October 19th - Rehab and prehab workout

 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 like a really, really heavy and jerky negative.

I will squat today - but not with a barbell. I know I will not hurt myself. I know it because I know I'll be slow, careful, and take all precautions.

On the other news... I'd like to figure out if I'm an incel. I don't think I am, but I do seem to fit the profile. I do not hate women, but I've been catching myself feeling something... negative. Less consciously.

Well, I'm afraid of being enslaved in an unhappy marriage. My parents... they sure stressed me out a lot as I was growing up, and their marriage was not unhappy. What, you thought it was? No, my mother and her husband, however, now that is something depraved. The man, if you can call him that, he's got a lot of issues cause his previous wife divorced him and took the kids and now he can't see them. I think he tried to steal his father's apartment, based on my limited reading ability of the legal documents I managed to find online... And I could have found these documents back in 2015, when he was a stranger that settled parasitically in our house. Well, at least he had tis little son with him, I didn't figure he was technically kidnapping him. And my mom was helping him, cause she trusted her emotions more than her rational mind in that particular case. Great, I wanted to discuss my psychology but I'm retelling my life story again... It's a part of the process. I'm extremely repulsed and disgusted by that person's mental rot and bitterness. He's lashing out and his problem can't be fixed. If I was him I'd want to die so I can be free. So, I'm drawing a connection - a shaky one, I know - between marriage and turning into a turd like that. Two marriages, one failed and one a torture. I'm certain my mother tortures him in her own special way... Which does not not justify him beating and choking her and my siblings. And, as I mentioned a week and five days ago, there's something that's been happening between him my little brother when they were in Turkey. I have half a mind to call the police right now, but I have to pick the correct time. He lives with me, in our house.

Can't focus on myself, can I? Other people, those are the things I think about... People who matter to me. People who need to be protected even if they don't want it, or might feel awkward about it. I'd hate to have to involve the government, but... I believe it's only the right choice. I don't yet have justification to do anything else, I think.

Women, women. Curious creatures! Social contract. You signed it at birth? I know I didn't sign anything. But I served my country both as a conscript and a proper soldier.

When I was younger I could feel it. The pull to the opposite sex. And guess what? I still do feel, more than before! But a force, a reminder of peril, a bit of a disorder mixed in - now all that stops me from pursuing the warm flesh. A Christian man with some liberal ideas living in a country of semi-broken traditional collectivism. Only semi-broken... Shows you how optimistic I am. Don't tread on me, I'd like to say, except I don't slither through the grass - I hide in my den, and I might just sting you if you put your finger inside here. But the reality is, they're gonna run a bulldozer over the steppe and cover me with asphalt. Dandelion... Now I see. Dandelion, now that is something that can grow through the concrete. I made a silly meme a while ago... I'm the mushroom, I guess. It's Amanita from TESIV:Oblivion, by the way, hehe.

(An image - a meme of a political compass: auth-left has an image of pinecone (with closed scales), a desert cactus in auth-middle, an acorn in auth right. In the center is the image of a Mrs. Butterworth's syrup with "extra buttery!" written on it. In the Lib-left is the image of yellow dandelions, and further, in far lib-left corner is the image of dandelions in their puffball stage. In the lib-center is the image of the aforementioned mushroom - an amanita. In the libright is the image of a Nevada Agave plant with dry tips, while in the far lib-right corner is the image of a Venus flytrap plant)

It's sort of a nonsensical image, that's why it's a meme - you need to draw your own poetic parallels, exercise your creativity. But I can tell you that somehow each of these symbols - except, perhaps a fly trap - is something that resonates with me deeply, but don't look into it too much, because I'm not trying to make a political statement here.

Workout

Warmup - squats, a lot of BW squats, one set and another set. The side and side-back are starting to hurt, but very slightly so, more like sensitivity increasing with blood. A thought, an occurrence flooded my system with adrenaline... Residual ptsd that is supposed to aid your survival. And all that from just a thought...

Later - some more distractions, some more BW squats and musings on muscle imbalance - how my left side is rotated forward when I stand, but I rotate to the left (counterclockwise, if you look at me from above) when I lower down. My left ankle is still really stiff. Maybe I should add some stretching/flexing work just for it, something serious.

Goblet squat

16 kg for 15 - feel alright, more or less. Holding the weight under my chin

32 kg for 15 - nice, slow. I have some hope about my squat - maybe I'll be able to squat more powerlifting-like soon enough before I get back to deep squats.

32 kg for 15 barefoot - feels a little better

32 for 15 barefoot again - alright. Not perfect, but it got better.

Alternating press - no pause, a-la windmill

6+6 kg dumbbells for 20 (per hand) - 2 sets

Pushups

5 sets of 20 - range cut a little, using dumbbells for grip, hunched over a little as well - I'm kinda happy with the state of my connective tissue. Also my abs are getting loaded a little bit as well, it feels really right! Doing a full scapular lockout - not on all reps, however (i.e. pushing the shoulders forward - the opposite of bench)

A lot of squat and ankle stretching - going into full squat and staying there, figuring out the ankle angles, leaning onto different legs.

Variations of planche/plank - similar to how I do pushups, doing a lot of weird extra moves. Shoulders pumped a little, abs working on this exercise. You need a lot of control here... Some parts of it are like going into that downward dog and the opposite (what I like to call cricket/pike) Gosh, if you had to try and understand exactly I do from my description you'd probably be confused, lol. It's kinda surprising how hard my arms are pumped from it... Perfect shoulder pumping movement? It can be, he he... Did one more set - indeed, the pump is strong, but also I ended up cramping my hip flexors and then did all sorts of weird pelvis dance trying to understand how I'm constructed... Anyways, one more set - this time keeping it a bit more static. Feels amazing - I'm trying to touch the floor with my knees without putting my weight on them, really works the core.

Decided today's a fitting enough day for an RPotD