I've been here and there for the past couple of weeks. I got to go see all of my BFFs from Ohio to South Carolina and then came home and had to get caught up on everything I've been putting off lately.
The big thing, the bathroom remodels. I can say, as of right now, the project is about 95% finished. Which is huge - this process was started in May back when I thought I was a drywall person and I made Donald think he was a plumber. It started out probably as most DIY-ers gone wrong start; with a couple of Saturday morning HGTV shows that make it all look so easy one feels empowered to try this crap on their own. I mean, how hard can it be to rip out some drywall and then screw it back into the studs, right?
We knew we had to rip out our 1960's Master Bath not because it was horribly ugly but because some how it was leaking into the basement bathroom below. We had two plumbers come out and look at the pipes through the drop ceiling below and tell us that it was not a plumbing issue. So, we determined it must be a tile issue - somehow the water was getting behind the tile and dripping. It all started out so easy. I'd spend an hour or so uninstalling the fixtures and Donald would haul them out to the street where we'd break them up and hide them in with the rest of our trash on trash day. Then came the fun part - I started with a hammer and went to town on the tile floor! Only it wasn't so fun - the tiles were attached to the floor using some ancient means of concrete and steel mesh. As I started pulling up the mesh, it fell apart. It was so rusted, it was literally crumbling. Not to mention the tile was breaking into a million pieces and the concrete was turning to dust as I pulled it apart. It took a couple of weeks to get it all out of there, which included paying Hank $20 to get in and bag up the trash - totally worth it. After it was all up, you could see where the toilet had been leaking, presumably for years. Luckily the sub-floor didn't need to be replaced.
Next came the shower stall. As much fun as it was to go at the gross harvest gold tiles and watch them fall away, we were horrified by what was behind them.
It turns out that whoever built our house used drywall behind the tile in both bathrooms. Note the breakdown of that word drywall, "dry" "wall" as in it's supposed to be used on a wall that won't get wet. Another fun fact - tiles and grout are porous, therefor you need something behind them that can get wet. Otherwise guess what happens? Yep - the drywall gets wet then molds then falls apart then starts leaking into your bathroom below it.
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| That's the hall bathroom drywall behind tile...ugh... |
The toilet is actually so tall, that my feet dangle when I sit down. I'm sure this will eventually lead me to need one of these Squatty Potties,
but it's so pretty I'm not going to worry about it. I figure I get enough squatting at CrossFit that I should be good to go, literally. Which leads me to the fitness part of this post. Squatting.
As our fearless leader recently posted on social media..
And it so true! About a year after I started CF Donald started to actually notice a difference in that area and that made me notice. Well that and when I would bend over to get something my butt started to bump into things (which is an issue no one ever talks about but really does happen - it's like your pregnancy belly; all of sudden there's this extension to your body that keeps getting in the way but you are really proud of it). This being a family blog, I won't go into other details but I will say this, doing all of those squats and thrusters in the gym come in handy at home, just sayin'.
Some people fear the squat because of "knee issues" or "back pain" They feel that doing squats will hurt an already aching body. What they are not considering is that squatting wrong is leading to some of those "issues." Let's think about how many times a day you are already squatting (and probably doing so wrong which is leading to the issues).
1. Getting up and getting into bed.
2. Every time you sit down on the toilet - you squat down (unless you have a too tall one like me) and then get back up. When you sit down - do you just let your butt fall on the toilet? Or do you lower yourself? And for most women - you're "squatting" on public toilets already.
3. Getting up and down from the couch or dining room chairs.
4. Getting in and out of your car - assuming it's not a truck or something.
5. Sitting and getting up from your desk chair at work.
6. Getting down on the ground with your kids.
7. Bending down to pick up things you drop or to pick up dog poop.
8. Bending over to pick up your kids or gym bag or your groceries.
the list goes on and on..
See what I mean? You're already doing a thousand squats a day, so why not start doing them right? Let's talk about the proper mechanics of a squat and some things you can think about next time you're bending over to pick up the socks your son can't seem to remember go in the laundry basket and not the living room floor.
This picture from Tina at CrossFit Resurgence shows all of the key points to a squat. Children instinctively squat perfectly, they have not developed any biomechanical deficiencies like adults who have been sitting on chairs for years.
The CrossFit Training Guide has TWENTY-TWO, yes 22, steps to preforming a biomechanically sound squat.
How to Squat
Here are some valuable cues to a sound squat.
Many encourage identical behaviors.
1. Start with the feet about shoulder width apart and slightly toed out.
2. Keep your head up looking slightly above parallel.
3. Don’t look down at all; ground is in peripheral vision only.
4. Accentuate the normal arch of the lumbar curve and then pull the excess arch out with the abs.
5. Keep the midsection very tight.
6. Send your butt back and down.
7. Your knees track over the line of the foot.
8. Don’t let the knees roll inside the foot. Keep as much pressure on the heels as possible.
9. Stay off of the balls of the feet.
10. Delay the knees forward travel as much as possible.
11. Lift your arms out and up as you descend.
12. Keep your torso elongated.
13. Send hands as far away from your butt as possible.
14. In profile, the ear does not move forward during the squat, it travels straight down.
15. Don’t let the squat just sink, but pull yourself down with your hip flexors.
16. Don’t let the lumbar curve surrender as you settle in to the bottom.
17. Stop when the fold of the hip is below the knee – break parallel with the thigh.
18. Squeeze glutes and hamstrings and rise without any leaning forward or shifting of balance.
19. Return on the exact same path as you descended.
20. Use every bit of musculature you can; there is no part of the body uninvolved.
21. On rising, without moving the feet, exert pressure to the outside of your feet as though you were
trying to separate the ground beneath you.
22. At the top of the stroke stand as tall as you possibly can.
Now, I know you are not seriously going to think about all of this the next time you bend down to pick up your keys, but, when you bend down to pick them up and "tweak" your back - it's probably because you weren't thinking about any of them.
So, keep squatting people! If not for the sake of not hurting yourself, then do it for your sex life! (Husbands, your welcome.)
(Don't worry ladies, I didn't forget about you.)
So, keep squatting people! If not for the sake of not hurting yourself, then do it for your sex life! (Husbands, your welcome.)
(Don't worry ladies, I didn't forget about you.)
