March 20th - The Hardest Session So Far

Michelle had a huge breakthrough today. I could see a significant difference in her muscle tone and her strength.

From Michelle:

The Burn Zone was just a friendly facade...It's actually the Torture Zone! Nicole and I joked around about calling BZ the Torture Zone on the blog, but there were definitely points during the work-out where there was no joking in my book!;) I was able to do so much more this week and Nicole took full advantage! She had me trying out a bunch of new exercises so there was no way my body could get used to the same old routine! I'm feelin' it tonight!

My legs are feelin' it the most. Nicole and I worked both of my legs until I felt like my legs had turned to floppy wet noodles. I was in pain during the work-out, but that pain was gooood:).

It wasn't so much pain, but that's just my dramatic way of putting it! We worked on bending my knees, holding one bent knee up at a time with my arms, pushing down into the exercise ball, and pushing my legs straight. We worked on each leg individually, which I enjoyed because I could work-out each muscle group in each leg individually.

Michelle Holding up her Own Right Leg. She's a Little Model for the Camera!

As far as the arm exercises go, I did bicep curls, and raising weights out at shoulder-level and lowering weights down to my thighs with straight arms, and pushing the weights straight up above my head and lowering them down to bent elbows. Also, I pulled-down the resistance band that was hanging from the ceiling. Oh yeah, the sweat was building' up!

In addition to working out my legs and arms, my core/abdominal muscles got a hard-core work-out as well. It seems that every exercise I do Nicole is feeling my core to make sure I'm engaging those muscles!

Also, as I've mentioned before, REPETITION is a key factor to the sessions I'm doing with Nicole!

Man, I just pray that this work ends up paying off. It's somewhat encouraging to hear that all of my work is visible from my various therapists and from Nicole, but I just want to "get better" FASTER!