Dani's Rebel Log

I would enthusiastically take some of that off your hands! What a gorgeous jungle you’ve got there! :star_struck:

1 Like

Upper-ish

  • Leg Press

Started with this because I wanted to get circulation through the lower body. You’ll see why in a bit.

  • Seated Row
  • Lateral Raise

Nice little superset. Shoulder is feeling a lot better. Yay.

  • External Rotation Band Thing

This helps with the pinchy pain I get in the scap/rhomboid area.

  • DB Bench

Worked up to 35s for 8 reps.

Worked out on Friday but didn’t have time to log, and can’t remember what I did but it was probably super amazing and the most impressive thing ever. :wink:

The Angriest Little Knot

For the past few weeks I kept getting a weird (sharp/burning) calf pain. I brushed it off each time because it was fleeting. It made me yelp while we were watching Netflix one night, but then went away so fast that it was easy to dismiss as some sort of Charlie-horse type thing.

Fast forward to yesterday when my calf felt itchy. I went to scratch it and discovered a hard lump. And that’s when I remembered the hot-sharp-calf-cramp thing. So I got Chris to try and massage it out, while flexing and moving against the pressure. But it just made the thing angry. It ached all night.

It feels about the size of an olive, so not even that big. But stretching does nothing. Working out did nothing. So, the good news is, it’s not affecting gym time. I don’t even feel it while lifting.

I might draw a smiley face on this little monster and consider it part of me now.

Ever experience anything like this?

Other Stuff

This is my relationship with caffeine.

Mood.

5 Likes

They have got so big we are unable to get into the courtyard now. I think I will need to move some to other parts of the house again.

1 Like

You could take cuttings with nodes, propagate them, then give them to visitors and friends.

The best thing about plant propagations is how beautiful they are on their own. It’s basically home decor that grows roots.

1 Like

My misses already does a lot of this, we are just running out of space to put everything. Pretty sure if she has her way we would live in a jungle. I am starting to think that maybe she has a Tarzan fetish :rofl: Come to think of it I did really like Tarzan movies when I was a kid. hmmmmm :thinking:

She propagates a lot of succulents and finds interesting bowls or mugs at the charity shop, and plants them up as table centers. Always giving them away to neighbors and friends.

4 Likes

Sounds like she’s got an awesome green-thumb! Lucky gal, and lucky you!

3 Likes

Luteal + Lower

Booty Blaster: 3 x failure with pauses and burn-out partials at the top

Leg Press: 4 x 10

Went pretty light here.

Lying Ham Curl Drop Set: 3 x 5, reduce load, 5

The thing on my calf is definitely not a knot. Applying manual pressure made things worse, so I’m leaving it alone. We just refer to it as my cancer-leg now.

A Little Nudge from the Progesterone Fairy :woman_fairy:

I can’t emphasize the value of progesterone enough. In fact, I stopped taking all forms of test a while back because even the micro-dose I was prescribed was causing acne. But progesterone is so magical that it seems to be doing enough.

Look into it. If you’re over the age of 35, research it or talk about it with your (hopefully somewhat unconventional) doc. Get blood tests to see if yours is high enough given your phase of the month when blood was drawn.

But I’m not just talking to women here. There’s evidence that if men have low progesterone, they’ll be more at risk of strokes, developing a beer belly, insomnia, and other not so great things.

An outdated practitioner might tell you it’s “the pregnancy hormone” and that is so freaking myopic that I would fire the person who says that to me. Post haste.

I think of progesterone as the fountain of youth. It makes your face and skin look more youthful, improves sleep, creates a sense of well-being, clears acne, improves sex drive, makes joint pain go away, decreases water retention, and soooooo much more.

On that last point about water retention: I used to think I had chubby legs. No matter how many days a week I trained them, how hard I went, or how many miles I ran, they were always puffy for most of the month.

You know what that’s called? Estrogen dominance… or inadequate progesterone in relation to estrogen. So once I started taking progesterone, my legs finally started looking as lean as they actually are because water retention is a bitch. I’ve also discovered that progesterone supplementation has the same effect on the waistline.

Don’t get me wrong, I have juicy legs. They will never be ripped, but they don’t have to be orc-sized.

So I always wonder, how many women are beating themselves up and working out harder and harder to lose fat when they actually just have a hormonal imbalance? This isn’t uncommon among ladies who work out consistently. But ironically, going harder during certain times of the month only causes that estrogen dominance to get worse. In this case, the more you do, the worse you look… so you do even more, then look and feel worse, etc. I’ve been trapped in that cycle many times.

I suspect my progesterone started tanking in my twenties.

The NP who prescribes mine uses a lot more than I do and recommends it liberally based on time of month. But I typically go by symptoms. If I’m having unusual breakouts, I can take progesterone and within a couple hours notice my skin calming down immediately. If I wake up at 2 am, unable to fall back asleep, I’ll take another dose and get back to sleep. And if I’m just feeling prickly for no apparent reason? Yep, another dose. It works.

Another thing: I get the sense that women are averse to any form of HRT (hormone replacement therapy) because they think it’s for post-menopausal women, but given our stressful lifestyles, plus all the inescapable junk in our tap water, food, and environment, it’s not unusual to have wonky hormones. So no, taking HRT won’t suddenly imply that you’re going through an early menopause. It’ll just make you hotter and happier before you do go through it.

Related Reading:

I haven’t read this but plan to.

I did read this a few years ago. Good info, but needed an editor.

Other Stuff

I could go to the Olympics if this were a sport.

English is weird.

Exactly.

6 Likes

Is it near a vein? Could it be a blood clot? If it doesn’t get better - get it checked out, just in case. It’s probably nothing, but better safe than blood-clotted!!

2 Likes

I don’t think so. It’s on the medial side of the gastroc, right in the meat of it.

It seemed huge last week because I couldn’t stop trying to massage it out. But now that it’s been left alone, it doesn’t feel nearly as big. It’s just like a weird hard patch of tissue in the muscle. I’m not worried about it yet.

Just one of the many rotating medical mysteries of my body. But…

I probably will if it starts hurting again or gets bigger.

Thanks for the good insights!

1 Like

Yep, so I’m in an ER waiting room right now. :joy:

I think you might’ve been right about it being a clot. It hasn’t been tested for that yet but Dr.Google says that’s what it probably is.

But I woke up with more weird symptoms at around 2 am and wasn’t able to fall back asleep, so here we are.

They did take my blood already, but this waiting room is so boring, so if you (or anyone swinging by this log) have any fun-facts or riveting discussion topics, drop them here!

So, I am probably the worst luker in T-Nation history. I just signed into the site for the first time in a long time and I saw this. I’m sorry To hear that you are in the ER. I don’t have any fun stories to tell right now, but I am an ER provider. If there’s anyway that I can help, or answer questions, let me know. Probably not the best for an online forum. Is there no way to p.m. any longer?

3 Likes

Aw yay! I’m so glad you de-lurked. Honestly, aside from my leg being a little sore and burny, I feel pretty good.

But I woke up with some mild chest pain around 2-3 am, so figured this might be a good time to finally get stuff checked out since apparently blood clots can break and travel places.

They’re planning on using an ultrasound thingamajig to determine whether or not the lump in my leg is a blood clot.

They just did a scan of my lungs because they want to make sure there’s nothing wrong there. What a trip that was. The fluid they put in the IV gave me some pretty crazy sensations. No results yet… so :woman_shrugging:

Thanks for checking in on me! Great to meet you.

Other important things because a waiting room is super boring and I need you to laugh at the things that I laugh at…

This is an actual picture of me.

Well, that’s a relief.

Poor cheese.

2 Likes

Thank you! It sounds like you’re handling things pretty well. I think it’s really difficult to be an ER patient these days. Aside from the problems that prompt the encounter, wait times are usually awful, one is often surrounded by things they don’t want to see, hear, or smell.
I’m pulling for you, that your vascular ultrasound ruled out a DVT and that your CTA can rule out a PE.
There are plenty of benign things that can cause your symptoms, but I’m happy that you are taking the steps to make sure that you aren’t experiencing a life-threatening cause.
And, if it helps, if you do have DVT or a
PE, this things are treated successfully every day. Usually, just with medicine.
Please keep us posted.

1 Like

Thank you so much. Good news: I just got a room. :raised_hands:

All the test results show that I’m super duper healthy. But the doctor felt my leg and said, “yeah, that’s a hard lump.”

So all the serious things have been ruled out. But there’s potential that it’s just an angry chunk of vein (or varicose vein) which… yuck. I’d rather have a blood clot but oh well.

I’m just going to call it my calf goblin.

1 Like

Great attitude and that’s all great news! I’m glad it’s not serious and it’s not a DVT. Better yet, no pulmonary embolism. Either of those diagnoses would likely have made you have to reconsider a lot of your other medical course, current & future medication use, etc.

2 Likes

Oooh good point. Thank you so much for swinging by and giving me some peace of mind. Glad to see you jump into the T Nation community! Hope you post more. :grin:

Gosh, just getting a room can be such a mental game changer. It’s such an unfortunate thing, very often one can spend their entire work up in the ER, sitting in the lobby or in a chair in the hallway.

1 Like

I felt kind of guilty just being there. Everyone in that room was in really bad shape.