October 08-09, Sunday and Monday - Bench, PP, small PR, nice Olympic style Squat

 01.01.2023

So, it's very simple. We have Mondays, Thursdays and Saturdays for conventional workout days. Wednesday is always DL. The rest should be light days. And it's very simple - we just alternate Mondays, Thursdays and Saturdays as OHP/Squat. Today I feel very low on energy. I know I need to rest. We can assume we did out OHP on Saturday and our squat today (instead of yesterday). So, we can have asomething light tomorrow, good empowered DL on Wednesday and OHP on Thursday. It'll be difficult, but it's a good plan. And today we'll keep it super light. At some point we should be able to spread our efforts per day, so it's not just OHP but cleans/OHP/PP etc. Should be lovely.

Workout - mini

Hip hinge exercise, many variations - 6 sets

One leg rotations - 5 sets - you can do them like a corkscrew, or you can do them like calipers, just roating sideways

Some leg raises and donkey kicks/swings - for some reason those exercises felt much more boring compared to the earlier two.

Usually either holding onto the windowsill (or pushing down on it), or pushign against the wall, controlling my balance. Helped my strained left hip, not that it was a big deal. All sorts of dancing moves and squats against the wall.

Formless, more like a warmup type of a light workout, but it feels so good, especially seeing how weak and lazy I've been feeling in the last few days. And I squatted some weight yesterday! I did it very deep and my torso was vertical, and all of my angles were very sharp.

02.01.2023

Feels okay today. Nutrition 5/10, sleep is confusing but I got enough. Enjoyed lovely dreams, all in a winter setting, even swimming in cold water. The house is a little cold, but it gets warm occasionally. Yesterday the radiator in my room was very warm, there was no cold. It's somewhat tolerable.

For a few days now I've been waking up later and later. I both like it and dislike it, because I feel like I can get a little more productive if I wake up earlier. But right now I don't have anything specific I'm working on, except for getting my lifting back on. This winter, the climate and new challenges have upturned my normal order. The area around my right shoulder blade hurts, probably because I switched pillows to slightly harder ones. And for a while now I've been sleeping on two pillows, to avoid my nose closing up in my sleep. That's gotta do some kind of effect on my stature and my blood pressure, I assume. In general, my health is not the best, but I believe it's a little better than in December and I don't have anything urgent to do this week.

Enjoyed playing BG3 a lot last night. Reached Act II, finally. Today I was thinking of doing bench, and I definitely will do something. I think it makes more sense to keep things as easy as possible. It's going to be infinitely better than nothing, after all. And if there's a risk of overworking then it'll be better than that too. But tomorrow the situation will be different. I expect to have a good heavy workout on Wednesday.

***

Low blood pressure. Time to warm up.

Workout

Wall pushups - 3 sets, starting to incorporate explosive reps. Also, a curious way to do it is to lean into the wall and push yourself just hard enough so you're falling back onto the wall.

Pushup plank - 3 sets, counting to 120 (not seconds). Sort of trying to emulate bench, but also loading every else (i.e. scapulas not locked). After second set it was starting to feel good (better than before, all day that is). It meaning not just the exercise and muscle, but my whole body and brain.

I'm experiencing a mild craving for all the food for bacteria in my stomach. Vegetables. Had some canned peas with a second cup of instant coffee I'm having. Darn, my discipline is off completely nowadays, regarding timing my food, that is. Not a big deal since it's a light workout. Also, on Wednesdays I've been managing to maintain good discipline, now that I remember. The heavy sessions last month, they were all done well on an empty stomach.

God, please help me not to have any kind of irritation tomorrow. Last week was the kind of workout I really, really want to avoid. Well, not the workout, but the condition I was in. Caffeine irritation, mental. I had the best of times when I drank literally 20% of what I do now (Summer 2020). How come it's so different nowadays?

Finished the 3rd set of planks. So, we're deadlifting tomorrow... Ideally I want better sleep and the right kind of food. I haven't mentioned this, but I've been feeling super sick of crackers and highly processed pastries I've purchased last week. Crackers were bought a long time ago. I needed those carbs back in the day, and now (I think) my body wants to go back just a little and make me eat all the veggies and fibrous foods.

Squat variations - 3 sets, 10+ reps. Tring the stretching variation, squatting from the point of leaning onto the bed and back, close to it, so I'm forced to use my calfs to maintain position (really raise my toes) as well as stretch my groin. A good little note - groin feels okay.