Midway Point Planks Challenge Update

I realize now that the title of my last post made it seem like I was doing five minutes of planks in one setting. Um...no...I was doing five minutes total throughout the day. I may be a ninja, but I'm not that good. Yet.

 

So, here we are at the midway point of my crazy challenge. I honestly didn't know if I could pull this off, but I certainly was going to try my hardest. And right now, I'm rocking it out, as well as Elizabeth. I do two minutes as soon as I wake up. Also, I close my office door at work and take care of a minute or two throughout the day. Then, I do whatever is left in the evening. I am thankful that my training program designed by Suzanne from Workout Nirvana (check out my post here if you are interested in virtual training) includes three minutes of side planks on one of the workout days. Sometimes on the weekend, I can knock out five minutes by 9 a.m.

 

These are called Lateral Pillar Bridges or side planks.

Regular planks in my office.

I'm not sure that I can physically see a big difference in my belly, but I definitely feel the difference. I used to have to work to get my stomach hard when I touched it. Now, with one feel of my thumb, my stomach feels almost rock solid. It's still a little soft, but not by much. I feel that by the end of this month, it will be like a boulder. I was hoping by the midway point that I would be able to do 1 minute, 30 seconds plank, but I'm not there yet. So, that is my goal by the end of the month. I know Elizabeth rocked that out yesterday (twice) and I'm so proud of her for it.

I swear I didn't mean to wear the exact same thing, but that.just.happened.

I'm not going to lie, it's been hard. There are times when I'm rushing quickly to finish the last three minutes right before I head off to bed, because I completely forgot. One Monday, I got home so late from a bike ride and was so tired, that I couldn't finish the remaining minutes. So, I added those onto the next two days doing six minutes instead of five minutes. The other issue that I have had with this challenge is the bruising and sore elbows. At work, the carpet is just too rough and I had to eventually put my big Fr jacked on the carpet to give me some cushion.

 

 

I'm not sure if these are from the side planks or not, but it showed up after I started the challenge.

Even with the hardships, Elizabeth and I are getting it done. We constantly text each other about the day's plank completions and discuss any struggles we have. I even convinced her to finish her planks at the airport...in a suit. I'm so glad I started this challenge and I can't wait to see how we look and feel at the end of the month.

 

If you started the challenge, how is going? Why haven't you started? You still have a couple of more weeks to get going. So, quit lollygagging and do it!

 

And have you seen this Kacy ninja badass?! She's the first girl to make it the semi-finals or finals (don't watch this show enough to know if Vegas is the finals) in American Ninja Warrior.