Osu

[Kishi]

7 minutes ago, Urgan said:

Did you ask WHICH culture in particular was the yardstick??

 

No. But I've known my friend for a while, and he's essentially just a mass consumer. He does everything from the MCU to animated works to pretentious crap by quirky directors like Paul T Anderson or Wes Anderson. Or the Coen brothers. He's just really enthusiastic about stories and the different ways they can be told, and I think he finds my tendency to stick to sci fi objectionable on a certain level, like I'm cutting myself off from certain modes or methods or types of story.

 

For my part, I'm not convinced. It's not that I'm opposed to other kinds of story, or even other genres; it's just that sci-fi and fantasy can cover all the other genre bases and throw in dragons and giant robots, and I happen to believe that that's objectively superior.

 

But to hell with it. Like I said, I need some excuses to get off the mats and broaden my horizons a bit, and my friendships IRL are hard enough to maintain as it is. I do tend toward a one-track mind and sometimes there's value in stopping to smell the roses.

[Urgan]

8 minutes ago, Kishi said:

 

No. But I've known my friend for a while, and he's essentially just a mass consumer. He does everything from the MCU to animated works to pretentious crap by quirky directors like Paul T Anderson or Wes Anderson. Or the Coen brothers. He's just really enthusiastic about stories and the different ways they can be told, and I think he finds my tendency to stick to sci fi objectionable on a certain level, like I'm cutting myself off from certain modes or methods or types of story.

 

For my part, I'm not convinced. It's not that I'm opposed to other kinds of story, or even other genres; it's just that sci-fi and fantasy can cover all the other genre bases and throw in dragons and giant robots, and I happen to believe that that's objectively superior.

 

But to hell with it. Like I said, I need some excuses to get off the mats and broaden my horizons a bit, and my friendships IRL are hard enough to maintain as it is. I do tend toward a one-track mind and sometimes there's value in stopping to smell the roses.

 

It's completely okay to be a vacuum or confine yourself to one genre, especially as it varies from medium to medium (movies, tv shows, books, comics, games, Youtube videos, etc). I find I treat media differently, very differently. Can I multi-task while consuming it? More likely to be a vacuum. Do I have to go into a special room while a light box throws shapes on a screen? Yeah maybe once a year, if that. We're all different and given this is what we do to kill time, whether we value "getting it" or not, we do our own thing. 

[Mistr]

On 2/8/2018 at 8:14 AM, Kishi said:

Wednesday was supposed to be Judo and push ups, but I'd not kept up with keeping my gi clean and I was getting kind of squirrely about getting the place vacuumed and getting something out of there. So I took Wednesday night to do push up testing and housekeeping. I'm pleased to report that my set max went from 23 to 28. A 21% jump in numbers with only one day's worth of specific, dedicated training? Sweet.

 

I'm also pleased to report that the washer can definitely handle a pair of gi if balanced properly against each other. Dryer's a little weak, but if that's honestly the worst thing I run up against, I'm probably not in bad shape.

 

Speaking of shape, I finally got my hands on another tape measure. And with food today being thrown on account of office Chili day, I decided to crunch my numbers. I was prepared for bad news - I hadn't had the chance to run my numbers in about three weeks due to various factors, and I figured for sure that taking an extra week of deload would have blown something. I couldn't see anything in the mirror, but still.

 

But yeah, no, weighed in and measured right smack dab where I've been since the beginning of maintenance. 189 lbs, 17.3%, which is within a daily fluctuation of where I was when I started maintenance.

 

See, you are already seeing the difference in having your own place.

 

I have found that gis are the bane of dryers. My karate gis will dry on one normal cycle. The judo gis always take extra time. I usually just take them out at the end of the cycle and hang them up around the house to air dry before I put them away.

 

Yay for being on target after all the commotion of the last month!

 

4 hours ago, Kishi said:

Today, I am taking time to go watch a double feature of some Coen Brothers films, because I am apparently uncultured swine for not having seen The Big Lebowski or Fargo. I'm not sure I agree with the dude's idea of cultured, given that the last thing I sat through with him was The Phantom Thread, which is essentially 50 Shades for the bourgeoisie, but then again I'm now qualified to have an opinion, so there's that.

 

I'll be interested to hear what you think of Fargo. I've never seen The Big Lebowski. Fargo does a fairly accurate job of depicting the Minnesota I grew up in.

[Kishi]

21 hours ago, Urgan said:

 

It's completely okay to be a vacuum or confine yourself to one genre, especially as it varies from medium to medium (movies, tv shows, books, comics, games, Youtube videos, etc). I find I treat media differently, very differently. Can I multi-task while consuming it? More likely to be a vacuum. Do I have to go into a special room while a light box throws shapes on a screen? Yeah maybe once a year, if that. We're all different and given this is what we do to kill time, whether we value "getting it" or not, we do our own thing. 

 

Now, see, I'm like that with my reading. If it's fiction, I'll throw it on in the background as an audiobook or a podcast or whatever. But if it's nonfiction, then I tend to read it with the idea that there's something in there that I can use in my own life - I really want to dig into it and meditate on it or write notes or interact with it in some way. It's probably a holdover from my sales days when I would be prescribed books and read them with the idea that there was something I was supposed to take, but as it is.

 

17 hours ago, Mistr said:

See, you are already seeing the difference in having your own place.

 

Yup! How I kept my room didn't matter when nobody was coming over, but now my room is all I have if anyone comes over. It's different.

 

17 hours ago, Mistr said:

I have found that gis are the bane of dryers. My karate gis will dry on one normal cycle. The judo gis always take extra time. I usually just take them out at the end of the cycle and hang them up around the house to air dry before I put them away.

 

It's a matter of the material. I find that the regular, non-grappling gi just feel paper-thin comparatively. And my judogi are all double-weave - so all the weight and heaviness and stiff. I don't mind the extra time in the dryer, but I don't want to wreck the washer on the way.

 

17 hours ago, Mistr said:

Yay for being on target after all the commotion of the last month!

 

 

17 hours ago, Mistr said:

I'll be interested to hear what you think of Fargo. I've never seen The Big Lebowski. Fargo does a fairly accurate job of depicting the Minnesota I grew up in.

 

I liked it! The theater I saw it in played a bunch of trivia about the film and one thing that they said was that the actors in particular went to a great deal of trouble to mimic the Minnesotan accent. Having been so informed, I got the sense that the actors and the directors really went to pains to create a sense of place and time, and I didn't get the sense of it being a parody or being lazy or playing to stereotype. I feel like that's something where a film can really mess up. Speaking as a transplant to the South, one thing I've noticed is a tendency to use the Southern accent as character shorthand to inform the audience that the character is dumb or inbred or else has some really negative trait.

 

But yeah, no, I thought that the film and the actors did good work and showed a wide range of personalities and such that didn't really necessarily play to stereotype. I must admit, there was one part where I thought the dialect was unintentionally comical, but given that I took Fargo to be a sort of absurdist noir I'm not really sure whether I took it rightly or not.

 

I liked it! And hey, everyone had to grow up somewhere and sometime, yeah?

 

*

 

So, Friday, I got a bunch more books sorted and boxed. They will be donated to the Library today.

 

I thought I'd do a lot more with yesterday, but I really just wound up chilling out. That wasn't a bad thing, though - having a day to just kind of puddle is useful. I did do S&S again, and I managed to complete the whole thing with the 32. Minor complaints from the elbow, but they haven't carried over to today, so I'm chalking this one in the win column. One thing that almost happened is that I almost dropped the weight on myself - didn't concentrate on keeping my arm raised like I should and the balance got away from me. I managed to stop it, but I think I strained something to do it, and while I have pain free ROM, something in my left shoulder doesn't feel like it's quite strong. It's okay, or it'll be okay - this isn't the first time I've had to recover around it, and it's nice to be able to say that I have my Simple back. I reckon I'll take a while to get comfy under the weight again before making a proper test of things, but on the whole this was the big step to get there. Now the 40 is back in my sights, and I have a job where I can get the 40 without it being a matter of whether or not I'll get to eat again that month.

 

But there's plenty of time for that and I'm in no hurry.

 

Went out to the retro theater afterward and took in both The Big Lebowski and Fargo. I liked them both! I think they're both on the same spectrum of absurdism and noir, with one being more absurdist and the other being more noir, but both of them being very strong films in their own ways for that. I think if you're going to go see Lebowski that it's probably best to see it with an audience - the humor can be a little hard to track if you don't have people there, but once you see it, it's actually pretty hilarious.

 

But that's just, like, my opinion man.

 

Anyway, today's docket includes all my general movement practice. There'll be handstands and side lever work and hitting a heavy bag and such. I'm kind of debating whether I want to go to the gym that I know has a heavy bag or if I want to go to the one that's a mile further away that might have a heavier bag and will also have all kinds of neat things, including the apparatus that one uses for side-levering. There are photos of the place, but TBH they don't really tell the story all that great. But it is worth it to check out, I think, either to figure out whether I should keep paying out the amount of money that I am or if I can cut that back.

[Urgan]

13 minutes ago, Kishi said:

Now, see, I'm like that with my reading. If it's fiction, I'll throw it on in the background as an audiobook or a podcast or whatever. But if it's nonfiction, then I tend to read it with the idea that there's something in there that I can use in my own life - I really want to dig into it and meditate on it or write notes or interact with it in some way. It's probably a holdover from my sales days when I would be prescribed books and read them with the idea that there was something I was supposed to take, but as it is.

 

It's all about that value we get from the thing we are consuming, right?

 

14 minutes ago, Kishi said:

Speaking as a transplant to the South, one thing I've noticed is a tendency to use the Southern accent as character shorthand to inform the audience that the character is dumb or inbred or else has some really negative trait.

 

This and politics is what keeps me out of the theater. If I can detect the political views of the director and it is NOT a political movie, you've instantly lost me and likely just wrecked the experience in one fell swoop. I do not go to movies to be taken into that realm (much less to be insulted). If one doesn't care about the paying public's feelings, at least know it is definitely lazy storytelling. I've also lost the stomach for really violent movies, because it brings me back to regular life way too much, you know? I could just listen to current events for this kind of thing.

[Teirin]

Awesome, congrats on your own space!  Looks like things are good here :-)

[Kishi]

On ‎2‎/‎10‎/‎2018 at 2:05 PM, Urgan said:

This and politics is what keeps me out of the theater. If I can detect the political views of the director and it is NOT a political movie, you've instantly lost me and likely just wrecked the experience in one fell swoop. I do not go to movies to be taken into that realm (much less to be insulted). If one doesn't care about the paying public's feelings, at least know it is definitely lazy storytelling. I've also lost the stomach for really violent movies, because it brings me back to regular life way too much, you know? I could just listen to current events for this kind of thing.

 

Indeed. A lot of media is difficult for that reason these days.

 

On ‎2‎/‎10‎/‎2018 at 11:13 PM, Teirin said:

Awesome, congrats on your own space!  Looks like things are good here :-)

 

Yup! Things are good!

 

---

 

 

Oh look this thing.

 

Probably better update it.

 

So, Saturday, I traveled to the faraway gym and essentially they had no idea what I was talking about. So, guess I can go ahead and write that one off.

 

With that done, I went to the gym and practiced my headstands, SL, and practiced beating on the bag. I also entertained myself with some farmer's walks using a trap bar, which I thought was a lot of fun as a way to finish things. I'd been missing loaded carries as a thing I did. Gained a critical insight on forearm headstands about where the point of balance is, and once I saw it, finding it was easy.

 

Sunday, I went off and trained people, then saw to my own training. Push ups were easier, and managed over 15K lbs on my deadlifting session. That's an improvement on last time. I sprinted afterward, but it was dark by the time I got around to it, and the lit area where I wound up doing this wasn't as long as I might have liked. I think it might have been about 50 meters? Anyway, fastest time was about 7-8 seconds. That was fun to put up. If this calculator is to be believed, that potentially puts me in the 'Regional' class of athlete, which is neat when you consider how little dedicated sprinting work I actually perform.

 

Rucked for about a half-hour afterward. Like low-impact jogging. I wonder if, given how much I bang myself up just in general, it mightn't be wise to go ahead and make that my default for long slow work whenever I really dig into doing that.

 

Anyway. Monday, DM-san was in the hospital again, so we started going over different games we could play. One of the players who is also a DM-san of mine brought up Blades in the Dark. Basically, Dark!Steampunk!Ocean's 11. This looks like it's going to be exciting, at least as an off-game in the event that DM-san can't roll.

 

Tuesday, S&S and Karate w/ sPL training. Everything went well, minus some connective tissue stuff - old strain on my right wrist/thumb, and the left elbow was talking a bit this morning. Neither of them seem to be doing badly now, though. Judo and push ups on the docket tonight. Everything appears to be in working order.

[Teirin]

My brother *loves* Blades in the Dark so there's another positive review for it.

[Kishi]

10 hours ago, Teirin said:

My brother *loves* Blades in the Dark so there's another positive review for it.

 

Yeah, everyone I've talked to who's played it has given glowing reviews. I'd love to give it a shot myself.

 

*

 

Ah, Wednesday. Valentine's Day. A day for reflecting upon and practicing selfless, friendly, brotherly, aromantic love. Because what else am I gonna do with that day.

 

Incidentally, it was also Ash Wednesday yesterday, so I guess I could take up ashes and sack cloth. Which I did. Weird how that worked out.

 

Anyway, someone must have said Tournament because it was one of those nights where a young black belt needed to practice and needed bodies. J-Sensei chose me as the dummy. I think I must have taken like a half-hour's worth of breakfalls or something. But I'm not even angry about it - I keep reflecting on the fact that no matter how hard I was thrown, 1) I never landed badly and managed to keep control of myself even when that was happening, and 2) I was always quick back to my feet and never groaned or complained. Not to mention that J-Sensei made a point of thanking me for taking those throws after class; he always seems grateful whenever I show up, which I'm sure is just him being polite as he's old-school and traditional in his mindset and traditionally white belts are supposed to be fodder for black belts. But it was still nice all the same. Sensei noticed me, yay~.

 

Not to mention that I had a chance to practice with a brown belt for a while and he thought that I was 160 lbs. When I told him I was ~30 lbs heavier, he kind of did a double-take and said I was heavy in a good way since I didn't look 190 lbs and didn't move like I was 190 lbs. It's a quirk of being a middleweight, I suppose.

 

Did push ups afterward and managed to achieve progression on those, which was nice.  Gym was kind of empty that night and there was this air of anger about the place. Can't imagine why.

 

I've been struggling with sleep for a bit due to my sinuses closing up, so I bit the bullet and bought some breathing strips last night. And oh my goodness. I slept so deep, guys. So deep. It got to the point that I got up partway through the night to use the restroom, went back to bed, and instead of tossing and turning, drifted back down to the point that I dreamed. I think it'd been so long since my breathing had been good enough for good deep sleep that I had forgotten what it was like.

 

Unfortunately, it wasn't a full night's sleep, and getting even that high quality made my body remember that it's working under a sleep debt, so I was super-groggy when I woke up this morning. I've been practicing Wim Hof's breathing exercises in the morning which definitely do help with grogginess, but they take time and I didn't have it. Oh well. That's what coffee's for.

 

Tonight will be karate and Essential Strength. Week 2 starts today. Should be good times. Beyond that initial tiredness, I'm feeling fine - no carryover pain from last night or anything.

[Teirin]

I have been making the acquaintance of nasal sprays lately.  They are good stuff.  Might help.  

 

Congrats on being Best Uki!

[Urgan]

33 minutes ago, Kishi said:

Not to mention that I had a chance to practice with a brown belt for a while and he thought that I was 160 lbs. When I told him I was ~30 lbs heavier, he kind of did a double-take and said I was heavy in a good way since I didn't look 190 lbs and didn't move like I was 190 lbs. It's a quirk of being a middleweight, I suppose.

 

To put it another way, you appear to weigh 30lbs less than you do. Eye of the beholder and all that.

 

39 minutes ago, Kishi said:

I've been struggling with sleep for a bit due to my sinuses closing up, so I bit the bullet and bought some breathing strips last night. And oh my goodness. I slept so deep, guys. So deep. It got to the point that I got up partway through the night to use the restroom, went back to bed, and instead of tossing and turning, drifted back down to the point that I dreamed. I think it'd been so long since my breathing had been good enough for good deep sleep that I had forgotten what it was like.

 

Unfortunately, it wasn't a full night's sleep, and getting even that high quality made my body remember that it's working under a sleep debt, so I was super-groggy when I woke up this morning. I've been practicing Wim Hof's breathing exercises in the morning which definitely do help with grogginess, but they take time and I didn't have it. Oh well. That's what coffee's for.

 

Nice. Hopefully in a few days your sleep cycle will straighten itself out. 

[LadyFenix]

I use a lot of essential oils.  If you're sick, (or about to be sick) tea tree oil kills...everything.  It's an anti viral, antibacterial, anti fungal, antiseptic, and anti-inflammatory. Spray it diluted to sterilize or diffuse it to kill air born viruses.  Do not take it internally.   Peppermint and Eucalyptus to help you breathe, but don't combine them at night because peppermint is a stimulant. 

 

Once you can breathe, take an aromatherapy combo of lavender (to fall asleep), jasmine (to stay asleep) and frankincense (which does both).  They work great.    

[Kishi]

22 hours ago, Teirin said:

I have been making the acquaintance of nasal sprays lately.  They are good stuff.  Might help.

 

Mm, I'll look into it.

 

22 hours ago, Teirin said:

Congrats on being Best Uki!

 

 It's nice to be able to surprise them. I like to think I'm like an anime character or something - I don't look like much, but then I do something, lift something, bounce up when I should be down and everyone else be like O_O

 

22 hours ago, Urgan said:

To put it another way, you appear to weigh 30lbs less than you do. Eye of the beholder and all that.

 

Well, yeah. It's just that we think very much in terms of weight classes and such. We have one lighter weight and everyone else is heavy. I'm a middle, and the one middle we have, so I basically have to catch and think like I'm every other weight class. Everyone thinks I'm weird, because as you said, I look a lot lighter than I am. I'm something of a gangle creature - long, narrow limbs that don't look as strong as they are. I can live with it. It's nice to surprise people.

 

22 hours ago, Urgan said:

Nice. Hopefully in a few days your sleep cycle will straighten itself out.

 

I mean, at the very least it's more comfortable, and when I wake up it's not as stressful. It's nice.

 

20 hours ago, ladylydia said:

I use a lot of essential oils.  If you're sick, (or about to be sick) tea tree oil kills...everything.  It's an anti viral, antibacterial, anti fungal, antiseptic, and anti-inflammatory. Spray it diluted to sterilize or diffuse it to kill air born viruses.  Do not take it internally.   Peppermint and Eucalyptus to help you breathe, but don't combine them at night because peppermint is a stimulant. 

 

Now, I've heard that those are really good, and I'm not necessarily opposed to natural stuff, but I don't have a nebulizer for that stuff and haven't really looked into it. I'm pleased to say that I'm not sick, I'm just constantly congested, and I'm not sure if it's because I get punched in the nose too much (which really doesn't happen all that often; we've got very good control now) or if the apartment air is too dry or if I've got some kind of latent problem with dairy which I've heard can exacerbate sinus problems. It'll be worth an experiment at some point, but right now my chief concern is getting rid of stuff before I start picking up more stuff including nebulizers and the like.

 

*

 

Well! Yesterday was a day.

 

Warmed Up

 

Front Squats

3x45

3x5x90

4x4x90

5x3x90

4x2x90

3x1x90

Volume=5,260 lbs

 

High Ring Rows: 5x3

 

Pectus Therapy: Chest Swings: 1x20x35

 

Hollow Body Tuck Holds: 4x36s

 

So, yeah. Gym was a survival experience rather than a thriving experience. Oh well. They happen sometimes. A big part of lifting Primally is about taking what your body gives you and not necessarily being beholden to the numbers in your log. Besides, I'm still cleared to up my weights, and I'm confident that the overall volume of this cycle will be up in the end.

 

High ring rows are easy and painless. I will continue to stay here until the cycle is complete. Chest Swings are an Athlean X exercise I picked up as a form of therapy to try to get my pecs working. One of the quirks of my body is that whenever I do pressing or pushing exercises, my front delts and triceps tend to take over. It's great for their development, but it leaves me with a relatively scooped-out kind of look, which is bad for physical/structural balance and also makes me look bad. So you take the weight, leave it hang down by your side, and use the pec to adduct it across your body. That adduction actually forces all the fibers in the pec to work, and you can also engage in tactile stimulation of the pec to reinforce activation (basically touching your chest with the offhand while you adduct). I like it, actually, and combined with rucking and other stuff I do to stretch out that area and work on my back, I'd say it's helping a lot.

 

Those tuck holds were fine, but I don't think I'm comfy with advancing them yet. Fortunately, though, I can tie them to the cycle of my lifts and just consolidate here for a while. We'll see how it feels in a couple of weeks.

 

Karate was good. I managed to apply the things we studied in class and managed to foil a lot of K-sensei's plans. At the same time, we managed to identify some gaps in my game and I have more things to practice now, which makes me happy. I'll have an opportunity to work on that stuff this weekend, and I think I'm going to rearrange the program a bit to keep all the eggs in their baskets. So, handstand, side lever, farmer carries first, followed by martial foolery, followed by distance work. It'll wind up being a long session, but having distinct sections for each thing feels better for me in terms of keeping things organized rather than just going from one thing to the next.

 

Meanwhile, S&S and Kali tonight. Since I'm going to try to get back to the apartment and get the kettlebells done before Kali, I'm kind of tempted to play with the 24 tonight as opposed to the 32. Just because I can get through it faster, and it'll still wind up being more volume on the whole than I've gotten in a while. OTOH, I'm not hurting any and I don't feel bad, so...

[Urgan]

39 minutes ago, Kishi said:

Well, yeah. It's just that we think very much in terms of weight classes and such. We have one lighter weight and everyone else is heavy. I'm a middle, and the one middle we have, so I basically have to catch and think like I'm every other weight class. Everyone thinks I'm weird, because as you said, I look a lot lighter than I am. I'm something of a gangle creature - long, narrow limbs that don't look as strong as they are. I can live with it. It's nice to surprise people.

 

Darkhorse Kishi. That could be an anime.

 

40 minutes ago, Kishi said:

High ring rows are easy and painless. I will continue to stay here until the cycle is complete. Chest Swings are an Athlean X exercise I picked up as a form of therapy to try to get my pecs working. One of the quirks of my body is that whenever I do pressing or pushing exercises, my front delts and triceps tend to take over. It's great for their development, but it leaves me with a relatively scooped-out kind of look, which is bad for physical/structural balance and also makes me look bad. So you take the weight, leave it hang down by your side, and use the pec to adduct it across your body. That adduction actually forces all the fibers in the pec to work, and you can also engage in tactile stimulation of the pec to reinforce activation (basically touching your chest with the offhand while you adduct). I like it, actually, and combined with rucking and other stuff I do to stretch out that area and work on my back, I'd say it's helping a lot.

 

If you want to get your pecs involved in say, a bench press, you take a relatively wider grip. Close grip bench is specifically done to force the triceps to do more of the work for people who be having trouble getting triceps to be a team player. I'm not one of those, as I've essentially close grip benched by accident for the majority of my lifting career.  

 

[LadyFenix]

3 hours ago, Kishi said:

Now, I've heard that those are really good, and I'm not necessarily opposed to natural stuff, but I don't have a nebulizer for that stuff and haven't really looked into it. I'm pleased to say that I'm not sick, I'm just constantly congested, and I'm not sure if it's because I get punched in the nose too much (which really doesn't happen all that often; we've got very good control now) or if the apartment air is too dry or if I've got some kind of latent problem with dairy which I've heard can exacerbate sinus problems. It'll be worth an experiment at some point, but right now my chief concern is getting rid of stuff before I start picking up more stuff including nebulizers and the like.

 

I think you mean diffuser, and you can easily put it on tissues or cotton balls and stick it in you pillowcase.  Most oils you can apply topically.  

[Kishi]

On ‎2‎/‎16‎/‎2018 at 1:26 PM, ladylydia said:

 

I think you mean diffuser, and you can easily put it on tissues or cotton balls and stick it in you pillowcase.  Most oils you can apply topically.  

 

Ah, that I did. And that I did not know. Which goes to show, I guess. Right, then. That will go on the list of things to try.

 

On ‎2‎/‎16‎/‎2018 at 10:24 AM, Urgan said:

Darkhorse Kishi. That could be an anime.

 

"KISHIN NO DENSETSU: Legend of the Darkhorse Knight." Got a nice ring to it.  (fairly certain I buggered the translation, tho)

 

On ‎2‎/‎16‎/‎2018 at 10:24 AM, Urgan said:

If you want to get your pecs involved in say, a bench press, you take a relatively wider grip. Close grip bench is specifically done to force the triceps to do more of the work for people who be having trouble getting triceps to be a team player. I'm not one of those, as I've essentially close grip benched by accident for the majority of my lifting career.  

 

So, the problem is, most of the stuff that I'm working on right now has pre-defined hand placements. Push ups on Sunday are for the purpose of building toward a hollow back press, and push ups on Wednesday are done for endurance and building ultimately toward high rep One Arms.

 

But between those, the straddle planche work which involves lots of scapular depression and pressing and the like through the arms, and the pressing I do for TGUs... well, it's an awful lot of pressing, and I don't know that I want to load that pattern up more than I have to.

 

Believe it or not, I do bench every once in a while, but it's incline DB work to really focus on stretching the muscle out and building a little size via occlusion and such.

 

I don't mean to dismiss your advice, as I'm familiar with the concept (Street Workout folk are really big on hand placement for chest work), but I figure this is a good dosage given everything else I'm doing right now. Remember, I'm not just doing chest work - I'm also doing additional postural work too to get that whole area to open up.

 

*

 

So, Friday didn't go according to plan. I take Fridays to work on my older cases, which are defined as having been in process beyond a certain length of time. And I've got an awful, awful lot of them. It was enough that I ended up staying late. I didn't have to, but I thought it'd be a bad look if I presented a status report saying, "Hey, these things are old and I'm not doing anything about them." Especially since I was able to find a bunch that I could do things with to move them toward closure and such, which is always good news.

 

But it did mean missing S&S, which I wasn't happy about. And I carried that frustration with me over to Kali, which wasn't a good thing of me to do. My attitude didn't slip, but I did get frustrated with how some of this tends to work. When you get in close to people with knives, things get... intricate. Lots of weird structural games where you have to direct someone's energy but you have to place the hands weirdly. And TBH I think it's more intricate than I'm prepared for right now. I've tried explaining this to Manong, but so far he either doesn't get it or doesn't buy it. Or alternately, struggling with this is par for the course and I need to swallow my pride and be humble and just accept that, well, he makes this look good because he's been doing this for about as long as I've been alive, and I need to adjust my expectations of myself and be willing to just grind through the bad reps.

 

In other news, I've been looking up how my wrist has been acting, and while I don't have a formal diagnosis, this seems to track most closely with DeQuervain's Tenosynovitis, which is basically an aggravation of the thumb tendon right over the wrist. Which means I'm officially on regression for my wrist prep work for the next 6 weeks. Which is also frustrating, but it's like Strongfirst says - it's okay to regress to progress, and the regressions honestly feel better on my wrist right now than trying to grind for more. So, just one more thing to track and be mindful of.

[Kishi]

Also, has anyone else been having issues where you think you posted and then the site saves your post without actually posting it?

 

It's happened a few times to me, and I'm wondering if I'm just special or not.

[Urgan]

2 hours ago, Kishi said:

"KISHIN NO DENSETSU: Legend of the Darkhorse Knight." Got a nice ring to it.  (fairly certain I buggered the translation, tho)

 

Or a video game, possibly. 

 

2 hours ago, Kishi said:

So, the problem is, most of the stuff that I'm working on right now has pre-defined hand placements. Push ups on Sunday are for the purpose of building toward a hollow back press, and push ups on Wednesday are done for endurance and building ultimately toward high rep One Arms.

 

But between those, the straddle planche work which involves lots of scapular depression and pressing and the like through the arms, and the pressing I do for TGUs... well, it's an awful lot of pressing, and I don't know that I want to load that pattern up more than I have to.

 

Believe it or not, I do bench every once in a while, but it's incline DB work to really focus on stretching the muscle out and building a little size via occlusion and such.

 

I don't mean to dismiss your advice, as I'm familiar with the concept (Street Workout folk are really big on hand placement for chest work), but I figure this is a good dosage given everything else I'm doing right now. Remember, I'm not just doing chest work - I'm also doing additional postural work too to get that whole area to open up.

 

My point was a physiology lesson in that it's your exercise selection and not you that dictates what body parts do the most work. I am the last person to suggest adding one to your routine (without rotating out another). 

 

2 hours ago, Kishi said:

So, Friday didn't go according to plan. I take Fridays to work on my older cases, which are defined as having been in process beyond a certain length of time. And I've got an awful, awful lot of them. It was enough that I ended up staying late. I didn't have to, but I thought it'd be a bad look if I presented a status report saying, "Hey, these things are old and I'm not doing anything about them." Especially since I was able to find a bunch that I could do things with to move them toward closure and such, which is always good news.

 

But it did mean missing S&S, which I wasn't happy about. And I carried that frustration with me over to Kali, which wasn't a good thing of me to do. My attitude didn't slip, but I did get frustrated with how some of this tends to work. When you get in close to people with knives, things get... intricate. Lots of weird structural games where you have to direct someone's energy but you have to place the hands weirdly. And TBH I think it's more intricate than I'm prepared for right now. I've tried explaining this to Manong, but so far he either doesn't get it or doesn't buy it. Or alternately, struggling with this is par for the course and I need to swallow my pride and be humble and just accept that, well, he makes this look good because he's been doing this for about as long as I've been alive, and I need to adjust my expectations of myself and be willing to just grind through the bad reps.

 

Kishi does the thing. Sometimes it's difficult and ugly, but it's a job that has to be done. You should be proud.

[Kishi]

On ‎2‎/‎17‎/‎2018 at 4:37 PM, Urgan said:

Or a video game, possibly.

 

Right?

 

On ‎2‎/‎17‎/‎2018 at 4:37 PM, Urgan said:

My point was a physiology lesson in that it's your exercise selection and not you that dictates what body parts do the most work. I am the last person to suggest adding one to your routine (without rotating out another). 

 

Ah, and me missing the point entirely. But it wouldn't be me if I didn't do that, yeah?

 

But yeah, it just means that everyday is Chest Day, meaning every day is Best Day.

 

On ‎2‎/‎17‎/‎2018 at 4:37 PM, Urgan said:

Kishi does the thing. Sometimes it's difficult and ugly, but it's a job that has to be done. You should be proud.

 

Yeah. I knew I wouldn't be able to live with it if I walked away from it like that. I did right, and I'm content with it.

 

*

 

So, the weekend!

 

Saturday, I went in to work some overtime, since I have to make up for adverse weather. Set myself up for an easy Monday. Also was informed that working OT meant my hours counted for time and a half, so even though I worked 4, it may have counted for 6? Which if it did would mean I only have a couple hours left? Which would be awesome, if so.

 

Went and hit the gym afterward. Wasn't able to hit my headstands the way I wanted to, but I'm actually kind of glad. Like I said, I'm babying my wrists as much as I can right now, so I've had to regress the wrist prep work that GB insists on, all the way back to the basics. But even doing that, I've noticed that the quality of my movement on those regressions is way higher than it was on the progressions where I was, and part of me suspects that I was playing with things I shouldn't have been, and this ultimately may have played a part in that particular tendon freaking out.

 

So, I'm regressed. But regression isn't the same as not progressing.  Besides, better to have this problem now rather than later when I'm actually standing on my hands. I've adjusted my notes to set a time frame for the next 6 weeks, and I'll figure out the next step then.

 

Otherwise, side lever work and farmer's carries and rucking on the treadmill. Oh and hitting the heavy bag because OFC.

 

Sunday followed:

 

Warmed Up

Incline Push Ups: 1x9

Integrated Mobility: Done

 

Push Ups: 5x3

Integrated Mobility: Done

 

Deadlifts

1x5x45

1x5x65

1x5x95

1x5x135

1x3x155

3x5x190

3x4x190

7x3x190

7x2x190

12x1x190

 

Sprints

 

Tuck Ups: FAIL

Integrated Mobility: Done

 

So, I decided to edge off the intensity just a bit on deadlifts and lifting in general. It's a little hard to articulate the difference, but there's a point where you feel a grind coming on but it's not quite enough and so you push past it to the point where you definitely grind out the reps. I wish I could explain it better, but basically I've decided I don't care for it very much and that I'll just go up to that line without going past it.

 

I thought it would kill volume to do it, but it really doesn't seem to have. Instead of having lots of volume at the start, it seems that the volume shifts over to that power range instead - the 1-3 rep range. And typing about it here on Monday I feel better - hamstrings don't feel sore, and I don't feel anything in my hip/lumbar area.

 

And sprints went pretty great. Managed to get five full things done and got it just right in terms of effort.

 

Core work suffered some, but the integrated mobility involves some hamstring stretching, so it wasn't a total loss.

 

Spent the rest of the day blowing my macros with a D&D crowd. Woke up today with the feeling that food was gross, so I'm trusting my body and fasting today. Ran my measurements Saturday and I'm up a little, but not more than I've been during this maintenance phase. Still kind of stunned that maintenance has been this easy. Fighting the urge to be impatient and go on cut.

 

Although speaking of that, with the Con being up in July, the plan is to cut for March-April, maintain May-June, then hit another cut in July. Not sure if I'll keep going at that point or what the plan will be, but I must admit it's nice to have a plan. Or at the very least to feel like it's a plan I made that fits me and my circumstances. Of course, we all know how plans work...

[Mistr]

Good for you on the PRs, better sleep with better breathing and giving your joints some relief.

 

Remind me again, why are you contemplating a cut when you already appear to be 30 pounds lighter than you are?

[Kishi]

6 minutes ago, Mistr said:

Good for you on the PRs, better sleep with better breathing and giving your joints some relief.

 

Yeah, things are just going really right my way right now. As long as I stay careful, it might just continue.

 

7 minutes ago, Mistr said:

Remind me again, why are you contemplating a cut when you already appear to be 30 pounds lighter than you are?

 

Because I'm super vain about this kind of thing.  There's also an advantage in terms of being able to control my weight so that I can either cut down to a higher range of a lower weight class, or bump myself up in the weight class where I am now.

[Mistr]

18 minutes ago, Kishi said:

Because I'm super vain about this kind of thing.  There's also an advantage in terms of being able to control my weight so that I can either cut down to a higher range of a lower weight class, or bump myself up in the weight class where I am now.

 

Ah, that makes sense. I forgot that judo had weight classes. Does your weight make a difference for karate or Kali?

[Kishi]

15 hours ago, Mistr said:

 

Ah, that makes sense. I forgot that judo had weight classes. Does your weight make a difference for karate or Kali?

 

Good question! I suppose it might? Maybe? Our version of karate has more in common with kickboxing, so maybe if I went out for K1 there'd be an advantage. As for Kali, I'm not really sure. Maybe if I got fatter I could hide some of my veins and not be as easy to cut?

 

*

 

Monday done. I decided to switch my stretching so that I do it at night rather than during the day. I live close enough to work and everything now that that's a legit strategy.  And it worked! I ended out the day feeling really nice and loose.

 

Game's going well. My character's soul has been migrated into another body. It's shorter, weaker, and fleshy, but it also has a voice and can taste food, and that's not a bad trade off. Now he just has to get back on the good side of his goddess and he can die well. Although, well, the idea is not to die at all. But it's a real possibility and I'd really like to die in a state of grace if I have to die at all.

 

Today, thumb's fine, but elbow's a bit twingy. Probably go easy on S&S today since I will have Karate after.

[Urgan]

6 minutes ago, Kishi said:

Game's going well. My character's soul has been migrated into another body. It's shorter, weaker, and fleshy, but it also has a voice and can taste food, and that's not a bad trade off. Now he just has to get back on the good side of his goddess and he can die well. Although, well, the idea is not to die at all. But it's a real possibility and I'd really like to die in a state of grace if I have to die at all.

 

Makes Judgment Day go a little smoother.

[Kishi]

1 minute ago, Urgan said:

 

Makes Judgment Day go a little smoother.

 

Indeed! Otherwise, we'll have to roll out a Journey To The Afterlife, and those things can go wrong. I'd really rather avoid that if I can help it.