Last night my husband and I added an exciting new addition to our home, a rather large and fantastically sturdy bookcase, crafted with love by his own two hands.
It is 7 feet tall. As the pieces began to form the bookcase shape out in his shop, it was intimidating to think about how we were getting it in the house. Not because it was large beyond the doorway or Kyle hadn’t measured and planned the design to fit in our house, but instead who was going to help us carry this?
It looked heavy and ominous. Quite tall. I used to have more upper body strength from working manual labor jobs when I was younger but I lost it over time. I’ve learned that toning and building muscle seem to require more nuance than just practice and I was not doing the latter. Recently when we have carried things, my arms have been noodles, my strength as effective as trying to herd squirrels.
But I was pleasantly surprised, not because I magically became buff or someone else appeared to carry that thing up the stairs and into the house. Wall pilates came in clutch.
See there was an important building block I forgot about where true strength lies in your foundation, which is made ready through discipline. All those I got!
I mentioned in #34 – Shaping Up that I was getting serious about toning my waist for real this time. In doing so I have challenged myself to do at least one minute wall sit and one minute of planks per day. I’ve been doing this for over two months and have added wall pilates and deep-core training along the way. I’ve made my foundation strong by training my legs and my core, which blew me away last night because I think I lifted properly for the first time in my life.
It was all legs and core, my back and my arms didn’t hurt for a second. This is a first! And actually, I was able to shift the empty bookcase a bit on my own. This has shown me that like in everything in life preparation does make the difference. It’s important to keep up with my routine, even when I don’t feel like doing it because I’m busy. This training and discipline have positively affected my ability to do things before I even knew what was ahead of me! I was so relieved to be able to help him instead of having to ask my stepdad or brother-in-law.
I am quite pleased by both the results of deep core training and more importantly how lovely this bookcase looks in our house. He did a fantastic job!
One Rabbit Riot 