Get this sequence done early in the day to get your week started with a burst of energy:
Down dog into a plank, hold for 5 seconds, then 6-10 push-ups (unbroken)
Down dog into a plank, hold for 5 seconds, then 10 mountain-climbers (each leg)
Down dog into a plank, hold for 5 seconds, then 6-10 push-ups
20 squats
5 high jumps or tuck jumps
Stretch your arms way up towards the sky and count 5 full breaths
Repeat. 5 rounds total.
When in your plank, for a bit of extra extra, squeeze your glutes (that’s your butt) like you’re making a panini between them. To keep your alignment, you’ll need to squeeze your quads hard too.
Also, get your dumbbells this week if you’ve not done so already. We’ll start incorporating them next Monday. Choose a weight that’s difficult (but possible) to do 5 shoulder presses.
For Day 4 of our Push-ups + Poems challenge, we turn to Audre Lorde. Before it was the title of a collection of her essays and speeches (1984), Sister Outsider was a poem, in Lorde’s Black Unicorn collection. Here it is.
Sister Outsider
Audre Lorde (The Black Unicorn 1978)
We were born in a poor time
never touching
each other’s hunger
never
sharing our crusts
in fear
the bread became enemy.
Now we raise our children
to respect themselves
as well as each other.
Now you have made loneliness
holy and useful
and no longer needed
now
your light shines very brightly
but I want you
to know
your darkness also
rich
and beyond fear.
9 responses to “Mon. – 5/4 Starting the Week with push-ups + Audre Lorde”
Anushka
May 4th, 2015 at 08:40
Done done
Cindy Lutenbacher
May 4th, 2015 at 09:46
Go, Anushka!!! You rock, m’ija.
Put on some old Holly Near–the political songs–and between Audre Lorde and Holly Near, got this one. Subbed sit-ups for squats and burpees (oh, yes, with pushup) for the jumps. Now…I may have the courage to vacuum my house. It’s not a big house, but I hate vacuuming. Would rather mow ten lawns…okay…six lawns than vacuum.
By the way, visit my FB page for Jon Oliver’s brilliant and truthful take-down of standardized testing.
If you want to see me do some helleracious, bodacious slam-balls, just say the words “standardized testing.”
Kung Li–I am loving the poems (and the workouts). Thank you, thank you.
Cindy Lutenbacher
May 4th, 2015 at 10:45
I think I broke my toe vacuuming… No kidding. Dernit.
Roan
May 4th, 2015 at 17:00
Oh noooo Cindy!!
Cindy Lutenbacher
May 4th, 2015 at 18:24
That’s what I get. I will NEVER vacuum again.
Roan
May 4th, 2015 at 16:59
Done. One of my favs.
Cindy Lutenbacher
May 4th, 2015 at 17:26
OH, yeah, chica. You hittin’ it, too.
Glo
May 4th, 2015 at 20:02
Check!
msullivan574
May 4th, 2015 at 22:10
For it done. Spent the day writing and thinking about Audre Lorde so I appreciated this poem at the start of the day. Dumb bells ready and waiting!