Saturday, May 6th - Nice squats, musings
06.05.2023
Very nice day. Sleep - 8/10, food - I think it's close to 8/10 as well. A lot of variety.
Also, I've been feeling succesful about my work as a tutor, because I've battling hard overcoming the impostor syndrome. What if I don't do enough? High standarts. Still, though, I wish to have a more stable job at some point. They promise this year it might happen. Last time I was learning C# I got stuck on a geometry task. I wouldn't choose to start writing the code until I understood the premise. And the premise isn't that simple. It's been over 15 years since I went to school. Hmm.
Once again it's pretty late. I'm finishing my second coffee. I expect the workout to be nice today.
So, it's Week 5, Session 2 - 72,5% for 5 and 80% - 5 sets of 4. Our minimax is 200, so it's easy to calculate. 145 for 5 and 160 for 5 sets of 4. Kind of very different from out DL, isn't it? Hehe. I've been working this program for quite a while, and it's been very messy, but still okay somehow. By all this time I definitely should have progressed further. Actually, I have not been working according to the program, when I think about it. But alright. I'd say our supermax would have to be 230. So I can realistically work up to 184. But I expect it to be easy. Hmm.
***
Read Dead Online is a soulless cash grab imho. It's a waste of time. You could say it's fun, but it's bad. It's just bad and you waste your time meaninglessly in that fucking game. I wish I could delete the online version only. Cause singleplayer is worth something. It's got an actual nice compelling story. And online is bad and the fact that your main character is a voiceless dummy is also bad. Feel free to disagree, but remember that you're wrong. Voiceless characters work well in games like FNV, but not in this one. This one too pretentious. The fact that your main character doesn't speak or express his opinion or make choices is simply in very stark contrast to the game world and everything in it. All the player characters in online stick out like sore thumbs. Like mold in the middle of an otherwise pristine wall. They don't fit in the game world. And yes, it's still a fun game, but it's so inconsistent, non-solid, simply bad and they don't make good content for it. GTA Online is better in that sense. And somehow griefers and modders were not as abundant in that game when I played it. And it didn't summon as much of an emotional reaction when the modders were ruining a play session in that game. Because GTA Online is unimmersive in its core, a lot more like a videogamey parody of life. You could imagine yourself peeking around the corner and seeing a platformer level, and there are. More arcade like. A lot more than the Red Dead Online, which overpromises with the awesome singleplayer mode and really underdelivers. And the damn devs do not give a single shit about the modders. They are literally in every session. In my approximation, that makes it so that more than 5% or regularly active players are modders, people who should be banned, but they are not getting banned. Such pathetic failure. I swear, I really should not play this dumbass online mode. I really should delete it as soon as I finish the story. But I think that'd take more than 100 hours of gameplay - for me, at least. Another very rough approximation. Actually, let me look it up...
Maybe not as long. Anyway, I've already put on my workout clothes (before I started this silly rant). I shall be heading downstairs soon.
Workout
Warmup - some squats, focusing on weightlifting technique (i.e. locking out the move with knees going forward). In that sense it's similar to the thigh drag on DL, and it's not illegal in squat, and you can't do it with the low bar poisition. That low bar position has been the scourge of mine. An idiot bait for a beginner lifter. A cheap trick to make yourself believe you're stronger than you really are. Of course, it's only possible when you yourself are foolish and can't ditinguish between different types of squat and think they're all the same. That's what I was, below the surface at least. Could not distinguish, did not bother, and I got injured early, which really took away my ability to squat well. (Injury wasn't caused by squat)
So much time wasted in life. But it wasn't really wasted. It's like throwing away moldy bread and saying it's a waste. It's no longer a waste if it's moldy. I had to take long periods of my life to figure out that I was deluded about a lot of things. Thansform myself into something slightly more pure, I guess. Not as deluded. Devoid of delusion and assumptions. That might lead to loss of direction in life - but only if you had it, which I did not. It's gotten way better over the years. Ever since I went back to finish my education I no longer feel like "a lost soul". I feel like a living man. Normal, not normal - doesn't matter. Normal is a negative definition type of word, which means it's defined by absence of something (i.e. deviations from the largely obscure "normalcy"). Anyway, again...
Squat - high bar, as I must have switched to it forever
20 and 70
110 for 5 relatively small break here
150 for 5 nice, moves easy, but definitely doesn't feel easy 😁 I noticed a scrape on one of the bar sleeves. Must be from the 1.5 kg large collars. Decided to put on the small spring collars - not to wear it out as quickly.
160 for 4 only small break downstairs, not going upstairs
170 for 4 pretty easy, catching balance though
175 for 4 also small break
180 for 4 very nice. 3rd rep was a bit unbalanced, so I feared 4th one might be harder, but I paid attention to my acceleration up and down and it was the easiest. And it probably was very deep too. When I'm coming out of the hole the weight is on the heels, and then it's on the middle of the foot.
185 for 4 - nice. Not perfectly easy, but very confident. RPE around 7. Definitely reaching powerlifting depth (hip below knee in relation to the ground). Belt mostly loose. Still not really a mega deep weightfting squat, but closer than before.
Yesterday, I spent over an hour writing a little riff I had in my head. It wasn't simple. I had to figure out what it was, simplify it for the start, then figure out the tempo. Then I recorded it a few times, fiddling with the guitar tone. Then the bass. A lot of effort, also with the tone, figuring out what I like. It's strange, but I like it when the strings hit the frets. Like a pop bass technique, but simply picked very hard. Then I changed the drums from basic to complex, increased the tempo in two, then reversed the change and wrote a better accompanying beat. Then I played with the MIDI drums and put an automatic wah-wah VST on the bass drum to make it sound a bit like an 808 sometimes 😁 Then I played with and contemplated my way of mixing/mastering, wondering if it's better to have smoother sound rather than punchy. I changed the compressons on guitars and bass to "vintage" - so it really does add an extra peak when it goes too loud sometimes, so that is punchy, I guess. I prefer the softer, gentler approach when it comes to mixing things together. It's sort of lazy, but I believe it to be smart as well, becuase it's so easy to get distracted and overproduce something into oblivion. It can not stop. So I'd rather adhere to the priciple of brevity and finish things faster.
I have a different structure in mind. I think it makes sense for me to make things simpler. I like unexpected either melodic or quiet break between different parts, as I am inspired by Manowar and they do have that. But i wanna keep it simpler. Maybe only one of these. Intro (heavy, not light) - Intrumental Verse - Instrumental Chorus - maybe one short break - then first vocal verse and chorus - then a potential spot for another break, possibly a longer one - then once again vocal verse and chorus, a little different, and with the 68 tempo and 16 bars per part that should really add up to more than 6 minutes, I think. And it's not really 68 tempo, since the riff has some 16th notes, but it's better for snare to hit as if it was 68 rather than 136.
Also, I found I nicer way to edit MIDI drums in Cakewalk - I just edit them in a separate file in Musescore and export the 8 bar MIDI file into the Cakewalk Content folder, where I can just put it on the MIDI drum track. It's important I say MIDI because I don't want my dear reader to confuse MIDI drums with real drums. MIDI drums deserve to be labeled as MIDI drums rather than just drums.
***
Well, now I wonder how I'm gonna spend the rest of the night. Yesterday (Friday) was the first time in a long time I haven't had any coffee whatsoever. Such a strange habit I've developed. For quite a while, I enjoyed at least a cup of instant coffee even on my rest days. And tomorrow is another rest day, but I happen to enjoy my Sunday coffees. Sundays, those are nice days. Simple. Like a blank sheet of paper.
I reckon I might end up posting all of my training clips on youtube and then here. Better than filling up other drives, online and offline.
I've been doing curls on my non-DL and non-OHP days. Gonna do some now as well! Should be nice. Arms are it a nice shape.
Curls
6+6 kg for 20
12 (one hand) for 10
6+6 kg for 20 a bit later
Played guitar. Rerecorded the riff. Sloppy, but I still improved, I'd like to believe. 68 is not the rhythm I have in my head...
Or maybe it's in the swing. I went through a very long thought process, not sure how exactly I'm playing them. Basically, it's a noticeable rhythm that does sound exactly like 16th notes. Hmm...
I finished on this pre-conclusion. And it's really sloppy in the recording. But I need to figure it out...
The squat
Schloss Wolfsgarten, Glockenbau
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