Truly the worst day since I started t-tapp a month ago. It was the worst day since this lack of disc started causing me problems. Truly a dark dark day.

And of course Clay asked why I haven't been doing my t-tapp. Sigh. I don't know honey, why am I overweight, why do I eat so much, why is this house a mess, why didn't I brush my teeth last night, why didn't I do my t-tapp? Argh. Just because I know it's good for me doesn't mean I do it. Clearly.

*quick sidetrack* So that dark bad back no good day? So after hours upstairs in bed I decided to brave the downstairs. I literally had to brace myself on the wall and stair rail, white knuckling it the whole way down. I got about halfway downstairs and our HUGE 100+ lbs handmade with rough timber siderailing on our stairs ripped off the wall and crashing to the ground. It was quite scary since it hit the chair where on a weekend morning a child is usually playing some of their only allowed "game time". It was 3 feet away from our 1 year old. Scary. And at the same time incredibly depressing that me and my 200+ lbs was too much for the railing. Now I should note that WE did not make that handrail, the guy who made this rocking little house did. Just making that clear to save my husband's reputation and all that. Turns out those screws the dude used just weren't that long. Go figure. And I'm fat and exert way too much force. Pfft.

So I hopped back on the t-tapp wagon. Monday I did BWO+ and yesterday did BWO+. After Monday's workout I woke up able to walk but still a tad sore. And after yesterday's t-tapping I awoke this morning feeling pretty darn good if I do say so myself. This whole t-tapp thing never ceases to amaze me. I was such an anti-t-tapper for SO long. And here I am unable to skip even a day without my body freaking out! Who would have thought?

And here we go

To be honest, I can't believe I'm not only starting this blog but doing t-tapp at all. Confession time. I have been a long time anti-t-tapper. From my research I have been a die-hard weight lifter and interval type cardio gal. And I admit that I love pulling around a big heavy barbell. I do. I don't really like doing sprints but I "got" why intervals worked. But I didn't "get" t-tapp. And to be honest I still lean towards natural movements being better for the body. I have friends who have argued with me about it. Friends who have had great results by the way. Friends who LOVE t-tapp. We've gone back and forth. And I'm well known amongst them as the anti-t-tapper.

Enter my back pain. There's something about getting told you basically have NO lowest disk and it's a surprise you can walk. There's something about waking up in the morning to a family of 5 kids and NOT being able to walk. There's something about not being able to carry your baby downstairs without your back giving out and falling. There's something about the doctor telling you that if you continue on the exercise path that you're on that you may end up bedridden for months at a time that just well . . . . changes things.

So here we are. There was only one no impact, spinal alignment exercise that I thought of as the Dr. told me that I needed to change my life. T-tapp. MAN there's nothing like having to eat crow I tell ya that much. Even had one person I know somewhat call me out "what happened? I thought you were totally against t-tapp". I talked to Clay about it and got Basic Workout Plus. I joined the t-tapp forums and got to reading.

And here we go. On a journey in the pursuit of tappiness. And so begins a blog about my t-tapp journey hopefully from an overweight, tired, in pain homeschooling mom of 5 to a healthy, thinner, stronger, more active mom of... who knows how many by the time I get there lol. (oh the first post of any blog is always the hardest and the worst. Bear with me)