We tried out something new today. Thinking that diversity might spark motivation and could even bring some excitement into exercise sessions.

So we got this expanding band with two handles I had bought in Lidl a long time ago when I thought that, one day, we’d be looking for one.

Just in case you don’t know Lidl or Aldi shops – this is the way their middle isle works: you buy stuff you’re not really looking for, but they make it so irresistibly attractive that you buy it anyways, just in case one day…

And today was the day.

 

The absolutely amazing and thrilling thing was that Pádraig could actually use the expander he could grab the handles and pull them back away from the point where it was held, and not ‘just’ with his arms but also by pulling back his shoulders. This is only a short sniper of a much longer exercise.

I shouldn’t really be surprised anymore. But I am. Many of what I perceive as Pádraig’s ‘restrictions’ are not his at all but imposed on him by us by not giving him the opportunity to overcome them. The trick then is, the absolute necessity is, to constantly search for new challenges for Pádraig and to give him the opportunity to master them. Which sounds easy. But isn’t really. It’s a challenge I don’t master sufficiently yet.