This is probably going to be another long post so bear with me.Firstly - training yesterday - absolutely caned the treadmill with some "four stage treadmill intervals with incline changes". Many of my clients will know exactly what I'm talking about! I like to "roadtest" all of my cardio before I prescribe it. I did 6 x 5 minute intervals + 10 minutes of warming up and cooling down on either side. Then I hammered the elliptical for 15 minutes.
In there I also managed to throw in my lower body training - front squats, Bulgarians (these are my most detested exercise) and Romanian Deadlifts. I am quite the DOMS princess this morning.
Today I am teaching "Core" at Fitness First and training my upper body. Cardio, if any, will be pretty light as I want to be ready to go at full throttle when I teach RPM Hi Performance on Saturday morning.
Now onto the grittier stuff. I wanted to say how grateful I am to everyone's support about my belly issues. I don't know if I have ever mentioned it, but that is the reason I decided to compete - I wanted to see how far I could take my belly without surgery. Yes, the belly doesn't look as bad in some respects but as I got leaner and did my ab and thigh pose the diastasis actually became more prominent - as well as sporting a relatively nice six pack, I also sported a nice raised ridge along the midline of my abdominals, kind of like a Rhodesian Ridgeback and for some odd reason the diastasis has gotten worse, not better, despite lots of core work and clinical pilates. I also chose to compete because I wanted to prove to myself after being overweight that I had it in me to actually reach such levels of leanness. Then I did it another two times just to prove to myself that I wasn't a "flash in the pan".
What has been stopping me from having surgery is that I am scared of the potential side effects and scared that I would not be able to return to doing workouts just like the one I described above. Yet, I also know that I'm not at my best either. My pelvic instability makes progression slow. However I haven't got enough evidence to suggest yet that the pelvic instability could improve with repair. So I feel a bit of damned if I do, damned if I don't right now.
As far as competition aspirations go, I know that I am more than capable of competing in a Figure Comp, surgery or not - it is obvious I would place far higher without the belly issue, but placing has never been a concern for me when I've competed. I also know that my true talent where bodybuilding/figure is concerned lies in the coaching area.
I would be left with a pretty big scar but my reasons for surgery have nothing to do with competing. I could care less about what some Figure judge thinks of me. I just care about what I think of me. Apart from this belly, I'm pretty happy with my physical appearance and who I am :)
I think this one is going to take some time to figure out.
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