Strength in Interesting Places II: Not Without My Trousers

[JauntyAngle]

Originally Posted by MilkManUK

^^ Sounds great ^^ In comparison I had 1 beer and went to bed at 21:15. Rock n roll! Seriously though, that is a cool story.

Even better actually being there. One of the three best nights I've had in the last four months, along with seeing my friends in Newcastle, and drinking with the retired Pakistani civil servants in a colonial mansion in Peshawar, in Pakistan.

Originally Posted by TeddyRoosevelt

Just spent a decent bit of time catching up on your log. Rather than respond to specific posts, I will just say this:

I love you.

Aw, shucks!

[JauntyAngle]

So, I realized that I am still not feeling 100%, and so skipped conditioning again. But I did do some foam rolling and work with the Baseball of Agony.

I started off focusing on the lower back, lower than I normally go, and found it was really sore just where the glutes start. Then, working round to the sides and down torwards the hips, I found equally painful places. The area in the hips was clearly the piriformis, while the area above the glutes might be the fascia there. This area is now really tender. I've never had any issues before in this area that I know of, but possibly all the running and also all the lunges I've been doing have caused the tightening around here. It seems very likely that this was the cause of the slight back niggles I've been having.

Also did some IT band, shins and other parts of the back really quickly, but there didn't seem to be any issues.

About 40 minutes of awfulness in total.

[Tosa]

It can also be that a bigger, more jackt muscle, requires more in terms of SMR and active recovery than a smaller muscle.

I know for me I'm always pleased to find that, no my back isn't tight or sore, I just need to painfully roll about with my glutes with a golfball.

[JauntyAngle]

Originally Posted by Tosa

It can also be that a bigger, more jackt muscle, requires more in terms of SMR and active recovery than a smaller muscle.

Yes, that could be the case here. And my glutes and hams are certainly a lot more jakt now that I am doing "50/20" lunges, GHRs and GMs most weeks.

[ghostwipe]

That sounds like a really interesting job. I'd ask how you got into it, but I have a feeling that's a long discussion meant for another time.

Do you live in Bangkok? I've been to Thailand around ten times or so.

[miaou]

Originally Posted by JauntyAngle

2. Main Lifts
2.1 Deadlift
130kg x3

2.2 Bench
62kg x5, x5, x5, x5, x5

2.3 Row
72kg x5, x5, x5

Everything seems to be progressing at a good pace.

Right on, jaunty-bro!

[JauntyAngle]

Originally Posted by miaou

Everything seems to be progressing at a good pace.

Right on, jaunty-bro!

Yes, it's going very nicely. Adding the weight back every time, everything is feeling relatively light, no shoulder reaction. Now there is a chance that I am going to be in Thailand for 5-6 weeks, which should allow me to be very consistent with all my work. Could get very close to the level where I was at before in that time.

[Tomax]

Debating adding a couple of weeks in Thailand to a trip I'm planning for this Spring. I've only ever been in the south, Phuket and Koh Pha Ngan. Wouldn't mind checking out the north a bit.

[JauntyAngle]

Originally Posted by ghostwipe

That sounds like a really interesting job. I'd ask how you got into it, but I have a feeling that's a long discussion meant for another time.

Do you live in Bangkok? I've been to Thailand around ten times or so.

The short version isn't that long. I was a management consultant, I was on a long holiday, heading back home via Thailand. Girl in a yoga class offered me a job, which turned out to be for the Thai Government. That lead to working for an international agency in Afghanistan, which lead to the private consulting firm I'm with now.

I live in Chiang Mai- I like lively small cities, rather than big cities.

What's brought you to Thailand so often.

Originally Posted by Tomax

Debating adding a couple of weeks in Thailand to a trip I'm planning for this Spring. I've only ever been in the south, Phuket and Koh Pha Ngan. Wouldn't mind checking out the north a bit.

It's worth checking out. Chiang Mai itself has plenty to do. The periphery has lots of stuff like bungee jumps, trekking, ATV rides, tree-zipping, various elephant camps including a few where you can go and be a handler for a day. The city has nice restaurants and bars, cheap guest houses and hotels, and lots of courses: people stay in Chiang Mai for weeks, months or years studying yoga, Thai language, Thai cooking, Thai massage, MT. It's a nice city and once you get out of the most touristy area you feel like it is really the local peoples' city, you happen to be visiting or living there. But they don't mind, and even like having you there. If you want to look about a bit more, it's well worth going up to Pai (a small town in the uplands) and Mae Hong Song (a small city really high in the mountains), too. If you're adventurous, you can hire a proper motorbike and ride up there (at least to Pai)- it's an awesome twisty hill road, full of kickass views.

[JauntyAngle]

As you can see... back in Chiang Mai. Have been really inconsistent over the last week or so, but now I should be fine.

I continued my "Texas-type" approach to squatting today- last time was 5x5, so today was working up to a heavy single. It went fine. The heavy single was a little slow, but there was no point where I wasn't going to get it and could probably have handled a little more. Next couple of sessions I will go for 2RMs. I am thinking I'll go for 105kg x2 next time. For some reason I want to be back to 5x5 on Monday and heavy day on Friday, though, with DLing on Wednesday, so I will need to come up with something else to do this Friday.

Everything else was fine today, although "50/20" was pretty hard. The lying tricep extensions were a genuine effort, and 50/20 lunges are always a bastard, and so I didn't quite get the 50 reps of each. Afterwards I was really pretty beat and had to rest for 2-3 minutes to recover.