Ælfric’s Diary

4/11/2020

Food

Meal One: Muesli with almond and coconut milk.

Meal Two: Tinned apple.

Meal Three: Pasta alla Norma. Mucho Norma, and not too much pasta. All the aubergine and a few of the tomatos came from the back yard.

Meal Four: Banana blueberry smoothie.

Exercise

Dancing

Scottish Country Dancing. The Wednesday group are all experienced dancers (I'm the least experienced one there), so there's a lot less walking through to learn the dances, and a lot more dancing. We also get to do more difficult dances, so it's good for the grey matter.
 
5/11/2020

Food

Meal One: Muesli with almond and coconut milk.

Meal Two: Tinned peaches.

Meal Three: Fish curry.

Meal Four: Banana strawberry smoothie.

Exercise

I had hoped to get at least the leg exercises of a weights workout done, but I had a doctor's appointment and he decided he was going to play vampire and do my annual checkup. Doctor's orders were not to put any stress on the arm, so no play today.
 
6/11/2020

Food

Meal One: Muesli with almond and coconut milk.

Meal Two: Tinned pineapple.

Meal Three: Some fish curry, and some pasta alla Norma. There's wasn't enough curry to make a meal, and as the curry and the pasta sauce had quite a few ingredients in common I mixed them up. Tasted fine, if a little confused.

Meal Four: Banana blueberry smoothie.

Exercise

Cycling

Rode up to Brighton. I turned around just before the underpass under the Houghton Highway, just short of my usual turn at Decker Park. Given the failing light on the way home, this is probably a better option at this time of year. 25 km in 67 minutes riding (70 minutes elapsed). This was a bit faster than Tuesday's ride.
 
Been running round like a madman the last few days, so I don't have a log of the food.

8/11/2020

Exercise

Weights

See attached.

9/11/2020

Exercise

Dancing

Scottish Country Dance.

11/11/2020

Exercise

Dancing

Scottish Country Dance. We were only eight dancers tonight, so our teacher decided to try some difficult dances, culminating in Ian Brockbank's The One o'Clock Canon. We danced it as a fast strathspey instead of a reel, so perhaps ⅔ to ¾ of the correct pace, but I think we did really well to be able to do that.
 

Attachments

  • Weights Workout 2020-11-08.pdf
    74.6 KB · Views: 2
If not actually sanity, at least normality returns for a while.

12/11/2020

Food

Meal 1: muesli and almond milk.

Snack: Muesli bar.

Meal 2: Tinned apricots.

Meal 3: Grilled eggs.

Meal 4: Banana berry smoothie.

Exercise

Cycling

Rode up to Brighton. I turned around just after the underpass under the Houghton Highway. 25.4 km in 71 minutes riding (78 minutes elapsed). A tad slower than last time, but I was feeling a little tired. At least I had the wind at my back on the way home.

Houghton Hwy Small.jpg

This is the view from Brighton looking north north-east towards Clontarf on the Redcliffe Peninsula, taken from the bike path just before my turning point. The light was finally cooperative. This was taken about 20 minutes before sunset, so you get the glow of the sun, which is low in the sky to the left, colouring the bridges.

The older bridge on the left (the Houghton Highway Bridge) carries the northbound traffic. Originally it carried traffic in both directions, and replaced an old wooden bridge the Hornibrook Hwy), which was left open to carry pedestrian and bicycle traffic. When they build the new bridge on the right (the Ted Smout Memorial Bridge), they added a wide cycleway and pedestrian walkway on the side that's hidden.

All that's left of the original wooden bridge is a short pier on the northern shore, and a few pylons at the southern end.

The bridges are about 2.7 km long, so it's about 15 minutes there and back. I think for the 3 weeks either side of midsummers day there will be enough light to get to the far side and back home on an after work ride. Looking forward to that.
 
Bad day at work.

12/11/2020

Food

Meal 1: Muesli and almond milk.

Meal 2: Tinned peaches.

Meal 3: Mushroom curry. Actually about halfway between being a bhaji and a curry.

Meal 4: Tinned sardines.

Snack: Chocolate. Lindt 95% dark chocolate.

Exercise

Dancing

Colonial (regency dance).
 
13/11/2020

Food

Meal 1: Muesli and almond milk.

Meal 2: Mushroom curry/bhaji.

Snack: Chocolate ice-cream and mango sorbet cone.

Meal 3. Banana berry smoothie with almond meal.

Exercise

None.

Went to a performance of A Midsummer Night's Dream at the Rome Street Parklands Ampitheatre. Great fun. The actor playing Bottom stole the show with the grossly overacted death scene in the play within the play. After stabbing himself over and over, he machine gunned himself, blew himself up with a cannon, and shot down his plane, all to the accompaniment of the one word: “Die”.

Unfortunately my computer has just died, so I can’t edit and upload any of the photos.
 
15/11/2020

Exercise

Weights.

I missed the reps on the Zercher squats. I struggled to get the bar off the ground and into the crook of the elbows, and used so much energy that I only got 5 of the 20 reps. Getting the bar in position was much smoother the second time, and I get the other 15 reps, but there wasn't enough gas in the tank for 20 reps.

I really struggled with the over head presses. The first work set was a doddle, the second was easy, but thereafter it was a real struggle, and the last two sets I missed reps.


I don't know if I injured my neck while doing the OHPs—I felt nothing at the time, or if I slept badly and tweaked it, or a bit of both. On Monday my neck was sore when I work up, and by the middle of the day it was locked up and I couldn't really turn or nod my head. I took diclofenac (anti-inflamatory) and diazepam (Valium) as a muscle relaxant Monday night, which unlocked the neck, and rested it for days as much as I could. By Thursday it was functional enough to work if still a bit tender, but Friday and Saturday it hasn't really improved, and if anything it's worse this morning.
 

Attachments

  • Weights Workout 2020-11-15.pdf
    69.4 KB · Views: 0
Food

Meal 1: Muesli and almond milk.

Meal 2: One gluten free savoury muffin and one gluten free peach muffin. I was out shopping, which took much longer than expected, so this was a result of poor planning.

Snack: Cashews.

Meal 3. Chicken, pumpkin and sweet potato rogan josh.

Snack: Drink of milk.

Exercise

Not with my neck still sore.
 
Ælfric said:
I really struggled with the over head presses. The first work set was a doddle, the second was easy, but thereafter it was a real struggle, and the last two sets I missed reps.
Click to expand...

Postural and shoulder mobility problems are the biggest problem with OHP particularly neck and shoulders, Landmine press is the best replacement option until you get the underlying issues sorted, working the same muscles overhead without putting your neck and shoulders in a compromised position.
 
As long as your neck is still sore gentle exercise (like walking) would still be fine and could even help it heal up faster. Hope it gets better soon!
 
Trusylver said:
Postural and shoulder mobility problems are the biggest problem with OHP particularly neck and shoulders, Landmine press is the best replacement option until you get the underlying issues sorted, working the same muscles overhead without putting your neck and shoulders in a compromised position.
Click to expand...
I doubt it's an underlying mobility issue. I'm using an EZ_Curl bar, which puts the hands in a semi-supinated position. This takes a lot of the stresses off the shoulders compared to either a fully supinated or pronated hand position. It also means a narrower grip with the hands coming down in front of the shoulders rather than to the sides—again a reduction in the stress on the shoulder.

I think what happened is that, having lost access to my workout plans when my computer crashed, I've reconstructed the workout incorrectly and jumped the weight faster than I should have. Now that I've got the computer back, I can see that I lifted 25 kg the previous workout, noted that that felt heavy, and reduced the increment so I should have lifted 26¼ kg. But when I reconstructed the workout, I put down 27½ kg. And given the way I struggled, that was far too big an increment.

I guess that one goes down as user error.
 
22/11/2020

Food

Meal 1: Muesli and almond milk.

Meal 2: Peaches.

Snack: Cashews.

Meal 3. Banana, blueberry, egg and cashew smoothie.

Snack: Drink of milk.

Exercise

None due to the neck, but I did get some woodworking done.

The office is on the western side of the house, and has a window facing the afternoon sun, and it's starting to get uncomfortably warm come mid afternoon. So I'm building a shade panel to go on the inside of the window to block the heat. It's designed as a torsion box with 6 mm ply sides separated by about 30mm, with a radiant barrier (read aluminium foil) on the inside of the skin that faces the room. The space inside the tortion box gives the barrier the air gap it needs to work.

I got the ply panels trimmed to size, the pine for the framing lattice all cut to size, and part of the assembly done (just using glue and brad nails). I'm using project panel because it was almost the right size, just needed a few cm trimmed off the end and one panel ripped to width, so nothing heavy.

Fingers crossed I'll wake up early enough to get the panel built to the point where it can be used before work tomorrow.
 
23/11/2020

Food

Meal 1: Muesli and almond milk.

Meal 2: Tinned apricots.

Meal 3: Chicken curry.

Snack: [Too many] cashews.

Meal 4. Banana and blackberry smoothie.

Exercise

Scottish Country Dance.

The neck surived.

I got the window panel completed before work. It's not chalk and cheese, but it takes the sting out of the afternoon sun, and means the fan can cope. Now to get it finished (as in something prettier than bare wood) on the weekend.
 
24/11/2020

Food

Meal 1: Muesli and almond milk. Finished the batch of muesli at last.

Meal 2: Tinned peaches.

Meal 3: Chicken in black bean. Tried the local Chinese takeway. Very bland and watered down for western palates. Disappointing, so won't be back.

Meal 4. Banana, pineapple, and peach smoothie. There seems to be a dearth of frozen berries at the moment, so it's a case of take whatever I can find.

Exercise

Nought.
 
LaMaria said:
gentle exercise (like walking) would still be fine
Click to expand...
Thanks for the suggestion LaMa, but the way I walk isn't exactly gentle. I'd still try to push 6½–7 km/h. Which may not damage anything, but it's certainly not resting it.

The shoulder seems to have survived the dancing last night. I'll keep digging trigger points out, and gently stretching, and hopefully get on the bike on Thursday evening.
 
25/11/2020

The weather was much cooler today, which was appreciated by the garden even more than by me.

Food

Meal 1: I forgot to eat this morning. Oh well, I guess it's calories I don't have to burn.

Meal 2: Tinned pineapple.

Meal 3: Chicken, sweet potato, broccoli, snake beans and aubergine satay. The snake beans and aubergine came from my garden (yay!).

Meal 4. Banana, pineapple, and peach smoothie.

Snack: Some medjool dates.

Exercise

Scottish Country Dance.
 
25/11/2020

Food

Meal 1: Muesli and almond milk. I found there was one last meal in the batch of muesli.

Meal 2: Tinned pineapple. There may be a lot of this over the next week or two, as I picked up a dozen tins on special.

Meal 3: Chicken, sweet potato, broccoli, snake beans and aubergine satay. With some yoghurt 'coz it was in the fridge and needed finishing up.

Meal 4. Banana and blueberry smoothie. Only have enough berries left for one more smoothie.

Snack: Some medjool dates.

Exercise

Cycling

To Decker Park, Brighton, and back after work. 24.5 km in 71 minutes at 21.6 km/h. Nothing earth shattering, but I wasn't pushing hard. The neck seems to be fine after the ride, which is good.

I'm in two minds as to whether to lift on the weekend. Maybe I'll do the squats and deadlifts and call it a day. We'll see how I feel on Sunday.
 
27/11/2020

Food

Meal 1: Banana, egg, peanut butter and cocoa smoothie.

Meal 2: Tinned pineapple.

Meal 3: Chicken, sweet potato, broccoli, snake beans and aubergine satay.

Meal 4. Banana and peach smoothie.

Snack: Some medjool dates and tinned salmon (obviously not at the same time).

Exercise

Colonial / Regency Dance.
 
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