Returning to Relevé

Things have been crazy busy, so I've been a blogging slacker. Updates! I started doing my own strength training circuit at home through August, and was pretty good about sticking with it. I did both arm and legs exercises every other day throughout the month and definitely saw and felt some improvement. Now I just have to keep up with it because I've been a slacker so far into September. No surprises there, really. My stupid ankle is bothering me again, so now I'm seeing a PT (who is a former dancer, yay!) To the shock of no one, she told me that I have tight calves. What was surprising was that I have weak calves (for a dancer), and likely some muscle imbalance. We'll be working on that, and also checking my pelvis for any other imbalances. My first homework assignment is to stretch my poor calves every day (especially after class). Good times. The Pointe Shoe Saga also continues, because I dislike the Airess. I have two major problems with them: I can...

Slightly delayed due to my being out of town! Apologies. I finished all three of my 30 day challenges, and only missed one day the entire month (my shoulder was bothering me and I didn't want to push it), which I'm pretty proud of.  Things I realized: Planks are still evil. The longest I was able to hold one was 1:20. Ugh. Lunges are evil but also kind of awesome? I hurt for a couple of days but in that weird good-hurt kind of way? (I may be slightly insane) I can't seem to do back flies without making my shoulder grumpy, so I stopped doing them and just did the others instead. My butt seems perkier (?) but everything else looks the same. All in all, I want to continue doing strength work (both arms and legs), but maybe as more of a circuit type deal, which I'll try to do every other day (as I keep seeing recommended). We'll see how THAT goes. I think blogging about these challenges was good motivation because I felt accountable SOMEWHERE. I'll try to k...

Today is the 1/2 way point for all of my challenges, and everything is going well except the stupid plank. I hit the minute mark a few days ago, but have been having a hard time making it any further (even 1 minute 10 seconds is too much). I don't know if its because I'm more tired this week (my schedule is rather crazy), or what. Frustrating! As for the other two challenges, I like the exercises and the fact that I can get through everything fairly easily and quickly, but think it would be more beneficial if I increased the reps. For example, this past week it said to do 12 of each exercise, but I'm wondering if I should treat them as reps and do 2-3 sets of 12 (or something). Will have to investigate further!

While my dance school does have a summer session in the month of July, the schedule tends to be a little more relaxed. With that in mind, I decided that I should amp up some of my other training and start working on (what I consider to be) problems areas. For me, that's my core, arms, and glutes (side note: I read this fascinating article via the Dance Training Project's Facebook page that talks all about how tight calves (!) can be a by-product of weak glutes). So, I decided to give this whole 30 day workout challenge thing a whirl, and on July 1st I started a couple of them. The big one is the 30-day plank challenge (I'm trying the one from here ). Having a strong core is super important for so many aspects of dance that I thought it would be a good place to start. Plus, I kind of want to be a bad-ass who can plank for 4 minutes. If you feel like joining me, comment here and keep me posted on your progress! We can all be bad-asses! That being said, I'm alr...