Alex_uk: 40 years in the making

Training Training Logs
4313

100% deserved, just having you chat through some of what you talked through and then having you to talk to about what to bring back in and when has been huge, given me confidence and guardrails against my more rash impulses. Top bloke!

I don’t want to put words in his mouth, but one of the things discussed was training and strengthening your back in multiple different positions (think offset training, awkward loads) and I think this speaks to that. Hard to call yourself strong if you can deadlift a ton on a nicely balanced barbell but can’t lift an injured person off the floor. My training will include a bit more focus on this sort of “imperfect” element.

Feel free to carry it on, it’s not an area I have any real knowledge in, so I may not be active in it, but it’s still a really interesting conversation (I’ll end up reading it which ever journal it’s in anyway :rofl:).

See above.

I’ve never eaten there, we finally got one up the road from me, but I’ve yet to venture and sample the delights (friends of mine said it gave them diarrhoea, so your comment checks out, sounds like more cheese is needed!).

Yup, that’s why I caveated the analogy as not perfect, plus @Andrewgen_Receptors is on tren his need for sex is probably bordering depraved at this point!

Glad my rambling/musing posts have some value.

This is such a hard thing to consider, but taking the lucrative option isn’t necessarily right or wrong. You could take it and if it really is relaxed pursue meaningful things on the side.

I think that’s where I currently am, my day job isn’t setting my world alight with joy and passion, but it’s a solid job that pays the bills and gives me enough flexibility to do on-call firefighting, foster caring and volunteer work for the church.

Alternatively use it for the pursuit of FIRE, then you really get the free time to pursue whatever your purpose is. As an interesting side note, I read a fair bit about that community and it’s funny to see that those who single-mindedly pursue FIRE and achieve it often struggle afterwards because they manage to retire, let’s say at 30-40 years old, but they’ve not thought what they are retiring to, only what they are retiring from. They then struggle, with, you guessed it purpose and meaning!

My reading list just keeps on growing, it’s endless!

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4314

21/03/25 - 197

AM

200mg caffeine, 500mg ecgc, cup of black coffee (always black, just how I drink it).

4 min tabata style burpee workout

2.5 mile walk.

This was done pre 9am then Fasted till noon.

Was going to do something in the gym, but couldn’t quite decide what to do, so I ended up doing nothing, I’m alright with that.

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4315

Equivalent of walking into a room and forgetting why you’re there :rofl:

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4316

@alex_uk

I have thought about this for a couple of days. Twenty years ago I was sitting around, thinking, when the thought occurred to me, “Where did God come from?” That was a game changer. I was already becoming disillusioned with the religion of my younger years. I pretended for 15 years that I was a faithful attendee. Then when COVID hit and churches were shut down, and I realized I did not miss attending, I just never returned. My favorite book for sometime was Carl Sagan’s The Demon Haunted World. I did read Hitchens, Harris, Dawkins, and others, but Sagan spoke to me without criticism. Yet, there was still that kernel, and though I have not read the book, I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist might describe me. I have attended my own religion on and off. I have also visited other Faiths. For a bit Buddhism was all I read. I used to get free Teachings of the Buddha and leave them in hotel rooms (with the Gideon’s) when I went to conferences. When my parents heard I had been visiting the Catholic parish in town they went ape shit. I do not know why, they have not been in any house of worship for forty years. Regardless, I have looked into Judaism. (Which my family originally came from.) I have even reacquainted myself with the teachings of the Masonic Lodge. Though not a religion by definition, many of the “old timers” will tell you it is their religion. Kipling even alluded to the Lodge as being the religion of the English army. Interestingly, I had a friend quit talking to me when I let him know I had been raised a Master Mason years ago. Have I gained a purpose out of any of that? Looking deep, I think my main, driving purpose, which I failed to recognize a few days back is service. My job is service. It is that think that I focus on. I work at an alternative high school. Ninety percent of our district staff (that is a guess) is afraid to visit the campus. I have been asked, “Have you ever been punched?” No. An asinine question if there ever was one. I have to type: Thank you for that sentence/thought. I realize I do have a purpose, and have had one. I might surmise that purpose has come from the religious teachings of the religion of my youth.

On another note: Maybe not “purpose” per se, but gratitude is another thing I have learned, and tried to develop over the years. I am, where I am, due to other teachers, administrators, and college professors I have been associated with. They were all patient with the hyper-active, often poorly prepared “kid”. I may have made more money in another field, but I have several people to be grateful for, who taught me well. Plus family of course (usually…).

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4317

I struggle with the idea of a big, singular purpose or meaning to life, as appealing as that is to my tunnel-vision brain. For most of us, i believe life is too complicated and messy for a singular purpose or goal to define it. We have to wear so many different hats in so many different areas of life, and at so many different times of life, that i believe it’s impossible to sum it up with one singular purpose or meaning.

That’s why i like @alex_uk values, because they can be applied across all the areas and stages of life.

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4318

Thank you mate, I appreciate that a ton! And it is honestly a very good summary of what physiotherapy should be - a consultant who is an expert on musculoskeletal pathologies, who diagnoses, advises and guides with the goal of restoring confidence and self efficacy in patients. People are initially skeptical that I touch them a lot less than they expect (usually not at all after the diagnostic exam, except for handshakes and pats on the shoulder). The most important aspect of evidence based physiotherapy by far and wide is communication (besides knowledge and so on).

You can never go wrong being strong! :slight_smile:
Which includes other aspects besides muscular strength as well. For most people that is a very good approach to build resilience and get out of pain or maybe prevent injuries. However if it was all there is to it, athletic back pain would not be as prevelant as it is. Back pain has so many nuances that it is an incredibly complex topic. Yet in therapy the real sign of an expert is, if he can transport that in a digestable way to patients to make sense of THEIR back pain.

Hihi as @alex_uk pointed out below, I would strongly disagree with what most people say, as it is not only reductionary and just not supported by the (increasingly huge amount) of evidence that we have on the topic. But I am not here to call people out on that, it is completely natural to assume this as a universal truth, as it has been communicated as that by authority figures for such a long time and still is widespread among people we perceive as experts.

Yep, that is exactly something I recommend implementing to build more resilience in the back! :slight_smile:
Being extremely reductionistic myself here, so please take that as intended, but our back basically needs three fundamental things: Load, rest and movement variation. There’s a lot of influences that we must additionally navigate, like readiness, preparation, load management and so on, but basically it comes down to these 3, I would say.

Take this analogy, if you like: If our back was not meant to move but to be stiff, it would be build like a steel beam. If it wasn’t meant to move, it wouldn’t. We know joints that aren’t meant to move much at all (called amphiarthrosis) and they are very stiff indeed. The SI joint would be an example (and yet funnily enough it is widely believed that it can be ‘blocked’ even though it moves between like 1 and 3 degrees in normal people, haha).

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4319

I love to see the passion you have for this stuff come through, it’s infectious.

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4320

I do not disagree. I got on a tangent once I started typing. The rabbit hole syndrome. But, not wanting to hi-jack this thread, I will leave it at that.

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4321

I haven’t got time to reply much right now but I really enjoy the thought provoking interactions - so:

Don’t make me say it again!

Oh ok, everyone past present future - there is no need to apologise for posting “off topic” in this journal, it’s all on the table, I know you are all respectful people and aren’t going full PWI in here. Plus there is no derailing this thread, I’m using it to share life in a wider sense than just lifting and it’s awesome that there are a bunch of other people who are happy to read and engage in it.

If my log ever just became about lifting I’d just use a paper notebook, it’s the people and the interactions, the tangents - the full gamut of life that makes this place special to me!

Appreciate you all!

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4322

Haha, yea, it’s the weird thing about not being on a program, I’m so used to just turning up and following the script, it throws me when I don’t have that. The backs nearly there then I’ll jump back on program and lifting will resume as normal (you know, with a whole lot of bitching and moaning about how much I dislike it).

Curious, did you always attend the same church or have you moved around a lot over the years? Did you tend towards bigger churches?

I’ve not read it either, but sounds like one for your reading list!

Good that you’ve realised this, which circles back round to your retirement conundrum! How will you find new ways to be in service?

With you here, I’ve been spending my morning dog walks in prayer (deliberately keeping the headphones off and intentionally focusing on prayer) and gratitude is something that has really started to flow in those times. I was walking in the driving rain the other day (I dislike rain immensely), but I used it as an opportunity to be grateful for so many things (waterproof clothing, the rain itself - because it is necessary, the hot running water that my shower was going to provide when I got back, the house I live in with hot running water and shelter from the rain, the list could go on all day!).

The more you get into gratitude the easier it becomes and the more that spills over into just being a more grateful and content individual.

I see what you’re saying here, and maybe that’s where my faith gives me a different perspective, I see something, someone as supremely valuable above all else, where you don’t see that it makes sense that you are not going to be able to have that same singular definition, but despite this, there can always be common ground:

Excellent, that just speaks to your skills and expertise that, without ever stating that, you did it and I recognised it! I see bright things ahead for your career!

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4323

24/03/25 - 197

AM walking - only around 1.5 miles.

PM training:

Zombie squats: 20, 40, 60, 80kg x 5

Deadlifts: 60, 80, 100, 120kg x 5

A1) Seated OHP: 20, 40, 50, 60, 70kg
A2) seated DB curls: 10kg x 10, 12, 13, 14, 15

B1) wide grip pull-ups: bw x 5 x 5 sets
B2) dips: bw x 10 x 5 sets
B3) chest supported rear delt raises: 10kg x 8 x 5 sets

Good session, another shout out to @Koestrizer - for the zombie squats they were great, they’ll be paused next time and the seated OHP, think I might have done this once or twice in the past, but doing it because it’s easier on the back, and it felt awesome, I can definitely grow this one.

Still keeping the work overall lighter and more supported.

Zombie squats:

Deadlifts:

Seated OHP:

Weight has spent a few days static, unsurprising because I’ve been eating more, got hungrier :man_shrugging: - not worried but I do want to push on and get to 190. I’ll see how this week goes but as I’m not counting calories it’ll either be deliberately reducing fat (added cheese, eggs and EVOO, with cheese being the lowest hanging fruit), and an increase in activity levels.

Experiments in increasing caffeine - this morning started with 200mg of caffeine and 500mg of ecgc, then a cup of black coffee, went for my walk (shorter because I was tired the thought of walking was a chore so pushed myself out with the promise of an easier walk). Came home from my walk and had probably another 4, maybe 5 cups of black coffee (french pressed so all strong), then took BP:

1000040580
10000405801920×2550 221 KB

That’s a win, not intending to stay this level of caffeine permanently (again), but nice to know it’s not necessarily an issue when I go a little crazy.

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4324

@QuadQueen random question, pasta Vs rice. The bodybuilding world seems to have venerated rice, and shunned pasta, but a 10 second Google suggests that pasta is lower GI (is that still a thing people should care about?). If an individual has no issues with gluten is there any reason why rice would be better than pasta?

Recognise that I’m not exactly up to date with this sort of thing, so wondering if you might be so kind as to drop some wisdom.

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4325

It’s less processed and a little lower in carbs and calories, but I have no idea why it’s considered better in the bodybuilding world. My best guess is that it’s because it’s cheap, and it holds and reheats better in Tupperware containers than pasta. Lol

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4326

I feel I might need to caveat that, that is my perception, not necessarily a bodybuilding tenet.

:rofl: As good a reason as any I suppose!

Would you view them fairly interchangeably?

4327

Maybe you overeat easier on pasta?

But I also feel like bread is a similar topic! Everyone seems to view it as ‘unhealthy’ or a bad option in the fitness space and no one had a convincing argument for me why that should be the case!

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4328

Can confirm, from dinner. Meatballs with roasted veg in bolognese sauce mixed into pasta, I ate a lot got full, then left the dinner table and ate some more that was in the worktop. Pretty confident that wouldn’t have happened with rice.

Might also be because I trained through lunch and only ate 2 bananas, 250g FF greek yogurt and 25g whey. I was hungry, can’t trick the body!

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4329

I prefer rice because it’s less processed, but I’d also pick brown rice. Some pasta from time to time isn’t the worst thing you can do though!

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4330

Wait a second @alex_uk… are you telling me that you eat other carbs than potatoes!?!? You’ve changed…

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4331

Wheat has gotten a pretty bad rap, compared to rice or potatoes. Between gluten issues and wheat’s association with “leaky gut syndrome”. I imagine this is why pasta gets wrapped up in the exchange as well.

That said, when I deviate, it’s with pasta, as I seem to handle it well. And honey. But there are quite a few people that don’t handle wheat well but can handle other carb sources.

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4332

Rice is pretty much just carbs and trace protein with no fats.

Pasta cannot be made without fats.

Processed foods vs unprocessed foods aside, from a macro perspective - its far easier to control your carbohydrate input when its entirely its own component.
Lower carbs? okay, less rice and adjust nothing else.
More carbs? more rice and adjust nothing else.

And if you’re anything like me, you can eat rice with very little added to it for seasonings. Or at least, whatever you add has very few calories.

Pasta? Parmesan cheese is a requirement.

and as @Koestrizer mentioned, its far easier to overeat on pasta.
I can put down 1,000cals worth of pasta in a sitting and want more.
I cannot do this with rice.

I suppose even from a bulking perspective, rice is easier to digest than pasta, so eating more of it is just not that problematic from a GI distress standpoint.
From a cutting perspective, its far more filling than pasta.
Potatoes are an even better option with respect to satiety, but using them as a primary carb source will have you backed up like nothing else.

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