Tuesdays are Widget Days

Tuesdays are always like a wake-up call to my muscles because they "sleep" on Fri-Mon. It's funny, on Fridays and Saturdays I'm grateful for the time of rest, but by Sunday, I'm bored of it. I miss Nicole and the crazy activities/exercises she has me do! But, when I'm back in the gym on Tuesday, my muscles slowly wake-up, and I always seem to feel good, refreshed after my workouts.

Nicole and I have officially decided to make Tuesdays the Widget Day. So, seeing as how today is Tuesday, I came to the studio in my manual widget wheelchair. I started out doing 10 minutes of pumping the widget forwards back-and-forth across the studio floor. At each end of the studio, I turned my chair around only using my right arm to pump. Then, I spent 10 minutes pulling the widget-arms backwards back-and-forth across the studio. Again, I only used my right arm for turning around.

After the warm-up session, Nicole set up an obstacle course for me. This first obstacle coure was modeled after barrel racing...ya know, like at a rodeo! She set up 4 blocks for me to pump my widget around, and a "finish line" block. The course was set up so that on pumping the widget around the blocks, I used my right arm on one, then when I reached the next, I would use my left arm.

Then, Nicole switched it up and set up a different obstacle course. This course was designed to make me work on switching direction, forwards and backwards. I went forward to one block, switched the widget to reverse, and backed up to the start again. Then I went forward to another block, switched the widget to reverse, and once again backed up to the start again. Then I pumped the widget forward, past the first two blocks, and made a hard right towards the third block. I pumped the widget to that block, around it, and went diagonally forward to the next block. Once I reached that block, I moved around it, then pumped straigh back to the starting-line.

I went through that obstacle course twice. The first time, I struggled with pushing myself back after falling too far forward when switching the widget from forward to reverse. The second time I did the course, I was able to keep my upper-body back in the chair, not falling forward at all. I deffinitely got a good ab workout, seeing as how my stomach muscles are feeling the after-affect right now as I type!

And as Nicole and I said our goodbyes, she decided to have me pump the widget out of the studio, to the parking lot. The exit has a big ol' threshhold that I deffinitely could not wheel myself over a few weeks ago. But with one big pump, I was easily able to pump my wheels over and out the door!