August 10th, Wednesday - Setting multiple grip PRs, light deadlift

 10.08.2022

Nice day. Slept little yesterday, slept little today, worked some, then slept a little bit more. Last night (this morning) I took  a melatonin pill for the first time in a while. I have a feeling that it makes you sleepy for, like, 12 hours. So you may wanna take it 12 hours in advance of waking up. And if you take more pills it lasts even more.

When I first bought melatonin this summer it helped. Or so I think. I had over a week of normalcy of sorts. Have to learn to use it.

Having my second coffee. Let my little brother play Minecraft for a while. He has to stand on a stool to play it. I believe that makes playing videogames more even - so you don't wanna play when you're actually tired and waste the last of your brain energy. Not exactly the case with me, I'm afraid, he he.

I remember sitting with dread. It was somehow both comfortable and uncomfortable. After standing for over two years I simply cannot sit for long. Not on a normal chair. My body is more optimized in line with our bipedal evolution. We are meant to stand.

Recently I tried doing one legged squats. I can sort of do it on the right if I raise my heel a lot. The left got titanium, so it's not possible. More importantly, I can run up the stairs sufficiently easy, so one leg squat just does not matter. I used to be more flexible, of course. When I was a kid.

Been playing GTA5. FO76 was begin updated, but I didn't even bother. Taking a break from it. The freemode in GTA5 can be very toxic. GTA Online, to be correct.

They have to make everything ridiculous. Everything has to be a criminal activity. And being a CEO also means doing the driver's job all the time. Cannot find "associates" or get hired automatically. Well, this level of ridiculousness makes it, uh, more of a silyl fantasy. Ever since I was young I wondered - what if violent, "crime-promoting" games like GTA do indeed change me for the worse on a subconscious level? In Fallout you get to play the savior of the humanity, at least. In this game you play a succesful criminal. "Crime pays". Well, as I mentioned before, the general level of ridiculousness leads to suspension of disbelief, hopefully making the game less affecting for the mind.

Of course, there are other fairly conventional gamemodes where you just play against other players with cars or guns. Yesterday I tried "transformation races" and came first two times in a row. It was mostly easy if you paid attention. In these races you go from car to plane to bike etc. It was fun. And also I did the first heist. Figuring out the minigame where you have to drill wasn't easy until I looked up the tutorial. I should try using a microphone and seeing if I can communicate with people more clearly. It's really hard to find people to play with you - for some missions.

Also I experienced various hacks, ranging from funny to annoying. One guy randomly teleported the whole lobby to Cayo Perico (southern DLC island) and made me waste some of my time, because I was doing a soothing resupply mission for a gunrunning bunker. This mission required me to drive from one corner of the map to another, and on the way back i had to use a slow van that didn't even have radio. And, as I was literally a few hundred meters from the bunker a random played shot and destroyed my van with a fighter jet. I was pretty salty, so I used my official tone in the chat and ragequit the game. Kinda funny, looking back at it now. So much time wasted. Well, I was having fun. Best not be frustrated. After all, it only took me half a night to download 120 gigs of this game.

Been trying to play singleplayer story, but it's kinda boring, I played it too much. The characters are just not relatable, for the most part. Especially Franklin, because he stands for the opposite of what I believe in. Abandoning your family and the hood for the sake of mindless hustlin'. And I found out that he got the girl that he simped for in the main story, upturning the conventional narration trope of "main character doesn't get hte girl cause he's stupid".

Well, that's a lot of text already. And I'm on my second coffee. I wanna do some DLs today. And not light ones. I'll have to take my time to do it right.

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Played guitar for quite a while today. The strings are almost dead. I really have to change them. Also I should consider adding low and high end compressors to my guitars. Well, it depends, of course. As Yggdrasil has nice low end compressors. I should upload the whole EP to my youtube channel.

All the promoting stuff... Kinda lazy about it, aren't we? I shouldn't be searching for anyone to listen to my stuff, but rather for someone who'll actually like it. Perhaps just have it out there and remind people occasionally. Write a blog about music in my little public page? That sounds reasonable.

10 PM. I want another coffee. I'm not busy tomorrow. But I would really like to make my scheduling a tiny bit more reasonable.

Workout

Deadlift

My quick warmup -
20 for 10
50 for 10
90 for 8
140 for 8

190 for 5 - I think it's a PR with overhand grip 😄 However, I was taking long breaks in between, and my bar is bent. I used the bend of the bar to make sure it's roll into my fingers, rather than out. On all except the last, which I turned the other way - so it rolls out - for the sake of testing. I think the bend is mostly insignificant in our case today. In fact, I'm even considering doing another set overhand. My last DL session definitely played a role in my newfound grip strength today! (it was 170kg, 3 sets of 5).

Gripped CoC№1 for a couple reps and decided to give the old dynamometer a chance, cause my hands are all covered in chalk right now.

I got 95 or 96 kgs. Can't remember if this is a PR xD
Back to deadlift.

193 for 5 overhand grip again - nice, another small PR, this time done faster. I did not expect that.

AND what even more important - my middle finger isn't freezing up! Truly, Thank The Lord for that!

I managed to close Atomgripz 4Band with a cheat close - deep set, gripping my wrist. It's another grip PR! What's going on even 😂
Almost managed CoC№3 cheat close with my left. Not too bad either, I think. Another attempt at 4Band with the right - reasonably worse. Okay, enough heavy grip work for the day. In fact, i'm feeling tempted to do nothing else whatsoever, although only 2 sets of 5 does not feel enough.

193 for 5 - one rep overhand, 4 with straps. I remember now - you begin to run out of skin, ha ha,

Quick unloading of the plates. It's past midnight. I shall do my barbell squat tomorrow.

Feeling quite "extravagant" today. Hmm. What a memory.

Random pic of the day