Challenge yourself

Don’t let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do.

I stole that quote from my friend Nicole’s Facebook status. She was quoting her kid’s basketball coach. She said it was inspiring for her yoga practice.
Lately I have tried to be more open minded with myself when it comes to exercise. There are yoga poses I know I can’t do–like handstand or headstand. (A bum shoulder keeps me from attempting the full pose.) But I can work toward them. There are other poses I don’t think I can do but instead of just saying to myself, no way, I now will at least try.
Same thing with planks. We do them in yoga and body conditioning and abs classes. Whenever it is announced that we are going to do a 1-minute plank I complain and convince myself that I can’t do it.
In my Friday morning body conditioning class (which is actually called Muscle Blast) the instructor recently had us hold a 1-minute plank. I, of course, announced to him that there was no way I could do that. He, of course, told me I could. We got into position and I asked him to tell us a story. Instead he talked to me the whole time and I did it. I held a 1-minute plank.
Last month’s Go Fit Girl! Monthly Challenge was focused on push-ups. Push-ups are pretty difficult for me. I worked on push-ups but really focused on planks. I got up to an 80-second plank.
As I have stated before my company has a Wellness Program. We have a variety of challenges, which change out every two months. I am participating in a team event to reach 5,000 “push-ups.” We have hit 5K and are close to 10K and have changed our personal team goal to 15K.
I am also participating in another group challenge (no points involved, just pride) to work up to a 4-minute plank.
And you can imagine I am doubting if that is even possible.
We meet for about 5 minutes in the afternoons and just hunker down on the floor in an open area at the office and do our planks together. Sometimes I have a meeting or call and can’t join the group so I do my plank on my own in my cube area.
The group started off with a 1-minute plank and we have worked our way up to 2 minutes.
And this is coming from the girl who couldn’t (or wouldn’t) do a 1-minute plank.
And maybe I can’t do a 4-minute plank. But I can at least work toward it. And I may surprise myself with what I CAN DO!