Tonight's workout did not go as expected. I jumped rope in the dark again, which was more or less unremarkable. I then came back inside and started doing some CARS, and as I tested my range of motion I was quickly aware that I was *not* in a good space to be challenging my body.
My neck was stiff, my sides and back were knotted intensely and I was *exhausted*. The tension in my back felt decidedly connected to a numb-ish sensation on my lower back and side that I'd noticed a couple of nights prior. I had overworked myself.. again.
I don't have a good way of knowing what the exact or final cause was but any of the following recent events seem like likely contributors:
- An intense month of working on my pancake flexibility, with *no* work on the twisting movements in the waist and hips
- Moving furniture to upstairs
- New acro moves/ getting back into acro too quickly
- Working out while recovering from a blood draw
- Having spent a few hours mowing the lawn (with a scythe) and trimming the sidewalk edges (with an electric weed wacker thing).

So I may not know what did it (likely some combination near-ish "all of the above") but I did know that I wouldn't be putting any *more* strain on my lower back today. So no flying, which was a bummer, but it's better to be safe than to really injure myself and be stuck not doing for even longer!
I did do full range of movement explorations, and some specific stretches aimed at relieving strain on the sciatic (and other lumbar) nerves, which I am running on the assumption are acting up.
After dinner I took a nice long epsom salt soak, and I shall be being careful to make sure I don't overwork myself this weekend, and I will probably be adding some of those stretches to a daily practice till that strange sensation in my side clears up.

We did the thing. Admittedly we sorta just hit the minimums, but they were hit!
Jumping rope in the dark, very glad that I know where the uneven concrete is, so I didn't accidentally twist an ankle doing walking lunges.
We did some handstands, heel pulls etc, but nothing overly adventurous. Solid though :)
We did a real focus session on candlestick and thigh stands. Sometimes you've really got to go back and drill the fundamentals! We're feeling much more secure in both moves, *and* identified what we'd been overlooking on Monday.
We did try the bunk bed to Box thing, which was easier than expected! We haven't figured out what moves connect into it, or out of it yet, but we're inspired to figure some out!

Todays workout went pretty well!

Jumped rope while the neighbors hung out on their porch, which was only slightly awkward as I deep squatted and did walking lunges up and down my sidewalk. I stole a calf stretch and one pancake stretch from last month's flexibility work and did those along with CARS to get everything moving and happy.
Then handstand training; Heel pulls, kneel to straddle work, kneel to tuck work, the Froggy Hops that I discovered last week, and something I'm gonna call "facing the wall straddle leans".
Then we had *Acro Time*
We started with a flow from Bird to Throne to Simple throne and then being set down above Russ's head. Then we worked on our candlestick, both floating and not floating. That took some work dialing back in, and we intend on making it a focus again on Wednesday. We practiced a piece of a new (to us) washing machine flow called a Barrel Roll, and found out that I've gotten out of practice with the pressures of Ninja Star.
We then did some 2 highs with Russ sitting in a straddle, worked on "Flipper", which both went reasonably well, given that it'd been a while since we'd done them.
I managed to slip while we practiced a Thigh Stand and while I landed on my feet, I hit the ground hard enough that my leg/hip tensed up enough that I was done for the day. Some light stretching later and that was that!
I've since eaten, done dishes, and taken a good soak. Feeling good about the workout and looking forward to more acro on Wednesday!
#LiamsFitnessJourney #acrobatics #partnerAcro #exercise #jumpRope #handBalance #circusLife

ROCKED IT!!
Jump rope was a slow start, I jump outside and it was hot. Came back in and knocked out my flexibility conditioning, then some C.A.R.S.
And then as @RussSharek started doing heel pulls (handstand drill) I started to play.
I added doing a couple of wheels to offset all the forward stretch of the conditioning, then got into handstand mode.
Heel pulls, press/jump from kneeling, jumps to my makeshift canes - no new success there but work was done, playing with shapes while on hands from jumps to straddle (on the floor, not canes). A pretty solid session

And then I got silly. Worked dive rolls (managed to almost clear the stack of yoga block and roller in the picture, touched it but didn't knock it down)! I worked on my macaco! I found myself grabbing the railing at the entrance to the stage and doing L-sit dips (it's too wide to do them properly, but I tried!)! I did incline push ups with my feet on my "canes" stack of carpet tile and my hands on handstand blocks. Full range of motion! Chest to floor! 5 of them!?

Just ridiculous.

And then after having done such solid jump to straddles, I was relaxing in a "primal" squat and suddenly wondered whether I could jump to a straddle handstand from there, 'cause that would look cool. - the attached video is what happened after I succeeded and then *had* to know what that looked like.

..I may or may not have found myself moving around like a monkey, knuckles and low squat movement and then wondered if I could jump to a straddle like *that* .. and I think I did? I didn't hold it long, and my knuckles aren't conditioned for that kind of stress ..so I stopped without getting evidence lol But I will be going back for it eventually!

I assume that tomorrow I shall be a noodle, and I have now eaten a very large egg sandwich.. and am considering how much of the rest of this kitchen I can eat...

edit to add hashtags
#LiamsFitnessLog #handBalance #handstands #fitness #workout #jumpRope #circusLife

Having folx around definitely helped boost my energy levels! The warm up was hard, just getting going was tricky and 10 min of 30s on 30s off jump rope is always a bit challenging for me.
The flexibility work was surprisingly good, folx chatting helped keep it from feeling overwhelming. Cars was good, nothing binding particularly badly.
Did small amounts of some decent handstand drills, so I was very happy about that :D
Was pretty much done at that point, but still managed to do a couple of acro tricks.
One more week of this flexibility program, then I'll get to dive back into putting my energy into acro!

Did my warm up jump rope/squats/lunges, my flexibility program, CARS and some push ups, a few decent handstands, and flew a few acro tricks. Nothing complicated but things felt reasonably stable.
I'm pretty happy with the night, I'm getting back into it!

The flexibility is really mobility, it's *active* and exhausting. I'm doing 4 weeks of the program (it's a piece of Handstand Factory's programming for Press Handstands). I'm currently in week 3 and I can't wait to be done with it!

For my warm up jump rope I do 30s intervals which alternate with either very deep ("primal") squats or walking lunges for 30s. Then I finish with a 90s very deep squat. While I was hanging out in that squat, I figured I'd take a photo and show off my workout wear :P