This is the last week. I think that I have had some success over the past 12 weeks. It has also been interesting to see how much I could improve in just 12 weeks. Although I wish I would’ve picked something else, I am still very proud of what I have accomplished.I do not know what I will use this new flexibility for. That is the main reason why I wish I would have done something else. Cheer is gradually starting back up, so maybe I will use it for that.
When I first started, my leg was very bent. Around a 90 degree angle I would say. It is now almost straight. Somewhere around 170 degrees. I think that the best way for me to measure my progress is through how straight or bent my leg was. Throughout the process I never really got too sore. This was surprising because when I used to go to stretch classes I would get very sore the next day. My back did hurt a lot, but it would only last for a few minutes. I experienced a minor setback a few weeks in. I pulled a muscle in my inner thigh, and it hurt really bad to do any of the normal stretches that I did. This caused me to only be able to stretch my shoulders, but in the end I think that only stretching my shoulder was helpful. Throughout this experience I have learned a few things. You shouldn’t push yourself past where you can go, and as you get older your body cannot do some of the things that it once was able to do.
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One more week left. I have found that I didn’t really like doing the project that I chose. I wish that I had done something that was more interesting and complex. Stretching has been interesting, but I don’t think it is going to be very helpful in the long run. I will never use the flexibility that I have gained, and I will probably lose it again. I am still very proud of myself for being able to get back to where I was before.
My main goal for this week was to see if I can get any more flexible. The result was that I found that I don’t think I physically can. I have grown too much and gotten too old. With this in mind I am struggling to find a main goal of the last week. I still need to find a way to measure my growth, so maybe I will do that. I have also found that I am no longer able to just pull a scorpion. I used to be able to not stretch at all and immediately pull a perfect scorpion, but now I have to stretch for at least five minutes and work my way up to getting it almost straight. For taking pictures I have found a way to make my scorpion look better than it actually is. I must lean my head back to my leg and lean forwards. Tilting my head back creates the illusion that my leg is closer than it actually is and leaning forwards makes me appear more flexible and over extended. If you look at my pictures, my scorpion starts to look better when I tilt my head back and lean forwards. This week I participated in a dance for Art Smart. In this dance I had to do a scorpion. The stretching that I have been doing was very helpful because I was able to do something that I would've previously not be able to do I now can.
The last two weeks of this project, I am going to be just focusing on getting the last bit of flexible that I can get. I don’t know if I can get anymore flexible. I think that as I have gotten older I have gotten less flexible permanently. I also think that when I was younger I was unnaturally flexible, and I can not reach what I was before. I will try my hardest though. I have reached a point that is really good compared to where I was in the beginning, and I am very proud of that. This week I focused on my back flexibility. I researched some stretches to do, and I tested them out. Some of them worked and some of them are ones I created on my own.
The first stretch I did was back bends. This is not a new thing as it is very helpful and necessary to getting better back flexibility. The next stretch I did was scorpion kicks. This is something I did when I flew at cheer. You stand with your hands against the wall and on one leg. You kick the other leg low, medium, and high. I did this five times on both legs. Another thing I did was a seal stretch. These three stretches seemed to work the best, and I am going to consider putting them in my stretching routine. Two other stretches I did was camel pose and pikes. These didn’t really help although I thought that they would. I am currently on track to my final goal. My goal was to be able to get close to doing the scorpion that I used to be able to do. I can do a scorpion very good now and I am at or above where I used to be. My back hurts a lot more than usual this week, and I am very sore for no reason. My posture has also not gotten better, and that was one of my smaller goals of this project. I have been exercising more, but this still hasn’t affected my flexibility. I have improved a little bit. I want to continue to focus on my shoulder flexibility. There are some stretches that I am going to tryout next week.
This week I did more back-bends. This helped to improved my back flexibility, and I am going to be doing them more often now. I am also going to research some more stretches to do that will improve my back flexibility. Next week cheer is starting again. This means that I am going to be flying again, and I will probably be getting more flexible now. I want to get even more flexible in the next 3 week, but I do not know if this is going to be possible. We will see. This week I didn’t focus on anything in particular because I started working out this week. I’ve been running, leg workouts, and ab workouts. I have noticed that doing these things have made stretching a little bit harder.
There was a little more bend to my leg than usual. I do not know what this is because of, but it might of just been because I took the picture after I worked out. I hope that throughout the next four weeks I continue to get more flexible. I don’t know any other stretches to do to improve my flexibility. This week my main goal was to see if I could find any stretches or exercises to improve my posture. I started off by researching to find some then once I found the stretches/exercises i incorporated these stretches/exercises into my routine this week. Along with those stretches/exercises, I continued to do my normal stretches that I have been doing everyday.
Some posture improving stretches/exercises I found was Child’s pose, Forward fold, Cat cow, Side plank and Downward-facing dog. I decided to do all of these stretches. While doing this I found that it seemed more like yoga. These stretches didn't really improve my posture, but that’s probably only because I only did them for a week. (Pictures of the stretches are included down below) We are now half way through the 12 weeks periods. I am happy to say that stretching everyday has significantly improved my flexibility, and I have gotten a lot closer in the first six weeks than I thought I was going to in the whole 12 weeks. I hope that I can get even more flexible and even closer to where I was three years ago. I am going to be sticking to the same routine that I have been doing because it has definitely been working. I might try and figure out some other things that I could try to improve. This week after coming back from not stretching for a week was definitely challenging. Obviously I pushed through, and I actually made some good progress! I think that tumbling more and going back to cheer a little bit has been beneficial.
I earlier had mentioned that I wanted to improve my posture but so far I haven’t seen any improvements. I think that next week I am going to look up some stretches that help with posture. I will report if I find any and if they actually do help. I didn't focus mainly on anything other than improving the things that I already can do. I also didn't push too hard and let my body do what it could do. I have found that I must do many scorpions a day, and no matter how much I stretch it’s all about the repetitions and technique. I am very proud of how far I have come and it has only been 5 weeks. Hopefully I will get back to where I was a few years ago. This week I had a little bump in the road. I started to do competition cheer again, so I was doing things that I haven’t done in about 5 months. This caused me to pull a muscle in my leg which prevented me from stretching because it hurt very badly to do any of the stretches. It also hurt to do a scorpion. I could stretch Monday and Tuesday, but Tuesday night is when I pulled a muscle.
I am hoping that by next week it will not hurt as bad to stretch, and I will be able to stretch and do scorpions. I am also hoping that this will not affect my flexibility any, but I’m noticing a little bit lesser in my flexibility. This week I did still stretch just in different ways. I mainly focused on shoulder flexibility and back flexibility because these are both imperative to doing a good scorpion. I have included pictures of the shoulder stretches that I did on the progress pictures slide in exchange for the usually weekly progress picture. This week I had major progress. It is no longer hard to do any of the stretches, and I’m only a little bit sore throughout the week. I have recently started to do more cheerleading related activities this week which could also be the cause of my soreness.
I have not changed any of my routine and it seems to be working. I think that next week I am going to start doing elevated splits so that I can challenge myself more. I have found that doing straight legged back-bends has really helped. I have also found that it is especially important to do more than one scorpion a week, and I am doing at least one a day if not more. Another important factor is shoulder stretches and I am going to be researching some to add into my routine. This week I not only focused on doing scorpions, I focused on doing scales as well. A scale is not like a scorpion, but it stretches back muscles. A scale is also another important body position in cheerleading, and it happens to be one that I used to be good at too. I have included pictures of a scale: |