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I got to the gym in time to do some cardio and my biceps curls before my session with Emilie. As usual, we started with me telling her how things were going, and then she decided what to do. (I had one request, that she check my form on the hamstring bridge—it's fine, apparently I was just tired last night—and then at the very end remembered a question so we tacked another couple of minutes on after I'd signed for this session and made an appointment for a fortnight from now.
We did a bunch of stretches, including a new one for my feet, and a thing to loosen my glutes/hips (she noticed the tightness, and yes, it had been bothering me shortly before the workout). The foot stretch is intended to strengthen my feet; in the short term, I am pleased because I found it reasonably straightforward and apparently a lot of people don't. It involves bending the metatarsals and then the toes, and she's had clients who curl the toes but that's it. (On the other hand, I was feeling it almost entirely in the tops of my feet, not the soles, which is less than ideal.) And some squats, a little different from what she had me do a couple of sessions ago. She's quite pleased with my progress on the verticality and balance; the knees seem to be about where they were, except that they didn't mind the walk down to the gym floor tonight, and did a little on Monday. Several times, we had to slow down or change something to avoid my right shoulder tensing, either trying to do work that was for some other muscle, or in a self-protective way.
Part of why the progress looks slow to me is that when I get something more or less down, we stop doing it as part of the training sessions. It absolutely makes sense that she wants to save our sessions for things I still need her help with, or new things—so, that refresher on the hamstring bridge, but we didn't bother with the balance thing on the foam roller—but it means that what I keep noticing and thinking about is new things being tricky or her having to fix my position or ask me to adjust my pelvis, and move my right foot slight, and "and breathe!" But while I'm thinking about posture and lengthening my torso, I'm much less conscious of foot position than when we started.![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
nancylebov, I've been using that Alexander technique idea you mentioned a long time ago, about thinking of my body as hanging down from my head. Also just thinking in terms of length of torso: both of these work better for me than thinking about pulling my abs/stomach in, and a lot better than anything in the "don't slouch" direction.
We did a bunch of stretches, including a new one for my feet, and a thing to loosen my glutes/hips (she noticed the tightness, and yes, it had been bothering me shortly before the workout). The foot stretch is intended to strengthen my feet; in the short term, I am pleased because I found it reasonably straightforward and apparently a lot of people don't. It involves bending the metatarsals and then the toes, and she's had clients who curl the toes but that's it. (On the other hand, I was feeling it almost entirely in the tops of my feet, not the soles, which is less than ideal.) And some squats, a little different from what she had me do a couple of sessions ago. She's quite pleased with my progress on the verticality and balance; the knees seem to be about where they were, except that they didn't mind the walk down to the gym floor tonight, and did a little on Monday. Several times, we had to slow down or change something to avoid my right shoulder tensing, either trying to do work that was for some other muscle, or in a self-protective way.
Part of why the progress looks slow to me is that when I get something more or less down, we stop doing it as part of the training sessions. It absolutely makes sense that she wants to save our sessions for things I still need her help with, or new things—so, that refresher on the hamstring bridge, but we didn't bother with the balance thing on the foam roller—but it means that what I keep noticing and thinking about is new things being tricky or her having to fix my position or ask me to adjust my pelvis, and move my right foot slight, and "and breathe!" But while I'm thinking about posture and lengthening my torso, I'm much less conscious of foot position than when we started.
nancylebov, I've been using that Alexander technique idea you mentioned a long time ago, about thinking of my body as hanging down from my head. Also just thinking in terms of length of torso: both of these work better for me than thinking about pulling my abs/stomach in, and a lot better than anything in the "don't slouch" direction.