Yay! We're back in action! Nicole hurt her neck...exercising!...and had to take 2 weeks off!! She was miserable and in tons of pain for the last couple of weeks, leaving me to my own workout routines...which were SO  much easier than my wokouts with Nicole! ;) But with Nicole's absence, my life got all jumbled and fell to shambles! Crystal, the intern that worked with me on the pilates machine/legs presses, is wrapping up her schooling, among other things, and is currently unable to work with me. So, I lost 2 days a week of exercise! And then, on top of that, my speech therapy ended last week. It's obviously not a physical workout that I lost,  but learning new methods for speaking is deffinitely effortful. I am glad however, that my speech therapist sent me home with a ton of at-home work so that I can continue to improve my speech and breath support. So with all of my losses stating  to really bum me out, I did decide to go to a class on Tuesdays,  where I stand in a standing-frame for 1 hr at Dominican Rehab. (By the way, I left early today because I just couldn't deal with the unfamiliarity with my abilities and the poor/annoying communication going on with some of the "fill-in" therapists!) When I got that text message from Nicole saying that we were back on, I was totally thrilled!
Due to Nicole's neck injury, today we didn't do any transfers, and took full advantage of everything other than Nicole's body! No regular arm warm-ups this time, we went straight into pull-downs with the resistance band! Nicole attached the resistance band to ceiling (like the TRX), and I pulled down, bending my elbows and imagining my shoulder blades meeting. Then I switched to turning my wrists around, facing me, and pulled my elbows down into my ribs. Then we confused my muscles by combining the two handles of the r.band to one. I pulled the r.band down to my lap with straight arms. This new "arm warm-up" hurts like a b-word! To continue with the resistance band, Nicole had me reposition my wheelchair so that I was sitting with the r.band to my side. I reached out and gripped the r.band handle. I attempted to pull the band across my chest with a slightly bent arm. Next I pulled down and into my side, fully bending my elbow. Once my arms were sufficiantly whooped, the arm warm-up was complete!
I guess the TRX missed me, because it beckoned me. Niccole had me line myself up and tilt myself back to do sit-ups using the TRX. Nicole made sure to not tighten the TRX straps too much, so as to ensure the use of my stomache muscles and not only my biceps pulling me up. I did normal style, straight-up sit-ups, and I did one arm sit-ups, working my lats.
After the TRX, I rolled on over to the pole...thicker than a stripper pole, more like a skinny lightpost. Nicole had me pull a resistance band in towards me, bending my elbow yet keeping it raised, horizontally, with each arm.
Then we did push-ups/chest curls. With my chair partially leaned back, I tried raising and lowering my arms holding the 4lb weights, but my arms were too spastic and my right wrist seemed too weak to hold-up the weight. So Nicole had  me do the motion of raising my arms up and bringing them back down with a weightless pole/bar. The inte, nt was to get my arm-muscles used to the motion with a more controlled setting. As I continuallys raised the bar up, Nicole decided to press down on the bar as I was pushing up. This was all Nicole's idea...I told her to BE CAREFUL!
Then Nicole got gutsy with her injured body, and we did some leg stuff. I straightened my leg up, bent my knee to my chest area, and kicked my leg straight-out again. Doing the kicking out part made me nervous... I didn't want to hurt Nicole! But after a couple reps I saw that my girl was taking care of herself and that settled my nerves We did both legs individually, then I raised both legs simeltaneously to the straightened position. Nicole was pressing them down as I raised my feet up. We did this for a good amount of time, so my calves were on fire and just felt dead tired!
Last, but not least, we ended our session with a lovely hand massage. While Nicole massaged around my thumb and I was shocked into silence with pain, she gave me some homework that I feel that if I tell y'all in my blog. I'll HAVE to do it! Nicole asked me to strengthen my right wrist by simply holding a 1-3lb weight and lifting my hand up...repetatively. Also, I'm supposed to get a hand massage from my caregivers EVERYDAY...we'll see about that one! ;)