The Most Loathed

17 hours ago, Tanktimus the Encourager said:

Well done finishing the credit card debt.

Thank you. It feels like a good milestone.

 

Tuesday

Rec

Elliptical 300 calories

Treadmill 300 calories

I realized after I got part way through that I could have still done some lifting if I just stuck to machines. I'm not going to worry about it right now but post meet, if/when I'm hurt again, that'll be the plan. 

 

BJJ

Marathon roll

We did the groups of three thing and I got assigned to Arthur (blue) and Adam (white). The try-hard part of my brain looked over at Gavin (blue) and Dan (brown) and thought "I should be with them" but my back was bugging me so the more conservative part of my brain weighed in and said "take an easy night, it's ok, you need to heal up". So it was an easy night for me. We went through a bunch of positional stuff. There wasn't a position that I wasn't the most comfortable in out of the three of us. When we were doing single leg X I was the only one comfortable in it. At a certain point I just had the start in closed guard because it was a waste of their time to make two people who can't even enter into X try to fight from there.

Eventually we transitions to the whole room to top-bottom-out which was nice to switch up the partners. For the most part I dominated my battles. I have learned to win open guard fights from the bottom by attacking. People expect you to sit on your butt and attempt to defend them coming to you but I find that I do better by moving in and snapping out my limbs to get a grip on them and pull them into me. People who are really good at guard play probably have a different approach but I'm big and strong and would rather get my hands on you than let you dance around me and have to react. The two best battles I had were both me passing someone's guard. Gavin (blue) remains the only blue belt who is at risk of actually getting on top and submitting me despite the fact that he never trains. He's just a farm boy who grew up with brothers and has good instincts. We had a good battle as I attempted to pass him and he cam out on top. Mislael (blue) also has been working his guard retention. I've got 50-60 pounds on the guy but he did a great job at constantly changing out his frames between us. If I recall, I eventually got through but I had to basically find a way to get between his arms and legs and then rely on my weight to finish the pass. If I were his size, I'd still be trying. 

An easy but fun training session.

 

After Class

Good roll with Joe. I came out thinking I was winning but now that I think about it, he may have won on points. We started standing and I couldn't get him to push back for a throw the moment he finally gave me resistance he didn't hesitate so he got the take down (2 points). He moved to side immediately (pass for 3, 5 total). I went to sweep him and he made the correct adjustments to get mount (4 points, 9 total). I, however, got his leg, worked to half to get the sweep (2 points, 2 to 9). I think I fought from side for a bit but I don't think I get 2 for a pass. I moved to mount(4 points, 6 to 9) but failed to secure the submission. One way to rack up points is to dismount, transition to the other side then remount but I don't think I did that. So, in retrospect, I think Joe would have won that match 9 to 6 because I would not necessarily get passing points. 

 

Food

 

I could have laid off the calories more but it honestly felt good to kind of stuff myself for a day. It was still decent quality food in my opinion but after having a few days over the last couple weeks where I felt hungry, I leaned into eating. Just getting a little more emotional capital to get through the next week of this diet. 

 

Bodyweight 226.2

37 minutes ago, Shello said:

That's the most Minnesota State Fair thing I have ever read

 

On 8/28/2023 at 12:51 PM, Shello said:

I'm working on it this week too but my annual trip to the Minnesota State Fair is coming up this weekend.  The only right way to do that is to eat all the cheese curds and things on a stick so I'm going to live it up and then get back to business.   This week will probably be my last weight in for these dates since I leave Friday and won't be able to weigh in at home until Wednesday next week - and I don't think I'm going to like that weigh in!   I'm definitely down for another one though.  I really need the motivation and accountability now! 

 

All the local news of late has been about the state fair food. I haven't gone since the year we lost to COVID but I always just had to sign off a couple of days of eating to be what they would be. I've never been huge on the the latest food any given year but there is good stuff for everyone. 

Monday

 

BJJ

I worked with Xavier today. He and I both like each other but we have a huge weight and strength disparity so we don't often roll. To make it any fun I have to really pull back on my strength and how much weight I apply. There are times that I could for a grip or prevent him from something by sheer brute force and I have to let those go. It's good to train that way but I have to remain conscious of it.

 

Warm up - Collar tie throw by. They grab the back of your neck, you push the arm past your face then do a double leg takedown. I find these collar ties to not be really effective in a live situation but they are good to just harass the other person's grip

 

Advanced - sweeps from single leg X where the have taken a knee. 

From Single X your opponent drops to the knee you don't have tied up to prevent a sweep. 

Use your inside leg to push the other knee out . You can attempt to sweep her by twisting your hips away from the leg you pushed on. If they stand tall to avoid going down you can use the technique we learned last class to hook behind their leg and pull them forward to make them post forward (or fall over). With their hands on the ground they usually try to stand up again so you sweep them backwards.

Alternately (xavier and I found this works best if they are really heavy on the knee they put down)  you can pull in your outside leg to rest their thigh on your shin. Move your inside leg so that the base of your foot is on their thigh, so their thigh is trapped between the top of one foot and the bottom of the other. You can do a lot of things here but what we worked on is pulling the top person over our body and then sweeping them. One thing we worked on a fair bit was that it's not intuitive on where to sweep them too. What the top person is doing with their legs has a huge impact on where they will fall. I found when I loaded Xavier really high I could sweep him straight back because his legs were turned to the side by how I was loading him. If I didn't load him as high his legs tended to trail behind him and trying to sweep there would just stand him up, I had to go to the side. Not a movement that I feel comfortable with yet.  

 

Beginner - arm bars. The gist was, your in side control, top and they roll in which extending their arms past you. You trap their arm between your arm and body and move towards the head. The first technique involved locking up a kimura early and keeping it to get to the armbar, the second involved missing the kimura but using your weight to drive their chest over from behind to get the lock there. I found myself not agreeing with the instruction being given and trying to shut down that part of my brain. Maybe that part of my brain is correct but also, maybe, if I could quiet it I would learn a new technique to add into my arsenal. 

 

Rolls

Xavier (blue) - As mentioned above, I had to stay conscious of how much force I was using but I think we had a decent roll

Reed (white) - Reed always comes looking for me a roll when he's in class. When I started BJJ he could beat me but he doesn't come often so I've advanced past him. He's a bigger guy though and he doesn't mind taking a little abuse so I mowed through him three times. 

Xavier (blue) - We got assigned to go back to our first partner and Chris tried to set up a "game"* but the me stated the rules differently three times so we had no idea what was "win" and what was "lose". so we just drilled until he asked if who had won and we said we have no idea so he said we "lost". dunno, whatever.

 

* in BJJ there's a big conversation about the Ecological Learning Model. I've listened to some podcasts, I know some advocates on the internet, and I read one book on the topic and I'm not blown away by the concept. The premise behind everything I've read is that people are taught to do things by being given a perfect and canonical version of the movement and then people try to force them to replicate that exact movement. I object to this premise. I don't think this is how people teach movement. The solution offered by the Ecological Learning Model is to not teach specific movements but to set up games. In BJJ this often looks like putting someone in another person's guard and saying the first person needs to pass and the second person is not allowed to sweep or use their hands. This handicaps the second person to give the first person some reps to find their own solution to passing where they will win eventually and get some reps in. Then we may say the bottom person still can't sweep but can use their hands. Then we may say they can do anything but have to go at half speed. To my mind it's the bridge from the step wise learning that we do to rolling. I do think these games are helpful but I don't think they are new in anyway and it seems like a lot of people are trying too hard when coming up with them. As was the case with Chris's example. 

 

After Class

Joe (blue) - We got a good, competitive roll in. I went for a guillotine but it sucked and he did a good job of passing to the side. I managed to get back out on top, I forget how. I took his back and we tussled around there until he was escaping so I took mount and started to work on his arm for an arm triangle but he got a great kipping escape, which I know he has been working on and it worked. I managed to get a hold of him again and got back on top until the time expired. 

Josh (purple) - I gave up a disappointing sub here. Josh wanted to start from kneeling. I usually don't like to "knee wrestle" so I took a guard position. He took a good lounge into my guard. I kept his foot in my half guard but he did a great job pinning my shoulder so I struggled to make any head way on him. This has really been our battle of late, whoever gets on top tends to hold it and he has gotten good enough at applying his weight to make it hard for me to recover from below. He was trying a couple different submissions and I was keeping him away but I realized I need to bump him over my head but as I tried I could feel my back twinging I couldn't get enough force mustered to move him. He got a crappy arm triangle locked up and I rode it out for a while but couldn't get enough force to get free. Eventually he slipped high enough to no longer be a strangle but an accidental smoother but it got him the eventual tap.

 

Food

I felt like I was eating pretty much all afternoon but I also felt like I could always eat more. 

 

Body weight 226.5

 

Other

As of now I officially have no credit card debt. I would generally consider myself average or just above average on managing my money but when Laura and I got divorced we both spent a couple years making poor choices and paying for them with debt. Just before we started dating again I settled down and tried being an adult again and realized how much I had racked up. Of course, with debt, it doesn't go away just because you shape up. It's like the weight loss. Eating to not gain is not enough to be the body weight I want, I have to eat to lost before I eat to maintain. Well, I had to money manage a surplus to pay off over spending for a couple years. Add to that the expense of a pandemic purchase of a house and necessary improvements as well as being the larger income earner so attempting to take on a proportionate amount of two peoples' bills and there are days that it's hard to undo what is done.

Over the weekend I was able to put an end to the high interest, revolving debt of my two credit cards. I'm not debt free, however. I have a mortgage, a car loan, a loan for the deck, and a loan for the windows. These are, however much lower interest. My home loan is effectively my rent. I doubt it'll ever be fully paid off and the rate it low enough that I'm better off not paying it off and just using the money to invest. My car loan is similar at less than 5%. I could have paid it off over the weekend but the money would literally be more useful in almost any investment. I've got a few more years on that loan but I'm in no rush to get a new car either. The deck and windows were on my radar to pay off but I didn't have enough surplus for either. When annual bonuses come in, if I get the usual I'll likely pay off the deck and then the windows next year. 

I'm trying to remind us both on a regular basis that if we can avoid any optional improvements for a couple years we can both be debt free except for house and car which also frees up over $1,000 a month to put towards things without debt. Then we'll feel like we are on easy street. 

3 minutes ago, Elennare said:

Edit: is anyone else having issues with the spreadsheet?  I'm looking at it using Google Sheets on my phone, and it's missing all the headings and maybe some of the columns!

Try it now. I was messing with freezing some of the columns since the spreadsheet is wide enough to be hard to see on one page. I unfroze them since it sounds like mobile wasn't handling it well.

Happily exceeding my expectations. I have a few more weeks left including the one we are starting then it's on to maintenance. 

 

Week Wrap Up

Considering I came into it with an injury couldn't be happier with the week overall. 

 

Winning

I took a couple days off from BJJ but the back half of the week had me feeling like I was doing great against everyone. Still working on the Competition mindset. Lots of Googling and asking around. 

 

Losing

No real complaints here. I'm down 3 pounds from a week ago

Week over week I'm continuing downwards every way I can think of the measure it. I'm starting to feel some diet fatigue. Where I couldn't possible get enough food on Sunday's the first few weeks, I had to stop myself today. The weight is getting low enough that I'm considering dropping to 215 for the meet in 3 weeks. My most likely competitor is at 215 as well. If I go 215 for the meet I will freeze the diet there and try to settle into a stable pattern. If I don't go 215, when I ding 220 I'll do the same. The goal then will be to hols 215-225 as a stable weight until the new year.

 

Process

Diet

Keep tracking, keep making food so I can easily grab meals that are known quantities. My calories get janky when I deviate, especially going out to eat. 

 

Training

I missed BJJ on Monday and Tuesday for back recovery. I was really pleasantly surprised to find myself good to go for Wednesday. Friday was good too. I had a couple twinges in round 11 today but nothing debilitating. No strength training all week for me which is a bit of a let down but I was able to go in and do cardio.

 

Recovery

This was rest and heat this week. Nothing more.

 

Documentation

Satisfied.

 

Week Kick Off

Winning

Planning on a week of BJJ. I'm going to take a page from Topper and specifically ask people to see me for hard rolls for the next two weeks. I'm not in teaching mode, I'm in hard training mode.

 

Losing

Stick to the plan. I don't know what my Monday morning weight will be but assume 227ish. If that's the case then I should wrap the week around 224-225.

 

Process

Diet -  see above

Training

Still no strength planned. At this point I will table the weights until post meet. BJJ, cardio for the week.

 

Recovery

Given that I have a couple hours back from not strength training, I'm going to try to cash some of those in with stretching and foam rolling. 

 

Documentation - nothing to add

Friday

BJJ

Really tempted to skip instruction just because this is going to be a long post but I'll do a short version. People really struggled with this and I finally put it together late in class. The thing to understand here is that we are starting in Power Sweep position (feet on hips, hand on one ankle and one wrist grip) and we are going to a position where we have swept them and have entered into leg lock territory. We are getting there two different ways.

 

They clear the hip on the side where you don't have grips

Go to De La Riva. We could do De La Ria sweep but we want single leg X so we use their stance to allow us to take our de la riva into single x, sweep and submit

 

They clear the hip on the side where you do have the grips

Go to a modified X. the far foot goes under their hamstring, the near foot is above their hip so your knee can drop under, you use your far foot and lapel grip to pul them over you. As they stand you can go to single x and sweep them

 

Rolls

Ken (blue) - got. a couple subs

Bradley's Brother (white) - got and arm triangle then monkeyed about trying to get and armbar from mount but never finished it

 

After Class

Manny dominated my time helping him with passing and him goofing off. I'm going to have to give him boundaries on his use of my time. I missed out on good rolls for it.

 

Food

I was surprised to find I had overeaten and it came down to one thing. I know the dinner plan was BLTs because we had a couple lovely tomatoes from our garden. So I built those into the plan. I also knew we were planning to throw together a caprese salad to use what was left of the tomatoes but I failed to put that in the plan. Those 300+ calories are the mozzarella from splitting the caprese. I didn't feel stuffed after a meal that was calculated at 1,500+ calories so I'm dubious that I really dinged that but it's what the app says. 

 

Body weight 226.8

 

Saturday

Rec

Elliptical 300 calories

Inclined walk 300 calorie

I watched the last bit of the American Gladiators documentary on Netflix then some live jiujitsu matches 

 

Food

I call 33 calories within the margin of error on the day. 

A woman I used to train with had sent me a text last week and we had arranged for the four of us (she and I and spouses) to meet at a brewery. Laura and I don't love breweries and don't really enjoy beer. It just doesn't suit our stomach. We got there and they had a 5mg THC seltzer so I tried that. It was tasty but I could feel the fogginess of the THC as the time wore on. I paced myself out and drank it over an hour and a half or two hours. Satisfied with my decision.

 

Body weight 226.5

 

Sunday

BJJ - Akogi

I got my twelve rounds in. I took rounds 1-6 consecutively and 5 and 6 were showing it. I did a warm up round with a blue belt I've seen there before. I learned that has to drive 90 minutes each way to come to this open mat because he lives in a small town on the border but there aren't a lot of better options for him. After our warm up flow round we went for a real round, this was what I counted as round 1. I took two subs off of him. Next was a purple belt who I pulled on sub off of. Then a brown belt who was saying he wasn't warm so I offered a light round but he said no so I tapped him. He did offer som coach on on standup, specifically, when you're fighting for inside grips and you each have matching lapel grips, how to make sure you get the dominant grip. Round four was a big black belt who has always been really helpful with half guard coaching but this time he didn't have any coaching for me. He never quite got the sub and his only comment after was that I didn't let him have what he wanted so he kept having to try other stuff. round five what a white belt I occasionally roll with he got on top right away and did a nice knee cut pass through my half guard which doesn't happen to me a lot. He managed to get a sub. We went again and he got right back on top. I was not happy with my performance there. Round 6 was a big purple belt who I can sometimes tap but at least control top on, he got the tap. At this point I took my first round off.

Taking a break, sipping my electrolyte drink I realized how much I gassed myself out in that 36 minute run of straight rolls. I took a second round off and then got back in there. Now on the backside of my may rolls for the the day I tried to go one on, one off and that gave me a lot more fuel to get through the rest of the time. I don't recall everyone but things went about as expected. A couple purple belts gave me fits but no one else pulled a tap off of me (I don't take on any more brown or black belts in that time).

I did get some time to chat with the professor at Akagi. He has an injury and was complaining that he is competing in in IBJJF worlds this weekend and is annoyed that his hurt. I asked him about the mindset stuff, his answer jived with my way of thinking pretty well. In my own words I'd say he has two or three different mat personas. He has Teach, Student, and Competitor. He's most often a teacher meaning he's giving people rolls that help them try  something. It means he's always open to questions. As a student he can focus on learning something and when it comes to roll time he can selfishly maneuver to what he needs to train. Finally, as competitor, he doesn't answer questions and he's taking all the taps he can regardless of his partner's rank. He has found that if he wants to be a competitor he has to find someone else to teach the classes so he can just show up. He usually has to make an announcement before class to the effect of "for the next couple of weeks I'm preparing for competition so don't pick me to roll if you don't want to go hard. Don't ask me questions during class or rolling. You can ask questions before or after class and once my meet is over I'm free for questions but not right now".

I'm going to try and work with this. 

 

Also, I went in with two technical things I wanted to work on. There's a take down I'm doing with and under hook and the opposite wrist and working from side control on setting up armbars. I the first half I worked on both. In the second half, if I did, it was by accident. The take down is working but the armbar set up got me swept a couple times. It needs more reps from me. 

 

Food

Body weight 227.5

 

Nice job on 19 miles and now you will never, ever forget to plan your route first. ever.

24 minutes ago, Sepherina said:

Minion #2 and the hubs started butting heads immediately during dinner and I opted to eat out on the deck rather than listen to their bickering.  Minion #2 is at the age where they know everything (18 year old) and the hubs continues to try and “tell them otherwise”.  It’s obnoxious on both sides. IMO, the hubs needs to just not engage and recognize that in many ways they are similar in personality and that maybe this is a phase/stage in life most young adults go through. 

I don't have kids but most of my peers do and I'm the right age that if they aren't teens now they either soon will be or recently have been. From the outside  it's really interesting to see my, primarily male, peers do the exact same pig headed stuff our parents did and we hated too. Things like "telling them otherwise" is right in that wheelhouse. We all have those times where our rational brains shut down and we do the dumb but even as they recount the story to me of how they threatened their teen with grounding if they don't get straight A's or some other dumb thing I can see the self righteousness in them. It's weird because I can't get in their head and they obviously can't get in mine on this topic. 
I totally feel you and would be taking many meals from the deck if I had this in my house. 

Thursday

Rec

Elliptical 300 calories

Inclined Treadmill 300 calories

 

Food

I suspect my calories are overstated here. I tend to just put any drinks in as "old fashioned" but I noticed that MFP says "1 cup drink" but most good cocktails are way less than 1 cup. 

 

We had the book club at a food hall. I just hung out while everyone got food. I did eventually get a cocktail. We sat there and discussed for about 2.5 hours. I was kind of looking forward to heading home with one cocktail in me to make some eggs. However, most of the group wanted to go somewhere else for a drink, led by a friend who I was supposed to give a ride home. I maybe should have called it but I allowed myself to linger. We went to another bar and stayed there for another 2.5 hours. I have done my social duties for work for another month. 

My food for the day was pretty insane. I had my usual eggs for breakfast. I had meat and potatoes for lunch then ate only 3 fried pickles and 1/3 of a a spicy tuna tartar from 1 pm to 9 pm. I had three cocktails in that time (4-9). Since I haven't been drinking much, that felt like a ton of alcohol. 

 

Looking forward to being back on diet today.

 

Other

My back is feeling really good for what it is. I didn't need ibuprofen at all yesterday. I'm still using the heating pad when I sit for work. My back can get a tend stiff but the heat seems to immediately relax it. 

 

Wednesday

Well, I didn't make it to the rec for cardio yesterday. 

But I did make it to the gym for jiujitsu!

 

BJJ

I worked with Ken and want to acknowledge how good of a partner he was. I told him I was injured and he made sure to check in regularly that what we were doing was working for me. I really appreciated it. 

 

Take down warm up

From a collar tie, take the inside position, elevate their elbow, drop to a head inside single. Ken kind struggle to find his rhythm at first but got there. He was surprised to see how I dropped straight into what we call "run the pipe" which isn't worth explaining right now but it's a way to get someone down once you have the leg. I started to mess around with forcing a step from him. I think I'm going to mess with that on Friday. 

 

Instruction

Advanced - sweeps from single leg X

I'll put an image below of single X because it's hard to imagine if you've never seen it.  When you look at it, notice the bottom guy is lined up off center, his legs wrapped around the standing guy's right leg, that's why it's "single leg". X  is a bit more esoteric, it has to do with how the legs would be crossed if you extended your legs. There is something called X guard or traditional X where the bottom player is turned 90 degrees so their should is by one foot and their legs are on the opposite leg and they are both crossed. That's single X get's it's name. It's also one the positions most often called by its Japanese name Ashi Garami.

 

1. Single leg X and bottom player has both "pants sleeves" (the bottom of the pan leg), standard single X sweep by driving away and twisting your body a bit towards the outside of their body. Top player fall down go boom.
2. Top player resists the sweep by squatting and grabbing the lapel. Top player has to reverse their legs to get both feet kind of behind their butt to kick them forward enough to plant a hand on the mat then return to single X. As the top player goes to right themselves, drive them backward to sweep

We also worked to make sure we secure the pass after the sweep but I'm not going to detail all of that right now.

 

 

Beginner - Arm bar from side control

I'm not going to detail this but the gist is, from side control, drive across their body to pin but then let up to allow the to come up to their shoulder in an effort to escape. Use this moment to capture the far arm for the arm bar. go around the arm and set up the break.

 

Rolls

Ken - starting in single X, bottom player tries to sweep, top tries to pass. Professor was keeping an eye on us so we go some good bonus tips. Ken just wasn't sweep immediately or hard enough so I was able to pass. When I did get swept it was because I wasn't clearing his far hand. As long as I kept that active, I was good. 

Manny - Easy sweep, took his back, which he loves defending from the back. I worked for the neck for a bit and continued to fail so I went for the arm bar from back. We got stuck in that position for a while. I need to work on freeing that arm because I prefer this submission from the back over usual strangles.

 

After Class

Manny - Gave Manny his practice at guard passing. He gave me a chance to work on my own thing so I worked on a kimura finish that was surprisingly effective. I don't think I can find the video right now to paste it in here but the gist is from bottom half, I get a hold of their headside arm  and pull on the elbow to expose the kimura. I set that up and as I start to pull on it they roll over me, which puts their back on the ground and out them in a worse overall position but makes defending the kimura easier. Use this opportunity to move my head side leg under their head then do my own shoulder roll to the hip side which is shockly effective at freeing the arm. 

 

Food

It was really nice to be able to eat a few hundred calories more. I just feel less hungry when I can eat of 2k calories. Since I went to he gym I had some kids cereal for carbs right before. That's a nice little addiction I've cultivated, that crazy sweet hit right before a workout. 

 

Other

Today I go to my "work book club". We had someone in the office who wanted to read business books and get together to talk about them. For this one we read Think Again. Unfortunately I didn't get the invite until last week so I'm not done with it. I got about halfway through. It was ok as a business book. I would summarize at least the first half by saying:

 

"Think like a scientist" could have been the title and accurate encapsulate his greatest theme. Think in a critical way about your own ideas and seek to disprove them. Accept them only after you continue to fail to disprove them and it someone offers you a dis-proof, embrace it and be exited to update your model of the world. He goes on to describe three mindsets: scientist, preacher, politician. The first is obviously his goal. The second is where one refuses to hear counter evidence and just digs in deeper when presented with it. The third has a bit more flexibility in the thinking but really doubles down on forcing people into thinking their way. He is avidly trying to convince us to stay in that first mindset and learn to recognize when we slip into the latter two. The last bit of the book I have gotten to is about how to get others to think this way. It's about asking open ended questions of other peoples' ideas rather than just asserting your own. This bit seems like a tightrope because it's definitely still about changing peoples' minds but wants you to also be an honest interlocutor. 

As a business-type book I'd say it's above average. I haven't read a business book in a few years but I went through a spell of reading all the Malcom Gladwell books and other adjacent authors. This one has the problem of being vague at times and hand waving "just think this way" without giving any kind of concrete steps or planning. I suffers from the problem of having one really distinctive viewpoint that despite the rhetoric of this very book, does not point to some of the gaps in this approach. It also tells a lot of one off stories like "Alice was having trouble getting her R&D department to be creative and she did this one crazy trick that really works and everyone became 200% more creative and everybody clapped" that are obviously there to support the point but don't represent any kind of survey of different situations an are often impossible to validate. To this books credit, when I could, I did google stories he told and they were generally in line with the wikipedia articles or first couple of search results I found. 

My personal opinion on his advice is that this is how I have tried to live my professional life for a long time. I learned early on that transparency and welcoming questions were always the best way for me to roll. However, I disagree that this is what I think everyone should do all the time in a professional capacity. I'm a knowledge working with a really technical skillset. Often the people I work with intuitively know their business in a way I never will and similarly will never understand what I do on a technical level. So proving the what I do can be tested and retested is a great way for me to make sure I'm right and builds confidence but I also waste probably half of my work life tolerating repeated questions from people. I also don't want certain kinds of peers the work this way. My leadership are not scientists. It's their job to provide a singular, clear vision. While I want to feel able to ask questions and push back, there is point where they have to say "we're going this way an that's final". If they allow their direction to be swayed too often it creates chaos. Also, there are "doer" people who just need to execute a script. Those people often need to follow that script despite what they're thinking and feeling. They should have opportunities to provide feedback and raise red flags but going forward is their role and watching them languish in the doldrums of "but I think there is a better way" is painful for them and me.

So, I'd say, definitely consider this books advice. We can all stand to be more open to feedback and to be more critical of our deeply held beliefs but know that this does not work for all things at all times and the trick is to find that balancing act of lead people by providing clear direction and staying on course while taking feedback for periodic adjustments, being a "doer" who needs to execute a script while occasionally providing feedback, and being the scientist type who has the luxury of trying things, being open to feedback and making changes at will.

 

Anyway, when I started this section, I didn't expect to write out my review. My actual goal was to say, we're meeting at a food hall and I'm not sure how I'm going to handle that. I'm going to leave room in my calorie budget but ideally, I'd like to avoid temptation and come home to have a more diet compliant meal here. 

5 hours ago, WhiteGhost said:

Challenge goals and whatnot have been a mess.

Bummer. Good luck wading through the messes that life throws at us.

Tuesday

No training. Recovery is coming along but it's still heating pad all day. When I get up from the heating pad I have 15-30 minutes before my back starts trying to lock up again. I at least went out and sat in the yard for a bit before it go hot to get a little outside time. 

 

Food

I managed to land the calorie count on the day. So, I'm happy about that. Laura kind of hinting at wanting to change the dinner plan again but left it in my hands so I kept it pointed at the plan. This is what allowed me to hit my numbers. These days with no training are rough on eating. I get really hungry before each meal and have to hold off. I'm grateful for the plan in these moments because left to my own devices I would just go mow through some garbage with out it. 

My weight is hovering right around 230 which I find totally acceptable given the circumstances.

 

I'm going to go to the rec and get some cardio today. Ideally I'd like 500-600 calories but I'm going to try and listen to my body and call it quits if things get angry.

 

4 hours ago, fleaball said:

In other news, I'm over the CGM thing. Put one in today, pressed on it to make sure it stuck and whatever, then went downstairs to ask my father to put medical tape on it too just for shits and giggles. I held out my hand with the tape in it and the fucking sensor just drops out of my arm onto the floor? Seriously? Okay I'm done. I know they're super helpful for people and whatnot, but so far I'm 0 for 2 on them and if my insurance isn't covering it I'm not playing games with them anymore. Not to mention I'm still salty about the quality of the app. (On top of which, my nutritionist connected to it using the healthcare provider thing and the report she got was super fucking off. It said I was over 250 for an hour at one point and also under 70 for a good amount of time. Which I never saw on my end nor did I feel shitty enough to even think it was off that bad.) So whatever. I tried. Back to the drawing board. 

I've never had a CGM but I recently went down the rabbit hole regarding wondering if I should get one for general health monitoring. While I decided not to a major component to me was "How do I keep it on during grappling"? There is apparently a product called SkinTac that can be placed on it as an extra adhesive as well as SimPatch as an adhesive cover. I saw descriptions of people who are wrestling or swimming daily who endorsed them. 

 

18 hours ago, sarakingdom said:

Under the hood, they're tables like the grid tables of weekly scores, with fancy styling in the HTML code. Once I realized the forum displayed the background colors I use in headers, I realized it'd display pretty nearly all the fancy options. The font options are super limited, but otherwise it can basically do what a word processor can in terms of layout. The first copy is annoying to code, but after that I can copy and paste it.

I do want to acknowledge that you have probably the best produced log I have ever seen on here. It's like looking at some of the Bullet Journals that people post on Instagram where I think "Even if I could do that that, I how would I find the time". It looks great. Also, I've now finished three of the books in the series.

9 hours ago, Sepherina said:

Oh no!  Injuries just suck overall. I hope you manage to get some rest today/tomorrow and then some active recovery.

Yeah, not a fan of this. Current recovery has not been active but I'm hoping to get a walk or some elliptical in today. The heat pad has been my friend. My back gets tight and uncomfortable and then I get it warm for 30 minutes or so and it loosens up again. Not quite to normal but better. 

 

Monday

No training. Recovery is heat pad and ibuprofen. It's been interesting to experiment and see what movements are available to me. In the past, when I've hurt my back, it's been the version you see on TV with middle aged men, when they get kind of stuck in an inbetween position and to sit or stand hurts but once they are in either position, they're mostly ok. In this case I can transition just fine, I can air squat fine, it's the full extension position that's not available to me. It's improving though,

 

Food

Not happy about food on Monday. I did a great job during the day, I stuck to high protein options. I let myself have a protein bar in the afternoon for the sweetness. I considered not doing an afternoon meal to keep calories low but went ahead with some eggs. Then when Laura got home she wanted to bail on the the planned dinner of gnocchi and veg, on which I had made my food plan for the day, and order pizza. In an effort to not be a selfish partner I acquiesced. I'll admit the pizza was tasty but not super filling and it jumped me from a minor deficit on the day to a major surplus. Ah well. Today I will plan as if she's going to bail on supper and keep things tight. 

My bodyweight is enjoying messing with me. It hovered just above 230 early last week. It dropped below towards the end of the week. Now it's hovering right there again, just above. I've got all week though to slowly force it down. Unfortunately I'm injured this week so I can only count of diet, no cardio for a few days while I do so. 

Friday

Food

I kept back 1.2k calories for the fancy dinner. I think I probably landed it about right. I'll put some details in the the spoiler box

Saturday

Rec Time

Strength

• Barbell Row - Injury 

I was just doing my warm ups with like 85 lbs and I lifted my head in the middle of a rep and my back twinged. I dropped the weight, dropped to a knee. It felt not terrible as I stripped the weights the went and hung off a pull up bar. Something was definitely wrong but it wasn't terrible. So I decided to keep moving and see if that would help

• Assisted Pull Up - -115 x 3 x 15
• Lunge, front foot elevates - no weight 3 x 15
• DB Preacher Curl - 15 x 3 x 15
• Chest Supported Row 70 3 x 15
• Lat Pulldown 47.5 x 3 x 15
• Seated Leg Pulldown 65 x 3 x 15
• Curl Machine - 55 x 3 x 15

Cardio

• Elliptical 30 calories
• Stationary Bike 150 calories

 

Food

This is an under report. I couldn't figure out how to log it but be had an apricot tart left over from the fancy dinner that we chose not to eat that night. So we had that this night. So, assume at least a couple hundred more calories. 

 

Other

After I got home from the gym, my back was still being weird. Anytime I'd try to take a big step with my right leg, let stepping out onto the deck, where I would post on my left leg, swing my right leg out through the door, I'd feel like my back was having a small twinge. After we watched a movie, each time I tried to go up the steps, lifting my right foot it would twinge. So I ended up stepping up with my left, bring m right foot to match then step up with my left again. So it was two steps per stair.

 

Sunday

Recovery

Well, my back is screwed up. When I try to stand I kind of hunch my shoulders. My right lower back is tight and uncomfortable. Different from how I've injured it in the past, it's not so much rotation and full extension that is limited. It's really frustratin

No Akagi today

 

Food

I knew I'd not have any activity so I kept my food really low for the day. This will be the prescription for the coming days

 

Week Wrap Up

The week started solid but obviously ended on a down note. 

 

Winning

We reviewed my match footage from the last tournament. My professor and I are of one mind, it was a really disappointing meet from the stand point of showing what I can do.  So I signed up for the September meet to give it another go. As of right now my nearest opponent is ten years younger but 15 lbs lights. Ah well. We'll see.

 

Losing

 

Body weight is going well. The water cut for comp kind of messed up the linear path so it's hard to know how much is lost for sure but I'm way ahead of my initial plan (see in the "Goal" and "Diff" columns above. 

 

Week Kick-Off

Well, it's a recovery week now. I hadn't planned on wasting a week getting over a dumb muscle injury but that's how this is going to go. 

 

Winning

I should spend some of my non-training time watching some videos. I'm really looking forward to getting on the mat again though. I'll be Wednesday at the earliest and it's much more likely to be Friday. 

I will use this time to continue to google and think about the head game for jiujisu.

 

Losing

Getting hurt is no excuse for me to screw up a diet that I have been having so much success with. So the plan is to keep the calories low today and tomorrow for sure. Depending on how I'm feeling I'll get back in the rec and do some elliptical as soon as I can. It's supposed to be a really hot week so I will probably opt for that over walks outside. Tight calorie budget and light movement as my body tolerates is the plan.

 

Process

Diet 

Just do the MFP thing. We're talking 1800 calories a day or so. It'll be an interesting test of how close my base metabolic rate is to their estimate. At that los of calories I'm going to be trying to each mostly protein based things because the carbs and fat that ride with them will round out my diet for the most part. 

 

Training

For the next couple days I'll do what movement my body tolerates but no real training. I expect to get a full hour of cardio on Thursday, but light. I'll go for 600 calories. Jiujitsu will be Wednesday at the earliest but realistically, probably Friday. moving weights is out for the week entirely. I'll decide about next week next week. 

 

Recovery

Initially I'll be doing acute recovery: Ibuprofen, heat pad, managing discomfort. Later I will be doing full ranges of movement just to test my capabilities. 

 

Documentation

These times are always hard for me to make myself want to come here and post. Fortunately I have the food log as an initial motivator so I'll lean on that. 

Quick Notes after BJJ before I forget everything

Private Lesson

"You know these matches were hard to watch". It was honestly really nice to hear someone give me this feed back. I totally agree.

Standing

I was so single mindedly fixated on the underhook problem I had no good take down attempts

Arm Drag

The classic way the arm drag is taught is your hand of choice reaches out to grab the nearest of your opponent's hands, so my left grabs their right, usually at the wrist. You pull their wrist towards you and your opposite arm swings up to grab their tricep under their armpit and you draw both across your body and step in . So left had grabs their right wrist, Right hand goes to the right armpit/tricep and you tug their right shoulder towards your right shoulder. You can now either take the back or grab their right leg and do your worst. However, life doesn't work this smoothly against a trained opponent so we added "climb the rope". Begin the same, left hand grabs their right. Right hand goes for their right armpit but take what you get so you can even barely move your hand up the arm to their mid-forearm, then brink back your left arm to climb higher, maybe the elbow, then higher, maybe you bet the armpit. When you have enough to go for Russian Tie, throw or back take, take it. 

Break the Posts

When someone wants to keep distance by trying to tie up your shoulder, grab the far wrist for control. On the tied up side, grab the matching lapel and raise your elbow to raise their elbow, pull down on the wrist to go for the throw or back. Sometimes people will prevent this by really locking the arm or digging the elbow in. Instead of going inside, take the elbow down over their arm (you have the other wrist) and do you same throws, etc.

Side Control

Professor wants us all but me in particular attacking from side control rather than waiting for mount. 

Getting Control

After I pass, get hip side knee to touch their hip, get hip side elbow to touch their other hip and keep this closed. Keep that arm active as a moveable post. Head side arm wraps the shoulder in what professor was calling "ninja grip". The next goal is to deal with the near side arm. You have to use your legs to do this. You can bring your head side knee down and use it to push the arm up. You can turn your hip side hip down to walk their legs away  to create a space that their arm can't reach. drop in their and square up. You can turn your head side hip down, walk until it falls past their arm then walk their arm up. 

Setting up the Attack

Now that you've cleared the battlezone you can start to work on the far arm. If they do nothing, set up your arm break of choice.

If they roll away, keep the far shoulder and they are forced to extend the near arm so you can gather both. Step over the head and set up the near side arm bar. 

If they roll away there is a rule about which way to go based on where the arm is. You have to go around the arm. So, if the arm is on the same side as their head, go over their body. There are some options here that I don't know yet. I'm stuck going 270 degrees around their arm for now to enter into my usual kimura nonsense. If their arm is on the side of their hip, relative to your head, step over the head and do my kimura nonsense. 

 

We spent a lot of time talking about mindset. This is a martial arts competition so how do we get me fired up, angry even. I honestly don't know the answer to this and I'm not sure how to seek out the answer. When I was in high school I could getting that headspace of wanting to hurt people and just generally be uncivilized. I kind of trained that out of myself but now we're trying to figure out how to access it . I'm genuinely stuck on this. 

 

Class

takedown warm ups, arm drags

Instruction

Half guard - low knee shield - knee lever

Top clears the knee shield with a simple push and moves to underhook and chest to chest. bottom person chicken wings down to keep top person's arm in close. Plant both feet next to top person's knee then point your hips away and roll over onto them. Sometimes called a John Wayne sweep

Half guard - shallow legs, high knee shield

I've never seen this before. Keep your inside leg wrapped around top person's leg. Grab the outside arm tricep and basically knee lever them but you shins are the lever. I need to practice this to better understand the physics

Half guard - high knee shield

Same set up but the top person posts to prevent the sweep. By posting they are giving up the underhook so you can return to the arm drag (technique 1). This is what I love in half guard is how often a failed sweep just makes the next sweep better.

 

Something we encountered and was explained that I hadn't heard explained before, Ben has long limbs so when we were attempting the failed sweep, I found it hard to arm drag him because his arm was still reaching past my rib cage. If the person's arm is on the outside, use the tight waist series. If their arm is on this inside, use the arm drag series. 

 

Rolling

Ben (Blue) - I got him swept to a submission twice

Josh (Purple) - He started on bottom and was successful in sweeping me but we were still in half guard so I swept him back. I moved to mount and we reset. This time I started on bottom and he passed immediatley. He even got and arm triangle set up. I was able to squirm out and get access to his back. Professor started to shout that there was no time left so I started to climb and managed to take his back before time expired. 

 

After Class

Ken (Blue) - no roll, I just walked him through what. I covered in my private

Tim (Blue) - he's a wily one. I couldn't get him with my fancy new arm drag but I kept working then did the unthinkable and pulled guard. He got away before I swept him but I pulled again and got him into mount and subbed him with and arm triangle

Josh again (Purple) - I got two subs on Josh. I don't recall what the first was but the second was an arm triangle. He wanted to know how I escaped his previous attempt so we walked through the details of it. 

 

Food is still TBD on the day. I have plenty of calories left in the tank but I don't know when supper will be dropped off. It could be anytime between 3 and 7. So holding off on reporting food for the day. As of now, I have consumed about 1K calories.

 

My scale told me I was 229.9 this morning. 230 was my target for this challenge period

 

 

I'm going to stick with the same diet through the end of the challenge before I lock in whatever weight that is as my maintenance weight through the end of the year. I'll look to do another push in the new year. 

Thursday

Rec Time

Strength

• Flat DB Press 60 x 15, 10, 12
• Standing DB Press 35 x 9, 30 x 9, 25 x 10, 20 x 12
• Dips -55 x 15, 12, 7
• Hip Sled 410 x 3 x 15
• Db Fly 30 x 15, 8, 25 x 10
• DB Shoulder Fly 20 x 3 x 15
• Skull Crusher - total fail, I loaded the barbell with 72 and tried to get some reps and just failed. I did a couple small sets overhead but they were garbage so not counting anything
• Leg Extension 100 x 15, 12, 11

Cardio

• Row 300 calories
• Elliptical 300 calories

Food

I allowed a bit of a cheat meal and I'm not super happy with it. I was leaving the rec and had to stop at the store to get fish for supper and my entire body was screaming at me that it needed food now. So I bought a teriyaki chicken bowl. Below is a picture of the nutrition label which couldn't be more useless with its 600-1300 calorie range of calories.. Anyway, I bought and literally at this in the car before I drove home. After I ate it it took the edge off the hunger but I got home and wanted my usual post workout lunch.

 

 

My bodyweight was 230.1 because my scale is a big tease and didn't want to ding 230 for me. 

 

Friday

I've got my first private jiujitsu lesson in quite a while. I did them monthly but my training partner's dad passed away so I gave him some time then my professor got sick so I gave him some time. So after a layoff of something like 6 months, we're doing it again.

Tonight is date night in so super will be huge. I left myself 1,000 calories in my plan for it but we'll see how well I endure that.

Today I weighed int at 229.9. Take that scale. 

3 minutes ago, Sepherina said:

So. I have covid….Again. Today has been a sucky, everything hurts and I just want to sleep day.  I hate how germs just love me. No one else in my family is sick. Just me. But then I was always a sickly kid. You would think with as many times as I have been sick I would have a super charged immune system. But no. 

boooooo!!

 

sorry to hear it. Hoping some RR and and you're back in action in a week.

 

8 hours ago, sarakingdom said:

(I'm still trying to figure out the biomechanical details, but in this thread we stan walking.)

Video guy is very silly.

 

Sprinters absolutely lift weights

Squat is not primarily a glute movement, especially in the way shown in the video

You cannot 4-5x your bodyweight into the ground while walking

Walking on your toes will not engage the anterior tibialis to fire because it draws your toes up, not down

 

This is not to detract from the value of walking, he's just creating a dumb strawman and even then failing to knock it down. Definitely give fox walking / forefoot striking just to see how it feels. If it feels good, go for it, I'm not going to tell anyone how they have to walk. I just wanted to call out the silly influencer. 

 

1 hour ago, Sepherina said:

After work I took some time to try and work on some mind muscle connection exercises with the left shoulder. It tracks wrong when I bench press or do any other sort of push movement and I have pain in the rotator cuff and tricep.  The physical therapist is sure it is related to the former injury and some nerve damage and recommended taking these exercises slow with low weight until the form improves.

I have a different issue in my shoulder so I feel you. It's frustrating when those old, nagging things or new, inexplicable things get in the way of perfectly reasonable plans.