Plank Strength

I spent nine hours Saturday and eight hours today in a fitness certification training. For a core class. O.H. M.Y.

I love trainings, because not only do I leave educated, brain-brimming, but I leave reminded of why I love fitness and with my passion to share what functional strength can do to enhance life! That so many ailments can be resolved or bettered just with physical activity and increased strength! That fitness is fun, and I love how when I got home, my boys rolled out my mats and started doing pushups and sit ups and somersaults to "show Mommy" their workout moves! Although I still live with "Mommy tiredness" - I mean, I have three children. The odds are that someone wakes us up in the middle of the night. To actually get a straight night of sleep with the ages of our kids is not going to happen. And that's okay! But, I still feel pretty fabulous most days, and I feel even better when I take some time out of my day to move my body, to strengthen it, to challenge my heart/cardio, and sweat a bit!

Anyway, the training was awesome, as I knew it would be. I went through with several other ladies from my gym (including two of my bosses!) and not only challenged in coaching and many other ways to get out of our comfort zone, we were definitely challenged physically! The first day, we went through the 30 min core class in its entirety, held a three min plank, a one and one half min plank on each side, held a back extension for three minutes, and then did various other exercises to test our core strength. Whew. I woke up today, and was surprised that I wasn't too sore.

Nope. The soreness just set in all day long = ) And then we did the class two more times thru today, including some more drills, one that was a FIVE MINUTE PLANK. Five minutes! Now, the first time I heard this might happen, I thought, oh, I could probably do this, right? I consider myself fairly fit. But when I realized how challenging the three minute plank was the first day - ha! I knew I was in for a doozy and I was actually pretty scared.

I made it. I won't lie - a couple times I shifted my arms and moved my hips some. But I didn't drop to my knees. And by the end, my entire body was shaking. Sweaty. Tough, tough, tough. But, EVERY SINGLE person in that training successfully did it. Amazing.

I know that I'm going to wake up tomorrow and probably feel really sore right away. But, I'm kinda excited to see how sore I am! I'm weird like that = ) And because this program is so challenging, I'm stoked to share it with members at the gym, and to continue to strengthen my own core like never before. I've been practicing about two weeks now, and I already can feel some changes, which is awesome!

And I am so grateful to Eli for taking care of the boys for me to participate. He is one great Dad and Husband. I never worried for a minute that things would go well with the boys - and although it was the longest time I've been apart from Matthias during these long days, I felt so calm! They had lots of fun with Daddy, and I was happy to come into that front door this afternoon and be home with all my boys. He got some super cute pictures of them at Joy's basketball game on Saturday, which I'll post tomorrow - after I enjoy a night of sweet dreams.

***(if you want to know more about the class I trained for - look up Les Mills classes online)