Footsore Rambler

Hey, so, I had a therapy session today. I am trying to get some treatment for my sleep issues. It went well. Since my last entry, I've been exercising less. Still getting in the gym time, but the other physical IWOM training items have taken a back burner to work stuff. I can now do a chinup pretty consistently. Better chinups, too; just not 2 in a row yet. And I can't get a pullup (w/ hands facing the other direction) consistently, but I am improving. I feel like I'm closer to true pistol squatting, too, but progress is slow. I still need to hold on to a strap for balance.

A potential reference: https://www.stumptuous.com/no-weights-no-problem

Maybe it's the sort of project that you could facilitate, rather than do single-handedly. I think it's a great idea, and I bet you could find a lot of people who could contribute.

'Field Scientist Fitness' should totally be a thing, if it's not already! I'm a hydrologist, and a lot of my motivation for fitness training is geared toward my work. Here are some of the things I've found to make a real difference in my practical fitness: 1. Hiking a lot. 2. Acclimating to heat before having to exert myself in it. 3. Lifting free weights. Heavy lifting, whole body movements. 4. Gaining enough strength and flexibility to hang out in a squatting position (I guess 'grok squat' is what the kids these days call it). Even more so, being able to squat with my legs wide apart. You'd be surprised how often this can come up in field scenarios, when you want to get your face or hands close to something on the ground without stepping on it. 5. Working on grip and wrist strength.

Here's what my typical weekly exercise regimen looks like these days: Strength training @ gym 1 day/ week, usually Saturday or Sunday Mobility training or swim at gym 1 day/ week, Wed or Thurs. Inline skating for about 30-60 minutes, 2 days/ week, usually Monday and Friday Swim at housing assoc. pool, 1-2 days/week, Sunday, Wed, or Thurs Stretching, Yoga, or mobility work, 4-5 evenings/week while watching TV Very occasional bike ride or running or hiking. I'd like to get to the point where I'm riding my bike more for transportation, but it's been so hot that it is not very appealling.

The IWOM training is proceeding reasonably well. I've already measureably improved in my swimming, breath-holding, skating, and language skills. My health is quite good these days. I'm as strong as I've ever been. I met all of my earlier strength goals except being able to pistol squat, and I'm very close to that one. So here are some more goals. I'm not gonna bother with the timeline this time. 1. Do 2 chinups or pullups in a row. 2. Deadlift 200# x 2 (just over 1.5 x BW for me at present) 3. Squat 135# x 5 (a little over 1 x BW) 4. Do a pistol squat on each side. 5. Do a handstand. 6. Do the splits. That should keep me occupied for a while. Diet-wise, it's been about a year since I joined the CSA, and looking back, I can see that my overall eating and cooking habits have improved. I eat less processed food, I cook more, I eat way more veggies, with more variety. I'm not following a paleo diet, but I do value the framing device of paleo -- the idea that food should not be so far removed from the source that it could be confused with something from the hardware store. I can mostly give myself a pat on the back on this front, I believe. The biggest improvement I'd like to see in my diet is cutting back on drinking alcohol. I do like a cold beer (or two) on a hot summer day, but if I could dial back, I would very likely decrease my body fat percentage and improve my sleeping habits. So I am thinking about making a challenge to go alcohol-free for 30 days. Yeah, so my sleep is a problem area. That's largely due to stress and anxiety, which is largely due to stuff that is going on with my job. I can do what I can to deal with the parts of it under my direct control, but so much of it is not. And so I'm faced with the dilemma of trying to fix it and/or wait it out, or look for another job, both of which are stressful (I'm doing both, BTW). I should look into getting EAP-provided therapy. Maybe that would be another good challenge.

Your goal sounds both ambitious and admirable. I tend to be pretty self-directed, and also quite stubborn, so I've found that I'm better off being my own coach. If I were to pay someone to help me level up, I think help with motivation and feedback would be the most useful thing to me. Basically, someone who can not only tell me I'm being awesome (when that is the case), but who is paying enough attention to tell me in great detail exactly how awesome I am. I would only believe that person if I felt like they really understood my goals and motivation, though. I'm not sure that really answers your question. I'm not sure what certification would help with the above -- it seems like maybe a therapist's job.

So lately, I have decided that I am undergoing International Woman of Mystery training. I'm brushing up on French, Spanish, and Russian, learning to hold my breath for longer periods of time, training for agility (i.e. rollerblading), continuing with my strength goals, working on my swimming technique, and getting SCUBA certification (in a few months). The breath-holding and swimming has sort of taken that place of meditation for me for the moment. It has a lot of the same components, but the end game is slightly different. However, I feel like I'm in a place where sneaking up on relaxation is likely to be more effective than trying to do it directly.

Weighted jump squats and/or power cleans. Squats and deadlifts are helpful, too, but you need something with an explosive power component.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer, of course. Jane Goodall. Boudica. Alanna (the Lioness).

Guys. Guys! Guess what I just bought? A pair of inline skates!! I saw a very nice pair at the used sporting goods store for $20 in my size, and so here we are. And I have already bruised my knee even though I didn't really take them for a spin -- just put them on in my kitchen and tried to stand up. I am going to bring them to work, where I'm thinking I will skate a round campus a bit during my lunch breaks.

I'm in the same boat. Tracking works extremely well for me, but it makes me all stressed and obsessive. So what I have been doing for a while is to track for a few days if I am changing something up, and to stop once I am reasonably confident that I am on the right path. It's not quite as effective in terms of losing or gaining weight, but it works.

Here's where I'm at right now. For reference, I'm a 130#-ish woman, and recovering from medical issues: deadlift - 165# squat - 105# power clean - 60# row - 65# ohp - 45# I don't bench for shoulder reasons. I only recently started doing weighted rows and OHP, for the same reason. I was doing bodyweight stuff before. I have done a couple of different beginner programs before, and my current routine is my own synthesis, based on prior experience and medical advice.

I really enjoyed it, and have been trying to get other people I know in real life to read it. No luck so far

Good job! I have a 20 lb weight in the back of my work truck, for science reasons. It's cool to think that you've lost more than that from your body!

Wow. You are awesome!

I spent a long time wanting to do Olympic lifts, with no one to teach me. I've always been afraid that if I tried on my own, I would build bad habits and injure myself. Well, a few months back, I decided that bad habits were better than no habits, and as long as I kept the weights light, why not just start learning to clean, and see where it gets me? So I did. I have no guidance but the internet, but I am learning. Maybe I'd do awful in a competition, but power cleans have given me so much functional strength that I am glad every day that I started them. And lately, there's a part of my brain that keeps whispering 'Snaaaaaaatch. You know you want to.' But I'd also envision dropping weights onto my head or falling over backward, and so I figured I'd work my way up to it. I've got weak shoulders and nerve damage, plus there is the awkwardness of trying new things in the gym with everyone staring. So I watched some videos. I started doing one-armed dumbbell snatches and overhead squats. The other day I was flinging 30# dumbbells over my head, and having loads of fun. There was a 25# bar next to me. I thought, 'I should snatch this! It's light enough that I have no worries about my strength, plus I already look like a dork* with the dumbbells!' So I did. And now I can cross 'snatch' off of my list, and work on 'snatch well'. * by 'dork', I mean, of course, 'badass'.

What an interesting question! Here are my totally unqualified speculations about it -- worth exactly what you paid for them. 1. It's going to depend a bit on whether your body is male- or female-hormoned, I'd think. Testosterone plays a big role in muscle developement. If you are a female-hormoned person (is that even a term?) right now, I think you will have an easier time building muscle in a way that keeps your body gender-ambiguous. 2. Either way, though, it's still pretty hard to build muscle, so it is unlikely you will wake up one morning all accidentally bulked out. You can probably stop and back off if you don't like what your body is turning into. 3. It seems like your body fat % will matter more than your increases muscle mass. Does that make sense? I mean, fat deposition tends to be pretty gender dimorphic, so for example, if you are worried that muscles make you look more masculine and you are a female-hormoned person, you could probably gain a little fat and get some balance back there. Or if you are male-hormoned in that situation, try lowering your fat %. It seems like it will be a multivariable problem. 4. Point 3 probably doesn't matter in practice, because the amount of discipline it would take to fine tune your body that way is out of most people's range. 5. If you are worried about getting a smaller waist, you can try to bulk your core muscles -- specifically the obliques. Women are frequently told to leave off all of those crunches and weighted side-bends precisely because bigger waist muscles = thicker waist, and that is typically the opposite of what they want. I guess my thought is that you should give it a go and see. The side effects of working out are (unfortunately, most of the time) reversible, so it seems worth a shot. Good luck!

Did you get the chest pains figured out? I have some experience with those as well, and in my case anxiety and extreme anemia were contributing factors. YMMV, of course, but just throwing those out as worth looking into if they keep up (after you rule out the Big Scary causes).

The creatine seems to be helping with my energy levels. I can't help but compare it with Adderall or Vyvanse, both of which I've taken in the past, because it helps with my focus, too. However, it seems to do that in a different way than the above. By increasing my physical energy, it releases some of of my willpower for more mental tasks. I'm the sort of person who is apparently in a lot of denial about my fatigue levels, and tries to power through things using sheer bloody-mindedness. Low doses of amphetamines have worked wonders for me, but they also tend to leave me completely and utterly drained. I guess they level up the bloody-mindedness, at the cost of eventual exhaustion. I'm not taking them right now, partly because of that. With the creatine, I feel like my level of bloody-mindedness is the same, but I have more of it to apply to the tasks of staying organized and whatnot. I like it so far. I've also experienced pretty quick weight gain, which is almost certainly just water retention. I weighed myself at about 135# on Sunday night. I've been able to put in gym visits 2x per week as long as every other one is an 'easy' workout. I have a ton more energy when I am actually at the gym. It feels awesome. Just don't ask me about work right now. Bleh.

Also, I've been taking creatine for 4 days now. I do seem to be noticing a nontrivial reduction in fatigue. In fact, I felt like going to the gym last night to audition my new mobility/balance routine, after doing a strength workout on Saturday. Here's what I did yesterday: overhead squats @ 20#: 2x8 crow pose attempts between sets kettlebell swings @ 25#: 2x15 noose pose attempts between sets wall handstand, alternating with dead hangs: about 3 of each I liked it. That is all.

My understanding is that static stretching before a workout = bad, but dynamic = good (in moderation). My warmup is a mix of moving yoga and stuff like squat-to-stands, and I attempt to keep it moving rather than sink into poses. So I typically do a few sun salutations, some balance stuff, some twisty stuff, and I like to end in a wheel pose because it leaves me feeling energized. It's a lot more boisterous than what I think of as 'proper yoga'. Basically, it's a system boot, and I incorporate a range-of-motion check into it.

I have that thing where I feel like I'm getting ignored, too, and it is frustrating. But it's very, for lack of a better word, empowering to take that feeling and scrutinize it the way you are doing, rather than just letting it toss you around. So nice work! I think online communication lends itself to that feeling -- if I read something you write, but don't really have a substantive or coherent response, I can't just give you a sympathetic look or pat you on the shoulder or roll my eyes like I might IRL.