Month: May 2022

Not that far along after all

Last week I was riding high…thinking…”maybe I am over this back thing.”
Nope. I am not saying today was terrible; I was ok ..symptom free for about 1.2-1.4 miles and challenged for 0.3 or so..I did one stretch “on the fly”. (forward bend) But..I was really happy to see the end.

This came after a rather long 50 minute physical therapy workout at home, and I followed it by a 1200 yard swim at the uni.

5 x (50 side, 50 back, 50 side, 50 breast)

fins (no booties) 100 kick, 50 side kick, 50 SFS.

Weight: 204..but I was bloated.

This might well be my 3 days a week routine….with maybe a 4’th weekday swim. I’ll stay away from the crawl stroke until I’ve had 2 weeks of concentrated rotator cuff exercises.

Note: the onset of pain during my walks is a bit different there is not as much muscle tightness. I think the piriformis pain is gone and what I am feeling is referred to by my back.

Lot of nothing

More grind; another 2 hour workout where most of the time was spent on physical therapy with a lot of shoulder squeezes.

Note: the shoulder feels…pretty darned good. And..I did NOT do the crawl yesterday. I am sensing a pattern…I need to wait for the shoulder PT to kick in, and then introduce crawl back oh-so-slowly, and stick with fins, side, back and breast ..for a very long time.

Getting older sucks. My issue here: OS acromiale. In my case, the bones in the top of my shoulder never fused together properly and there is a tendency for the acromiale to tilt forward and impinge my rotator cuff.

Yes, there was a lot of back PT too; most of it was that. Root nerve impingement (L5-S1); mostly it affects walking.

The actual exercises: 40 singles pull up, 10 singles chin ups, 2 sets of 5 wide.

Push ups: this time, 5 sets of 20 working on keeping the elbows further in. 1 incline, 1 decline, 1 deficit, 2 regular.

Bench presses (Swiss bar) 3 sets of 10 x 135 (focus on squeezing the shoulder blades and not hunching my shoulders)

One armed rows: 3 sets of 10 slow..
Curls: 3 sets of 10

deadlifts: 10 x 134 low, 10 x 184 low, 10 x 235 4 inch..all felt GREAT.

Stanley Steemer season

Where I live: used to be a family neighborhood..30 years ago. Over time, parents of students bought houses for their offspring to live in for their college years, and eventually they sold them to landlords who rent to students.

And since the semester has ended, it is “clean season” which means noisy Stanley Steemers making the neighborhood sound like a construction zone. What makes it worse is that this dumb neighborhood is put together so that there are sound channels; someone can be having a normal conversation on their own porch across the street and you can hear it clear as a bell on your own porch. It is something about the way the houses were placed.

Enough of this…summers are just noisy around here (power mowers, leaf blowers, power washers, bleah…

Workout notes Today…well, it went. swimming: 1300 yards; 1000 of off strokes (zero crawl; mix of side, back, breast), 300 yard of kick with fins drills. Surprise: no shoulder pain, though the 1000 did fatigue me.

Weight: 204, but that was (TMI) non-empty weight.

Outside for a LOT of PT: back and shoulder. Goodness, this took forever..and the chilly (but pleasantly chilly) weather lead to another bathroom break.

I will add some of these shoulder exercises to the mix.

Then just over 1 mile of easy walking..almost pain free.

Update: took walk 2 while car was being serviced. I walked with no pre stretching at all…and it did not go well; started to bark at me at .5-.6 miles.

A whole lot of nuthin

I was very leisurely today…3 hours of sort-of-working out.

I did some pre-stretching during a zoom meeting..more serious stretching/PT (20-30 minutes worth) before going for a walk:

Followed by more PT

I did a lot of it today.

The walk: I probably should have quit at 1.5 but was hard headed..and I wasn’t limping at the end but I went farther than I should have.

This week: 1.24, 2.23, 2.02, 2.1, 2.02 for 9.51 for the week. Pathetic, I know..but it is an improvement.

Pull ups: 10-10-10-10 then 5-5-5-5 (chin, wide, wide, chin)

Push ups: 30, 30 inclined (tried not to flare out elbows too much), 10, 20 regular, 10 deficit.

If I tuck my elbows, my shoulder hurts; I’ve been like that for a while.

Swiss bench: 10 x 94 narrow (snap-crackle-pop), 10 x 116 medium (ok), 5 x 136 medium (ok), 4 x 136 wide (shoulder had enough..very fatigued)

rows: 3 sets of 10 x 40 single arm, slow. Felt good

deadlift: low 10 x 134, 10 x 184 (felt great), 8 inch: 10 x 260 (easy).

So…I pushed it as far as I dare. Getting there.

Satirical Accounts: why I like them

I admit that I enjoy certain types of satire accounts.

My favorite is an academic one; one that openly lampoons the absurd aspects of higher education:

She has 121.2 K followers. Her posts are often met with “you MUST be at our university”; her posts are just so on point.

I like Titania McGrath who makes fun of excessive wokeness: (this thread is hilarious)

“She” has 710.8 K followers.

Here is one that lampoons conservatives of a certain type:

Walter has 142 K followers.

And there is a way followers react to his post: we copy his diction and themes …and for the offended liberal that doesn’t get the joke but reacts with umbrage: we call that “being Waltered.”

Then there is 3yearletterman:

Hey plays the part of an ignorant person who peaked in high school and boasts about mundane things (“I have a 4 figure checking account” “so many youth football championship rings that I cannot turn door handles”)

But the best part: he spouts absolutely ridiculous gibberish…and sometimes even a genuine celebrity will play along! (e. g. Jim Palmer, former Oriole pitching great).

But the best part is when some clueless, sanctimonious scold will come in to tell us what a bunch of idiots we are…that is when we pounce with “bet you don’t have a reserved table at Beef O’Brady’s” etc. (these are things that “Coach” routinely brags about)

Sometimes, they eventually get the joke. But it is hilarious when they don’t; it is kind of fun to watch the sanctimonious know-it-alls work themselves into a froth over what should have been obvious to see.

He has 301K followers. And he has been quoted by Newsweek! (who eventually realized their error)

Social and political rants and quips

Yes, COVID is back; yes, that is hospitalizations too. The rates are still much lower than what they once were but they are creeping up again. This time: few care. Yes, I am masking up when indoors around others but I am one of the tiny percentage that still does so.

Curiously, people see me masked and tend to give me a wide berth …no ridicule as yet.

Social/Political: I find the discourse to be amusing.

And I think Republicans understand this better than Democrats do: Hence, our inability to communicate effectively with voters.

As bad as Republicans are on policy, they will annihilate us on things like this:

Republican ad: “Democrats think that men have babies. Can you trust them on important issues?” D’s will respond either by screaming “transphobia” or with a power point science lecture about gender dysphoria and how someone can have a vagina and a uterus but have “male” characteristics in other ways.

But..Republicans have Q-anon and other things, right? But there are two huge differences:

  1. The Republican party is more homogeneous; they have the wealthy and the white working class..quickly adding working classes of other ethnic groups.
  2. The Republican crazy is kind of out there (until abortion..ok..that deserves its own post). Democrat “crazy” appears to affect daily life more closely: “Defund the Police => less safety”. “Transwomen ARE the same as genetic women” => your daughter has to compete in sports against genetic males. “Wokeness” => dreary, insulting “Diversity and inclusion training” and 40 pronouns.

What Republicans can get away with is not what we can get away with.

I know people don’t like Bill Maher but:

Hitting the delicate balance

I was a bit out of sorts; some tenderness in my right shoulder has caused me to cut back on swimming a bit; I just can’t progress much (in terms of yardage) in the crawl.

But I can side stroke, breast stroke and now back stroke, and I can do fin kick/balance drills. So, I’ll suck it up and do those.

Weight: 202.8 Wednesday , 204.3 today, though latter was after breakfast.

Swim: mixed strokes for 500

swim drills for 300 with fins (love the new booties)

mixed strokes for 350 ; tried one final crawl 100 and stopped at 50.

Then: a ton of physical therapy inside; shoulder work was a lot of it.

Then 2 miles of walking; it was pretty good for about 1.4-1.5, then I really had to focus.

Walking and a little baseball

Today: shoulder was a bit sorer than I was comfortable with so I skipped swimming; tomorrow I’ll do a mixed stroke and “kick with fins” short swim and a walk.

Today: I did full PT (ok, forgot “sit to stands”) and then walked another 2 miles.

Not fast and I did feel it at about 1.6 but the first part..first mile..felt pretty good.

Then, some baseball.

Last night: watched Bradley lose 7-6 to Missouri State in a game that saw some chippy behavior. BU was up 5-2 but the Bears clawed back in it and took a 7-6 lead with runs in the 8’th and 9’th inning. During one of the innings, the Mo. St. pitcher barked back at the Bradley bench then at the next at bat, umpires had to step between the Bradley coaches and their 3’rd base coach.

But BU got revenge today, winning the first game 15-10 and the second 18-5 (after 7).

The first game saw BU explode out of the gate with 4 runs in the first and second inning. But the Bears fought back..and a 6 run 8’th inning had the game at 11-10 going into the bottom of the 8’th . But BU went back to batting practice …total of 5 home runs.

And yes, someone on the Missouri State bench got ejected.

I missed the first 3.5 innings of the second game..but got back in time to see BU score 6 runs in the bottom of the 4’th and go on to win 18-5 (10 run rule) in 7.

Gorgeous baseball sky.

Past the edge?

2:20 worth of working out today, though about 40-50 minutes of it was deliberate PT.

Pull ups: 4 sets of 10, 4 of 5 (chins, wide) felt some tingles?

Push ups: 30 incline, 30 decline, 20 deficit, 20 regular

Bench press: close grip with the Swiss bar: 10 x 44, 94, 94, 114 (felt ok)

Trap bar deads: 10 x 134, 10 x 184 low, 10 x 235 4 inch, 10 x 260 8 inch (too much? Felt ok during and immediately after)

high incline (perhaps too much given everything else) 3 set of 10 x 88

curls: 3 sets of 10

rows 3 sets of 10 slow with each arm.

After ward: some tightness right shoulder. I think I should do only 1 set of presses on days were I do this many push ups.

Tomorrow’s swim will be very easy.

Slow improvement

Today: shoulder, glute and back were better.

Swim: mixed strokes for 1000 yard (50-100 of crawl, side, back, breast)

300 of fins kick drills (front, side, side/side)

200 in 3:33 (ok lame)

100 pull

100 in 1:45 (come on)

100 pull

50 in 49

50 back

Then outside for a lot of PT including rotator cuff stuff.

2.23 mile walk; the best part is that I didn’t even notice mile 1 until the watch buzzed (14:36)….had to really focus at 1.5 or so but ..it never got bad; symptoms for the last .3-.4 for so.