I'm Back Baby! ...sort of...

Well, hello again!

After over a week of being sick, some sort of summer cold, I tried my hand at working out again. I did so at our local Friskis & Svettis gym. I've had my suspicions about going so heavy in my existing routine. Working up to 3x3 reps has been kind of brutal. I have not idea if that is the culprit in the case of me being sick more often this spring but it's worth looking in to. With that to consider I decided to try something new. It spells..don't go so damned hard! And by that I mean don't go so heavy and don't go to failure ALL the time. We will see how this plays out, boy's and galls!

The Work Out:

Warm Up - 1000m row on the Concept 2, 4:38

Low Bar Back Squats: 3 x 5 - 80 kg, 2 x 8 - 60 kg

Barbell Hip Thrusters - 3 x 10 - 60 kg

Military Press - 3 x 5 - 40 kg, 2 x 8 - 30 kg

Dumbell Biceps Curl - 3 x 5 - 18 kg, 2 x 8 - 12 kg

Farmers Carry - 3 x 50 Steps w/ 40 kg Kettlebell in Each Hand

Face Pulls - 2 x 12

That is all she wrote! I can't say I was feeling it. I was not all there. But the motto was "easy does it", and for the most part I stuck to that. The Hip Thrusters was a new one for me, thank you Jeff Cavaliere at Atlean-X, and I had a hard time finding a good spot on my pelvis to rest te bar on. It was somewhat uncomfortable whatever I did. But a seriously worthwhile exercise. I just have to get it dialed in, I guess.

But what did you eat today, you might ask? Apart from a Whey Protein shake with Collagen and Creatine,  here comes the answer to that question:

Breakfast: Two boiled eggs and some ham.

Lunch: Beef liver and chorizos with mustard

Dinner: Remains to be seen...probably something carnivorous

"Courage is grace under pressure."
- Ernest Hemingway

May the Fors Be with you!

Boy's in da hood

Kvarnen, Medis, Saturday night ... say no more!


Me and the guys had arranged a meeting at Kvarnen's outdoor restaurant at Medborgarplatsen. It was a lovely evening and very nice company. Everything from politics, through family life to old memories was on the menu this evening. As dusk crept on and beer after beer went down, the dynamics of conversation changed slightly, as it has a tendency to do. The tongue started slipping, slightly, the memories grew more dramatic and the gestures became increasingly flamboyant.
    I myself was satisfied with two Carlsberg Hof. Not very spectacular, but I almost never drink and feel no need to try all the new micro-brewed, unfiltered hipster beers available. I find alcoholic beverages enjoyable in the right amount at the right time. Which is not so often.

One problem with the nightlife, which I find nowadays, is that I am no night owl either, anymore. You could even say that I have been regressed to the opposite of a night owl, what ever you would call that. So when I, with some grunts from some in the company, chose to throw in the towel about 11:30 PM, it was "way past my bedtime."

I find it extremely entertaining and massive quality of life booster, with the social interaction, conversations, etc., but the location and timing were poorly chosen, if social interaction should be the focus. First of all, it is not exactly cheap to drink beer at the pub.
     Secondly, after three hours, I had no voice left as I had to scream all the time because the music drowned out the conversation.
     Thirdly, I woke up with tinnitus ringing in my ears, the day after, for the same reason.
     Last but not least, I want to, again, point out the inappropriateness of the time of this meeting. Sleepiness is my enemy in connection with cognitively demanding activities, such as conducting complex philosophical conversations.

Well, to go to the pub once in a while is no problem but when I am also married since 19 years, another motivation factor and driving force has dropped significantly. 

Earlier in the day I did a mini workout consisting of Pull Ups, Push Ups, Deadlift and Pinch Block training. Felt nice but I also feel pretty worn out now. Hmmm ... maybe I'll tweak the workout a bit ahead. We'll see.



For dinner today I had some chicken fillets that I didn't really know what to do with. I examined the contents of our refrigerator and discovered a jar of olives, a Feta cheese and a pack of Schwarzwälder Schinken. Then I went and mixed together Feta and chopped olives, added some lemon pepper and cayenne, spread this hash over the fried chicken fillets in to an ovenproof dish and then covered the whole thing with the ham. Into the oven for about 20 minutes on 200° Celsius. Very pleased with the result.



Incidentally, I had just timely received my new one Scanpan CTX 28 cm stekpanna(add) from Cervera(add). In a first test it works very well. Ask me again in a year, that's usually how long it takes to get a bearing on the quality of a product like this. 
   I had to grind away some sharp edges from inside the hole in the handle not to hurt my delicate hands. 😉
   Very light weight frying pan with one of the most durable coatings available in the "nonstick" market. There are a lot of reviews online so you don't have to take my word for it. That was all for this week. See you later.

"Push Yourself,
Because no one else
is going To Do It for You."

May the Fors be With You!

Pinch Block

The climbing ... must get started with the climbing again.

I was inspired to pick up the climbing again when I accidentally sat in front of "Ultimate Beast Master" on Netflix. It is a variant of American Ninja Warrior and other obstacle course programs where contestants are to pass through a course with a number of obstacles of various kinds. It's designed to test you in a variety of arias. A lot of Crossfit athletes, even more Parkour athletes and then a number of other athletes of varying disciplines. But the one who won Season 1 was a professional climber. Many of the obstacles relied on the practitioner's grip strength. Many of the climbers had great success and in fact there were two climbers in the final. The other one was an ice climber but still.

The program as such was, at least in the first season, not much to write home about. We don't even have to go into it because this post is not about that. This post is about the inspiration I got to get on with the climbing again. Summer is not climbing season, as you all probably know, but I'm not going to worry about it. I'm going to start training for the fall season. I got so inspired that I, immediately had to go to Byggmax and buy myself a piece of wood and build myself a "Pinch Block". For you who don't know, that is a wooden block that you attach a weight to and try to hold in your hand in a so-called "Pinch" grip. To increase grip strength, simply. Very nice.

In addition to some grip training at home, of course I have to try to get out into the woods, weather permitting, but also take a few sessions indoors now and then. Now nothing can stop me from getting in excellent climbing form !!

After this writing and maybe a season 2 episode of UBM, there will be some Jane Fonda and stretch. It was a long time ago.

For lunch, I offer a simple omelette on Viennese sausage, bell peppers, kale, eggs and cheese. Simple and good.


"Life is short
But the hours are long"
Fénélon

May the Fors be with you!!

Recipe for meatloaf

Hello again!

Due to the high demand here comes the recipe for my bacon wrapped meatloaf with a core of Feta Cheese.

Meatloaf:

7-800g of minced meat
Two eggs
One half grated yellow onion
Half a dl cream

Salt pepper (herb seasoning if fancy that sort of thing)

Greased ovenproof form. In with the curdled meat pulp, dig a ditch, in with the Feta Cheese, cover it up. Overlay a package of bacon distributed as in the picture, in with the thermometer and into the oven at 200 ° until the inside temperature has reached 70 °. 
     Serve with salad, sweet potatoes or just ice cold beer. 😄

In addition to this, some heart rate-boosting activities were done:

5 rounds with 6 repetitions:

Cross Over (rubber band)
Biceps Curl (rubber band)
Close Squats
Diamond Push Ups
L-Pull Ups
Face Pulls

Scull Crusher (rubber band)

No significant rest between the rounds but the pace was quite moderate so the need never arose. A nice way to get some of your juices flowing and a much needed increase of the heart rate.

"Nothing is Permanent in this
Wicked World,
not even 
our Troubles."
-Charlie Chaplin

May the Fors be with you!

Mind-Muscle Connection

Good afternoon all you happy people!

Yesterday I visited Martina Johansson's blog for the first time, "Next Level Biohacking". It was very inspiring. I will in the future make it a habit to visit this reputable and useful blog. Good job, Martina!


Today I had a steak for breakfast. I find that I feel most excellent when eating a piece of meat as the morning meal. Besides, it keeps me full for a long time. I enjoyed this meal about 08:30 and then went on a brisk walk, per usual.

A couple of hours later, I managed to surprise myself by taking a trip to the gym. Friskis & Svettis. I see the greatest success when I find that I have some resistance to something, by simply disconnecting the brain and just starting to do preparatory things and then the brain, simply, has to keep up to the best of its ability. It usually goes pretty well, no cause for concern. I switch on this overrated lump of fat when I start exercising.

During the workout, I apply a slow tempo, slow controlled concentric phase, and a third of that speed in the eccentric phase, more or less. This applies, not quite surprisingly, to a slightly lesser extent when I do HIIT training.

Mind-Muscle Connection is a key component for optimal results, in my opinion. It helps with the form and activation of the specific muscle you are training. Injury prevention and better active stretch of the individual muscles as well as neuromuscular awareness is another big advantage, especially for those of us who have reached a slightly more advanced age.
      When I trained Crossfit and did, almost exclusively, "kipping" Pull Ups, for example, I , after a while, encountered difficulties in performing strict ones. The whole TUT (Time Under Tension) concept was disconnected, mostly. When my Crossfit adventure was finally over (I stopped training Crossfit a few months after my first and only competition, Fit As Fuck, in Denmark), I turned in the opposite direction, in some respects any way, and started doing Convict Conditioning and then "Body By Science" by Dough McGuff. In these disciplines, body control and TUT are significantly more prevalent, in very different ways in the respective cases.

As with everything here in life, I am a concoction of the techniques, disciplines and theories that have worked for me, over the years. Crossfit, Starting Strength, Convict, Calisthenics, and so on.

Then, then its time to present today's workout, in all its simplicity:

Military Press (4x55kg, 4x55kg, 6x50kg)

Low Bar Back Squat (3x100kg, 3x110kg, 5x100kg)

Barbell Biceps Curl (4x50kg, 3x50kg, 5x45kg)

Skull Crushers (3x40kg, 3x45kg, 6x40kg & 6x40kg)

In all the exercises I worked my way up to these Work Sets. 3-4 minutes rest between Work Sets, so the WO took some time. The goal is to train heavily this week, ie 3-5 reps, rather 3 than 5. I do  two heavy weeks in a row with the hope of Progressive Overload. Week three is easily, easily. And I mean EASY. So no fewer than 15 reps / exercise, 3-5 sets. Yep, the lactic acid reeks havoc on your strength aspirations but I have felt a good feedback loop for recovery between sets in the heavier weeks after throwing in some high volume work. In addition, I get faster recovery between the WO's. We'll see where it all ends. One thing I can say anyway; it's no much fun! Damn that burn is mentally taxing. I have strong aversions to that since Crossfit time. Maybe I've also become a little comfortable, as the years have gone by.
         Week four I usually do a deload week.

That was all for this Wednesday:

Make it a lifestyle,
Not a duty

May the Fors be with you!

Carnivore, Moby Dick and Doktor Glas

Good afternoon!

Yesterday's work out did not leave me unmoved. That feeling that of a weak electrical current through the body, all the time. I like it! I'll try to get some Jane Fonda and stretch in later today. Has not been walking today, except at Bauhaus, due to the infernal raining. But we did put on some dancing music on our outstanding JBL Xtreme(add) and shook our bums for half an hour or so and that did the trick.

For dinner yesterday, there was beef liver and pork chops with cheese. Very good! I try to vary my protein sources. Eggs, fish, chicken, beef, pork and some intestines, from time to time. I use dairy products sparingly. A few drops of heavy cream in the coffee, butter for frying, hard cheese (rarely), blue cheese, fat and mozzarella.

In these holiday times, I also want to take the opportunity make a case for the old honest "book" as a pastime. I love to read and spend as much time as the house peace allows. (For a while last fall, I even did some audiobook readings at a company called Inläsningstjänst(ILT). It was very educational and sometimes quite fun but the salary was abysmal and it didn't suit me to sit still in an audio studio for hours at a time so I put it off.)

Fact books I read a lot but the classic novels I just can not live without. I recently finished Herman Melville's classic "Moby Dick"(add), which has escaped me all my years. Of course, I've seen John Huston's 1956 movie classic starring Gregory Peck as the avenging Captain Ahab, but I've never picked up the book until now. It was obviously sublime but does not appear on my top 10 list. Maybe not even the top 100! Is it because I have a little trouble relating to all nautical terminology, or just a matter of taste? Hard to say.

Anyway, I quickly moved on to the next book as I become slightly uneasy as soon as I don't have a fictional work at hand. This time I first had an eye on Randy Wayne Whites novels about Doc Ford (I have read all except the last three. A lot of manly stuff but it is a side of me that also needs love), but stumbled instead and borrowed home Hjalmar Söderberg's "Doctor Glass" from the library to my Letto(add). Doctor Glas I read almost thirty years ago and then only once. It was definitely a lovely reunion. I love how the classic Swedish novelists treat the language. Söderberg, Moberg, Boye, Martinsson, Selma Lagerlöf, Per Anders Fogelström to name but a few. Speaking of late reading experiences. The last two, Lagerlöf and Fogelström, I read them for the first time since I turned forty! Insanity! So of course, after reading "The Emperor of Portugal", I had to read through everything Selma wrote and Per Anders's "My Dreams City" suite, which my father has continually recommended since I was a little boy, I was completely engrossed in for a month. It's funny how it is, life.

Anyhow, I got the Letto for  my birthday a few years ago and have been using it extensively ever since. It is a perfect format to take on the subway on the way to work or on the journey to a distant land. If you do not use the "Frontlight" function too much, the battery life is about a week, or more depending on how much you use it otherwise. I have had some small problems downloading books directly to the tablet from Adlibris(add) homepage but then it was usually books in the SEK 10 class. A big plus, I think, is that, as I said, you can borrow books from the Library's website. All you need to do is create an account on Adobe and download Adobe Digital Edition. After that, just log into the library and start looking for available books in e-format. The range of books they have is somewhat limited but if you are not looking for something special, you can certainly keep reading for ever. A small note is also worth mentioning and that is that there is a limit of a maximum of five loans per seven day period. So that's that.

Well, that's probably enough for today. Tomorrow it might be a post about training, again. Only time will tell. I leave you with these thought-provoking lines:

I have stopped smoking,
drink and swearing.
I've started training
and eat healthy.
But unfortunately,
I still lie.

May the Fors be with you!!

Sleepless in Stockholm

Guten Tag die Welt!

Woke up at 5:30 am, which does not happen so infrequently. However, I usually do not go to bed at 23:00, which I did the night before. Of the things to prioritize, sleep comes highest on my list. (The priolist in its entirety is a topic for a later post.) Thus, I suffer from lack of sleep today. Common symptoms are brain fog (with everything that comes with concentration difficulties, forgetfulness and blurred vision), irritability, fatigue (dhöö ..) and a bead band of other general state disorders that I am too tired to remember right now.

Took as usual a 30 min walk at 8am. If I don't remember wrong, I downed a protein shake with chocolate flavor and a scoop of collagen upon returning home.(Pure Whey Isolate 90 och Kollagen & Vitamin C-pulver) from Bulk Powder.(I don't get a penny to mention this but I like their products)

Then I was of to City Gross(add) to do some shopping.

The lunch consisted of the remains of yesterday's meatloaf. It was really super good! I have experimented a bit with meatloaf just because I am rather lazy when it comes to cooking and the loaf is well suited for it requires a minimum of preparation (a little depending on how advanced you make it), and you can add a little of whatever you fancy. I often do chopped olives, mozzarella, pesto, etc. Usually ok but this one with a cover of bacon and a core of feta cheese was really top class.

It was quite hot today so I showered with the water hose after refueling some vitamin D. Incredibly nice ... afterwards.

After another brisk walk (about 30 min) I did some "Jane Fonda" exercises, which I usually call it. This is to strengthen my unstable hips. I have sometimes had problems with instability in the hips when I do my deadlifts and squats, especially. Don't know why but I embed a little video on this for maximum humiliation.

The day ended with a grilled chicken roast club steak with a piece of blue cheese. Very good!

Maybe an episode "Handmaid's Tale" after this (think this season is a bit lame, so far)

Tomorrow is another day, as I understand it. It remains to be seen.

May the Fors be with you!

Hit the ground running!

Good day!

After all, when we have started, I can dive straight into reality. Week two of the holiday is soon to
end. I haven't been in the mood for training since Monday. Usually I work out three workouts a week with three "mini workouts" in between.

Anyway, I skipped breakfast this Friday, which is usual. Only one cup of coffee after waking up (no nothing added). I hade the coffee in front of the house in an attempt to start the day in as "zen" -like fashion as possible. I get to wrestle a little with myself here as it can be a bit cool at 06.30 and since I am not a morning person I find it difficult to attach the benefit to the lack of pleasure. When I can not cope with more peace of mind, I pull back in front of the computer and check some news, MMA-Junkie then there is some book reading.

At eight o'clock I start a 30 min brisk walk in the surroundings. Then, trolling the net a bit, more reading and maybe a moment's YouTube indulgence.

At 10:00 I managed to convince myself to at least exercise a little at home. Here's how it played out:

5 min jump rope

Shoulders: Dumbbell press
Legs: Goblet Squats with two dumbbells
Chest: Parallette Push Ups
Biceps: Curl
Triceps: "Scull Crusher" standing with rubber band
Back: Pull Ups

This was done as a circle where the first two rounds were warm up (about 10 reps), then three WS (Work Sets - 6 reps). The dumbbells, which were used in three exercises of equal weight, were increased in three steps. 12, 16 and WS-20kg. Push Ups were made 10 / round. Scull Crusher with rubber band as well. On the other hand, the Pull Ups only managed to reach 8 / round.

Most of the stuff I lift I have purchased at Decathlon as they boast far lowest prices. The quality can be a bit questionable but it usually does not matter. At Dramaten, I used to go down to the forge and weld together what I needed or fashion something in the carpentry.



All this was done out on the lawn, except for Pull Ups, and the rest between each exercise was a turn out to the road to regain my breath. Once, I took a longer break to look at some beautiful butterflies. At least I was pretty well done afterwards and jumped straight into the shower to cool my legs, arms and head with icy water. It's so damn nice. Would certainly be optimal to flush down torso as well but the chicken is strong in me.

One last cup of coffee for the day I drank in the deck chair at about 12:00.

At 13:00 I broke the fast and took a lunch consisting of a piece of flank roast that I had grilled the day before and now roasted in some butter and lard (Sokolow Smalec Wyborowy). In addition, two egg yolks. Lightly bubbled water as a meal drink.

Another walk to a park to play with the child and then there will be meatloaf with Feta cheese and bacon for dinner.



Day ONE is a wrap!


May the Fors be with you!