News in Brief
Snippets from my life.
1. Tests reveal I am NOT suffering from adreneal suppression. This is, of course, a good thing. The docs have put me on a new medication as a substitute for the one that made me nauseaous and landed me in hospital recently. Hopefully, it will do it’s job (stop colitis flare-ups) without the side-effects of the previous medication (make me as ill as when I have a colitis flare-up…)
2. No more pullups in the house for me. The door gym I have, which hangs off any door frame and uses your own weight to remain there (very clever) has been, with my repeated use of the device, carving out chunks of plaster above the doors in my house. As we rent, my girlfriend has forbidden me using it for fear of damaging the house beyond our ability to repair it and thereby endanger our deposit. Boo! I see her point but, damn, was I a bit sulky when she threw down that law. I don’t want to go to the gym everytime I want to do pullups…but it seems I have little choice, or rather little opportunity to do pullups, until I find an alternative.
3. In better news, I smoked my Kettlebell Swing (16KG / 35 Lbs) previous best by about 20 reps. I say about, because I can’t find where I wrote down my Kettlebell work from before my hospitalisation earlier this year (the last time I worked swings), but I know I did a lot better this time around: 242 swings in 12 minutes, and I felt a lot more energised than I remember doing before. Could have done more, but my wrists started hurting from the surprise stimulus (a downside of my current ‘instinctive’ training, where you do something everyday, but that something could be absolutely anything. Like Crosstraining, only without the destructive belief that unless you vomit you’re not working hard enough.)
4. Part of my success in the swings is new deep breathing techniques I have been incorporating into my exercise. Not only did it help with the kettlebell work, but I’ve also been using them to help me power through ordinarily super-tough kung fu workouts. Wednesday Kung Fu training is hella-tough, but this past Wednesday, with the deep breathing, I managed amazingly well - full of energy and ready to keep going when the session was done. Hurrah!
5. Have received Brooks Kubik’s book, Dinosaur Training. Everything I’ve read about it suggests it’s a must-have in any fitness fanatic’s library. I look forward to assimilating its knowledge.
Probably going to hit the gym tommorrow and see where my strength in the ‘big three’ (Deadlift, Squat and Bench Press) stands after 6-7 weeks of not doing them. Gonna try and work up to my previous maxes, just to keep the strength in my body, and finish off with a swim.
Let me know what you’re up to!
