Grace and the Ball

It doesn’t take long to realize that working out is a large part of my household. I think it all started for me with my injury, and this subconscious pressure to make sure that I was active so I could maintain my mobility and make sure that I kept my body healthy. It just makes sense. I have to make sure that I can continue to weight bear properly and that my joints are all happy so I can continue to have a good quality of life. 

While that’s definitely a large part of my active lifestyle, I’ve also come to realize over the years that working out is my selfcare. It’s what I need to keep my sanity during the crazy days, sometimes it’s my only hour to myself during the day, and oftentimes it’s when I have moments of clarity and creativity. 

Now it’s even bigger than all of that because I have this responsibility to this amazing kid to show her what living a healthy lifestyle looks like, what working out for your body looks like, and what it looks like to really take care of yourself.

Granted I’ve had to get creative since I had my kiddo with my working out time, and also super flexible because working out doesn’t always happen how I want it to or really when I want it to happen. So needless to say, we have a TON of workout equipment at our house. To the point now where I don’t even need to have a gym membership because I can do everything I need to do at home. Fortunately, because I know how to write my own workouts, coming up with new and hard things to do is never really an issue.

One of my newest additions to my home workout equipment is this little Pilates fitness ball. I know not everyone knows what this ball is all about, but if you’ve ever done Pilates, you definitely know what this ball can be used for and how much it can change the dynamic of a workout. Predominantly, it’s used for inner thigh work, which has all kinds of benefits from picking up your pelvic floor to helping the health of your knees. Regardless of its versatility, it definitely can take a workout to the next level so of course having one at home was a necessity not a want.

Unfortunately, when you have a house with a kiddo and puppies, a ball is a toy. So I’m constantly telling someone to leave the ball alone and having to hide the ball so it doesn’t get accidentally popped. As of late though, the kiddo is starting to understand that the workout equipment isn’t for her to play with and as she gets older, she wants to see how to use the equipment.

One day, the kiddo grabs the ball, puts it in between her legs as she has so often seen me do (for inner thigh work), does a single squat and gets this look on her face like ‘OH NO this is NOT happening, I HATE this.’ She took the ball out, placed it down, looked at me and said ‘No more Mommy, I’m done.’ So I looked right back at her and said ‘Baby you’re literally like every single client I’ve ever had in the studio in the past several years who used the ball for the first time. I know. It’s awful.’

Needless to say, she’s learning what she likes for fitness and what she doesn’t like and I’ll be there to continue to teach her along the way.

Getting MY Healthy Back

Because motherhood is a journey and not a destination and because even though I had this HUGE blessing of knowledge and education with fitness and nutrition, it doesn’t mean that things were easy.

So to piggy back on my last post, I truly am grateful that Grace is being raised in an environment where healthy living is a priority and she can learn about what it means to make healthy choices without feeling pressured to do it.

I distinctly remember the first Pilates session I did post c-section with Grace. I went in by myself because I honestly wasn’t sure how any of it was going to feel. On the positive, my normally conservative doctor cleared me for all activities 4 weeks post partum as well as post op, so I went into the studio in between classes when I knew I wouldn’t run into anyone. I had already been back in the pool and was walking, but Pilates…geesh that was a WHOLE other story.

Here I am on the reformer trying to figure out what I was even going to do because it was at least 3 months since I programmed a class much less worked out on a reformer, and I’m going through the motions and then I go to do a roll up…and my body literally said ABSOLUTELY NOT. And I remember thinking holy moly I’m gonna have to get a new job because I can’t even do this one and this is so horrible because I just want to be able to do this and I can’t, well…you get the picture, there was for sure a moment of panic. There was no patience on my part that I was so soon in the studio after having a baby as well as having major abdominal surgery and there was for sure no humility when it came to my body and what I thought were its capabilities.

So I took a deep breath, let go of my frustration and slowly, with time, the things I was used to doing came back. For the most part, although I will say that the majority of exercises feel different especially where the core is concerned and I did have a significant amount of re-learning to do.

And then I held myself to the fire with Pilates. I made sure I was going to class, I was practicing at home, in the effort to get my strength back up. Not just because I only make people do what I have done myself (and recently), but also because I needed my confidence back to I could effectively teach class. For me, it’s a matter of holding my tribe to the fire because I hold myself to the fire. I don’t expect that anyone will be able to do everything on any given day, that’s why you take your necessary modifications, BUT I do expect that people will show up every time and will do THEIR best every time. Not what the person is doing next to them, but what their body can do for them. I want to teach people to let go of their ego so they can have a true appreciation for their own body’s capabilities and be able to celebrate those capabilities, knowing that it’s only going to get better. I want people to show up for themselves and when they do those things that amaze themselves, I want to be the coach in the corner telling them “See, I knew you could do it.”