shmups.system11.org

4/21, easy-peasy.

Steve: weight increase, but same body fat percentage? Power of the muscle?

5/21.

Slowly increasing weight and decreasing body fat. Asymmetry exercises seem to be the real deal, uh!

6/21.

Time flies, uh. And everyone is becoming a fat slob, I guess, hence no training progress

Haha. Still working. Progress is so slow - Ill keep at it though cause its what I do.

Nothing new to report..depth and reps on hspu is increasing. Plateaued with archers - was up to 15, took a week off and kind if hit reset. Think I did seven this week.

Need to stick with the bike. Started strong and got away from it. Got back on it yesterday after a month and going to do it today.

Since I started working from home, I've been slowly but steadily gaining weight. My plan was to start going on walks around the neighborhood, even though crippling shin pain would stop me in my tracks for some reason and would break my stride, forcing me to rest at some point.

Today, I managed to walk 1.5 miles without pain, and without having to stop to catch my breath. I even went past my home on the way back and added another quarter mile to my trek. Perhaps I won't ever become muscular or toned before the day I die, but I'll be damned if I let myself look like my father in law.

You can do it Specineff. Here to help you if you need it.

Getting physical therapy next month boys for my now 6 months of sciatica. Being the pessimist I am, I assume it will do nothing and I will be uncomfortable the rest of my life. I assume this will be lots of core exercises. Any experience here with this sort of fun?

Not per say Drauch, if I had to guess - then yes.

Figure things to strengthen your core/abdominals and various types of bridge progressions for your back.

I'm curious as to what they'll prescribe, but if you want I can point you towards some light bridge progressions to get you started.

My doc gave me a few things to get started. Basically a plant of sorts, pelvic raise, hold my knee to my chest, and another (don't have the sheet on me, so excuse the idiotic descriptions) where I put one arm out and the opposite leg and hold that, then repeat that with the respective other. My sessions are going to be an hour, so I'm interested what all we'll be doing. All I know is my trainer's name is Tanya, so I'm hoping it's the same one from Red Alert.

Hangs are good for you! They said.
Dead hangs, active hangs.

well i don't like the dead hangs cause it feels like my armpits are being torn out of my body.

thursday I did some hangs, and some pullups. hit 9, a personal best.. because I was half-adrenaline'd after being fucking furious with some girl i'm seeing (she's a bull in a china shop).

Anyway yesterday and today my body is broken. Doesn't feel like muscle, my back and chest are both complaining.
God i'm old but not that old.

Okay, so I jumped in here at the right time I guess. I haven't posted in here a while because... guess what... I fucked my back!

I'll explore more if you want, but I was doing some travelling after I had tweaked my back a couple of times in the gym. It was livable. Mexico? Not bad. I knew I needed to take it easy and not upset it but I was able to swim and even lift quite a bit. Went to Japan for a month and things went absolutely pear-shaped. Very stiff and old bed, and futon underscored how bad of shape my back was. I woke up in tears a few times - stabbing pain between pelvis and thigh. Fucking nuts.

Anywho, a few pages back, this topic came up and long time member lawnspic mentioned he had been seen by Dr. Stuart McGill and eventually made a breakthru with his pain. He and I took the conversation offline and he graciously shared videos and knowledge he gained from his meeting with the man himself. I read Back Mechanic TWICE. There's some great info in there even if the exercises and routine don't work for you. I highly recommend reading this book. You can get through it in days. It's not super cheap - if you're broke I can mail you mine as a loner.

The vote isn't in if it's going to rid me of my pain, but to be fair, I have not really given myself a great environment. I'm just now back from travelling, and I don't even have a real bed. I've been in shitty hotels, and now in my new place on an air mattress for days, and finally a decent 6" foam fold out but it's not amazing. My bed gets here Tuesday. I have a fuck ton of boxes to unload and that's not great on the back either.

So... what's in the book? Tons of shit, but the take home points are below. Some are at odds with the "community" and common knowledge. For example:



This is specifically called out (with pictures!) as horrible for a damaged back. Doing that and twisting maybe the worst thing you can do.



Pain relief. Inversion table probably a bit overkill but I have talked to people that have sworn by them. The book promotes slight traction as pain relief... like holding yourself up on a counter.

Anyway, key points:

0: Your back needs to heal, and the only way to do that is to let it rest. Obviously a proper bed that gives you the right position is key, but you need to keep the spine in a neutral position as much as possible while you get on with your life. Ideally always. The book teaches you ways to get up and down off the ground, tie your shoes, make sweet love, etc., all in spine-sparing ways.
1: Good posture - what is it? How do you maintain it, etc?
2: Core endurance (not strength) is paramount to your recovery. Endurance first, then worry about strength. Achieved with the McGill Big 3 to start.
3: Don't fucking stretch and injured back. Any relief you get is temporary. It doesn't fix anything, and might make it worse.
4: Walk. Walk some more. Then walk some more again. Walking is good and will probably relieve your pain.

Now having said that, I actually forked up for an assessment from a McGill Master Clinician. It wasn't cheap but I wanted 100% confidence I was doing everything right. Well guess what, I wasn't! So, really read those instructions and realize how easy it is to cheat them. I wasn't doing terrible, but not great. Most people won't have the dough to do that (it's expensive) but the book will indeed help.

As for your PT: Many internet posts, even dear friends, and lawnspic confirmed in the theory that finding a good PT in America that will actually help you is difficult. I've heard from at least 3 people that they've gone to many (like 10) with no relief. So, keep that in mind. It's by and large a "by the numbers" practice and the book argues that each back and back injury is it's own snowflake.

Sorry that got a bit long.

Are you retracting your scapula's while hanging?

Meaning are you pulling them towards the center of your back or are your armpits up by your ears? If it's the latter you need to work on your retraction.

Retraction will add stability to your shoulder girdle and make the act of hanging much safer.

Ah shit, dunno how I missed this! Thanks for the pm reminder.

Actually just started my PT yesterday. The lady seems to really know her stuff. I mean, I'm not hopeful it'll do much, but I'm trying. Did a lot of stretches and massages of sorts trying to get blood flowing through the nerves and giving it space. She used some roller thing and a cup and something else that hurt like bloody hell, that afterwards felt surprisingly decent.

I've been doing core exercises every day before this, and was given a list of six different stretches on top of that from the PT:
Child's pose
Seated sciatic tensioner
Supine hamstring stretch
Supine posterior pelvic tilt
Supine lower trunk rotation
Supine piriformis stretch with foot on the ground

Trying all sorts of different chairs and shit (stool, saddle, various office chairs), but don't think anything really works other than keeping my leg up or sitting on my side, which is impossible to do on anything but a couch. It really just depends on the day. Sometimes my car ride home is uneventful, other times it's a struggle.

Appreciate the book advise. I'll see if I can find it and give it a shot. Thankfully my back in all of this is in pretty good shape. I've tweaked it a few times in the past and couldn't do anything for days, so I understand the struggle. I feel a little pain here and there on the same side, but it's manageable, and actually came after the sciatica leg pain. I asked the PT about this and that's usually not the case, but she suspected I'm feeling occasional back pain from the new ways I'm sitting around with my leg up, which makes sense. Sciatica definitely comes from a few different things, including hernia and other back issues, but I definitely got mine from being a lazy piece of shit. I've got high arches on my feet, and that finally started bothering me big time last year and I developed sesamoiditis, which kept me off walking for two weeks, which is when the sciatica set in. Once that was back to normal-ish I just sit all work in a garbage chair, then come up and piss away my life on the computer as well, so I was basically sitting 24/7 and only exercising maybe a few times a week after a couple year dry spell. 100% to blame here.

Makes me really bitter, working with this obese guy with zero health problems and doesn't move at all, yet here I am, still of a decent weight and don't eat like complete shit, yet my entire bottom half is failing. Bah, oh well. I'm hoping to Crom that if I ever get over this it'll just be the ultimate wake-up call ever to keep more active like I used to and not succumb to the full sedentary life I've created for myself. I'm trying to get up every thirty minutes if I'm not already standing, playing games on a bike now for at least 5 miles a night, and doing those stretches on top of trying to hit the gym a few times a week.

Sorry, I know I'm bitching. This shit has really been a blight on my already crippling mental state, lol. I could have it worse, I'm completely aware of that. Some people have just crippling sciatica that's a sharp pain; mine is just an uncomfortable burning, like someone holding a heater right up to your leg non-stop when sitting. Like back pain, that's no joke at all. Really hope that gets better for you. At least it sounds like it's getting better?

Well I found once I pulled them towards the centre of my back it all became much more manageable and my armpits stopped hurting.
This is the correct way, then?

You got it.

Man there's a lot of BS videos out there..
a claim i've seen is that this hanging lark can fix my nerdy rounded-shoulder gamer posture.

(i fucking hate seeing my posture in the mirror, it kills me)

what do we think, can hangs actually do that?

I wanted to joke about good mornings being the cure for that as "they're the cure for all things", but seriously I don't understand the problem. Slouching is from leaning forward with your upper spine (a very un-good morning-like area) and not slouching just requires getting in the habit of standing straighter. (I recommend pretending you're a smug douchey king.)

This subject reminded me of those P90X ads on TV back in the 200X's. The before/after photos consisting of basically the same exact bodies. Just the befores have bad lighting, the people ate a few sandwiches an hour before to load up their intestines, and slouch. While the afters have good lighting, low amount of food in their digestional tract, and stand up straight. Emulating these photos in the mirror is fun sometimes; before: "Ew he's gross no one can ever love him." Stand up straight: "Oh my god, I want to have his baby, and I'm a dude!" The silly, magical world of infomercials.

Of course, you're not me and your experience may differ. I can theorize many reasons standing up straight could be uncomfortable - obesity, being a giraffe, having a fucked up vertebrae that doesn't want to seat itself correctly. None of them have to do with shoulders (trapezius = weak neck, maybe?), and that does sound like a gimmicky "throw everything at these ADD-ridden monkeys and they'll buy something" kind of thing. Developing some general torso strength, from barbell squats or, yes, maybe even good mornings if such equipment is inaccessible, seems like it'd be more pertinent. Even bodyweight squats seem more relevant.

The trapezius is stimulated by basically any exercise involving the arms. The neck connection, well... don't do any neck specific exercises. In the insane world of for-profit fitness where everything is pitched, there's a good reason neck stuff is in the domain of the fringe maniacs. The only neck exercise I recommend is standing up straighter.

dude my shoulders/head/neck simply don't sit in the right place when I stand up straight.

Man, that sucks. I don't have Sciatica but some other issues I'm working through. I know how semi-random pain can be debilitating...especially when you take care of yourself. I was doing well about going to the gym and then this happened, so know how that feels.

I don't know all the causes of sciatica. I know it can originated in the back, and figured that was originally the case. But, it's a long ass nerve, so not sure. I will tell you this - if your sciatica originates from a disc and you can determine that w/ the evaluation in the book, most of the above is gonna be thrown out the door. In fact, literally all of it. So, keep that in mind if you are digging your PT. Basically the crux is you never stretch a damaged back (or your hamstrings). They do give temporary relief but long term they can actually fuck your nerves up more.

Anyway, for me, it's been beds. I'm finally back home w/ my new bed after sleeping on what I can only describe as a medieval torture device in my mother's guest room. She's talking about getting a new one b/c she knows it causes me pain. I told her to not bother for a while. Maybe I'll split one with her. It really is a piece of shit.

From what I've read on sciatica, it is usually herniated discs and such, but it can also come from inactivity. I think we're narrowing it down to me having super tight hamstrings, presumably from lack of movement/sitting compression. My doctor initially noted this before the PT and wrote it down as well, and I was initially unsure as of why, but now I get it.

This lady will 'massage' my leg so hard in certain spots where I'll involuntarily lift the other in pain. Still feel yesterday's today. But it's not a sciatica pain, just a a holy shit this is rough my body has never felt this before pain, like Sonny Chiba giving me a massage. I've basically never stretched my legs for shit; I'm about as inflexible as they come, can barely touch my toes, etc.. She did recommend me some hamstring exercises on top of my others, but they're pretty light and low reps. As you mentioned regarding that, I noticed some info on the wall yesterday at the clinic putting emphasis on the too much part. I'll give it a shot for a bit and see how that feels as well. I feel like the youngest grandpa, like some fucked up version of Jack or Benjamin Butthorn.

Dayum. Well sounds like you're working through it. If it's not a damaged disk I would assume recovery would be easier but that's just conjecture. I work with (and hang with) people 20 years younger than me and do kind of pride myself in being cooler than all of them. So my pride takes a huge ass hit when it takes me like 20 seconds just to get out of a fucking car.

Hope you're all hanging in. Some hiccups here but nothing I haven't dealt with before.

Stay strong.