July 6, 2020 – Life of an old goat

The knee?

It was almost 10 years ago today that I had my 4’th surgery on my right knee..am I headed for surgery no. 5? Last night, I had the “usual soreness” but then, upon getting out of bed to head to the bathroom, I felt pain radiate down my shin..up high…from the knee and I felt a bit unsteady on it.

It is walkable; I took some naproxen last night (2 am?) and again at noon today and feel ok; there was very mild swelling and very light warmth. But that radiating pain bothered me; no running for a while and I’ll keep whatever walking I do to short, manageable distances..maybe do some indoor cycling and stiff legged deadlifts.

Here you see what I used today (though I took the dumbbells outside; steps were fine) and I did use the trap bar on Saturday (222 is on the bar; 10 dead lift reps) That, plus the “playground for chins, pull ups, dips and pushups) constitutes my “resistance training gym.”

The racks, bench and dumbbell handles came from March when I knew gyms would close (and the pull up station); trap bar and bumper plates came from early this year just to do on my own. Metal weights and bars: came from 1984. Still useful for me, though a really strong person (who, say, uses 400 lb) would need more weight plates and a better Olympic bar.

Oh, the folding chair: it held me when I weighed 300+ lb, so it easily holds me plus the 90 lb barbell that I use.

Note: weight workout took 80 minutes from the start of pull ups to putting away all the weights; getting the weights out there takes another 10-15 minutes or so.

pull ups: 6 sets of 5, 10, then 2 more sets of 5, plus another when I got outside again. Did rotator cuff stuff. Focused on getting my chin over that bar.
bench press: 10 x 132, 3 sets of 5 x 166 (80 kg), with butt firmly planted and NOT lightly touching. These were harder than I expected.
seated shoulder: (count bar with collars as 12 kg) 10 x 70 (32 kg), 10 x 79.2 (36 kg), 8 x 83.6 (38 kg)
outside: 5 chins (already counted), 3 sets 8, 10, 8 of dumbbell shoulder presses (hands rotated inward) 35.4 lb (16.1 kg)
rows 4 sets of 10 each arm with 60? (57.4 lb? 26.1 kg)
push ups: below the handles, 3 sets of 10
plank: 2:30

That’s it..some experimentation.

The danger of the heroic self-narrative

Almost a decade ago (2011 football season), I remember the Paterno-Sandusky Penn State scandal breaking.
Some of the conversation was interesting; so many were saying how heroically they would have acted had they been that assistant coach walking in with Sandusky engaging in “horse play” with a boy. And these were, well, rather average people who really don’t KNOW how they would have acted.

And so we see stuff like this:

1/ I sometimes ask students what their position on slavery would have been had they been white and living in the South before abolition. Guess what? They all would have been abolitionists! They all would have bravely spoken out against slavery, and worked tirelessly against it.

— Robert P. George (@McCormickProf) July 2, 2020

See? All of these students would have been outliers had they lived in that period. And I think the professor really doesn’t go far enough in his thread: how many of the students, were they raised in that culture, even seen slavery for the evil it was?

But in their minds, THEY would have been the risk taking heroes.

My guess is this is how “take down the statues of George Washington” people think.

But this problem works another way too..about stuff in this day and age.

Yes, there is no secret that groups of people living in poverty, as a group, exhibit social pathology. There is evidence that pathological behavior follows poverty and not the other way around.

But those not in poverty will point to the outliers who made it out and, in their minds, assume that if THEY were born into that situation, THEY would have been one of those outliers. Hence they resist backing programs to help those people out…and yes, one CAN higher rates of self destructive behavior in such communities.

The reality: I wasn’t raised in such a community; I had great parents, good schools and a stable place to live..plenty to eat, stuff to do, etc. Many don’t have such advantages.

Anyhow…I think that I gained quite a bit of self awareness that outstanding people in different communities or from different era really were outstanding and it is foolish to compare myself to them.