Week 1471

As I reflect on week 1471, I am reminded that while I think sharing what I am doing may seem boring to me, making the notes and reflecting on the day may make weekly reflection easier. 

More timely reflection will always make a difference. I am writing this on Monday night as opposed to writing this on Saturday night or Sunday morning as I should. 

While I have enjoyed being involved in the BWS+ experiment, I have struggled not having to be accountable for going to the gym. I only have a 3 day, push, pull, and legs split and I find myself moving this to the end of the week. 

I love working out on the weekend so that isn’t an inherent flaw, I just find myself postponing my workouts where with a 5x a week routine, I am unable to do this. 

My left shoulder, left knee, left glute, and left hip flexor have all been bugging me. My shoulder has flared up periodically since college and is a recurring injury that I have to actively work to strengthen so it isn’t an ongoing issue.

My left leg is clearly weaker than my right leg and I have been compensating in some way on my runs, thus causing myself discomfort that I shouldn’t be experiencing from my normal lifting. 

With this, I didn’t run last week. 

I am not very emotionally tied to running. I like pushing myself aerobically but would much prefer to do short sprints to long runs and am likely to start doing that. I am perfectly fine with maxing my running distance at 5k. I have been running for the previous 8 weeks to prep for a 4 mile obstacle course with my dog as I want him to be the one slowing us down, not me.

We got Ellie at the end of July and last week was the first time I took her and Truman to a park together with just me. I have been cautious about this as Truman has a very strong recall and we have a strong relationship/foundation of trust where I can play frisbee with him or take him disc golfing with me and not worry about him running off and doing things he isn’t supposed to. 

I’m not there with Ellie and this was me testing the waters. 

She did a great job and was SO happy to be able to go with us. 

It’s been fun watching her confidence increase and her getting a little swagger as opposed to being uncertain. She’s a great dog with a couple of funny quirks that we appreciate about her. She also quickly learned that every night, she gets to sleep on the couch in our bedroom and that has become her place. 

Back to exercise, I have been more intentional with my recovery tools. I am really enjoying using the muscle scraper. I get really tight knots that almost feel like pebbles under my skin and it is really cool to be able to scrape those out. 

I have also been using a cork ball on my foot and toe spreaders and seem to already have increased mobility of my toes. I get this weird problem with my feet where it feels like the bone on the pad of my foot at the base of my second toe is directly on the floor and I am hoping that this practice of releasing and strengthening my foot will help mitigate flare ups of that. 

I had my tongue tie fixed last year and this issue flared up while working with an osteopath and I am hoping to be able to do some of this work for myself. 

I haven’t yet, but I will likely buy a body lever to assist with this practice of releasing my fascia. 

I am having fun with rope flow still and love that I can easily incorporate it throughout the day, especially while working from home. It’s a great way to decompress in a couple of minutes between meetings. 

On Sunday, the start of week 1472, I started trying to learn more nuanced moves and had a great time whipping myself into submission—aka learning. 

I am curious if my rope is short or if I just lack a bit of technique as I hit myself quite a bit with the 8 foot rope. (I bought 2, heavier, 9 ft ropes on Monday of week 1472 to test this theory).

I have been wearing the Vivobarefoot Motus training shoe to the gym and enjoying it overall. It’s a bit annoying as I have to slow down on the treadmill to stop over-striding but that’s probably better for my long term health. 

My “gym bag” is a quick little cross body bag from Alpaka, the Metro Sling. It holds my Versa Gripps, keys, chapstick, and Osmo Pocket 3 so I can record my lifts. I have found this is a bit of a tight squeeze and capitalism got the best of me… I purchased the Metro Sling Max for a slightly bigger bag…  And because it’s the 9th anniversary edition and I liked the pretty colors. What can I say? I am a weak man. 

Plus, some of the patches have Japanese on them and I have been watching anime at the gym. Might as well broadcast my weeb status, right?

My Japanese practice has been great. I do find myself procrastinating a bit; likely because I am nervous to fail now that I have recommitted but I believe I only missed one day last week as I slept all night after work. 

I am picking up on everything quickly and it’s really cool being able to hear the individual words spoken in Japanese at a native speed amongst natives (my wife and I watched Final Draft on Netflix). 

It’s a bit frustrating as I can hear the words but can’t always make sense of them but I’ll hear sentence fragments or occasional whole sentences that I understand which is always a pretty solid dopamine hit. 

I am watching OnePiece on Crunchyroll and am almost caught back up on the Egghead Island arc. Once I am caught up, I am really looking forward to trying Dragonball. 

I still understand very little but I would rather not understand than watch more boring content. 

I am still transcribing sentences in Wanikani and have found it fun to try to recall what each Kanji is and have found it easier and easier to understand the sentences while doing this. I also have found understanding words contextually much easier. 

Words in Japanese can take many, many meanings depending on context and this has helped me internalize that instead of memorizing a singular definition. 

I have been listening a lot to Mark Bell’s podcast as I love their open-mindedness to various training modalities and have found them to have many interesting guests.

I am compiling a list of practices that I want to try in time and constantly reminding myself that, while exploring is great, I don’t need to buy everything just to try it. I have committed to trying rope flow and will determine what is next once I feel good about my competency there. 

I don’t want to spread my attention too thin and never make progress. 

Training modalities that I am tempted by right now are all pertaining to functional fitness. Ability to move the body without issue. This is clearly because of the current problems I am experiencing but I want to move without pain as much as and for as long as possible. I have a long time to go before I gain enough muscle to lose my mobility like most bodybuilders but I don’t want that to be a problem at all. 

I want to live a long and healthy life while having some aesthetics along the way. I don’t have a particular goal—I just want to see what I can naturally achieve while still being athletic. Mentally, 275lbs has always been a directional target but I am not tied to the outcome and will pivot as necessary.