PERSEVERANCE is the hard work you do after you get tired of doing the hard work you already did. ~Newt Gingrich

This blog update is from Ro, Kelley’s Montana trainer. It is difficult for her to post regularly when she is training hard and dealing with pain.

The quote at the top of the page reminds me so much of Kelley. I’m sure no one will be surprised to hear that she’s working her butt off, enduring pain during training, and even more severe pain afterward. It totally wipes her out and she often finds it difficult to do even minor activities, like eating, conversing, and writing on her blog. Yet when it’s time for the next workout session there she is, ready to go through it all over again.

Fortunately it is paying off. When Kelley came here from Ca, I could tell that she had made progress from the months she trained at Project Walk. We have incorporated the PW exercises into her training and also added a few new ones. Kelley is doing some major butt-kicking work. She trains three days per week (2 heavy days, 1 light day), and that seems to be working pretty well.

Improvements are small, but every single session we see some kind of progress. For example, Kelley is able to sit with her legs hanging freely and kick without any help. Granted, the kicks are small… about a 6+” swing with the right leg and maybe about 2-3” with the left leg. But that is huge, considering that just three months ago, she was just kicking about 3-4” with the right and about ½-1” with the left. So basically, I would say that she has doubled her kick distance in the last three months.

We have started doing a standing exercise, where Kelley stands at her walker with her massage table behind her for safety. I hold her knees and she alternates her weight from one leg to the other, lifting the ‘weightless’ leg to mimic walking while I stabilize the straight leg. She also does mini squats while I keep her knees from bending too far. We are both excited about these exercises, but they do of course cause pain. More and more, she is getting pins & needle type pains from her trunk area, all the way down her legs and into her feet. She has described it as a feeling of coming out of frostbite, combined with burning, stabbing, etc. As unbearable as it is, the pain continues to be a good sign. She continues to have slight improvements in sensation, in addition to her progress in movement.

I hope this describes Kelley’s progress adequately. It is so difficult for her to sit and write when she is spending so much precious energy on training, eating, sleeping, and regenerating, so I am writing the blog this time for her. The picture at the top was taken between reps at the walker. There are also a couple of great videos of Kelley at the walker and some of her kicking but I need to convert them to a more compatible format. I’ll post those when I get them ready.

Until then, Namaste!

Ro