Month: July 2021

Pop..

During my PT, my therapist heard the pop as she stretched my “bad” leg.

What I did on my own: pull ups, (50 total; singles, 5’s, 10’s), push ups (3 sets of 40 sissy push ups), curls (hammer, regular), lots of rehab and all of 1.2 miles of walking (16 minute pace; onset of pain at 1 mile)

Chiefs:

Tracy, B and Jacob went with me; Harry and Vickie were in their box, upstairs. The Chiefs rallied to win 4-1 aided by a 2 out double which cleared the bases in the bottom of the 8’th.

Crowd: about 4100 in an 8500 capacity facility …best of the year but not the sell out it has been in years past.

Fooling myself

Workout notes: I kind of put my piriformis through the ringer…

rehab, then deadlifts:

10 x 134, 10 x 184, 10 x 224

Then 5 sets of 3, “on the 3” (finishing just about 12 minutes); 262, 262, 262, 262, 267 (felt reasonably easy)

2 sets of 3 “high bar”: 285, 285

not enough rehab…
16 minute mile walk (great for .4, tingles to .8, onset of pain toward the end)

more rehab….then I tried a second walk; made it to .25 miles when I realized it wouldn’t be any better than the first one…likely slightly worse, so I bailed
then 40 minutes on the bike (13.3 “fake miles”)

I did feel the shoulder last night…briefly; I really do need to do the pec stretching prior to sleeping.

Deception I’ve sometimes said that, on a personal level, I’ve found Republicans more tolerant than Democrats. Then again..this could be selection bias in action; any conservative who would be my friend would be, by definition, more tolerant. On the other hand, I know far, far more liberals and therefore see the whole spectrum, from “let’s try to understand” to the sanctimonious “if you disagree with me it is because you are just like Hitler”

This article talks about that. Personally, the friendship breaking or “cooling off” had more to do with COVID related behavior (masking,vaccines, etc.)..as in PERSONAL behavior. Someone might think that mask mandates don’t do any good but wear a mask themselves and get vaccinated themselves. And I am ok with that.

I didn’t like the deniers. And I especially didn’t like those who were loudly pro-compliance…for others…but did whatever they wanted in their own lives. These are the ones that decried large pro-Trump gatherings..even outdoors…but then went to large protests themselves (yes, we now know that outdoor activities were relatively safe). And I am talking “pre-vaccine”.

No, I did NOT immediately dump anyone who came down with COVID though….as some could not work remotely and others couldn’t resist (or didn’t want to resist) family pressures; I tended to be less harsh on those who felt some contriteness. But for others, let’s just say that social media changed my attitude toward some I felt closer to in the past.

Chiefs games 2021: rough start but hope?

It is weird..for the past 20 years, I spent Saturday morning at races. Right now, my butt says “nope…not yet”, though I am seeing some signs of hope and in a few months…

I did watch some baseball though; Thursday: double header. Chiefs lost both. First one: fell behind 4-0 and lost 4-2 (7 innings); second one: 3-2 where they were down 3-0 after 1; relief pitcher came in and got 9 k’s and allowed 0 hits over 5 innings..and got 2 runs in the ninth. So close.

It was like the previous day (9-4 loss); down 4-3 going into the top of the 9’th and then giving up 5 in the final inning.

This time..last night..the Chief won 7-4 after, yes, falling 4-0 down..making blunders (e. g. no outs, 2 on base, try to steal third, get thrown out, runner gets thrown out at second…then the batter walks….so instead of “bases loaded, no outs” we have “1 on base, 2 outs.”

But came the 6’th inning where the Michigan Whitecaps made blunders..had a rough inning and the Chiefs got 7 runs. The relief pitcher that Michigan put in didn’t last the inning.

Sadly, attendance has been a big issue this season.

“

“The high-A farm team of the St. Louis Cardinals has struggled at the gate this season, albeit not an uncommon predicament in the minors overall.

The Chiefs have averaged 709 per game at Dozer Park through 23 home games heading into a six-game homestand this week. That is 113th among the 120 full-season minor league teams.

It represents a 76% drop from the 38-year franchise’s last season — 2019 — when it averaged 2,920 per game and ranked 92nd of 136 full-season teams.

In 2021, the now 120-team minor league system is averaging 2,778 per game as it comes off a pandemic that saw the 2020 season cancelled. That’s down from 4,290 system-wide in 2019, a 35% decrease.”
[…] “The Chiefs came back from the pandemic, but so far, the fans have not. There have been a lot of nights at Dozer in which it appeared, from hand-counting, there were about 200 spectators in the ballpark.”

“

Here is another way to tell: this Friday night…and the last Saturday night I went to the game, several of the concession stands were closed. In years past, they had EXTRA concession stands open on Friday and Saturday night (including a great burger stand..delicious) Friday/Saturday attendance is kind of like the old weekday attendance.

Now, this past week (Pride Wednesday, then great weather games on Thursday and Friday) did get attendance up a bit from earlier this season, but not nearly to the level of previous years.

Maybe some actual progress?

My workout was nothing special. BUT…well…

warm up on the bike (5 minutes) rehab

1 mile walk (felt great for .4 miles, tingles for the next .6 16:30ish

and pull ups (did one set of 10, lots of 5’s..55 total), sissy push ups (3 sets of 40)

3 sets of regular curls, 3 sets of hammer curls, 3 sets of rows..and a lot of rehab including banded walks and super light RDLs.

Progress? Later, at Costco…the standing around didn’t cause much pain at all.

1 July Catch up and things

Workouts

29 June: yoga, 1 mile walk on the track, 20K bike ride which took 41:37 (Riverplex) and lots of rehab..probably too much of the banded walking.

The elliptical trainer did not feel right.

Yesterday (30 June): weights then PT. Weights: pull ups, (55 total; did 3 sets of 10 in there and lots of chin ups as well), 3 sets of 40 sissy push ups, curls (3 sets of 10, one set of hammer curls) then some intensive deadlifts:

10 x 134, 10 x 184, 11 x 235 (miscounted), 10 x 251 high handle. To think: toward the end of 2019, one rep with 235 was HARD..it was my best at that time.

The rehab was intense too.

Today: overslept yoga so did it on my own, walked 1 mile (quit right at the verge of “almost pain”; certainly tingles, more rehab, 14.3 miles in 57:30 on the Expresso “campus loop”; best loop was 7:40 or so.

Videos (to check my form) are toward the end.

Pain: rehab and the banded walks made me REALLY feel the glutes; tingles all over the place. Shoulder: one night of some pain, not much two nights ago; slight pain last night. Got to stretch before going to bed.

Chiefs: lost to Michigan 9-4 in a 4 hour affair; two very, very long innings made the difference in time. The highlight was this home run in the bottom of the 9’th: you don’t see it but it was a monster shot to left field over the netting and across Jefferson. But: it was 9-3 before this shot…thanks to 5 Michigan runs in the top of the 9’th that blew open a 4-3 game.

It was Pride Night and one of the better attended weeknight games this season, though you can see it was far from, well, being “WELL” attended.

Sad to say, the Chiefs are not good this year. That run of playoff seasons (albeit in “low A” ) kind of spoiled me.

Workout videos: