[Wk28] Improving in Fitness, Gaming & Music

About this blog/diary:+ Show Spoiler +

I'm a professional musician and (very) amateur gamer.
Blogging about improving and sticking to a program is very effective for my overall progress!
Having been inspired by Haulvern, I hope this humble blog can motivate another someone in need of positive change.
Thanks for checking this out and feel free to leave any comments or suggestions!

Week preview: The foundation is set for good lifting gains! Time to acclimate myself to my new rower for cardio and also solidify my mental practice.

Goals for the Week

Fitness Goals:
4 Weight-lifting sessions (program): [image loading]

4 Rowing HIIT or LISS sessions (log): [image loading]

(opt) Running/Hills/Weighted walk sessions (log):
1-Month of 2kcal Slow Cut: + Show Spoiler +

            Gaming Goals:
                  Log write-ups of my team's OCC Blood Bowl games (Current Standings):
                  Log write-ups and session prep for my DND 5E Campaign (wiki):
                  6 Cardhunter Multiplayer Loot bonuses and hit level 18: [image loading]

Personal Goals:
4+ Self-Hypnosis or Affirmation sessions: ( [image loading]

)
4+ Meditation sessions: ( [image loading]

)
Log daily food intake: (log) (

)
Quality challenge-seeking practice session: (

)(

)
Weigh-in regularly (log): ( [image loading]

)

Previous Weeks: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27.

---

Monday 2/9:

This work started off with a bang! I knocked out a very strong Squat Day and segued that perfectly into building a custom TV stand for my new rower! My buddy was able to build it completely with wood he had lying around his shop so it only cost me the Five Guys lunch we had after! Super awesome!

The lunch combined with the hard morning workout knocked my system out a bit. Despite two cups of coffee in the morning and two Coke Zeros with lunch, I came home from lunch and collapsed into a two hour nap. Oh man it felt beautiful... So good.

Practice went well, but I made the mistake of checking out the completed season of Mozart in the Jungle. It's entertaining, but I find the misinformation and the obvious failed musician bias pretty damn frustrating. The original book was complete self-indulgent shit, so I'm frustrated she's getting the licensing money for this piece of fluff. I find the obvious Dudamel character particularly offensive as he's one of the shining lights of our industry. That being said, his orchestra did have the most recent round of nepotistic auditions :-(... but that was beyond his control sadly. It's just frustrating to have the writer criticize our union practices and procedure when it's what sets the industry so far ahead of other countries. Having actual job security in orchestras is a huge advantage our work force has over the EU countries and most of Asia. Seeing that poked fun of by a miserable misanthropic failed hack of musician rankles me to no end.

I did some basic rowing cardio for 15minutes to get a feel for my heart rate while in the machine. Even at the lower resistances it gets the heart rate up super quickly when pushed. I'm quite confident HIIT with this machine will be at least as easy as with the elliptical I previously used.

Tuesday 2/10: [image loading]

My body feels delightful as the haze of yesterday's fatigue settles somewhat. This morning I knocked out a pretty good self-hypno session while at work. Looking forward to today's HIIT on the rower. I'll be ramping up the HIIT slowly according to this 8 week HIIT program. Should feel pretty nice over this deload week.

With the active incorporation of cardio into my programming, I will be forcing myself to take all three "rest" days in between lifting cycles a week. While you may not have noticed, the past month I've accelerated the turnover by making each lift cycle last 6 days as opposed to 7, giving myself only one rest day in between. Adding HIIT rowing into the program alongside the fact that next month's Deadlift and Bench numbers are increasing at double the rate means I want to make sure I have ample rest in between sessions.

Wednesday 2/11: [image loading]

Today I'm experimenting with co-opting/integrating r/getdisciplined into my blog! The people there are super friendly and welcoming while also having a great daily goal infrastructure in place. Seems like a nice fit! You'll notice that today's date is a clickable link to my r/GD goals of the day.

Nailed a solid solid Press Day and, while I was down there in the cold, ended up taking some photos of the newly completed gym! I'm super happy with how it has come together recently. Though my wife was none-too-pleased at paying $450 for the rower, I couldn't be happier with having a complete well-rounded gym one flight of stairs away from my living room. Pics of the new gym will be linked here later and also to the TLHFI guys.

But right now I'm taking a breather from a wrecked body.... After OHP day, I opted to get a good warm-up in and segue from that to rescuing the second family car from a 2 foot snow drift.... Owwww... Man it took forever for it to clear the packed ice... I'm super glad I didn't procrastinate to Deadlift Day tomorrow. That would not have been fun. At any rate, back to getting knocking out today's goals.

The reddit post has me being even more goal-oriented and I have to say it feels very nice! At 5pm I'm exhausted and feel like I ran a full day, but I'm happy I accomplished most everything on my list. I have more mental prep in my immediate future, but other than that I'm largely free for the night.

Thursday 2/12: [image loading]

This will be a quick and too-the-point update as I only have an hour of downtime for myself today to enjoy and I intend to make the most of it :-). This morning's de-load Deadlift Day was a pretty solid workout. Next month, I'll definitely be adding ankle weight to the 5x15 leg raises. Nothing special of note other than that. Immediately after that I hit the road to run some errands that needed doing before tonight's rehearsal. Chief among the errands were picking up road salt for our walkways (there's been a local shortage and I needed to act fast) and dropping off the dry cleaning for this weekend's concert. With those out of the way I was able to pick up gas (I'll be driving tonight) and drop off the latest haul of books-on-tape.

Now I get to unlock some Cardhunter funness!! and maybe watch some Reply 1994 before I hit the road!

Friday 2/13: [image loading]

Another fast fast day today! Morning rehearsal was pretty humbling.... Need to practice the small ensemble stuff pretty hard this weekend less I make a fool of myself next week. Grr... Oh well. Tonight's rehearsal will be a challenge of different nature as I get to play second horn. Yesterday I had some intonation inconsistencies with the first horn that I hope will be ironed out by my focusing on fundamentals and just completely blending myself to her playing at all times. Have to be her shadow.

HIIT was on the docket for today's rest workout and it went quite well. I need to focus on nailing the drive and not engaging my arms prematurely. Let my legs power the workout.

The r/getdisciplined initiative is really nice! I think I'll share my latest recording efforts with them on Sunday. Okeedoke... time for my 45min to myself. Cardhunter and netflix time!

Saturday 2/14:

Sunday 2/15:

[Wk28] Improving in Fitness, Gaming & Music

Completed

Ongoing

Upcoming