Gymnastics: Interrupted

It has been a few weeks since I updated about my gymnastics class. I have been busy or ill and not really had time to get to my posting. I am working on finding a schedule that will allow me to update weekly without having to resort to a couple weeks bunched into one post.

Gymnastics has been going well. I have discovered, however, that what I am doing during the rest of the week can negatively impact my class. For a while, I wasn’t eating three or more meals a day. I just wasn’t that hungry. I just ate one and maybe two times a day. I would drink coffee all day long and not drink water. I know, I know. Drinking water is important, but I really thought I was getting enough liquid to stay hydrated. I would stay out of my apt until Starbucks closed, then go home and play video games or watched DVDs. I wasn’t getting enough sleep.

In the meantime, when gymnastics came around, I would stop the coffee for the day and drink water. I would make sure I ate plenty that day and took some vitamin supplements. I still didn’t get enough sleep. I am a nightowl, I am more awake at night usually. In hindsight, I can see all this was illogical thinking and even while I was doing it, I wasn’t truly fooling myself.

When I was at the gym and actually trying to do such things as cartwheels, handsprings and backtumbling, I was getting weaker and weaker. Now don’t point this out and say, “See! You should’ve known from this!” because the problem is it happens regardless. Usually it is my signal to take a week off. Usually when I get back, I’m fine. I still have the problems with missing a week, but generally, it is usually one of my best days. You see, I am extremely overweight. I have a tendency to push a bit harder than I should and then my muscles tighten up and start constricting movement and weird things like that. After that break in working out, my muscles have generally relaxed into a more normal shape and they are ready to go at it again. I also have strange advantages such as I can see a visible change in body shape.

All these things are what I am supposed to see. But while I was doing all this other less healthy stuff, I was simply getting weak. So that when the warm weather hit, I instantly dehydrated. When I took a week off gymnastics, I returned to find nothing had changed and I was still as weak as ever. And then I tripped and landed on the knee that has been giving me issues for the last two years. Yay for clumsy me. I was ill, I was dizzy, I was worried about myself. I immediately hit the two or more meal a day regimen I had been on, with a focus to try for three (breakfast is my weak point, I don’t eat it), started stuffing myself with vitamin supplements daily instead of weekly and cut back on the coffee focusing on having more water daily.

When I went back to my class today, I found I was energetic and ready to tackle my issues again. I didn’t get weak and I was simply amazed that my knee, though it hurt, didn’t cripple my attempts for the most part. I may not have the visible body shape option this time around, but I can certainly tell that I really must remember not to do this stuff again. I finished the class with a lot of energy. I could probably have taken a slightly longer class with no issues today.

As a class update: I have not progressed much in my handsprings. I have to keep switching back and forth between the medium and small barrel because I keep regressing. In the back tumbling segment, I feel I am going back a bit faster and am completely amazed that I am not collapsing on the back end. I will still need the giant barrel for a several more months, but I feel like I am getting closer to both answers.