My training log and thoughts

 31.10.2024 Weird day, nice but weird. All too nostalgic, emotions that I haven't felt in decades... Yes, emotions! Remember how I wrote about how my emotions transformed, became different? I don't know what changed, but today I'm sort feeling like a kid. Things restructure themselves. I can't help but make an assumption it's got to do something with my rhinitis and climate. Well, obviously it's not caused by it, but it's somehow connected. It's all here. I'm about ten years younger... Weird. Sharp like a shard of glass, hehehe. Weird time, weird feelings... Had one conventional, Ethiopian arabica, Jardin, I told you about it. It's not bad, darker, more like chocolate... Also light roast. I didn't feel great from it, but I feel decent, above decent, high energy. Jerking around, activated CNS. All distracted today, bursts of energy, then I have to lie down. Had a cup o' moka. Hmm, seeing how it's so intense it turned out nicer... There...

 30.10.2024 OHP session 17 - 4 sets of 6 with 75% ... Kinda light. Just 90 kgs... Should be easy. ...there is no reason to conclude there's no objective truth even if it is quite elusive... completely elusive, in fact. The only thing we can get our hands on is *reality*... OUR reality. Not anyone else's! Maintain status quo, keep things in order, keep things structured... Layers, layers changing one another, peeling like onion, except this onion is a mammal and it screams as the skin burns away, it tries so hard to grow back the normal skin, but it's peeled and peeled and burned off and scabbed off and it grows, it grows back, trying so hard... Watching a nice freaked up movie, reminds me of my early childhood a little bit... "Parents", 1989. I must have been such a cute boy when I was young... I was really hot when I was 16 and had abs. Women, old women, let me tell you, they are quite the predators, hehe. I was a little snack, and some of my limbs were much long...

 28.10.2024 Nice day. Ate decent, about 7/10, slept about the same. I think my side is getting better. Also, I've been thinking that sleeping in a pajamas is a great idea, cause it should work like a thermos and allow you to both stay cool or warm for longer, without you having to find that subtle equilibrium. I've been sleeping in a t-shirt, barely covered by a blanket. It's been rather warm, especially compared to previous years. I think I have some form of rhinitis, but, some more good news - it was more prominent yesterday, less so today. Also, I had no coffee yesterday. I was bored, feeling like I'm lacking creativity. I did a lot of small edits in the book, all over, but mostly the start and the end. I got dragged into rewriting the first "tome" (first google doc, since they have symbol limitation). It's curious. I'm restructuring my understanding of some of my characters, putting more of myself and my feelings in them. It's only appropriate,...

 26.10.2024 OHP session 16 - 75% for 5, 80% for 2 sets of 3, 87,5% for 3 sets of 1... Might be a long one! 90 - 95/98 - 105 - I should be able to do all of them rather strictly. I've had decent sleep and above average nutrition (about 8/10 on 'required nutrients' scale, subjectively speaking). Regarding sleep - I've been noticing how it's hard to sleep during certain parts of the day... It's much easier to sleep when the earth is cooling down, I speculate. It's not just about light! I've had low energy yesterday, but I had a really nice 'activity' doing squat and all-around leg stretches. Not a workout, just a tiny activity. I have a lot of stuff I should try to care of, but I'm not bothered. I'll do them eventually, one way or another. It's better to have this approach than to lose your mind going in circles. I'm relaxed in more ways that one. Slow ride, taking it easy. Could try to speed up this tractor, but I'll probably ne...

 24.10.2024 Well, congratulate me - yesterday was the first Wednesday without any training, unless my memory betrays me. It doesn't upset me too much, because, ultimately, you should be able to subject your training days to your needs. It's just that I got so mentally attached to specific days of the week... It didn't use to be the case. I know I can change it. My side is a little better, although still not free from pain. I have an idea that training my abs should help them - my sides - get stronger too. Of course, majority of normal ab training exercises are bad. Very few are good. Hanging leg raises and pullups are good. Crunches, curiously enough, are not the worst, in my opinion, but they're definitely leaning towards the 'less useful' side. Plank is not great because of how non-specific it is. Ab rollouts are nice because of how compound and challenging they are - very unusual. The point of abs is not to move your torso, but more to keep it from moving, ca...

 21.10.2024 Usually you don't remember most of your dreams. But I just remembered one of those forgotten dreams. In this dream, Todd Howard got fired by Microsoft and I was like "No, you need to fire Emil, not Todd!" Slept well, ate a lot but yesterday. Yesterday I didn't sleep that great, that lead to usual outcomes but I managed to avoid getting 'distracted'. OHP session 15 - 5 sets of 4 with 80%. So, again, 95-98 kgs. Not too bad. Had two small portions of conventional brew. I have a couple ideas... I think I'm not going to do OHP today. Let's hope it's not another empty resolution, but I think I can fix my sleep. I'm upset at myself for not seeing the light of day and I think I can fix it by having my barbell workout tomorrow. Today, however, is not going to be completely empty as I work on my rehab/prehab. Squats - squat stretches, holding onto windowsill, staring at the moon past the shadowy clouds. Second set - stretches, torso turns, l...

 19.10.2024 Nice day, sleep great, food decent too. Had a conventional coffee, this time with a tighter degree of coffee to grounds. I used to have that kind of coffee twice a week before May 2020... Now I'm having it four times a week? After all I went through? He he. It's great to control your caffeine, you know... But your body also controls it automatically. Yesterday was a proper hazy rager of writing - mostly rewriting. I only had a couple mokas. Now it's kinda late and I'm finishing one moka I decided to use as a finisher. I really wish I could do a proper barbell workout today. But I can not. I have to stop re-damaging my side. I slept on my left side just a little bit and I woke up hurting. Now it settled. I think I got this injury when I bounced up from the squat, hard, while leaning to the right. My left side - and it's not just one muscle, if I were to judge by the spread of pain - that muscle got stretched under strain. In other words, it was sort of li...

 17.10.2024 OHP session 13 . 4 sets of 6 with 85-88 (72,5%) Yesterday was kind of horrendous due to pain. Today started similar but got better. Writing, enjoying it. Had one conventional and one long-lasting cup o' moka. Workout Warmup - long, distracted, but pretty thorough. Both wrists are super stiff after grip training on Monday. Otherwise I feel decent, even with my current issue, as thankfully has been the case with my OHP sessions lately. Overhead press 20 - 50 - 70 feels okay, but my wrists are super stiff. 88 for 6 lovely, wrists a little less stiff but I still ended up doing a bit of a shortened range - not putting it on my neck and not locking out the bones on top 88 for 6 super easy 88 for 6 same 88 for 11 not bad. Enjoyed doing it, but those were kinda slightly shortened reps. Not as bad as some, I made sure elbow was locking out. I filmed it from above and it's really not a flattering angle, cause from above the range looks really short! 98 for 1 - a very good str...

 16.10.2024 Nice day. Woke up without pain, but it came back soon. Not very strong, but persistent. Had a really nice conventional brew. I was glossolaliac by the time I finished it. That means it affected me nicely, didn't make me lost my shit and didn't send me into a fit of shaking neuroticism. My sense of humor is oversensitive and my language center is overstimulated. Workout Deadlift I pledged to avoid heavy lifts, but that sort of means I can lift sub 200. Which, I admit, isn't necessarily smart. 20 for 10 70 for 10 123 for 10 garage is cold now, my throat is feeling raw after it even though I breathe through my nose. 163 for 10 - nice set, not very bad. My side hurts, the pain is 4/10 I guess, but very persistent. Not a big deal. I was thinking of doing 190 fro 3 sets of 5, but this warmup - which, admittedly, is pretty excessive - is nice enough for me to satisfy my desires of lifting while, hopefully, not overstraining myself. Perhaps I should sleep on my bed faci...

 12.10.2024 Kind of a strange, long day. Feels nice. Slept little, woke up too early, couldn't go back to sleep, had one moka (one cup, since I recently realized that my brewer is tiny), fell asleep. Woke up later, finally gave a lesson. Had a nice couple of actual large cheeseburgers yesterday - nowadays we can finally buy all the ingredients easily, and I purchased the groceries. Workout Warmup - a lot of BW squats by the bed, controlling the knee and hip angle Squat 50 for 2 sets of 2 - those were not just squats, those were squats with what feels like 30 seconds in a hole, doing my best to breathe *while* bracing, bouncing up and down, opening up my hips and ankle a bit more. 70 for 2 sets of 2 - feels good, going very deeper somehow? 90 for 2 - I kinda felt like I wanna keep going, even though my oblique was starting to hurt. You see, I think it hurts because I literally overinflate myself! I'm like a balloon, man! And then I really stress that ballon when I bounce down in...

 10.10.2024 Today it's OHP after all. Workout Warmup - pretty thorough, upper body and opening up hips with kneeling squats Overhead press 20 - 50 - 70 90 for 3 okay 100 for 3 okay, curiously unbalanced. Using wrist wraps cause I hurt my wrist on Monday, just my fault. 100 for 3 super easy, removed the wraps 100 for 3 same, listening to Manowar. Weird feeling at first cause it felt like I "popped" my left toe... This body is one temple of wonders. Well, what really happened I think is that I automatically pulled up my toe and it just clicked in the tight toebox of my weightlifting shoes. By the way, here's some lifting wisdom I haven't repeated in a while - you gotta wear heeled shoes for OHP, well, at least if you have proportions same as mine. If you have a super short torso you might not really need them, but they still will be beneficial. Why? So your point of 'strain' moves forward, from your back to your pelvis. It doesn't happen automatically, m...

 09.10.2024 OHP session 11. 82,5% for 4 sets of 3. Just 99, supposed to be... Hm. I have an idea - I will be deadlifting today after all. All in accordance to plan. I don't feel perfect, and I don't feel bad. I just kind of hate being stuck in a rut. It used to be normal for me, cause I used to do more new interesting stuff even while staying at home. It takes some effort. Things are definitely better than they used to be in 2023. I think I might be a little under the weather. It's warm for October, the humidity is high outside, you know it's a little unusual. Workout Deadlift 20 50 for 10 wide grip 50 for 10 - you know, I realised I prefer not to deviate from a movement that matters to me, considering that working on my weak points is not the goal today. I can feel the blood pressure rising, good. It kinda gives you a bit of a high when the blood pressure rises high enough to make you both a little numb and 'hyper alert', although it probably isn't cause ju...

 07.10.2024 Nice day. Slept well, very deep sleep. Lost my shit later when I realized I'm being robbed and I can't give a fuck about it. What a conflict! I just can't care. I'll fucking melt and flow down the drain, thank you. Honestly, a fucked up day. Not a big deal. I feel good, in my own way, a surface way. And I managed to calm down in the end. And I'm realizing that  even though I consider myself a cultured and non-violent individual I may end up in a bad situation even when I don't expect to, or intend to. It's all so super abrupt, just like death. You think you can just cross the road, cross someone else's pathway? Well, no you can't, you gonna get run over even when you simply stand on the sidewalk. Workout Warmup - some Squat 15, 20, 25, 30- experimenting with very wide thigh spread, cause that way my knees don't creak. Also, it's possible my inner thighs get more activated that way, although they do feel on the tighter side. I kind...

 03.10.2024 A bit of an oldschool room workout Rubber lat stretches and pulls - figuring out my newly developed weak points, first light rubber then heavy Rings on the pullup bar - stretches while kneeling and sitting on the floor Ring pullups, angled about 40 degrees (supine, feet on the floor/in the wall) - 2 sets of 15 - nice, not too difficult, getting in a better shape Conventional pullups on a bar, but with some added full stretch (including scapulae) - 6 sets of 4 - a lot of stretch. I tried going a little bit faster (between sets) since I'm doing so few reps. I flex my abs a little bit in the bottom and that stretches my lats even more. And I don't just mean lats, I mean all the muscles that work in pullups directly. Feels nice, like I am fixing my sides. I used to do a lot of hangs in Summer 2020. I also injured my right lat a little, but that was cause of parallel grip pullups and my unevenness. Don't really wanna do anything for my legs. Perhaps we shall add it l...

 01.10.2024 Light session - curls (bicep curls - not crunches), side bends, side twists. Neck is only a tiny bit better, subjectively speaking. 02.10.2024 Deadlift session 6 - 70% for 5 and 4 sets of 5 with 77,5%. So, 210 and 232-233. Reasonable, easy. Neck still hurts a little, but it changed from pain to discomfort and muscle fatigue. Not bad. Thank God. Recently I deleted GTAV and tonight I reinstalled ESO. I wanna reconnect with people - friends. Well, one friend. Not sure if it's cause I just wanted to fill up space with something or is it cause I actually wanted ESO again. I almost had enough space to reinstall BG3 but then I'd practically out of space. I don't wanna get back into BG3 yet. *** Had one large conventional coffee. I'll have one moka and then we'll set off. Workout Deadlift 20 70 midback strained a little 120 for 5 okay, not bad 160 for 5 210 for 4 - one rep hook grip, got another one off the floor but all the chalk was gone by that point so it sl...

  a surprisingly familiar face different folder here - can you guess the theme? It was mostly January 2024