19th Jannnn =)

I've been off all this week so far with sore throat, stomach pains, and general tiredness. I think it's going around at the minute, everyone seems to be ill. Anywayz, last week I had a really good session, we split up into 2 groups, and our group consisted of me, Stuart, Pembury, Dale, Tumo, Liam, Luke, Mike and Cobie. The split was mainly due to too large a group for training in small areas. After we did a nice long warm-up, I worked on a few movements around the top of the stairs at City hall, trying to keep things fast and smooth. I also did the large rail precision at the top of the big stair set, which was quite nice. Stu then decided to attempt and horrificly bail 'Menergy', which left him with a very sore leg for the day. We trained at the green rails for a bit where I accomplished another rail precision that I was pleased with, I think I'm the only person to have done it so far so it was named the jacknife, Haha! Cobie accomplished some new movements here, doing two different underbars over one of the rails, he did them both really well and they're in the video of the day.
After this, we moved onto the college, where we acquired Jammie into our group, and we decided to head up to the Castle. There was a new play park recently built there, which we used for a while, and then trained around the rails there, working on clearing them quickly while using only the white squares. I think it left quite a few of us with aching quads, as the floors are sloped, and the uphill run-up added to the challenge. We worked on lots of different varieties of movement for a few hours here, and then worked our way back down to the centre of Lincoln where we met up with the other group, and me, Stuart and Luke did a nice warm down to end the day.

It was a really good training session, but it did take it out of me and I think I probably pushed myself a bit too hard for my current state, so I'll have to take it real easy this saturday, especially as I've been ill. However, the saiyans are down again! So we have another day of training with them, and we're also heading to the new chinese restaurant to celebrate my birthday. What a great birthday!

Things as of late..

So, christmas has been and gone and its the start of a new year. Training died down a bit over christmas due to, well, christmas, but also due to the ever-continuing problems with my knees and back. Over the last few weeks I have really listened to my body and have been much more careful with my movement affecting these areas. I've cut out a lot of high impact things and have been conditioning my lower body more, particularly with calf raises and shin raises to strengthen the muscles around my knees. I'm also stretching a lot more and for longer periods, and all of this does seem to be having a positive effect. My knees ache less while training and after training and I'm not feeling the loss of power as much as I was. However, my back seems to have seen the improvement in my knees and has decided to get worse, just to keep the steady balance of pain, or something. So yer, in summary, knees hurt less, back hurts more. This may also stem from missing a chiropractors appointment a few weeks ago now and not going again since, so I havent had any manipulation for over a month now.

This makes my christmas sound pretty morbid though, when it hasn't been at all. Christmas itself was great and we also managed to have a fair few jams, and a trip to Nottingham that was a nice break, and a good day all round. As for training in particular, I've been working on taking impact out of movements and working around my injuries. The other day we were practicing taking off the opposite foot for running jumps and with cat passes, as it's not only helpful for when you land on the wrong foot into a movement, but it also helps me because I'm not constantly applying force to the same leg on take-offs. The injuries have also made me think carefully about every landing I have to take, because if I bend too far then it hurts, but if I don't pay attention and don't absorb the force then it also hurts, so I'm constantly alert for how I move. Although I hate not having the freedom that I used to have, it's given me newq methods of training and a different mentality that I think will stay with me for long after these injuries (eventually!) heal.

At the minute I want to work on actual parkour as much as my injuries will let me. I mean being properly fast and efficient, not just that kind of fluid vaults and a jogging pace kind of efficient, really quick. I think I'm at the point where I'm really comfortable and natural with all the basic movements but I don't work nearly enough on putting them together and working on them like in a proper parkour situation, and that's what I want to do at the minute, so I shall make a mental note to post again soon with how things go :)

Love x