On Mondays it is my light cardio day. I have taken to getting outdoors on this day to be with nature, it is a way to connect with my spirituality. My husband and I bought our home in a woodland filled with big old tall trees nestled along the Credit River. We are able to leave our front door and in 2 minutes be surrounded by nature much like it was hundreds of years ago. We like to bring our young bull terrier pup, Declan on our hikes. He is beginning to build his stamina, he is our 3rd bull terrier to join us on our discovery hikes.
Today, I layered up do to milder weather conditions, put on my running shoes good for mud and poor terrain and off we went for our discovery adventure. Today we were off to cross over the river to the other side and onto another trail that would lead us to the remains of a Bird Sanctuary. Known as the Birdman of Mississauga, Roy Ivor cared for birds in the Credit Valley long before we became residents. http://cawthra-bush.org/THE_PLAYERS/Roy_Ivor_-_Bernice_Inman-Emery_Mississauga.htm#more_complete_history My husband and I love history and are eager to learn of the history in our new home of Erindale.
It took us close to an hour and a half to find the bird sanctuary site. It is unmarked however there is the original fire place from the cottage still standing to some degree. You can see the footprint of the cottage. As I walked around I found a dead raccoon that had come to the tree by were the cottage had been. It was said the Roy Ivor's had some 20 raccoons who would come visit him at the sanctuary. I suppose the raccoon knew where to come for its final breath. A few steps from the cottage where there would have been grass at some point there were little white crocus patches coming up. A nice sign of new life and spring.
I love hiking because you are free to choose where you wish to hike. You can choose to go up large steep hills, old paths that haven't been well traveled for years or stick to the well traveled paths if you prefer. My husband and I are adventurers, almost always finding a new path or trail each hike. 3 hours later we were on our street again ready to have a healthy lunch and a nice glass of water. What a wonderful way to spend the first day of March Break and get my exercise in too.
The feeling of holding an olympic barbell in hand is like no other. This past week I dove into my training. Regaining form, muscles, movement, energy, strength and along with many other benefits. Most of the week was spent with sore and aching muscles as I forced them to wake up from an unexpected sleep. I did however regain my momentum and my muscle soreness is settling down now as they are remembering what they are meant to do.
I developed a remedy for my muscle soreness which has worked quite well. First of all you need to warm up your muscles before exercise for 7 to 10 minutes. A dynamic warmup or treadmill walking will do a good job. You also need to stretch out the muscles you used for your various exercises for 20 seconds after your workout. Consider this part of your training.
What I did this week to help with soreness was make sure I drank a great deal of water or green tea daily. At any point where I was sitting in the house I made sure to have a warm blanket over the sore muscle areas. I also made sure I was in bed before 10 p.m. even though my energy was much greater this week. My bedtime routine is key to my muscle soreness remedy. I took a cal/mag supplement before bed, made sure I had warm bed clothes on, when aching was at its worst I rubbed on Tiger balm and I went to bed with a heating pad on the sorest muscles for 1 hour.
I also am enjoying my recovery time, having a nice bubble bath with eucalyptus epsom salts on Sunday afternoon does wonders for the muscles. I love my muscles and soreness is letting me know that I doing good by them right now. I am off for my bubble bath now. I hope you take some time for yourself today.
I have had a few people ask me what type of exercise I do, therefore I decided to share my home gym with you. When Brandon my husband and I bought our first house (this house) I stood in the basement with a grey concrete floor, white painted cinder block walls and high ceilings. I was dumbfounded, I new upon my first step that this was where our home gym would be. Brandon was calling me from probably the kitchen (his favourite room) and I couldn't move as I had just found the perfect place for our home gym. My dream was coming true, a home gym to keep healthy, fit and strong.
This is where Jane Trains.
Brandon and I love our power rack. We knew that we would get good use out of it and how to use it, it was our main purchase when setting up our home gym. We also purchased an Olympic barbell and weights to go with our power rack. This was so exciting for us. I get excited just writing about it as I remember the feeling all too well.
We had our Sole treadmill in our living room in our rental flat from a few years back when Brandon was trying to heal after a car accident. If you buy any equipment for your home gym make sure you WILL use it and that it is of good QUALITY. Go to a reputable fitness supply store. In Ontario, Canada we use The Treadmill Factory often as it is just around the corner from our house and we have had good customer service from their staff.
When we first began training we used free weights, changing the plates to accommodate different weights for different exercises. We lived in a rental flat and did our training in our living room, this worked well for the space. Free weights are good for many exercises when strengthening training. However, once I had the olympic barbell in my possession I wanted it in my hands when I was training, it just feels so good.
My training involves a lot of heavy lifting and conditioning. It is training that gets results, empowers me and gives me strength. Most of all I love it! I am so excited to get back on track to meet my bench press goals and dead lifting goals once again.I am inching to outdo my personal bests. It is important to have long term goals when training
so you always have something to work towards, a focus and maybe even a
dream. I
am planning in the next while to get using my pink 25 lb kettlebells in
my training also. I will share my goals with you over the next few weeks, I expect that I will be blown away by my results as I get back into training.
Before
setting up a home gym you need to know what YOU want from it. What is
YOUR favourite type of exercise ? How much space do you have ? Luckily
we knew exactly what we wanted in our home gym, we had the space for
what we wanted and we were able to buy it for our new home. Now all I need to do is getting training again and "BE STRONG".
There were many times over the past year that I had a talk with myself, wondering when I would be able to get back training again. I knew that I would because I am a positive and determined person. The real question became WHEN ???? Thankfully I have a great deal of patience because I needed it. Today marks the end of my long patient wait, today is the WHEN day!
After some serious thought into how I would begin my journey back to fitness I came to some conclusions.
1. I have to manage stress as I continue to heal and get well.
2. I must slowly get back into training.
3. I needed a professional to guide me through this journey.
What does this mean? Managing stress means I need to train from my awesome home gym and not be running around trying to make it to appointments. Slowly getting back into training means I needed to find someone who understood that I was still getting well as I work with my Naturopathic Doctor. A professional meant I needed a trainer to guide me in this journey who could train me online to get me to where I want to be in the next few months.
When I began training a few years ago I watched a video of an awesome young woman working out. I told myself and everyone around me at the time that I wanted to be like her ! I met her on several occasions and was so envious that she was able to train with the strongmen doing implement training. We connected online and have stayed in touch. Throughout my long months of illness I found her to be a great support from her posted videos of her and her clients pulling trucks and heavy lifting. Thankfully I could live through watching others do what I longed to do. She too has had her own issues with food intolerance and allergies. We seem to be the perfect match as I begin my new chapter of my life.
Today I am having her over to look at our home gym, talk about my goals and begin to write up a program for me to follow. My husband Brandon has generously offered to make us a super healthy gluten and allergy free meal for all of us. Until then I would like to introduce to you Jennifer Mulhall, personal trainer who will be doing distance coaching with me.
Soon this will be a video of me, although I will need a little more patience for that. I will be posting today's events to mark this exciting day. Until then "Be Strong".
