Wonder Woman

 

I wore my back-brace to training today. Normally I wear it at home only because it's pretty restricting, as far as moving my upper body goes. But Nicole said to wear it in our session today, so I did! It's a lil uncomfortable after awile...my spine is curved from the muscles pulling it over to the left side up top...so the brace tends to rub on the skin right under my armpit!

 

So, I had my back-brace on so that we could try standing with it on. When I'm wearing the brace, my spine and hips totally get straightened out. We were hoping that by wearing it, my standing would improve.

 

So, after my arm warm ups, I wheeled my way over to the TRX to test my standing skills. I held onto the TRX handles above my head, took a deep breath, and hoisted myself up to a stand. Nicole had me pull-in my hips, spread-out my legs, and work on shifting my weight over to each leg. I also tried stepping forwards, which was easily done on the left side, but bending my right knee and stepping forward with that right foot is sooooo hard! It just won't move! Incredibly frustrating!

 

Oddly enough, my right hip started really hurting, so Nicole helped me back in my chair. Although the back-brace wasn't magic, it helped to stand a lot straighter than without it.

 

In the wheelchair, I did some gnarley pull-ups! I lifted both of my feet straight up while I used my arms to pull-up my upper body! Nicole was amazed and had to record it!

After seeing the video, I was pretty amazed with myself, too! My mommy will be so proud of my brute strength!

I think Nicole was getting a kick out of seeing me pull myself up so high, that she had me keep doing it over, and over, and over again! At last, my arms were killing me so she had me let go of the TRX, and just do a bunch of leg lifts.

I also spent some time doing knee raises, and then it was back to the TRX! Nicole had me switch off pulling my arms down...I held on to both TRX handles abvoe my head the whole time.

And my ankles are pretty tight, I have trouble pointing and flexing my feet. We worked on that a bunch, too. Nicole stood at my feet, and helped my muscles to understand the point and flex motions. She woul point and flex my feet, having me do the motion as much as I could, then she would stand back and have me try to do it alone. We did so many of these, my calves were burining, so I knew it was working!

Nicole wants me to stand-up in some sort of harness, and do squats to work my legs. Since I am lacking in the "harness department," we tried simulating what a squat would feel like. Nicole had me tilted back, raised my legs up with my knees bent, and using her whole body weight as resistace, I pushed my legs straight. We quickly decided that I should only use my right leg, since my left leg seemed to straighten faster. I REALLY gave my right leg a good workout with that!

Today was definitely a hard workout, but I'm glad I can show it off in my blog!