Weekend
Another weekend, another engagement party it seems... anywho, they were grilling so Kim and I brought our own tuperware full of PCP grillable diet food and have a nice little treat to share: if you like sweet potatoes (and who doesn't), boil or microwave them as you would normally but then instead of eating them, slice them into thin rounds and grill them. They are beautiful. The edges will crisp up a bit and the center tends to stay softer so its like a sweet potato flavored fresh baked cookie. Deeeeelish!
Workouts
Aside from the usual jumprope issues, I'm really quite enjoying the muscle exercises... the dread is no longer there. Its still a "thing to be done" as opposed to something that I can't wait to do, but nonetheless, its a kind of nice respite from work... a massive uptick of which seems to be unfortunately coinciding with this last week. I say unfortunate as its dictating a rather poor sleep schedule at the moment, not that its not welcome since I work for myself...
I totally jumped off the rails in terms of sleep so that may be affecting my morning jumps which, as usual, are horrific. New rope is set to be delivered tomorrow, so let's see if that makes any difference. Not holding out much (r)hope though.
My left wrist continues to pain. You don't realize just how much weight you put through that part of your body until its causing problems... Painful during chest dips, elevated triceps dips, weird clicking noise and pain during elevated push-ups, strain/pain towards the end of curls. Keeping an eye on it, but its pretty annoying.
Still, overall I'm extremely pleased with my strength progress, especially in historically weak areas like my abs. In a curious turn, I'm actually finding 8MA to be more difficult. I think it may be that thing that Patrick said earlier about figuring out the exercises for yourself. By gradually figuring out how to do the ab workouts I feel like I am actually getting more out of them, and not depending on ancillary muscle groups to cheat my way through the exercises. It helps that the improved strength there is also helping make the exercises doable in the first place... although planks are still a bitch! Long way to Frank Zane levels, if ever.
Speaking of which, I know the genetics discussions are to make sure we level our expectations with reality, but its certainly a little disheartening to know that a semblance of abs and something more than chicken chestedness is to be years in the making. Which is all the more frustrating because I actually feel like I have some decent chest strength... but it sure doesn't look like it.
So, in reference to the next few years of battling genetics to show a hint of abs under that adipose or developing some semblance of a chest, here are what I imagine to be Patrick's parting words at the end of PCP:
I find that I try to do some of the 8MA exercises while not putting my head on the ground. eg push throughs - don't go all the way back to the ground and it makes it much harder.
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