Back on the wagon

Published May 17, 2016  ·  All posts on May 17

This entry is part 30 of 36 in the series 10,000 Reps Project

I’ve been resting/recovering my shoulder for almost 5 weeks. Yesterday, I did 80 reps (broken into sets with rests) of push-ups/pull-ups/body-weight-squats and 8×10 second handstands… The pullups sucked, as I was standing on (I think it is the) 1-1/2” resistence band. Well, not standing, but keeping my knee bent to lessen how much force the band is adding. It’s probably 15 pounds or more at the bottom, and goes to zero before I reach the top of the pull-up. It made for a good forearm burn, but no hint of shoulder problems. So I think it’s safe to get back into this level of effort regularly. (My shoulder is definitely still in recovery though.)

Today I’m going to set up the precision bar. (The scaf is all there, but I pulled out one of the precision-jump bars for something else). I’ll do at least 4×20 to get back on the horse for bar-precisions.

The rest of this week I’ll stick to “easy” and just repeat the 80-reps workout Wednesday and Friday. I’m working further on hand/skin improvements. I did the first 40 pullups bare hands (on the indoor, 1” bar; I think the larger outdoor scaf is easier on the hands). When it’s starting to hurt, I put gloves on and save my hands for the next workout. So I’ll keep doing that. I’ll also work at getting off the band.

I was just reading an article about something like “sprint weight loss”. The idea is to leverage your short-term motivation to push your weight down, and then settle back to your regular eating/living routine. So I’m working on sticking strickly to my 16/8 IF this week. I’ve slowly eased down to wobbling around 220 pounds now, and have touched 218 once. So I think a couple weeks of diligent IF and actively thinking about carbs (that is, avoid them) again will get me to “wobbling around 218 pounds”. Which would be a great thing to help with pullups.

I’ve also now gotten an honest assessment of what happens if you take 5 weeks off from the body weight workouts. Definite back-sliding (no duh) but it’s not a train-wreck-total-start-over. So I hope I’ll feel more comfortable reigning things in for future injury, or injury-prevention, situations that arise.

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Moving forward

Published May 14, 2016  ·  All posts on May 14  ·  

This entry is part 51 of 72 in the series My Journey

I really struggle with believing that small, daily efforts lead to long-term changes. On the treadmill of life, I always seem to want to start sprinting to get ahead, especially when the treadmill picks up speed working against me. I find little injuries or other setbacks are really demoralizing. Curiously, I don’t seem to be demoralized by the things I’m not yet able to do. (“Scale that wall? meh. Some day, maybe, not really a major concern though.”)

So any time I manage to go to a class, or an event, or a simple workout, or a run, or whatever… and I put in solid effort without injurying myself or pushing anything too far (pushing “too far” is for special occasions ;) …well, after those workouts, then I really feel vindicated and motivated to continue my journey.

This morning I managed to get up, get out the door, run and do my QM work alone. It was nothing major; Just a half hour of easy running and a half hour of “easy” QM.

It ain’t about how hard you hit. It’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward.

~ Rocky Balboa

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Grow

Published May 12, 2016  ·  All posts on May 12  ·  

I just wanna go on more adventures. Be around good energy. Connect with people. Learn new things. Grow.

~ “THEKHOOLHAUS“

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What makes it great

Published May 6, 2016  ·  All posts on May 6  ·  

Of course it’s hard, it’s supposed to be hard.
If it was easy, everyone would do it.
HARD is what makes it GREAT.

~ unknown

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Another setback and refusal to quit

Published May 3, 2016  ·  All posts on May 3

This entry is part 29 of 36 in the series 10,000 Reps Project

About three weeks ago, I over-did it… raking in the yard. :^/ I’m presuming that was just the final straw on top of everything else I’ve been doing.

At that time, I paused all my 10K workouts, but have continued training parkour, running, and even doing some shoulder-intensive quadrapedie conditioning work (shoulder loading modes which don’t cause pain). Watching the calendar tick away to my one-year deadline on the 10K project is the hardest part. Unfortunately, it would be a miraculous come back to make it at this point.

I’ve decided that I’m not giving up on the 10K goal. I’ve never tried (let alone completed) anything of this scale, so I *really* want to finish it. I’ll either pull off a miraculous come back, or I’ll simply be happy with over shooting the date. To that end, after a good two weeks off from the five exercises, I’m going to start back into doing some numbers. I may even start pullups with resistance band assistance to be 100% sure I do no further damage to my shoulder.

I already have a good, morning recovery habit (stretching, and dynamic range of motion stuff) which I am now doubling-down on to do in the evenings too. I had been focusing on hips (hip ROM being something I really need to work on) but I’m reorganizing to be focused on shoulders. I’m rather happy about my (apparent) ability to pause one goal/focus to retool for this shoulder recovery work. In the past, I’m sure I’d have just tried to *add* shoulder recovery to my overflowing pile.

I continue to shave off fractions of pounds. I was “around 223” and am now wobbling around 221, seeing 220 occassionally. (Some quick body-weight strength checks, and performance in parkour, lead me to think I’m not loosing significant strength.) Weight is the best thing for me to work on at this point as it translates immediately to less “strain” and easier next-day recovery. I’m planning my most ambitious parkour trip ever in late-July and August, and it will involve weeks of all-day moving. It’s also (obviously) the go out and play time of year, so my general activity level goes up.

In other news, I bailed out of a possible trip to rock climb in Colorado, partly due to time constraints, but mostly due feeling it was “off-focus” for me at the moment (if that makes sense).

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Your whole life

Published April 30, 2016  ·  All posts on Apr 30  ·  

People overestimate what they can do in a single day and underestimate what they can do in their whole lives.

~ unknown

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Sarah P Duke Gardens

Published April 29, 2016  ·  All posts on Apr 29  ·  

Perspective and scale; Tiny moss or a hill covered in tall grass? Bald Cypress tree or the leg of an enormous dinosaur? Towering Red Oak tree or a single neuron? Moss on a rock or an Alpine mountain face with a distant forest? Spending the morning trying to exercise my visual perspectives.

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No one knows

Published April 24, 2016  ·  All posts on Apr 24  ·  

No one but you knows how hard you work, how many hours you put in behind the scenes, so rely on yourself for approval, not the outside world.

~ unknown

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Saturday morning

Published April 23, 2016  ·  All posts on Apr 23  ·  

Nice warm-up run and some conditioning with QM variations. We’re going back to basics this summer.

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Assert integrity of purpose

Published April 18, 2016  ·  All posts on Apr 18  ·  

Be daring, be different, be impractical, be anything that will assert integrity of purpose and imaginative vision against the play-it-safer. The creatures of the common place. The slaves of the ordinary.

~ Cecil Beaton

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Live bait

Published April 15, 2016  ·  All posts on Apr 15  ·  

7′ pull-up bar, “water fall” bars, 7′ long clear railing, gap challenges, adjustable precision bars… my new live-bait trap for scaf-loving humans. There’s an LVPK women’s event tomorrow (Saturday)… so I’ll be investigating this beastie! Who’s in?

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25 years ago

Published April 12, 2016  ·  All posts on Apr 12  ·  

25 years ago, on a Friday night, Tracy and I went on our first date.

There’s a wonderful, socially ackward story about me chickening out of the original plan, then a late-evening missed phone call, and an eventual midnight movie. If you ask us nicely, we’ll tell you our conflicting versions of the story. There even a bit of debate about the exact movie we saw; We’re pretty sure it was Silence of the Lambs. (Yes, we opted for a midnight showing for our first date. I’ll let that settle in for a few moments.) On the other hand, the movie might possibly have been a spectacularly horrible movie titled Warlock, which no one has ever heard of. So sometimes we tell the story with it being Silence of the Lambs and sometimes it’s Warlock. Long ago, I think we used to argue about this when we told the story… now, I can’t even remember which of us argued for which movie.

I digress.

Tracy is awesome, and I love her very much! We are still in love. …but, this isn’t a ‘Happy Anniversary!’ card addressed to Tracy.

I firmly believe that there’s no single perfect person for me. I am not a “special snowflake”. And if – as the old saying goes – Tracy “is one-in-a-million,” then she’s one of about 8,000 perfect people for me alive at this very moment.

What makes me special in some ways is the same thing that makes her special in some ways: We have both invested a large portion of our lives in each other. We’ve both spent 25 years working each on our own selves, and have continued sharing the improved versions with each other. The “institution” of marriage doesn’t magically make our relationship special; I, and she, made the relationship special by working on it.

25 years ago I was a totally different person. I was (just simply by definition) on some path through life. There was absolutely no way I could have selected the perfect person for me. I didn’t know myself. I didn’t know my future. I didn’t know how my path would evolve. How could I possibly pick someone who was compatible then, and would grow and change to remain compatible for 25 years.

In one sense, I was extremely lucky to find someone who turned out to be able to adapt and grow in some sort of way that somehow remained compatible with my ever-changing general insanity. But in another much more important sense, we both have spent huge amounts of time talking, arguing, discussing and growing together. So today, it’s not that the luck we had years ago was special or unique – because “humans meet” happens constantly every day – it’s that we somehow stood by that bit of common, every-day luck and worked on it for 25 years.

People change. People age. People get sick and die. Life moves ever forward. The love at age 20 is nothing like the love at age 40, or – as far as I can tell at this point – the love at age 80. (eg, Old Love.)

What matters most to me is that I continue to honestly work on who I am. Only by doing that work do I continue to be worthy of a relationship such as we’ve created so far.

Here’s to another 50 years! Huzzah!!

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Attitude

Published April 12, 2016  ·  All posts on Apr 12  ·  

The problem is not the problem.
The problem is you attitude about the problem.
Do you understand?

~ Jack Sparrow, in Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, (2003 film)

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