Poundage up, pain is floating, progress welcome

Not a Haiku, but a reflection. i went through a week of basically core hell and then 2 weeks of just dull and repetitive conditioning, in the shape of classic linear progression sets (4x10, 3x 8 , 3x12 etc).

It gave me a bit of a base to re-build on, as the back pain was ebbing away. No dead-lifts, light squats, it sucked but I stuck with it.

The I managed to move to the antagonistic training. On squat, bench, dead-lift, overhead press and upper back days, working up to a heavy set of 3s, immediately followed by a comparable weight in the antagonizing muscle group, to get rid of the imbalances. It allows for SO much more variation, effort, and satisfaction, and it mitigates imbalances. So, for example, bench-press followed by bent-over rows, or strict overhead press followed by weighted pull ups, right away, 3 of one, 30-60 seconds of core (planks, for example) and then 3 of the other. Strict technique, no cheating. Do this 3 times (so 3x3). Then a heavy set of five in a neighboring group (say, dumbbell incline x5 , 30-60 core, then one arm rows x5). Do this 5 times (so, 5x5), and then 3-5 minutes of assistance for shits and giggles. Curls, extensions, lat raises etc....

It felt great but it was starting to be a bit taxing so I lightened up a bit. Last 2 - 3 weeks have been much much better. It is Alan Thrall's mix of intensity Vs volume. You start explosive (say, clapping push-ups 3x3), then you go to your main movement (bench day, squat day or dead-lift day) and go 5x5. Then you super-set for assistance and do all other parts. Say, on bench day, barbell overhead press S/S with weighed pull-ups 4x10. Then you are done, but if you have still gas in the tank you can throw in some more assistance for "aesthetic" reasons (lat  raises, dips, curls, extensions).

At the end of the session, if you did every set to failure, you are beat and it is time to go home!

Yesterday I upped the dead-lift a bit, the last 5 reps were with 40 kg per side, so 80 kg total. The barbell must have been lighter than the usual ones, but it still felt heavy overall. The very last rep of the last set I felt something tighten at the very bottom of my lower back, but other than being stiff as hell this morning, which makes me thing I exaggerated a bit, I seem to be fine. I worked through all the cues in my head, and that helped.

1- Grip it tight
2- Squeeze it and "bend it" against your shins
3- Brace with a big belly breath
4- Hips down
5- Pull the slack out of the bar
6- Open knee and hip angles at the same time
7- When the slack is out, accelerate!
8- Drive through and lock out.
9- BOOOOM!

Bottom line, classic bodybuilding for muscle mass in itself is now so boring that I cannot go back to it!

M. 

A bit of Rohan in our daily lives...

Hi all. Must be some six months since I decided to bother writing here. There is a lot of stuff I would like to rant about, it is pretty much my second nature. I am a grump-ball, most of the time. At least, I have been for most of the last 10 years.

I could, for example, describe my sense of Bradburian weird-outness in the growing presence of mp3 players, I-pods, shuffles, nanos, and in general all the portable playing devices that buzz into my ears on public transport or at the gym here in Berlin, from the ears of the 5-10 people, on average, around me. I am sure there are more, but 5-10 are the ones I can actually SEE. Very Fahrenheit 451, trust me.

However, I want to try a different approach this time. I have been particularly grumpy all day, to the point of serious withdrawal. The list is too long to inflict it upon you here, you do not deserve to be so ill treated. So let us do as Hank Green, of the VLOG brothers, suggests. There are two ways to make the world a better place. Decrease the SUCK and increase the AWESOME. They are, obviously, not mutually exclusive.

Hank gives us a very good example of this with the James Webb Space Telescope. I personally find it way up there in the league of awesome, and I am looking forward to 2014, when the Ariadne will gracefully deploy this little jewel in space. You should also totally subscribe to their channel, incidentally.

Hank Green's entry did have a side-effect, and a much beneficial one. It reminded me of the need for that thrill that you learn to feel when you are in your teens. It is when your myths define and settle, and it's hard to change them or shake them off afterwards. But then again, why get rid of them? They are a good part of us, it is the stuff that gives us the goosebumps, that spurs us into action, that brings us tears, that we remember ever so fondly in the years to come. If you think about it, every time you feel that thrill again it is because something is reminding you of one of those long gone moments.

For me, it is pretty straightforward to figure out what works and what does not. I get goose-bumps when I hear "Pirate of the Caribbean". The view of a galleon's prow yawing in the waves, sails and flag flapping, the camera gliding from port to starboard, makes me shiver. Yes, I always liked sea stories, and pirate stories.

When I see the camera pan-in on a disc section of a galaxy-class ship, and hear the arches of the orchestra accompanying, everything seems possible. It is just another ship, really. Did I mention I like ships?

The best one, however, was today's re-discovery. Back in '89 I was reading the Lord of the Rings for the first time. I was so into it, and still am. I was 12, and Minas Tirith was about to fall. The Witch King and the orcs of Mordor were swarming the streets. It was over, it was so over. Gandalf was there, and the Guard of the Citadel. They had done what they could, and failed.

That is when Tolkien picked up that plot-line he had left some 5 chapters before.

In rode the Lord of the Nazgul, under the archway that no enemy ever yet had passed, and all fled before his face. All save one. There waiting, silent and still in the space before the Gate, sat Gandalf upon Shadowfax. Gandalf did not move.

And in that very moment, away behind in some courtyard of the city, a cock crowed. Shrill and clear he crowed, recking nothing of wizardry or war, welcoming only the morning that in the sky far above the shadows of death was coming with the dawn. And as if in answer there came from far away another note. Horns, horns, horns. In dark Mindolluin's sides they dimly echoed. Great horns of the North wildly blowing. Rohan had come at last.

The duo Howard Shore and Peter Jackson got this one all right, you cannot deny it. The horns, and then the fiddles. And the scared faces of Eowyn/Dernhelm and Pippin, facing almost certain death, and Théoden king, hitting the spears of his front liners with his blade Herugrim, and the lines before the charge...

Arise, arise Riders of Theoden!

Fell deeds awake: fire and slaughter!

Spear shall be shaken, shield be splintered,

A sword-day,

A red day,

Ere the sun rises!

Ride now, ride now!

Ride for ruin.. and the world’s ending!

Death! Death!

Forth Eorlingas!

It did me some good, as it reminded me of those afternoons of an age past when the clock was not constantly ticking. When a weekend would last a weekend, and not a blink, and one could dedicate to one's passions, without wondering about the reason why. Just for the sake of doing it. If I stop and think about what I miss now of those years, I realize it is exactly what I was then trying to get rid of. In those years, as a student, I spent most of my time preparing, learning, getting in shape before the bout. It is also what most of those heroes would do for me in those books and movies. They would prepare, train and train unceasingly, research, travel the world looking for obscure clues to impossible riddles. The riders of Rohan, the pirates of the Caribbean, the Fianna of Ireland, the great masters of martial arts, and that lanky guy in Sardinia, too. Going through the books, though chemistry, through philosophy, through Latin, and then through the kata, and the kihon, in endless repetition. I sure could have used a bit of application, back then, but I wonder if I have not moved too much in the opposite direction. All I have now is acting acting acting. No, not even that. Re-acting is all there is to it. Things keep happening, at their own pace, which is much faster than mine, and the time for personal growth gets eaten away by nitty-gritty and eventually pretty silly occupations. There is no longer the study, the preparation, the planning. There is bout after bout, and a lot of weariness after it. There is almost a weird sense of guilt when time is taken away from the dozens of tasks that are crammed in my list, to do something rather unproductive line take a walk, or simply read of the last foray of Conan into the rich and corrupt streets of Shadizar the Corrupt.

I have a lot. I am a rich rich person, in the way of personal and meaningful relationships, if not in the way of bank statements, but I would still like to have something back from the 90s. I

think I know what it is. I would want the chance to grow as an individual, to take a break from time to time and take a long, deep, critical look at myself from the outside, to set my own goals and then work towards achieving them, with careful a meticulous preparations. To go there well prepared, confident, and not haphazardly improvising my way through problems (which, in the NGO world, are referred to as "challenges", just FYI).

I would want to explore and learn about new subjects, and watch a one hour long youtube video on why gravity goes down, if I feel like. To practice archery. To learn how to ride. To learn how to sail. To read and write more. To look up all the facts that happen in the day, and go back to my old interests. To look for something that could give me that healing jolt of awe.

Life is what happens instead, most of the time. But at least now I know what it is that I have been missing, and can try to bring it back.