Emiko: Day 42, Are Those Shoulder Pads?

Hey gang,

I just finished another work out and a fabulous round of 8 minute abs. Today required a lot of mental strength to get through my work out. Not only is it physically difficult to do these new, more concentrated sets of exercises, but I am struggling to keep my body from cheating when things get tough.

My heightened awareness of this was all triggered in a small but eye-opening moment. Earlier, Adrian and I were hanging out in the living room, chatting and laughing and basically feeling pretty carefree. I moved from the sofa to sit on Adrian's lap in our armchair. A minute later, he put his head on my shoulder to rest his head. All of a sudden, he got a confused look on his face, and lifted my sleeve to look at my shoulder.

I thought to myself, "Oh, my shoulders must be getting so strong! Adrian must not have been expecting the muscle to be so hard." I was getting all proud inside of my head, and casually asked him, "What is it?" Adrian replied, "Oh, your shoulder just felt so soft and puffy, I thought you might be wearing a shoulder pad." I was so mad! First, I would never wear shoulder pads. Second, I thought that my shoulders were getting stronger after so many days of sweating through Shoulder Raises. What is going on here?

So I decided not to let myself cheat anymore. During tonight's work out, I focused all of my mental energy on the muscle I was supposed to be targeting with each exercise. For each individual repetition, I checked my movement to see if other muscles were 'helping out' the muscle I was supposed to be working. This was for the most part really affective, and I actually had to do less reps because I was finally doing the exercise right. But, as Patrick says, quality over quantity is always best. Feeling really positive about that. It is really rewarding to struggle and overcome bad tendencies, and being able to honestly say that I was giving my all in every moment.

Hopefully soon my "shoulder pads" will get harder. :)