Thanks man!
Yer happy birthday, great way to celebrate it with some PRs.
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Thanks! PRs are the best birthday present
Something you should know about injuries (It became a rant)
Lately I’ve learned some stuff that has changed my perspective to injuries somewhat. Nothing dramatic but still, something worth noting. I’ve also seen a lot of guys around here getting injured and having to start rehabbing and all that.
First off, by “injury” I mean stuff like tweaks, pulled muscles, tears etc. just so we know we’re talking about the same thing.
Now what causes injuries?
Two things:
- Improper loading aka. getting greedy and trying to progress too quickly.
If most you’ve ever benched is 225 and you go for 315 you’re plain stupid and putting yourself at a risk of injury. Just an example.
- Shit happens
Sometimes shit just happens, there’s nothing you can do about it
Does “bad form” cause injuries? No.
How about “tight muscles”? No again.
“Muscle imbalances”? Guessed it. No.
Let’s go over these one by one.
“Bad” form, such as round back deads or shallow squats, by themselves, do not cause injury. There is no magical position that will definitely blow your back to a million pieces or shatter your knees. I’d argue that the injuries that are seemingly caused by “bad” form are actually caused by improper loading.
See, if you’ve only ever done half squats and one day try to - or accidentally do - a deep squat without preparing for it (think warming up with your basic half squats and accidentally going too deep on your first working set) no shit you’re at a high risk of injury - you’ve never done that specific movement and then all of a sudden you go way above your max without being prepared for it.
A ton of people deadlift with a round back with no problem and no back issues whatsoever. (Here’s a study on spinal flexion and load bearing: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23916072)
Also, a ton of people with seemingly “perfect” technique get injured.
“Tight muscles” are another pretty common argument when it comes to injuries. Actual muscle stiffness and shortening is extremely rare and most people will go through life without experiencing it at all. Feeling stiff is a real thing though, but it is a subjective feeling that may not be correlate with your ROM at all.
“I can’t go down to a squat at all!” Well, how much have you practiced squatting lately? Doing squats is a hell of a lot more effective way to become better at squatting and going deep compared to a hamstring stretch, for example. When you stretch you’re getting used to the position that you’re putting yourself into; that’s why mobility is so specific. Want better squat depth? Squat deeper. Simple as that.
“Muscle imbalances” is another very common argument. See, your body is not supposed to be balanced. It’s completely normal to have some variation in strength from left to right, and I do understand the want to fix that. (I’d fix it myself too, mainly for aesthetic reasons but also because being balanced from side to side would most likely lead to lifting in a better way in terms of leverages).
The thing here is that there is no true strength ratio for your pushing and pulling numbers. Your leverages matter a whole lot. Your muscles don’t pull you into “bad posture” or “good posture”. If they did you couldn’t decide to actively go into one or the other. It’s just the way you’ve adapted to stand in. Posture is a habit.
And by the way push to pull volume ratio is BS as well. The guys pushing it at painting themselves in a corner by saying it’s because you have to be able to row 100% of your bench or some shit. What if you’re able to do so without doing 2x as much pulling as you do pushing? (Like I am) Why are the Russians and Bulgarians not injured all the time when they do little rows and chins compared to their pushing volume?
It felt good to get that out of my chest
Training log:
Pressing PRs edition
Hit a 110kg OHP @ RPE8 yesterday and a 155kg Comp bench @ RPE8.5 today.
Both are all time records for me. Deads and squat are not going so well at the moment so I’m not even going to go into those two and instead I’ll be happy about my presses.
General life update:
Sleepless night edition
It’s been a couple of days since I last logged anything, and even though it seems like my log is getting quieter I’d still like to keep it alive.
Training is decent at the moment.
Diet is not as good as I’d like but it’s acceptable by my standards.
The first half of my first school semester is ending soon, just a couple more projects and whatnot.
The PT cert is also coming to an end soon enough.
Everything in life is going pretty well. Expect for one thing.
My relationship with my girlfriend has started to crackle a bit.
We’ve always had some issues and a couple of fights here and there (really rarely, mind you) but I feel that as of late our issues have become more pronounced. Not going into the specifics here.
These issues that we have have begun to have effects on my behaviour; I’ve started to lose sleep, have difficulties managing anger, be downright unbearable at moments (I do recognize those moments afterwards myself). Also one trait that has become more pronounced, that my girlfriend is not particularly happy about is me being flirtatious with other girls (just being flirtatious, not cheating on her, not even texting anyone. Let’s make that clear). It’s not something I intentionally do, it just happens. I’ve always been a bit like that but it is more notable now.
I’ve tried to talk this through with her time and time again and we always come to the conclusion that we need to work on our relationship more, but I feel like I’m the only one doing so.
A lot of you guys are married, got any tips to spare? @MarkKO
@Frank_C
@littlesleeper
I’m pretty sure there are a lot more, but I’m so tired I can’t really think straight
First off, if you are aware that you can be unintentionally flirtatious you can stop it happening. So stop it happening. It isn’t something a person in a relationship should do, ever. It is extremely disrespectful. I would be surprised if you fixing that didn’t in turn fix a large portion of the issues you and your girlfriend are having.
With the anger issues, learn to recognise the signs of it coming on before you can’t stop it. Once the ball is rolling it’s a hell of a lot harder to reign yourself in.
As a general rule as well, when you are having a disagreement make sure you think very, very carefully about what you say before you say it. There may be things you want to say that once said will make things much worse not just in the moment but afterwards. A lot of the time in a relationship an argument is resolved not by one person winning it, but by finding a middle ground. This may require one or both people to swallow their pride a bit (or a lot). Never compromise your integrity of course, but focus on resolving the anger and hurt behind the argument rather than the argument itself. A lot of fights aren’t about what you’re fighting about but something else entirely.
It’s hard to give much more advice without knowing more exactly what the issues are, so I hope this helps.
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First, the relationship isn’t changing - life is. As you take on more responsibilities (like school), it starts to use up your resources. It can leave you tired and drained in a moment that you used to have all of your resources such as mental clarity. You respond differently and then everything feeds off that.
People think the relationship is changing but that’s not the case.
Follow @MarkKO’s advice. Talk to your girlfriend and share your thoughts and feelings about everything. Hopefully she’ll do the same for you. Once you know what each other want and need from the relationship then you can start to work towards that.
You just have to be honest with each other. Tell her when you’re angry. Tell her why you’re angry, or tell her that you don’t even know why you’re angry if that’s the case.
Open up the lines of communication about every aspect of the relationship to make sure you’re on the same page.
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The gents above have given much better advice than I could have provided. My wife is the real hero in our relationship, I just do what I can to appreciate her and love the shit out of her.
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Yeah, I’m working on that. Oftentimes I speak before I think and just blurt stuff out so it requires some work
I do agree with it being really disrespectful, but do you really think it could be a root cause for our problems?
I’ll have to clarify this a bit; it’s not a “I randomly get angry and be so for the rest of the day” - type of deal. It’s more like a “I hit myself on the head with a cabinet door and rip it off” - kind of thing. It’s a short burst directed towards the thing that made me mad. (Which makes recognizing it coming really easy)
I’d like to get it under control as well
I usually do, but from time to time I just (again) blurt stuff out without really thinking it through
This is a hard thing for me. I’m really bad at compromises, but I guess I got no other reasonable options
It sure did, thanks man!
I try to talk with her but she seems to have a hard time telling me what she’s feeling. I have no clue why.
Guess there is a lot of work ahead. Thanks man!
Is there anything that’s less than “fucking great” in your life?
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Ok, I’m getting two things from your reply.
First is that your mouth seems to have a habit of bypassing your judgement. I would make fixing that a priority because it seems like that could go a long way towards making a lot of other problems go away. I wish I had some clever idea how to actually fix it. Maybe you could try saying things to yourself before saying them out loud?
Second thing I’m getting is that there is some kind of anger issue sitting there. I’m guessing there’s a cause for that, but what it is only you might know. Addressing it would probably also be very helpful. Since you say it tends to be explosive I’d probably focus on figuring out why it happens and how to stop it rather than trying to control is as it happens.
With the flirtation, yes, I suspect it may be a bigger issue than you think especially if your girlfriend finds it hard to talk about her feelings (or as may be the case, you’re very bad at understanding how she talks about her feelings which has been my situation on quite a few occasions), it may not have been made clear to you the degree of impact that behaviour has. Men and women have a tendency to communicate differently. What may be very clear communication to one can be confusing in the extreme to the other. My suspicion based on what you’ve told me is that when you’re flirtatious it is honestly unintentional and accidental and you just put your foot in your mouth; your girlfriend notices it, is upset and brings the matter up. You explain that it was unintentional and accidental, you just didn’t think before you spoke. She accepts the answer, but each time this behaviour recurs her thought process could very well be going down one of two paths: one, that you don’t care enough about her feelings to make an effort to stop this unintentional behaviour because it keeps happening: or two, the behaviour is intentional and you are confident in your ability to manipulate her into believing otherwise.
The evidence isn’t really in your favour in any of those scenarios. It keeps happening, and the more it happens, the more that reinforces either of the ideas your other half may have. That in itself erodes her overall view of you as a partner, so she is more likely to find fault with other aspects of the relationship especially if it appears to her that you are failing to understand when she tells you how she feels.
I’m not trying to paint you as the bad guy here at all. I’m just trying to pass on what I’ve learned (in large part thanks to a very patient and forbearing wife who has explained some of this to me almost verbatim).
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hey man, haven’t read your log in a while, how you doing?
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@danteism, this is correct. More than likely there’s a bit of anger and discontent built up and hitting your head or whatever is just what pushes you over the top.
As a cop, I deal with a lot of stress and I think I absorb it from other people. It builds up. I don’t notice it until I have an outburst like the one you mentioned. I realize instantly that I shouldn’t be so upset over that particular issue and there’s more going on.
Here’s a third outcome - her self esteem tanks. She thinks she’s not pretty enough, not good enough, and there’s something wrong with her. That’s the most destructive line of thinking for a woman and it can poison everything in their life.
You have to explain this to her. If she tries to tell you how she feels and you don’t understand then you have to say that. Don’t say the general “I don’t understand” but instead something like “I’m trying to understand how you feel in this situation, but I’m having a hard time. Could you explain it different go into further detail?”
We all think we’re clear when we speak but we’re not - especially to the opposite sex.
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Haha, I’m not trying to make it seem like I’m living that Instagram life, but if I had a job that I loved, I’d answer “nope” to that question.
Someone to me: “How’s work going?”
Me: “It’s still paying the bills.”
I’m very lucky, and sometimes it takes me talking about it to remind myself of it. Maybe you could try focusing on the positives of the relationship, and you might realize that those good parts are worth saving.
I have not had a “fight” or even a heated argument with my wife in years. We both found that they did not result in a positive outcome. Now we “discuss” our differing opinions. Sure, sometimes this discussion can heat up a bit, but we both realize when this happens and try to bring it back down to a discussion. This typically ends up at some sort of middle ground that both parties can accept.
We didn’t just decide one day to not argue and never argue again. It was a bit of a training curve for both of us. When one of us got carried away with something in the moment, the other one would say “Lemons”. This would stop the other person in their tracks to really think about the point they were making and how they were making it. Since the word was so off topic (rarely did we actually argue about lemons…), it did seem to lighten the mood slightly and the discussion went much smoother after we had time to think before we spoke. “Lemons” would be her/my way of telling me/her to bring the discussion down a notch as we were approaching hostile territory. Now that I’m thinking about it, I can’t even remember the last time either of us have used it, but it served a purpose at the time. Could be worth a shot.
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In theory that sounds like a good idea but I feel like it could delay my replies quite a bit at first at least, I’ll probably have to figure out something that does the same in lesser time
Yeah, that seems like the best course of action. I’ll have to get to the bottom of it
Yeah. She oftentimes tells me how some girl was talking to me in a specific tone or looking at me in some way; stuff I’m pretty much oblivious to.
Yeah, it definitely isn’t.
I get it, but I must admit I have some work to do on myself. Thanks a whole lot for taking the time to answer, it’s really helpful.
I get this feeling a lot. It’s pretty odd because in day to day life I’m the chillest dude ever
I’ve heard those things a couple of times
Gotta keep that in mind when we talk this through
Very much so, thanks for replying man!
So you do have something to improve upon, shocker!.
That actually seems like something worth trying. Appreciate the idea!
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My latest update actually sums it up pretty well. Overall good. School and training is great. Just have some stuff going on in my private life.
How about you? Your training seems to be going well at least
Jumped on the scale for the first time in six weeks or so, weighted in at 93 and some kilograms. Jesus Christ I’m bad at coming out of a deficit slowly. That’s 8ish kgs in one and a half months
I made the logical choice of not giving a damn and embracing it. At the moment I’m just trying to get strong as hell so I don’t really care about looks. (As long as I’m not a fat bastard). Only thing I’m trying to do is not to go over 110kgs this year.
@duketheslaya, get your weight gain on my level
In all seriousness, I feel like my “natural” weight is probably around 105-110kgs, I just keep on trying to be so damn lean. We’ll see what it is when I get there. All of my close relatives are pretty damn big (I don’t think there are any men under 6’2 and 210lbs apart from my grandfather who is like 6’1 and 190-200lbs, ripped to the bone) so it kinda runs in the family.
Lately my interest in trying strongman has grown a lot. That’s cause I’ve come to the conclusion that if I want to be truly competitive in a performance sport strongman is my best bet. At 193cm I’m too tall to be competitive at powerlifting and weightlifting as there will always be some shorter dude with the same amount of muscle and far better numbers
Sadly, my current gym is pretty poorly equipped for strongman, so I’ll have to wait until I move before diving into it more. However, I can prepare for that by getting my strenght in OHP, squat and deads up, just have to finish with my current program first. (Which’ll be 3-4 weeks from here)
Oh yeah, also hit a 160kg competition style bench today at RPE8
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Sounds awesome man! Youl be a beast in strongman
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Thanks man!
Finland has really gone down in terms of how competitive strongman is. During the 90s the guy who won Finnish strongman championships was pretty much always on the podium at WSM. The current Finnish champ is a 180kg dude with a 350kg dead, 150kg log and 2x190 bench, that’s nowhere near the likes of our WSM champs.
What I’m trying to say is that I feel like I could have a shot at strongman on the national level, especially as I am very light at the moment, clocking in at around 97kgs.
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