Does somebody have an email address for the emotional side of my brain?

I'm going to write down a list of everything I couldn't do when I started working with Shawn, and a list of everything I can do now. Then I'm going to roll the list up and hit myself with it. Numerous times.

I figure it'll be one way to beat the stupidity out of myself.

I'm hard on myself. I know this. Shawn knows this (he tells me this a lot). It made me a very good student, albeit one which spent most of her life very stressed out. I try to keep it in check, but in reality, I suck at that. Perfectionism is like this little green monster that just runs rampant in my brain, spreading havoc over my sense of peace and well-being (plagiarism was too... maybe the two of them are related?). I know it's stupid, especially where the fitness thing is concerned. The reality is, I have been the fat little kid who got winded doing one lap of the gym almost her whole life - I am not athletic. In the last eight weeks, I have accomplished more than I have in the 20-odd years preceding. I should be very proud of myself.

And yet, one not-so-good workout, and I feel like crap again.

Hello, emotional side of my brain. I'd like you to meet the logical side of my brain. The two of you live right next door. Would you kindly pick up a phone or drop an email or something and COMMUNICATE WITH EACH OTHER EVERY ONCE IN A FREAKING WHILE?

This is the point where the emotional side runs away with its hands over its ears singing "la-la-la-la-la!"

Brilliant.

So, in case you hadn't inferred it yet, last night's workout didn't go that well. It didn't go terribly; I've had worse - not many, but I have had worse. I figured the best way to tackle this new program was to jump in with both feet (literally), pick the day that scared me the most, and start there. So I did. I did the complete plyometrics workout. It was convenient too, since my chiropractic appointment meant I was late getting to the gym, and this workout definitely would not require me to put in a cardio component afterwards.

What the workout called for:
3 sets of each, 40-60 seconds each set
*Short* rests between sets (from working with Shawn, I know this means 15-30 secs, 1 min at the outside)
1-2 min rests between exercises

• Side bench hopovers (hand on the top of the bench, bounce with both feet over and back, quickly)
• Tuck jump burpees with bosu (pushup done from the back of the bosu, then lift the bosu over your head as you do a tuck jump)
• Jumping lunges (start in a lunge position, switch to opposite leg by pushing explosively from the heel on the front leg)
• Bench side steps (from a dumbbell bench, keep stepping down with one foot to the side, then switch - like a side lunge, but from the top of a bench)
• Bench step ups (starting from the floor, this is just a basic step up onto the bench, done briskly - believe me after all of the above, sounds easier than it is)
• Then 4-6 core/abs/back exercises (this is part of every day - I actually love core work)
  

So how did I actually make out? Well, with the exception of the step ups (which I've been doing since my very, very first session with Shawn), which I managed to do for a full 60 seconds (though I took a considerable break before starting), I barely made it to the 40 second mark on the first set of anything else. I don't think I made it through three sets of 40 seconds on anything. And burpees... were an absolute disaster. By my fifth attempt, and third fall, I gave up on the bosu and decided I would just try to get normal ones. And there was no way I was doing that for forty seconds straight, so I figured if I could get ten in a row, I was doing well. I couldn't even get that. I'm concentrating so hard on not falling, not dropping myself during the pushup section, trying to remember to jump from my heels and not my toes so I didn't take out my knees (when the hell did all these people get taught to jump from their heels? I was taught to jump from my toes. For twenty years, I've been jumping from my toes - not that I've really had much cause to bounce up and down, and suddenly I get told to jump from my heels?); with trying to do all that at once, at reasonable pace, I invariably forget to breathe, which means by the third or fourth I'm completely winded and/or a little light headed. This is great. Even with my "cheating" method, I still only got two sets of ten and one set of eight. Nowhere near what the program called for. And I still wanted to die.

Okay, there's some residual bitterness there. And by some, I mean a lot. If Shawn had come by at that moment, I don't think I would have been able to talk to him without using a lot of four letter words. In a few different languages.

Logically, I know the first time Shawn introduced these to me, I got maybe, six. And still, I stood there last night, and even today, fighting tears at my inability to do better.

There's a school of thought that says you don't continue with exercises you hate. Replace them with something you like. I don't buy into that, personally. I think it's a case of take the good with the bad. I don't like rowing, or the Stairmaster, but I do both, because they offer benefits, and sometimes I just need to suck it up. At the same time, I'm really not sure if I'm gaining enough from this one exercise to offset the negatives. But the "obedient student" side of my nature says "it's on the paper, therefore, you do it."

Sometimes being a good student sucks.

I have a training session tonight. I'm in a great frame of mind, and Shawn's been pushing sessions to make them more and more challenging (which is his job), so this could be interesting. If burpees are involved, I might cry.