11 july 2020 - vocal session & "tiny bench" press

11 july 2020

    Well, kind of an exciting day - at least that's how it feels right now. Had minor issues at the start of my training session, didn't have problems with coffee. Took rhodiola this morning as well (yesterday I skipped it). Got to exercising a bit later that I expected.

"Tiny bench" press

120 kgs - 5 sets of 6 - pretty sure that's a volume PR. My old result with 120 was in the prone floor press and it was 10 reps with my elbows tucked pretty much right into my ribs. "Tiny bench" press is kind of harder that normal bench press, although it allows you more bridging possibility. I bridged on some final reps today, but it was more due to me losing my shoulder position. I need stricter setup.

    Then my metal training basically withered, all I managed to do was two sets of "straight bar dips" - it's a lot like normal dips, but on a straight bar. It's a harder version, it requires you to curl up your torso if you want to go low enough without twisting your elbows outside. Basically, it's the top portion of a muscle up. I've used it since 2016, it's a lovely exercise for tricep work. Not the most comfortable, admittedly, and possibly doesn't offer a lot of carryover to presses.

    Anyway, I did a lot of vocal recordings for my song, and I think it might be ready for "release". I'll do some polishing and upload it in the next few days.

At first a lot of my vocal takes really seemed rather poor, but the ones that I ended up with actually ended up sounding rather inspiring. Being a perfectionist doesn't always pay off, especially if you don't know what you're doing in general ☺ So I decided to stop bothering myself and stop re-recording. Let's see if a ton of filters will make it sound even better.

    Also I found a pretty nice (bandaid) solution to ASIO drivers forbidding you from listening to audio outside your DAW - it's simple, you have to unmark your devices and not close the ASIO window. I even made an instructional pic -

    Before yesterday, on my deadlift day, I felt pretty tired of music - i.e. of trying to come up with something new, so I decided that the next day I should revitalize my inspiration levels by sticking primarily to the lessons. I repeated a lesson on arpeggios for guitar and finally remembered how they work, and watched a lesson on a dorian mode for bass. I'm watching lessons from "MusicCollegeTV" right now, they're pretty great. I really have a lot of learning to do, but I want to be creative while doing it. Learning new things really helps your inspiration, so I rocked out way too hard yesterday, overffilling my brain with dopamine. Discovered a couple really cool bands - Eviscium and Funerus. They play old school death metal, straightforward, no bullshit, just the way I like it. Death metal of this kind sounds like quintessential heavy metal, but distilled and concentrated. Funerus's first album is more doom though, second one is more oldschool.

    Today's training isn't over. Just did 2 sets of 14 narrow grip pullups (I only got a narrow bar in my room). Last few weeks I've been doing 2 sets fo 12 on some days, before that 2 of 10. Hopefully I can move on to doing 2 of 16 - just as an "accumulation" exercise, so I can keep up my glycogen levels between weekly "heavier" chinup sessions. Then I did seated biced curls 21 kgs*10 - 2 sets each hand. Then I did some intense forearm training scrubbing down a pot that I accidentally burned yesterday 😁