Conquering Fear and Establishing Goals

“Inaction breeds doubt and fear. Action breeds confidence and courage. If you want to conquer fear, do not sit home and think about it. Go out and get busy.”

-Dale Carnegie

Lots of stuff going on recently. Where to start…

Friday I was totally stoked to fit a group training session in with Mike and a bunch of awesome boot camp peeps. Because it was all people from boot camp and not his regular clients, he pushed us extra hard (HELL YES! BRING IT ON!). I was initially relieved that it was primarily upper body because my legs were shot. Once we got started, though, I realized my arms were also useless (I think Insanity may be catching up with me). lol Nonetheless, it was an AWESOME workout. We were all DYING. The warm up consisted of over 10 minutes on the stairclimber (Mike style- no holding on allowed!) for Adam and I. Everyone else had to run a mile; I wanted to trade. The rest consisted of stations various types of upper body torture mixed with lunges and box jumps. The first round was 1 min at each station, then 1:15 for round 2, and 1:30 for round 3.

And box jumps! No more medium box for us!

It was the first workout that I felt like I really conquered the evil tall box! Normally, I end up staring at it more time than jumping on it because- let’s face it- that thing is almost at my waste. However, this time I destroyed that box! (That’s right box! I owned you!!!) On our last 1:30 min set, I got up 19 times despite interference from all the guys rudely trying to get into their locker room behind me. Even more exciting, Kelly (the superwoman and blogger I’ve mentioned in my previous posts) finally conquered her fear of the tall box- despite getting bit a few times– and got up on it for her first time!!!!! We all knew she could do it, and now she does too! It was personal victories all around as another member of our group had successfully completed her first nonstop mile. Of course, that just how we roll at boot camp- smashing barriers everyday.

After our workout, I shared with Mike my new goal of doing a pull-up, and he quickly pulled over a box and showed me how to do an exercise to “wake up” my lats. Basically, I used to box to jump and then pull myself into the pull-up position. Once up, I had to resist coming back down to recruit the proper muscle groups. I already practiced some more today and am super pumped about potentially being one of only a few women at the gym able to one unassisted. 🙂

In other exciting news, Adam has started teaching me how to properly throw a punch in addition to some self defense techniques. Being such a tiny person, you never know when skills (or should I say “skillz“) like that may come in handy. It’s something I have been wanting to for a while, and now I just happen to know an instructor (and Marine trained “deadly weapon”). Plus, being a woman (and domestic abuse survivor) it’s certainly something I’d encourage to feel empowered. Who knows, maybe by the end of this I’ll be Marine Corps tough.