This is my second attempt at this post, the first was a week ago before making a conscious decision to do less physical training, and now at the end of the week where my body and mind are in a much better space.
It’s week 4 back into training again after the Christmas break and a nice way of describing how I felt last week that I wasn’t quite in my usual groove yet.
I have a pretty active lifestyle. At the end of last year, I was doing 6 days of Crossfit per week and 2-3 Zumba classes per week, some as an instructor and was teaching ballet and contemporary dance one night a week. It was pretty full on and to be honest I was a bit tired by the end of the year. It was fine though because I knew I had 3 weeks of Christmas holiday to recover my body and my recharge my spirit.
I’m not sure what happened over Christmas, but the holidays were gone in a flash. I kept running and a few other workouts, but I always felt that nagging thought at the back of my mind that I should be doing more. I never actually switched off and I returned home exhausted and a couple of kilos heavier from too much Christmas cheer.
Dance classes aren’t back on yet, and the Zumba takes most of January to return to full swing which is a bit of a blessing. But I’ve managed to add pole dancing and Comp Squad to my list.
Comp Squad is a part of Crossfit. I worked my butt off to meet the requirements for the team tryouts, double unders miraculously fell into place and I felt so fit and strong at the end of last year. Comp Squad means 2 sessions of weakness training per week plus Friday Night Lights which is where the members of the Comp Squad get together and train pretty intensely.
The Pole dancing comes in because I have an awesome friend who has opened a gym, and I feel incredibly guilty that I have no intention of leaving Maia. My friend’s gym is a different style of gym to Crossfit, and I am well and truly entrenched in the Maia fold. BUT, to support Daniela and her endeavors I thought I’d give pole dancing a go. It turns out doing Crossfit and dancing makes you a natural at pole dancing, who knew. I guess it makes a lot of sense, but it was starting to feel like something else I was trying to fit in and I needed to find the balance.
Was I any better off for participating all of this insanity? No.
A big fat no.
I wasn’t even back to the same strength I was at before Christmas because I was constantly exhausted. My body wasn’t having time to recover and I wasn’t managing to do anything to the level I’d like to.
So the plan for this week was to only do 4 Crossfit classes, plus my weakness training and Friday night lights, cut back to a maximum of 2 Zumba classes and be in denial about the fact Pole dancing is a workout and treat it as a fun, active rest kind of dance session.
The result: a couple of PB’s in class, both for strength and fitness, and I laughed all the way through Pole dancing. I’ve arrived at Friday, everything I wanted to do is done and I’m heading away for the weekend with my family to Auckland to see the Foo Fighters. I’ll have my gym clothes because I’m going straight from Friday Night Lights to the airport, but I have zero intention of putting them on again until next week.
I think the intention of actually doing less is just as important as doing less, rather than doing less because you’ve fallen in a heap. It cleared my brain and my physical results were so much better, I feel like I’m almost back on top of it all. It’s a big mind shift because I felt like I was behind and needed to do more to catch up. Bring on next week.
