Blog

Short blog posts, journal entries, and random thoughts. Topics include a mix of personal and the world at large.

Save the elbows

I recently added a barbell back squat to my weightlifting routine, and I couldn’t figure out why the inside of my elbows were sore afterwards. Kind of doesn’t make sense for parts of the arm to sore for what is a lower body exercise, right?

At first the soreness only occurred after a session, so I figured it was simply delayed onset muscle soreness. Those typically go away with enough squatting sessions in the log book. Well, wrong. During today’s workout, the inner elbows started to hurt during my warmup set. The general rule of thumb is: if something hurts during the exercise, then it needs to be addressed immediately.

Intuitively, I moved my grip on the bar further outwards. Because if the elbows are hurting during the squat movement, then it’s got to be the position that I am putting them in. And what do you know: it absolutely worked. Zero elbow pain on my working sets simply by widening my grip. I guess how well(?) our limbs can contort is highly individualized.

I’m just glad I don’t have to give up the barbell squat movement entirely. Like I had to do for the upright row, because it was hurting my shoulder. Once you get past a certain weight point, it’s difficult to progressively overload the lower body using dumbbells. Holding a 100 pounder to perform a goblet squat is not feasible, because my grip would give out way before my leg muscles do.

The price of protein

I shop at Whole Foods because I’m buying produce for just myself. So what if the stuff there is more expensive than less prestigious(?) grocery chains? I alone can’t possible eat enough food for the extra cost at Whole Food to add up significantly. Besides, as an Amazon Prime member with an Amazon Prime Chase Visa card, I get 5 percent cash back. (Spend money to make money, am I right?)

If I were grocery shopping for a family, that changes everything. No more organic eggs from free-range chickens. No more organic milk from grass-fed cows. Paying for pre-cut fruits would be an insult to the ancestors. Food for the family will be purchased as cheaply per weight as possible.

I recently noticed how vastly more expensive beef and fish is compared to chicken and pork. Pork chops are something like three times less expensive per pound compared to the cheapest cut of steaks. As a frequent lifter of weights, I need to eat a lot of protein. Because I only shop for me - and lucky enough to make decent money - I have no qualms springing for the more pricey steaks and salmon. If this were me 10 years ago (read: much poorer), it would be chicken and pig meats only. Cows are a delicacy.

Same is true if I had a family to feed: fish and cows are very occasional treats only!

While I do lament not starting weightlifting in my twenties, at least in my thirties I don’t have to resort to chicken and rice for my staple nutrition. A gram of protein is a gram of protein for sure, but I much rather eat salmon sashimi than pan-fried chicken thighs (bone out, of course).

We have food at home

You know you’ve had a good workout session when you wake up the next morning - after a solid eight hours of slumber - still tired as heck. That, or you’ve overworked yourself. That, or you did not eat enough the previous day to recover from that much output.

It could be all three combined for me today. That’s how tired I was for all of it. Accutane medication has got to be detrimental to recovery from weightlifting. I need a lot of water during normal times; the intense dryness from the acne medication just exacerbates that need. Who knows if the water I am drinking is even contributing towards muscle protein synthesis while I am on Accutane.

I can’t wait to be done with it by the beginning of next year.

With restaurant prices remaining high after the inflation of the past few years, the mantra of “We have food at home” is ever salient. At least it is for me. Even buying ingredients at Whole Foods (read: expensive) to cook is cheaper than eating out. (I can give myself the tip.) What I’ve been doing lately is expanding the repertoire of dishes I make. Trust me, the bar is extremely low. As of this writing, the only seasoning in my cupboard is: salt, pepper, sesame oil, and olive oil.

As you can extrapolate from that, the variety of food I cook for myself has not been very various. I am not a picky eater in the slightest: I’m perfectly fine eating the same damn thing every single day of the week. That said, with outside food being so expensive, if I want fried chicken, I’m incentivized to start making it myself.

And that means getting an air fryer. (I don’t even have a toaster oven.) No way I am frying chicken the traditional vat-of-oil method in a tiny studio apartment. The room would smell of chicken for the next week. Black Friday is coming right around the corner…

It's not for me

Have any of the presidential candidates said anything about ending Daylight Saving Time? Whoever promises to abolish the abomination gets my vote. My expertly calibrated sleeping schedule does not wish to be arbitrarily interrupted twice a year. Recalibration always takes a week, if not more.

I am enjoying the autumnal flavor of early dark evenings. In combination with the lower temperature, it makes for a cozy atmosphere at the home. Don’t you dare string out the Christmas lights already, though. Have some respect: absolutely nothing Christmas-related until after Thanksgiving.

Human anatomy differs from person to person. Certain exercises is fine for some, but may cause pain for others. For example: I am Asian, so I’ve zeros issues with squatting deeply (Asian squat joke). Ankle mobility is just fine over here. Some are not so lucky in dexterity, so their knees might bark loudly in anger in every attempt.

The exercise I’ve encountered thus far that creates pain for me is the upright row. After I increased the weight to 50 pounds, my right shoulder cannot take the load. Afterwards, anytime I raised my arm above shoulder height, pain shoots from the shoulder joint. I thought not raising the weight above my chest would alleviate the issue, but no. Upright row is simply not in my exercise repertoire moving forward. At least it’s not a big three compound movement!

Perhaps it’s unavoidable, given a long enough timeline (and actual progression in weight), that I will eventually injure something while lifting these damn weights. I’m trying to avoid it, obviously. Primarily by not adding on weight that quickly. Apparently, even if the muscles are ready for more load, the tendons and connective tissues might not be. It’s safer to progress slowly.

Do you even lift, bro?

The only thing I bought from last week’s Amazon Big Deal days is a scale. Not for food, but to check my body weight. I’ve been lifting weights consistently for about a year now, and I was curious to see if I’d gotten any heavier. Muscle weights more than fat, I’ve been told.

And drum roll please, since last October I’ve gained a grand total of two pounds. I’ve certainly gotten stronger compared to last year, but I guess I am not eating at an enough surplus to gain lots of weight. The laws of thermodynamics cannot be violated: burn more calories than you take in, you lose weight. Intake more calories than you burn, you gain weight. It seems I’m barely above maintenance.

Sugary foods doesn’t necessarily make one fat. If I give you only one sugar cube to eat everyday - and nothing else - you’re going to be skin on bones in a few weeks’ time. The problem with sugar is that it tends to be part of calorically dense foods. Think ice cream, or a can of non-diet soda. Therefore it’s super easy to overeat. Halloween is coming up soon. Parents ought to look up just how much calorie those tiny pieces of candy contain.

If I want to built muscle mass quickly, I have simply must eat more. But, I am okay with this two pound per year pace, honestly. Besides, the point of strength training for me isn’t hypertrophy: it’s for longevity. I want to be mobile and able as late into my twilight years as possible. There’s also correlation between small body mass and lifespan. Think of the people in Okinawa.

Getting too big is also cumbersome for flying. I’m always envious of tiny Asian women, where economy seating might as well be business class for them.

My exercise goal is to be as strong as possible for my current leanness.

Protect the gains

it is an utter disease for those of us who weight-train consistently. The disease of thinking you will get fat in an instant the one time we have to skip a work out. Go on a two weeks vacation? Better book a hotel with a passable gym facility, or hope the local gym offers a one day pass.

It’s the same disease that makes me think eating one singular donut will make my visible abs disappear. Poof.

Obviously, that’s not how it works. Getting into shape involves hard training over a long period of time; what makes you think getting out of shape would happen just like that? (Snap of the finger.) Even if the goal is to get fat (coming from skinny): it’ll take at least few months of stuffing your mouth like food is going to run out to see significant change.

Word on the street is that it is actually beneficial to take some time away from the weights. Especially when a particular exercise has not improved in the past few weeks. If you’re stuck at 10 pull-ups, taking a week break may get you past that plateau. Because what’s the definition of insanity? Doing the same thing over and expecting different results.

The last time I took a break from working out was back in June. It wasn’t by choice, as in, I didn’t choose specifically to take a break. I couldn’t exercise because I was in Thailand for my friend’s wedding. I am probably due for another week off, but it’s tough mentality to force myself to pause. I feel like I would be leaving gains (got to protect the gains) if I were to slob it up for a week or two. It doesn’t make logical sense, but tell that to the guy who is addicted to heroin.

The parable is: if you don’t take a break, your body will force you into one eventually (read: injury). Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that for me!

Light weight, baby!

Pro tip for those into the habit of weightlifting: rent from your friend whose garage has a squat rack. Not for actually squatting, but for the ability to do pull-ups. The pull-up is such an essential exercise (for back and lat muscles) that I would have bought one of those power towers on Amazon for my (small) studio if there weren’t a squat rack already. The movement is that crucial, well worth the sacrifice in room space. Thankfully, I didn’t have to do that.

Recently, I have graduated to actually using the squat rack for (barbell back) squats. For the past year I’ve done goblet squats, clasping onto a single dumbbell with both hands to my chest. I seem to have reached critical mass with that, because my arms are tiring of holding onto 60 pounds well before my legs are giving up. Make sense: our leg muscles measurably bigger and stronger than the arms. The need to graduate to proper squats with a barbell is obvious.

What I did not realize is that having a huge metal rod putting pressure on my trap muscles kind of hurts! And my first attempt wasn’t even heavy: it was just the 45 pounds of the barbell itself! I guess (and hope) it is merely something to get used to. Surely it will feel more comfortable as I do more sets.

I am extremely lucky to have access to this setup right at home. While a set of adjustable dumbbells can take the upper body pretty far, leg day is a bit compromised as you advance in poundage. There comes an inflection point where It’s difficult to hold in your hands enough weight to stimulate the legs muscles properly (without doing a crazy amount of reps). The hands will get tired before the legs do. A barbell with weight plates solve that problem so easily.