10-01-17 (Sunday) HY: Tennis + 30-Day Pull-Up Challenge + TCF.
I love it when a month begins on a Sunday, because I can begin new challenges at a real beginning. That said, I am beginning two new things this month, and here they are:
Today, I started the month as an official member of my new tennis club. The funny thing is its name: LEG RUN TENNIS CLUB. They meet twice a week for 3 hours on Sundays, and two hours on Wednesdays. So including the warm-ups and cool-downs, that adds half an hour to each session. I went last Sunday, but unfortunately it was raining on and off and finally on so we could only play for about thirty to forty minutes. So today was my first real session. The menu was hard. After the warm-ups, we started with half-court rallies, then moved to volley-stroke practice. Trading places every few turns. It has been exactly 40 days since I played tennis for longer than half an hour and my timing was way off, the ball looked like a golf ball, and my footwork was slop. I didn't feel comfortable on court. But that is what practice is for. The longer I was hitting, flashes of control started to break through, but it's a long journey back. Next we moved to Serve and return practice. That was a mess as well. Remember, 40 days! But I eventually got a few serves in. Then we moved to forehand/backhand drills on one court while the second court had a match going. My first time up, I was run ragged and on my last ball, I dove for it and ended up rolling on the ground. It is a clay court and I was wearing a white shirt. You can imagine what I looked like after that. Then, overhead smash practice. Finally, the drill court moved to doubles practice, starting with a feeder. That was a mess for me as well. I just couldn't get anything over the net. Then I got my chance to play on the match court. I would give myself a 45% The first game I served, I won it at love. I was serving incredibly. But the second game I served I double faulted away the whole game. But as for other aspects of the match, I made some good shots, but more bad than good. Therefore, 45%. It was a great day! I hadn't worked that hard at tennis in years. It was good to get to do drills again. I need that muscle memory to kick in and remember the good form and movement from my younger years. I don't need to do it as fast, I just need to do it.
The second thing I'm starting this month is a little thing I found on YouTube, a 30-Day Pull-Up Challenge. The goal is to build Upper Body Strength. Since I have been doing YAYOG and since my back injury, I haven't done any Pull-Ups. Since Pull-Ups are one of my favorite moves, thanks to Tony, I wanted to get back into doing them. I found this challenge a couple weeks ago, but didn't feel ready for it then. But I was feeling good, so I decided to give it a go starting this month. It came coupled with another 30-Day Challenge, that I was considering doing as well, but I was already too tired today to do anything more, so I decided to save the other challenge for next month. It is starting off relatively light. Today, three grips, Pull-Up, Chin-Up, and Parallel Grip. Just two rounds of those three at a rep count of 4-6-5 reps, for a total of 30 reps for the day. The first round was fine, but I felt it bad. In the second round, the Pull-Ups were fine, but the Chin-Ups were brutal. I had to hang for a moment after rep 3 and 5. Then on the Parallel Grip, I need a hang after rep 2 and 4. But no coming off the bar. And these are full range of motion reps, no 100-120 degree elbow bends, I go all the way down. After those 30 reps, I was feeling pumped, but tired and worn... but GOOD!
I finished the day with my Flow series. It was nice to calm myself and breath in a controlled manner. That is IT!
In the end, I torched a nice 1700+kcals from the tennis. And so it begins...
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