Irish Dance Resolutions 2018
Anyone else feel like making New Year’s Resolutions with me?
I love taking time at the end of the year to evaluate what went well this year and what didn’t in my training and to figure out what I want to change.
I finally found a general strength routine that works well for me. I’ve shown you the 30 day challenge in the past which I still love, but that ended up taking up too much time and I just couldn’t fit everything in by the end of the program, so I tried something different in 2017: BodyRockTV. They’ve got a ton of 12 minute workouts that kick my ASS and their bootcamps have 3 levels (beginner, intermediate, and advanced) that are free daily emails for 3 weeks. I started with the intermediate workout and have now gotten to the advanced by the end of the year. I absolutely love it, and I’m thinking of signing up for their paid subscription service, Sweatflix. (lol) I know Lauren Early and others have great programs, but for strength, agility, and plyometrics training, it’s another option that really took my strength training to the next level this year. So if you’re reading this, thanks @thedailyhiit-lisamarie!
My feet got stronger. I got really real with myself after NANs this year and realized that I had been neglecting my feet for too long. I broke my right foot twice when I was in high school, and I always assumed that the weakness and pain I still felt in that foot was irreversible. After NANs, I decided to take responsibility for that weakness and train my right foot hard. I started doing one-footed hopping drills every other day, and they were really painful at first. I could only do them in sneakers because I needed so much cushion. Over time this fall, I finally got up to doing 15 barefoot hops right before the Oireachtas, which honestly is huge for me. And I think that it translated into much better softshoe dancing because I could push off better and land without the fear of my feet hurting.
I still haven’t figured out flexibility. This one feels a little silly to say because I can get my kicks up high when I dance, but I feel after all this strength training that I’m getting VERY tight in my back, shoulders, and hamstrings, and it’s hurting my dancing. I have to work very hard to get my leg up high, and even though I was very good about stretching after dance, I didn’t gain any flexibility this year. If anything, it got worse.
To fix it, I’m going to try a different approach. I’ve always done static stretching for 30 min at night and maybe some foam rolling, but my mom told me about Classical Stretch, this dynamic stretching program by a former professional ballerina who works every muscle in your body. She talked about how the body has protective mechanisms and if you try to over-stretch your muscles, they’ll actually tighten up in response, so it’s better to gently relax into and out of a stretch repeatedly to gain flexibility. I’m wondering if that was my problem this whole time. I definitely feel like my back and hamstrings have loosened up after just a week of these 20 minute dynamic stretch routines (I have the season 10 DVD if anyone’s curious) and I find myself much more able to recover from a tough workout. I haven’t had any huge gains in hamstring flexibility yet, but even if this just helps me prevent injuries, I’m down.
If anyone else wants to join, I’d love to hear what everyone’s training goals are for the next year! I know we talk a lot about placement goals, but I love hearing about the journeys we take to get there. Happy end of 2017 everyone!
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