My training log and thoughts

 31.01.2026 There's so much stuff I wanted to write about. Again accidentally turning three days into two. Been feeling kinda like shit most of this week. Slept very unevenly, but woke up at 2 AM today and I simply felt good. My mind was worming with ideas so I knew I had to write. Already wrote something. I wanna finish that humongous chapter 18 and start the new one at this point. I have so many ideas. I've been feeling like shit and assuming it's got something to do with my inner world. Now I think it definitely has more to do with my body. I have not been getting good, calm sleep. Yesterday I did finally get some, so I feel great today. Food has been okay, not good or bad. Just chicken and some carbs. I don't like chicken too much but I don't dislike it. A proper wannabe Odysseus over here. Become a hero and eat only canned meat, that's my idea. The whole leaving thing has definitely been taking too long. The ankle has been a problem, so that's something...

 29.01.2025 Nice day. Sleep very uneven but not feeling bad. Gave two lessons. Ate decently - pork and potato and also some fats such as fish liver and tuna in oil. Just a bit of them. I remember how I once ate too much of that liver and it really hurt me. Probably not even my stomach but something else. I was hoping to bulk! But that month I came out weighing 70 kgs. I was 17, already having DL'ed 200. Workout Warmup - overhead stretches, rotator cuff stretches a-la armwrestling Overhead press - sets of 10 50 - 70 - 80 - 90 - 95 - 100 Very nice! Feels good. Was pretty strict until 100 when I messed up my breath because I pre-planned when I was gonna gasp for air. You gotta do it naturally, which is what ended up happening. Otherwise it was all nice, rapid and powerful. Front quarter squats 50 for 10 full grip 100 - 2 sets of 10 holding on with straps 100 for 10 full grip, wearing elastic medical wraps on wrists - very tight but flexing against that tightness. Push press 103 for 3 ...

 26.01.2025 Kind of a mess, discipline-wise, otherwise I feel good and decent, coming back - whatever that means. So, I'm gonna do a light version of heavy singles today in my Bench press. It's gonna be late but it'll be good. Today's one of those super rare times when I combined having my coffee with somewhat of a meal - just some gristly meat and an egg and some scraps of carbs (i.e. not very much) and then I had my first coffee and I feel decent. Tissues in my lower body feel stiff and woody like dry plasticine (play-doh), especially the outside of my right knee. It's the most peculiar thing - I somehow feel like I cannot remember on which side of my leg I had my sumo wrestling injury, a meniscus tear back in 2013 and then surgery in 2016. I think it's gotta be the right side. Otherwise it's all good - those injuries are not fricking horror and they don't make you crippled, they're more like losing baby feathers, you know? That kind of injuries. L...

 25.01.2026 Nice day. Slept well, arguably way too much. Ate decent. Took a little too long getting to the workout. Deadlift 17 kg ez bar - 20 - 70 120 for 8 160 for 6 200 for 6 reps OHG - feels almost like a PR 😁 My grip is in a great shape rn, even though it's cold down there, colder than any other time this Winter. Two reps in the middle I have done with a DEEP grip and extra thumb force. When I tried to do a "tip grip" with thumbs holding index fingers it was inefficient but I still lifted it. 230 for 6 - one reverse mixed, one alternate, 4 in straps; on 3rd rep I again realized I'm moving slow and lazy and forced myself to speed up. 253 for 6 - first five easy, sixth one kinda hard. It's possible that this is where I need to re-adapt again. Hm. Also I think I should have tried to lift it more uniformly. And there are some technique tweaks to be made as well. And I admit I had a little sting in my hamstring right before this set so this probably contributed -...

 23.01.2026 Nice day. Slept mediocre, was a little sleepy, gave a lesson, appetite pretty moderate, excitement some, creativity stable - more or less. Growing distracted, I have to admit. But I wrote and I am writing. Workout Warmup - pretty long; overhead stretches, all sorts of tiny dumbbell upper body pumps, rotator cuffs - inner and outer, L-flys as well as Г-flys. Heh, that's a nice name for "inner rotator cuff" work exercise - you know, the one that armwrestlers use a lot. Overhead press 20 - 50 - 70 nice 90 for 5 pretty nice 100 for 5 - nice, arms even and a rare occurrence - my RIGHT side of the neck got cramped (usually it's the left one!) That is extremely peculiar to me. Super light. BUT I was not planning to do fives today. I was planning to leave a LOT of energy for PP. 108 for 2 - nice, great control 108 for 2 lovely Push press 50 - first I did some front quarter squats, a break, then 103 for 2 nice, a little bit of pounding against my flexing right wris...

 22.01.2025 Technically 23rd - writing just a little after midnight. I don't wanna jinx it, but I think I got over my "January" syndrome this week. It's all good. Really enjoying today, brain nice and clear. Wonder what it's gonna be like tomorrow. Enjoying coffee, reading, some writing - managed to summon a rare kind of creativity I haven't had in a while, or at least it feels like a while. Also, the biggest finding of the day (up angle and caret) - ^$ In google docs - that is the thing you use with regex to replace double lines. You replace this thing with nothing - it simply does what you wanted, it replaces double line breaks with a single one. The "/n/n/" into "/n" never worked. My googling has not worked in the past until today, until I tried googling info not for google docs but indeed for the openoffice writer. Lo, I found it - it works. I was mind blown cause it just didn't make sense, not at all - I knew I had to be wrong, I k...

 21.01.2026 There's one thing I like about FO4 is how many jumpscares and chaos it can generate. I got a few mods that make it more hardcore, such as the one that gives perks to enemies thus literally going above survival, paid "Bedlam" mod - it's a fun little framework that creates chaos, it can summon enemies on top of enemies, as if it was reinforcements or it lets you come across some cool little conflicts. The other day, before yesterday, I wasted an hour of gameplay - and I don't regret it, cause of how it was - going from County Crossing to the Salem museum so I can do two quests, one for Lee Enfield rifle and another for the general "check out this place". Also came across Longneck Lukovski cannery, one of my favorite places and there was Trader Rylee and I couldn't recruit her cause I haven't built a big enough shop in one of the settlements by that point. In a typical Survival fashion, assisted by Bedlam, I got killed a few times, respa...

 20.01.2025 I'm gonna deadlift today. I really **need** to write. Slept mediocre, feeling nervous, ate nice. Did I mention I finished reading Huckleberry Finn? Feeling sad and wistful that it ended. Got some other books I'd like to read. A body is tricky beast. I'm realizing I should be grateful for my Squat technique that I have. Have you noticed, by the way, how I've accidentally picked up sort of a german-style capitalization habit? Single exercises like "Squat" when it's a noun, days of the week, months, seasons. It's an interesting habit that makes a lot of unconscious sense. I've been feeling strangely negative. I talked about it. It should dissipate after January. Unconscious feeling of wrongness. I came to conclude that I'm better of just praying that trying to pick at it, understand what's wrong. But I have to yield - it's a feeling injustice, of how I've been wronged by so many people throughout my life and I just let them...

 19.01.2026 Nice day. Sleep has been feeling strangely uncomfortable, a little nervous, a little too cold at night. Ate decently well. Worked, gave a lesson, had one large instant coffee - finished that old instant coffee with the grounds. It's decent. Put on my monitor headphones to listen to some Ahab, enjoyed it, kinda hyperfocusing, clenching my whole head, trying to understand what's going on. I have strange feelings sprouting deep inside, like something might happen. Not necessarily very positive feelings. I just feel something that is wrong. I feel like I don't wanna do anything. I do wanna train though. It's gonna be good, simple, taking my time, taking one step after another. I'm not gonna be dehydrated today. Back in the day, when I played FO4 I liked installing all sorts of mods to fix all of them destroyed-style settlements instead of fixing it in game. Nowadays I find myself diametrically opposed to this idea! You literally are supposed to fix all that ...

 18.01.2025 Micro workout, starting late at night. All the FRONT RACK STRETCHING I've been doing should only have ever been done alongside actual OVERHEAD PRESSING! I've been stretching it too much and in the wrong angles, so I micro-injured myself. However, rn it's pretty good - but I still have some pain on the tissues right over my elbows. Gone really tight and really musclebound from yesterday's Bench. Reeeally did not want to do any kind of pressing today. That was the presumed plan, cause I usually have OHP on the third day of my five day week. But the fact that I had to bench yesterday rather than before yesterday changes things, as well as the tissue fatigue. So, I thought of doing some babrell squat today but that eventually started feeling like too much as well. So I settled on just some upstairs squats. Squat 2 sets of 20 - focusing on my foot, on putting the weight on the outside as well as the balls of my big toes Goblet squat 16 kg for 20 - surprisingly ea...

 17.01.2025 Nice day. Apparently no matter how much I struggle I now can't go back to nighttime living lol. I've been waking up in the morning much against my own will. Deadlift has messed me up a little - my body was barely tired, since it was all just singles, but my CNS was decently drained. So I could simply not force myself to work out yesterday. Well, I could have - it often happens that I keep feeling lazy until near midnight and then I do work out (and enjoy it). Yesterday, after having coffee, I just ended up falling asleep, then I woke up horribly dehydrated and just went ahead and had some cold coffee I had left over and that was a bad idea cause it made me feel worse. It's fun to half-fall asleep after you'v ehad some coffee cause you're in that strange state between awake and asleep, but dehydration is pretty bad and I got dehydrated. Then I fell asleep and woke up at 4 AM and had some tea and watched some youtube, pondering if I woke up already but I j...

 15.01.2026 You know, I just realized that AN-94 has the real "two shot" effect from FO4 - except it doesn't increase recoil and it does consume cartridges (lol). Makes me proud of The Motherland, seeing how much western youtubers and experts and such fawn over this complex gun. Too bad we don't really get to use something like this! Only super duper elite guys do. Yesterday was a weird day. In short, I slept way too long, didn't eat pretty much anything. I had a really fatty, salty meal and that was somehow enough for me last a very long time. This morning I woke up and had some nice pork and potatoes and then a couple batches of conventional 35/420s. It felt good, still does! I feel kinda centered in a nice way, balanced on a knife edge heh. I wanna write. This time I do feel like I have something in my head, something good. I feel a lot more free somehow, like I broke through some mental barrier. Not irritated. It's been a while. I wrote a nice mini-scene. ...

 13.01.2026 Unpleasant dreams I had, otherwise slept somewhat well, ate decent. Struggled but won, thank God, in my little quest to fix the toilet flush. It's been, on occasion, malfunctioning for years, I looked up some methods of how to do it on the internet but couldn't figure out how to disassemble it - mom helped, again someone helped me overcome my cautiousness when she took off the cover from the flush button and there was the access. I had to unscrew three bolts and tear out and clip one in order to open the hole, then partially break a plastic holder till I got the flusher and cleaned it and scraped the hellish rust with the knife off of it, as well generally brushed and sponged it. Put it back, had to tighten the little flexible pipe a couple times but it was there, holding the water in and not leaking. It wasn't done cause I put the frame that holds the flush button upside down and one of the bolts got stuck and couldn't be unscrewed so I had to tear it out a...

 12.01.2025 Man, I did not manage to turn three days into two. I turned four days in two! I had wayy too much fun on DL and started training too late, so I just didn't sleep. Yesterday was okay. A nice, simple, calm day and I fell asleep earlier. That yesterday was technically the DL day. Technically! Feels like a long time ago. Today is kinda shitty. Ate okay (slop, leftovers, half-spoiled garbage, overprocessed shit). Should have cooked some of my stuff. Hey, at least it didn't take long to make it. I had it really early in the morning. Then around 12 I had my first coffee. Felt really good, gentle buzz. Then an instant one, read, enjoyed reading, but started aggravated ( mostly from inside). Some people (not necessarily me!) are just too negative, hard to tolerate, especially taking in the baggage. I felt like I might be moving close to losing my shit but I calmed down. It's important to break it down sometimes and let yourself act on impulse. But that's not advice...

 10.01.2025 Lovely day, an interesting day. I think I managed to turn three days into two very successfully and now I should have a daytime schedule again. I woke up between 2 and 3 and felt really fresh after yesterday, cause I showered and flipped the mattress and thus had an actual good evening/night of sleep. I figured I was gonna go ahead and have a nice meal and a coffee and get to DLing. Well, I did have a nice meal, I made a really nice pasta cause I spent a fuckton of money on groceries - pre-made sauce which I put into my own vegetable base cause we got a lot of rotting vegetables, tomatoes. I again utilized the in-and-out technique - normally you could use a lot of different pans. I started with tomatoes, fried and softened them, added some water to keep it from charring, then a nice braised thinly chopped onion with remaining bits of eggplant (also had to cut a lot of rot from it), had to hurry and spray it with water as well cause it started charring, used mostly olive...

 08.01.2025 Reminder from Jan 3rd - try pressing in the rack itself, as well as doing the front rack stretch. Could also try lockouts - from chin (probably not), top of the head, overhead holds (most tempting, possibly most beneficial to me currently cause I wanna be able to hold big weight overhead and I feel like I lost my former ability to do that) 09.01.2025 I remember that. I was pretty hyped that night. Tonight it's January 9th, and it would have been 8th but it's already 9th and I figure I already crossed into a "very early morning" workout territory. I think I should be able to wake up tomorrow around 2 AM and have a DL that exact day. That'll be hard though, I likely admit. Today we won't be loading very much. Today - including 8th - was a weird day, cause I genuinely forgot to eat well and woke up and ordered groceries, a whole fuckton including coffee. It's January! Also, thank you for your prayers. The fucking clerical thing, well I got another...

 06.01.2026 Been feeling great. Slept nice, ate decent. Listened to music a lot yesterday, danced a lot. Been noticing I look pretty lean. That's cause I'm too lazy to eat well, heh. I just made some nice pasta sauce and the bow tie pasta. I initially braised and softened the tomatoes but realized I wanna do that to onions so I poured out the tomatoes into a bowl and gave the onions a nice sear, but also added some eggplant in there that was about to be thrown out - it wasn't spoiled, just uneaten. Sometimes when you're dealing with vegetables, searing them and such, you may wanna keep adding water. I was adding pasta water. Then I added the tomatoes which have all gone softened and cooked them together, then I poured them out again and put in the ground pork (cause I had it, that's why it's pork). Fried it a little until it started to get dry, then re-added the vegetables - tomatoes, eggplant and onions back in, as well as a few spoons of tomato paste for a cle...

 04.01.2026 Gosh I have to pull my finger so far to the left to press 6 lol. It was way easier in '21 and '22! Not so much in 2020, although back then I think I pressed it with the right hand hehe. So, it's technically another after-midnight workout. I just really wanted to do any kind of Squat. Workout Warmup - some squat stretches upstairs, putting on clothes, including wool belt and the big belt Squat 50 - 2 sets of 10 - just loosening my shoulders for a medium-grip high bar hold 100 - 4 sets of 5 - I enjoyed it. I did some additional stability checks and holds before the start of each set, just wiggling around gently with a bar on my back. I feel good about my squat now. I also controlled the movement and the speed very well - I was able to achieve perfect acceleration in bounce, and thus a good speed out of the hole, although this is a light weight. It feels good to be able to lift a light weight as well. The synthetic underwear I purchased is irritating my skin becaus...

02.02.2026   https://youtube.com/clip/Ugkxb4HTmgE9l7yRqQ52lT1X0vBb8RqypESr?si=2YyxBghsLmgeCOTZ Clip from a video I'm watching - food for thought! Supports some of my ideas about how my lifting changed. I was somewhat better suited for strongman back then, before 2015 cause I was doing a lot of high end partials. Now I'm more like an old school powerlifter and I'm good when my muscle is stretched, but I haven't improved my partial lifts too much. Just think of what would happen if I took my current "flexible" strength and somehow combined it with better top end strength. I'm very curious! And I will work on that too. And on my front rack, pretty obsessed with it rn. Bench will get better too though, even though it's a little counter productive to it (front rack work) - I think I should be able to do a nice and powerful 180 for a single soon. Anothing thing that keeps bothering my - my right hamstring. It's been perpetually stretched since 2016, so m...