Thursday, November 01, 2018

Parenting month 94: into the grind

So T has made it through two months of third grade.  And something we have noticed with other kids has come to pass, things ramp up in third grade.  T had testing for advanced classes, and now that he is in he gets to experience being way behind the other kids (which is a good thing for him). Things are not as easy as they were.

A is learning how to read. Her daycare comments that she is bright, but not exceptional the way T was (T was reading books to his classmates when he was 3). And there is a reality that A does not get the time with us going around town that T did, so we will have to consciously give her that time.

This is my second month doing Crossfit, following the StreetParking.com programming.  The StreetParking programming is intended for home gyms, with the target audience being people who are following CrossFit on their own, but are not elite athletes or have a full set of equipment (in particular, CrossFit is in part a weightlifting sport, so you would need a barbell, a power rack, and a set of appropriate weights to be fully equipped.)  Part of CrossFit is the concept of scaling.  If there is a workout planned, all movements included can be modified to make it possible for a person to do with the intended level of intensity. The goal is not to make the weight (Glassman says only 5% of people can do the workout as written), but to match the movement stimulus over the right amount of time.  And scaling can be either the weight (lower) or the movement (difficult movements have a progression of easier movements that work the same muscles in the same way).  My kids have been watching me do the workouts (it is a big ego boost when your 4 year old watches video of some elite athlete and asks if I do that). And sometimes they join in.  We have scaling for both of them on pretty much any movement that appears in the easy workout (what StreetParking calls shift).  My daughter has even figured out how to hip hinge (the movement that allows you to use your glutes and hamstrings to lift something off the ground instead of your arms) and demonstrates it with "heavy things".  And my daughter has made the StreetParking motivation montage several times by now.



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