Back Exercises

Because fencing is a high impact sport, different joints get hammered. One of the best way to keep from getting injured, is to strengthen and stretch the high risk areas. Knees, hips, ankles, wrists and back are some high risks areas that have a lot of potential for being injured. Here are some of my favorite back exercises and stretches for fencing:

                                             

                                        

My Four Most Recent French Assignments

Hi everybody! In addition to English 10, Biology, Computer, and Geometry, I am taking French I this year. I use Rosetta Stone and Duolingo for the bulk of my course, but I also get some extra fun tossed into the mix. Both last week and this week, I had some really cool assignments that I wanted to share with you guys.

The first assignment I had was to write a children's book in French. This was probably the most fun of the four assignments I completed. I wrote a children's book with a little boy named Claude
Dubois and his two friends. In my book, we find out what the three children do on each day of the "semaine" or week. As I artistically challenged, my illustrations turned out to be stick figures. Lucky for me, it was French class and not art class.

My second assignment was to write a letter in French. I wrote a letter from the same little boy, Claude Dubois. Claude tells his pen pal all about his pets, his friends, his school and what he likes to do.

The next week, I got to pick from a list for my third and fourth assignments. I picked to bake a french recipe as one of them. I chose to make gougeres which is a kind of French cheese puff. They had a very egg like taste and were very light and airy. Unfortunately, they fell as they cooled. This resulted in them not having the hollow center generally associated with gougeres. Here is a picture of how they should have looked.

 

My final assignment was to listen to some French classical music. I chose to listen to Erik Satie's Gnossienne: No. 1, No. 2 and No. 3. Here they are as played on the piano. 

                                     

Tera's Top Twenty Tips for Injury Prevention

From my previous posts, I suppose my readers have figured out that I am serious about my training. As a fencing athlete, I have experienced quite a number of minor injuries that kept me down for at least a few weeks. Because these set-backs have really hindered me in my training, I have recently been researching injury prevention for athletes. Here are twenty top tips.

1. Stay hydrated.

2. Try balance exercises.

3. Get 7-9 hours of sleep.

4. Warm up before a workout.

5. Cool down after a workout.

6. NEVER skip stretching.

7. Ice sore joints and muscles before they get too serious.

8. Check your form during workouts or drills.

9. Try yoga.

10. Try pilates.

11. Take one or two rest days during the week.

12. Maintain a proper diet.

13. Don't ignore the pain.

14. Wear proper gear

15. Do joint strengthening exercises when involved in high impact sports.

16. Listen to your body.

17. Choose a level place to train.

18. Don't neglect back exercises.

19. Understand the exercise before you do it.

20. Work up to where you want to be.