![\"any](\"https:\/\/thedailysew.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/any-day-sewing.jpg\")
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Two years ago I started strength training. As with anything new the gains come quickly in the beginning and then plateaus and even setbacks due to sickness and stress can happen. Recently the coaches have started programing\u00a0 “recovery workouts” for clients to do when they are a little sore but not ill, or their muscles are just too tight or any day that the body (not the mind – an important difference) is letting one know it has not recovered from something (lack of sleep, dehydration, mental stress, etc). The idea of a recovery workout is that to keep moving, even at an easier pace, with lighter to no weight, will help the muscles recover faster than\u00a0 by not moving at all.<\/p>\n
Maybe you already see where I’m going with this as it concerns sewing.<\/p>\n
Recently with the holidays I experienced a lot of stress. My normal, self-imposed stress of not planning and therefore rushing to get things made, bought, mailed and decorated in less than two weeks. The stress of traveling to two different places, of driving hours in the rain on Christmas Eve, of a very crowded house, of being off my routine, oh and let’s add a midnight visit to the ER and other family health issues. I looked forward to being home and just knew when I got back I would sew, sew, sew and I even knew what project I was going to start with; knit pants. But I didn’t sew. In fact I kept avoiding it.<\/p>\n
I did go to the gym though, and discovered my muscles were super tight so I had to do my first recovery workout. The following gym session, I had to do another one. Finally, at my next session I got to lift, but yesterday; another recovery workout. What is going on I asked the coach. And he explained and talked and I listened and my wheels actually started turning.<\/p>\n
I realized that this idea of having to recover with movement isn’t just about the body getting stronger; it works for the mind too. I was avoiding sewing because the project I had decided to do next was challenging for me. It was a new type of fabric (sewing knits is something I have done a good job of avoiding but now I want to learn), different fabrics have new techniques and new equipment ( I needed a new foot for my machine – or I think I do- I’m not really sure as it’s new to me \ud83d\ude09 and just to keep the “new” theme going the pattern is from a company I had never used before. PLUS I wanted to be able to write about it so I have to learn it, process it, and try to pull out the nuggets of wisdom from the experience.<\/p>\n
I would have a learning curve. I would have to concentrate and be patient since I expected mistakes to be made. It’s doable for certain but it requires mental energy and my mental muscles were “too tight” to psych myself up for this project. I couldn’t even gather the energy to force myself into starting. I needed a recovery workout for the sewing room.<\/p>\n
What would a Recovery Project look like? It needed to be easy. Easy on the skill level and the mental level. It wouldn’t matter what was sewn, as long as it stimulated those sewing muscles and gave a jolt to the sewing part of the brain. I needed to remember that I do like sewing. It is fun. It can even be fun when it’s challenging. So I went to my room and mended a purse and altered some pants I had. When I finished two hours later, I felt lighter. I felt stronger. I felt happier. And now I feel like starting on those knit pants.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Two years ago I started strength training. As with anything new the gains come quickly in the beginning and then plateaus and even setbacks due to sickness and stress can happen. Recently the coaches have started programing\u00a0 “recovery workouts” for clients to do when they are a little sore but not ill, or their muscles […] Read more…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1372,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[87],"tags":[114,4],"class_list":["post-1367","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sewing-life","tag-motivation","tag-sewing"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thedailysew.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/any-day-sewing.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1EZxn-m3","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedailysew.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1367","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedailysew.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedailysew.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedailysew.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedailysew.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1367"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/thedailysew.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1367\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1373,"href":"https:\/\/thedailysew.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1367\/revisions\/1373"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedailysew.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1372"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedailysew.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1367"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedailysew.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1367"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedailysew.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1367"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}