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Showing posts from June, 2022

Only 2 workouts this week!

It's not that I don't have time or am too tired. Probably I have given myself an excuse while grinding through the thesis. Gladly, this is temporary, and the stress should subside within the next 10 days. The bright spot of the week was the 75 kg squat. Hoping to gain more weight and break more PRs. The great thing is that I am still not being sedentary and take frequent walks to avert laziness.

Day - 5

Did a bit light workout to avoid exhaustion as the next 15 days will be crucial for thesis. Bench press - 60 kg - 5/5/5 Squat - 65 kg -5/5/5 Chinups - bodyweight - 5/5/3

E-mail apnea?

Apnea is more frequently used for sleep apnea - a condition where your breathing stops intermittently while you sleep - leading to poor sleep quality, snoring, and general fatigue. The solutions advised are decreasing body weight, stacking a pillow to increase the height of the head or a CPAP device.  I came across an article  describing e-mail/tech apnea. Technology and especially social media has become a dopamine slot machine nowadays : While scrolling or writing emails, you don't know what to expect - so, the brain gets excited. While posting on Instagram, you are unaware of the reactions and feedback from followers, again you unconsciously start holding your breath. Even while casually scrolling the newsfeed, you cannot anticipate which celebrity posts will be next displayed - you end up with shallow breathing. All these effects are temporary and harmless, however, in this Internet age, more screen time is correlated to chronic shallow breathing, that in turn switches on...

Day - 4

 Quite a challenging workout.  Stats : Overhead press - 42 kg - 5/5/3. Progress seems difficult without a belt or using hips( press 2.0 ). Will probably switch to 3x3 to keep up the progress. Squat - 75 kg - 5/5/5. Grinded for every set. Quite satisfying Chinups - bodyweight - 5/5/3 - did not rest much before last set!

Mini goals(for this week)

Assuming I manage to workout 3x this week : Squat - I will start with 75 kg. Considering that 72 felt light, 75 could be possible. I hope to reach 77 by the end of the week. Bench press - I will bench once this week. Goal weight - 65 Overhead press  2x this week - Hoping to break the plateau and cross 45. Deadlift - Goal weight - 90 Chinups - 3 sets of 6 seems realistic

Anger vs Success

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Anger and success are often thought to be antagonists. Anger is driven either by fear or ego(which are interrelated), while success is the culmination of a task as expected by the performer. Uncontrolled anger starts a vicious cycle: While controlled anger starts a virtuous cycle of  deliberate practice :                     In an ideal world, one would like to eliminate anger from the equation entirely. But that would also require eliminating the affinity to success. What is more valuable from my perspective is to take a slight pause :  I fail an exam and get furious. I start blaming the system and how the entire world is against me. Venting provides instant relief, and I get addicted to it, becoming a classical whiner - Case I. I fail and get furious. I take a pause and reflect. I change the strategies or perhaps the goals and let anger fuel the action - Case II. I personally have been stuck on the extreme ends of t...

Day - 3

 The workout went quite well. Stats : Bench press - 60 kg 5/5/5. Could easily complete with little rest between sets. One tip that helped was breathing and bracing hard at the beginning like you do with other compound movements. Squat - 72 kg 5/5/5. Could go almost ass to grass with a little grind. 75 is definitely in the cards next time. Deadlift - 80 kg 1x5. Felt easy. Slightly stiff mid-back at the end. Hope it subsides in an hour. Time for the mental grind over the next few weeks as the M.Tech concludes.

Why Rack Record?

Rack Record is a small quibble on the term 'track record', which means past achievements. At the gym, a rack refers to the shelf or framework that holds the barbell or dumbbell. The posts here will primarily be a record of the weights lifted for a compound movement at a certain volume, and hence the name!

Day - 2

Workout stats - Paused squats - 65 kg 3 sets of 3 bodyweight chin-ups - 3 sets of 5 Paused squats are amazing for quite a few reasons : They force you to improve core strength so that you remain balanced at the bottom Remove the stretch reflex out of the equation and develops power out of the hole I found that paused squats are useful at low reps and lighter weights so that I don't run out of breath at the end. Since I don't explicitly train arms, pullups are great for building their functional strength. They decompress your spine, train your core, and performing only sets of 5 also ensures that they don't get sore throughout the day.

1st workout post

 Hi, Woke up to this shocking news this morning. KK was probably the most versatile singer in Bollywood - a clean and crisp voice backed up by an enormous range. ॐ शांति | Workout stats : Strict overhead press - 42 kg - 5/4/3 High bar squat - 72 kg - 5/4/0 (did not feel like working out today) Chin-ups - 3 sets of 5 using bodyweight Bodyweight - 63 kg I have hit an early plateau in all the compound movements(except deadlift) -  squat - 72 kg, bench press - 62 kg, OHP - 42 kg Using a belt, and increasing the body weight is the only way ahead.