My training log and thoughts

 31.08.2023 Feeling pretty beat up after yesterday. Sleep 5/10, nutrition is decent, but appetite low. Managed to wake up earlier after getting annoyed at how I've been waking up. A prayer helped. Now much else beside that. I think I might have to move my OHP to tomorrow, and today we can work on lats and bicep again. I find it reasonable. I wish my mind wasn't as random. I really put myself into chaos yesterday when I read that disturbing article. I think I might have overtightened my belt by just one hole yesterday. A good rule of thumb - a belt is supposed to feel tight only when you brace. You reaqlly want your stomach to pop out in the front and sides, not be squeezed by the belt. In 2017-2018 I had a mental fixation, cause I think I partially forgot how to brace right after the army, and for a while I experimented with tighter and tighter belts, even drilling an extra set of hole in my belt. That was just a mistake. A belt is not a replacement for your back and abs. It...

 30.08.2023 Nice enough day. Not much happening. Ate well yesterday, didn't have to eat much today. Sleep was okay. Dreams were a little disturbing (all that I remember), but in them I showed sufficient fortitude again evil and vice. Now I'm having my first coffee. *** Coffee was nice enough. Mild effect. Made a second one. Ate some more food, a small amount, but I feel overfilled. Now, let's talk about poop. It's an important topic to discuss if you want to do deadlift and brace correctly. If you go to the toilet in the middle of your deadlift session, in between sets - your bracing will be off. Your technique will change, and you might be thrown off. It's not recommended to have a thinned out waist if you wanna brace well. So, it's important you either take a dump before the session or after, not during. That has been my observation. Week 2, Session 2 - 4 sets of 3 with 82,5%. So, I'm think we can go for 245-260. Sounds reasonable? I think so. Workout No ...

 29.08.2023 Nice day. Not much happening. Ate well, maybe even significantly above average, quality and quanity wise. Sleep - okay as well, 6/10. Not sure what to do today, but I know I want to do something and I really feel like I have to as well. This unsuredness comes from the fact that tomorrow is the DL. I shall work on the things I forgot about yesterday. Nothing too heavy, of course. Had one pot of coffee. Pleasant, and as usual - relaxing at first, stimulating a little bit later. Managed to overcome my desire for a second one. Workout A plenty of different ideas, a warmup akin to the one I do for OHP sessions. Captivated by tricep pushups from the wall as they provide me with a strange relieving sensation in my right forearm. Did about three sets of them, arms positioned at my head level or above. Got pumped a little. Pushups - this time not the "a-la bench" short pushups, but long ones, with scapular destraction, shoulders moving close together, and serratus anterior...

 28.08.2023 Nice day. At night, played BG3 for a long time, slept little, woke up and worked, slept a lot, woke up late. Had a moderate-sized breakfast - ground pork, egg, tomato, onion, bread. Tomato paste as sauce. Now I shall have my single pot of moka. The taste is exquisite, but a little different from what I'm used to. I put in 17 grams of expensive arabica and 3 grams of a nice enough robusta. The one from the stash. That way I will finally empty it. I enjoy having a bit of soda in between coffee cups. It sorts of cleanses the palate, but also makes you refocus on different aspects of the taste. Not sure exactly how it works, but if you have something bitter the coffee tastes sweeter and vice versa. This is the bitter type of soda, tonic stuff. Ever since I reintroduced pullups I've been having issues with, I think, fascia around my left oblique muscle. Not the muscle itself, but soft connective tissue on top of it. It hurts a little when I stretch this side. The scissor...

 27.08.2023 Nice day. Not much happening. Ate well last night, ate a little bit for breakfast today. Yesterday's session got me confused a little. I'm thinking I could squat today. Week 4, Session 2 - 4 sets of 2 with 85% . So, we could go from 170 to 180, perhaps? Sounds reasonable, although I just feel so deeply confused, somehow. It's all too weird, training like that. August. What a time. Such a strange time. I've been overwhelmed with a feeling of "changed reality". It comes sometimes. It's sort of a creative feeling, I guess. I'd like to imagine it's the parts of my brain searching for something and not finding it. Yesterday was an awesome day, now that I remember. My brain is restructuring itself again. It's a weird feeling. Like I'm walking in some sort of dense bright fog. It's not a very strong feeling, but it's persistent. Can anyone relate? *** Drinking coffee, playing some of my country-style tiny little tunes on the cl...

 26.08.2023 Nice day. Woke up very early after I fell asleep early yesterday. Had a lovely moderate sized breakfast. I assumed I was going to sleep some more and played BG3. It's a lot of fun, and I was stuck at one combat encounter for a while (Toll house). My party members were all level 3, so I don't know if it was supposed to be hard or I just came early. Playing on normal difficulty. I went back to sleep, which was very deep and pleasant and did not want to let go of me. Woke up a little too late, had a small amount of carbs and now I'm having my one coffee. I shall stick to one for today. The workout could be done before midnight. Week 2, Session 2 altered (volume split and increased between PP and OHP). Remember when I used to do a lot of cleans? I'd love to go back to that, perhaps. So, it's 4 sets of 3 with 82,5%. Hmm... 105-107 for OHP, and 120-128 for PP? Reasonable, perhaps. We shall see. Well, I know I can do all that. But I might end up putting the ba...

 25.08.2023 Nice day. Managed to work a little. Ate somewhat well - 6/10 if I had to rate it. I've been feeling more and more like I don't need to eat a lot. Slept a lot, remember having nice dreams. CNS is undergoing the "second day fatigue" from Wednesday, I guess. Yesterday contributed too, of course. I did some curious leg stretches - I think I'm very close to being able to touch my shoulder with my foot. I don't really need that, but it's useful for olympic style lifting. If you're stretching you need to have a purpose for it, imho. Also, lumbar region is still very tired. So, I might want to limit my hanging on the bar. Now it's pretty late. Played some Baldur's Gate 3 yesterday. Seems a lot of fun so far, hard for me to get used to camera though. And also, I remember having made a switch to underhand pullups. We shall practice some today. I think I'm not gonna have any coffee today - that is very good. That means I'll have a stro...

 24.08.2023 Nice day. Slept well. Back faigued from yesterday in the most pleasant way. Sounds a little weird, doesn't it? Strange how such a heavy effort managed to relax me in such a way. Week 4, Session 1 lightened - 80% for 4 sets of 4. I just feel like it would be a smart choice to use a small max to calculate today's efforts, even if I squatted big last time. Perhaps we can go just a tiny bit further - I'm feeling nice, after all. Or we can just stick to a smaller weight and lift it with more power, simply teaching our nervous system to work perfectly. Tomorrow will not be a boring day, I can promise myself that. Friday two weeks ago (more specifically, 13 days ago) was the last boring day I've had. It was borderline making me feel like an ill person. I think that was the last rest day I've had. Since then I've switched to every day training. Coffee feels about the same. It regulates itself. Well, I still might want to at least attempt to moderate it a ti...

 23.08.2023 Nice day. Feeling calm, even sleepy for no reason. I think my CNS is getting adjusted. Well, I'm always a little sleepy at first. Now I'm not. Reading more news that convince me we live in hell and we're the demons. Oh well. Week 2, Session 1 - 77,5% for 5 sets of 5. Today I want to minimize the spread. What will it be? I think it can be going from 235 to 245. Reasonable? Perhaps. We shall see. I think I've gotten thinner. Someone asked me if I've been losing weight. I lost some weight 8 weeks ago, and I think I've had a period of changed metabolism. Now I'm not too light, but I kinda look thinner. You can check the videos and compare them to last year. Workout Warmup - not upstairs. Somehow, wasting energy upstairs feels wrong. Deadlift 20 - 70 - 160 for 5 Shaved, as I often do during my deadlift. 203 for 5 - two reps overhand, three reps hook grip. Hook grip got better. 235 for 5 nice enough, took voluntary breaks. Might have tightened the belt...

 22.08.2023 Nice day. Decent sleep, above moderate breakfast. Two mixed coffees in a moka pot, taste maintained somewhat decent. Now it's kinda late. Listened to music. Energizement very slightly above average. Not exactly sure what I'd prefer to do for a workout today, but I'm leaning towards bench, as it would be preferable to do today rather that after deadlift and squat on the following days. Even though I did OHPs and PPs today. I have a unique idea on the type of training I shall put myself under. Also, in the last two or three days I've re-read about a third of the story I'm writing for the third time. More edits, big and small, a few small cuts, a lot of rephrasing. And I've also compiled a summary. Workout Warmup - just upper body warmup with a stick, accent on flexing pecs and lats Bench press 20 - 50 - 70 - 100 Then, sets of 3 115,5 - 118 - 120,5 - 123 - 125,5 Feels very nice, all very easy, joints don't feel burdened and neither does connective t...

 21.08.2023 Nice day. Woke up early, worked, went back to sleep, woke up later feeling good, had a breakfast, now I've finished my first coffee and I have to admit it's a little too late. And I have OHPs and PPs today. Today is Week 2, Session 1 altered (split between OHP and PP with little extra volume). 77,5% for 5 sets of 5. Same as last time, basically. So I think we'll be going for 93-98 in OHPs, and 110-118 in PPs. Reasonable? Maybe. The story ended up being over 430 pages so far, and it's not even halfway there. But it's the mega raw text. Robot helped quantity-wise. Still struggling with imposter syndrome, thinking it's not me who's writing it. It's an important discussion that we'll ponder on. A metaphor, you could say - trees bred to be straight and thick, and then the woodmill makes proper planks from it, and the carpenter makes something specific from the planks. In that metaphor, I have to be the tree breeder and the carpenter, while th...

 20.08.2023 Nice day. It's all okay. I can feel yersterday's volume. But I still wanna train today too. It'll be an easy and invogorating one, the whole workout is gonna be a like a nice warmup. I need to work on some of my weak spots. My abs, my obliques - they feel a little unstable. Took a walk to the store. Ever since covid I've gotten addicted to buying groceries online. Some of them were, in fact, cheaper than the ones in some other stores. But today I ventured up to the store where I used to buy food in 2019 and realised the prices there are lower. Stuffed my backpack and had to buy an extra bag, should have taken one. In fact, it makes a moderate amount of sense to always carry a couple plastic bags with you. Extra inventory slots! Or they can be used in a variety of other ways - clothing, shoes, small rope etc. I loved how easy walking felt today. I tightened my boots properly so they weren't chafing my ankle bone. First the strange muscle in my legs felt t...

 19.08.2023 Nice day. Slept about enough, nice dreams, moderate sized breakfast (ate a lot earlier). Last nice I've been re-reading the manuscript, editing a little, mostly writing up a summary. Might have missed a lot of parts. Keeping a lot of inconsistencies in mind. Having my first coffee. Gonna do squats today. Tomorrow's some bench. I guess I'll going for 5s with a slightly heavier weight than last time. But wait a second... I got OHPs on Monday. So what'll I do then? Hmm... Perhaps I should tie bench to OHP so I do bench after presses. Makes sense? Ideally I'd want bench some time in between presses rather than up close... Definitely not before. But is it really gonna hinder my results? I dunno. What if I benched today? Just did my squats and then some bench. Reasonable? Perhaps. Could cut the volume a tiny bit. Only a tiny bit, since it's not really in priority. Week 3, Session 2 - 4 sets of 5 with 77,5%. So not too much. I can't do 155, I've do...

 18.08.2023 Nice day. Coming down from yesterday's CNS fatigue. Was supposed to have a couple lessons, couldn't reach them. Well, it's the end of August. I remember how devastating it is to go back school, eh? I wasn't a bad student for most of my years. I'm one of those people with fast metabolism, I believe. I guess I should consider myself lucky? It's not all fun, of course. I have to force myself to eat. Lucky for me, I have a conscious appreciation of food as art, even if amateur. So, while I made a simple meal for myself consisting of two small pork chops, two small bacon strips, a egg and a tomato I experienced aesthetic pleasure. There are categories to which a nice meal must adhere - furst, nutritional need, then smell and taste, then look - which, in turn, is also split into a variety of categories, since we as human really value our eyesight and visual information we receive. Then it's a variety of internal associations that we have with each elem...

 17.08.2023 Nice enough day. Slept well, worked, one long time client seems to want to cancel lessons. Gives me pain. It's okay though, it's always been okay and it's normal. In summer 2020 I had no work whatsoever. (Well, I did, but was really really part time). Then I got new clients, that was good, that was a second step. I've taken too long of a break from learning coding, I'll be getting back into it some time before the start of September. Hopefully we'll get somewhere. Anyway, today we press. I'm planning to lighten the overall load just a little. It's 75% for 5 sets of 5. Week 1, Session 2 altered (split between OHP and PP) . So I'll do 3 sets of OHP and 3 sets of PP. 93 kgs for OHP and between 100 and 110 for PP. And of course cleans. Workout Warmup - long, thorough, upper and lower body moves, front rack and overhead holds. Clean and press 20 50 - 1 clean into thruster, and 4 more clean and presses 70 - 3 cleans, 5 presses (2+2+1) 93 - 3 se...

 16.08.2023 Nice day. Ate well, a big meat gumbo of sorts. Added my usual spice, but this time I managed to cover my nose while I was adding it. Still sneezed and coughed. It's either pepper or sodium glutamate. Anyways, I ate well, slept deep, managed to avoid pec cramps. Legs are experiencing a "second day fatigue" syndrome, but I'll shake them up later. Had one coffee - it made me sleepy, as usual. Then awakened. Now it's the second coffee. It's the deadlift. I've been feeling like I'm probably gonna get better results if i train lighter, which is counter intuitive. How am I supposed to DL 300 if I don't even do 270 for doubles? Well, that's the short-er term goal. I lot of tags on my blog are misleading. Well, not misleading, they're just very broad and general. For example, since I mentioned not just my training numbers but ideas about training I'm gonna tag it "physical culture". Also might add "coffee" - but I...

 15.08.2023 Nice day. Struggled with sleepiness a little, but it was fine. Worked some, gave a physical culture lesson, then finally a decent meal, then a lesson cancelled. Been browsing reddit, leaving a lot of random comments. I'd be pretty bored if I did have a workout to go through yet. Today's some bench, and tomorrow some deadlift. Not gonna be too heavy, but also definitely not light! Today we'll be working in sets of 6, and seeing how it's still a first "microcycle" in my head that means the intensity shouldn't be much higher than around 70% of my minimax. And i actually don't know my minimax... I assume it's gotta be 160-170 kgs. So what's 70% of that? 112 to 119. Exactly what I had in mind! It's subconscious. *** Having my third coffee - a cup with the cup dripper/brewer. I'm still not quite sure how to use it correctly... I got pretty thin coffee. Not intolerable, thankfully. Workout Warmup - upper body, a lot of stick moves,...

 14.08.2023 Nice day. Can't shake off a feeling that it's Tuesday - cause I worked out yesterday. But it's Monday. CNS mildly fatigued. Well, very mildly, I imagine. It was difficult to wake up, but I had nice dreams. Didn't remember, but I remember having them. Nice breakfast, classical fatty, so needed for healthy hormones - two slices of bacon, two very small pork chops, a little of rice, one egg and tomato, some salt and soy sauces (normal on rice and teriyaki on meat). Very salty, now that I think about it. And it's already kinda late. I'm growing tired of playing GTA, but it's still a mind-stimulating game for me. Makes me think and imagine, cause there are long stretches of the game where you're just driving and observing the modern-day world around you. Few games dare take place in the modern world, especially in the city. Expensive to model and simulate. Starfield's gonna come out soon. I have mixed expectations. We're all worried, we...

 13.08.2023 Nice day. Sunday. Woke up kinda late. Took two melatonin pills yesterday cause I was way too bothered. So, today I got up and worked for the first time in a while. There should be some work tomorrow too. Today I wanna work out. I think I'll fix the mistakes I did on Thursday and do better pullups and curls. This time I'm make sure to warm up my whole back and abs so that pullups don't aggravate my "old spots". Discoving some popular enough goodies, jamming and rocking myself. Enjoying this so much. As simple and good as rock n' roll has ever been. Now I want a second coffee, even though it's approaching 11 PM again... Oh well. I just never wanna feel like I did on Friday. I reckon I gotta ride the wave, but carefully, perhaps. You know, important but random thought: in the drum room I saw there was a little puddle of cat poop, so I managed to keep this knowledge in my mind long enough for me to find a proper opportunity to clean it. I didn'...

 12.08.2023 Nice day. Woke up at the same time again. Low appetite, but ate okay. Yesterday was horrendously boring. I should have thought ahead and planned to play music. Been out of work this whole except, except tomorrow, hopefully. Old anger rising up in my head. Injustice, no vengeance. Pain, pressure. Evil never gone. Pain in my blood. Brewed my second coffee, listening to music on speakers. This world is literal hell. I cannot believe we are who we are. Something is wrong. Forced into suicide - hopefully not. Writing some lore for Marco's story, but not the story itself. I'm probably repeating myself, but I am more and more involved every day. It's captivating and quite rewarding. Pulses of pain in my head, in my upper nervous system, if that makes sense. Feels like something is scratching, something is stuck where it doesn't belong. Speaking of that - been sneezing a lot yesterday, very unpleasant. After I fetched some spice from the upper shelves. I hate dust. ...

 10.08.2023 Nice day. Slept little at first, experiencing what feels like CNS fatigue. Woke up automatically at the same time as the last three days, and I would have gotten up if I wasn't drained before I managed to fall asleep. Despite feeling uncomfortable had to go to bed. I reckon if I managed to finish my DLs before 11 PM it would have been better as well. Anyway, I woke up around 7. My younger brother came back home. For a while I heard something that sounded like rumbling of the fence before he called and asked me to open the door. Being awkward at that age instead of calling right away. Had a small breakfast - rice, an egg, a moderate pork chop, a tomato, leftover tea. Didn't want to make new tea somehow. Now I'm having my first coffee. It'll be a light workout today. I'd like to pay attention to my lats. *** I think it would be somewhat smart to not even go downstairs, perhaps. I could do some nice and basic olympic weightlifting stretches with the small b...

 09.08.2023 Nice day. Woke up an hour before the alarm, ate well. Actually, I stuffed my breakfast into me with little appetite. Yesterday I made some rice and I got so lucky - cooked it perfectly. I thought I burnt it, but now, where was no dark stuff in the bottom. I ate a lot of it, marveling at the fact that I've been excluding carbs like this from my diet for a long time. In 2020 all I ate was buckwheat. I was actually gonna have buckwheat, but rice somehow caught my attention as I realised I haven't had it in ages. ANd now I'm full of glycogen. Had one pork chop, one egg, some bacon, some of that rice, one tomato. Broke the large plate I've been using yesterday, so it took me some manouvering to add a bit of al types of sauces on top so they don't mix with each other. Pecs been craming a little yesterday. Quite lactic now. I've only been 10 and 8 reps sets in bench, next time I oughta go up to 6 reps after all. "Go up"? That's cause when you ...