Author: hsoi

10 Questions that need to (always) be asked

/ hsoi / 2 Comments

Ken White puts forth 10 questions:

These are all questions that I think ought to be asked whenever we, as a society, decide whether to task and empower the government to do a thing.

[…]

Even if I don’t agree with people’s answers to these questions, getting them to ask the questions and confront the issues reflected in the questions would promote the values that I care about.

  1. Does the United States Constitution permit the government to do this?
  2. What would this power look like if it were expanded dramatically in scope or in time?
  3. What would this obligation look like if exercised indifferently by unaccountable people?
  4. What would your worst enemy do with this power?
  5. Does this power make a choice about morals, ethics, or risk that individuals ought to make?
  6. Does this power represent the government putting its thumb on the scales to prefer some competitors over others, perhaps based on their relative power and influence?
  7. Does this power set up a conflict between laws and rights?
  8. Are we giving this power to the right level of government?
  9. Are we acting out of fear, anger, or self-promotion?
  10. Is there any evidence the government is any good at this?

I’m only listing the questions here (mostly for my own future reference). You must read the full article to UNDERSTAND the questions he’s presenting.

These questions stand out to me, not only because I also think they are worthwhile to ask, but because I think people don’t consider the ramifications of what they often demand (from government). Because people often want X and find their own ways to justify X as Right™, Good™, and Necessary™. Trouble is, X winds up hurting a lot of other people, and so the anger, resentment, and division we’re currently suffering from grows even worse.

A simpler way to look at it?

Change places with whom X would injure. Is X still Right, Good, Necessary, Fair, Desirable, now that you’re on the short end of the stick?

Again, we don’t have to agree on the answers to these questions, but these are questions worthy of asking any time something is ask/demanded/expected of government. Let these questions drive you to think, to study, to research, to contemplate, to reconsider…

2016-07-05 training log

/ hsoi

Good stuff.

Keeping the wrist wraps on until my wrists feel better; they help.

On the 5+ set, I had a lot left in me (could have gotten 2-3 more easily, and still had some in the tank), but trying to stick to the rule of 10-max and shutting it down. It’s in part for the discipline of the program: stimulate, don’t annihilate; work light; that I don’t need to kill it every session because it’s a week of recovery, rather get the volume over the course of the week given I’ll hit the general same areas twice a week; etc.. So far so good, but I just have to keep reinforcing the paradigm shift.

That said, overall felt very strong today. While I’m not tracking my pull-ups here, I am making progress on them too.

I feel good about the change-up on the assistance work, but it’s the first session so hard to really say. But keeping it to 1 minute of rest between sets is certainly helping on bringing things up and keeping my session times from getting stupid long.

I do think I’m going to bring a “first set last” approach in on the next cycle. I think a little more volume will be good.

Music: bunch of 80’s hair bands.

5/3/1 Simplest Strength Template

  • Bench Press
    • bar x whatever
    • 95 x 5 (warmup sets superset with band pull-aparts)
    • 115 x 5
    • 140 x 3
    • 150 x 5 (work sets superset with neutral-grip pull-ups)
    • 175 x 5
    • 200 x 10 (shut it down early)
  • Incline Press
    • 105 x 10 (sets superset with neutral-grip pull-ups)
    • 125 x 10
    • 145 x 10
  • Cable Rows
    • 100 x 20
    • 100 x 14
    • 100 x 12
  • Shrugs
    • 185 x 20
    • 185 x 20
    • 185 x 15
  • Overhead Triceps Extensions
    • 55 x 20
    • 55 x 14
    • 55 x 10
  • Hammer Curls
    • 25e x 20
    • 25e x 12
    • 25x x 10

2016-07-04 training log

/ hsoi

Into the second half of the first 6-week cycle. Yes, I’m happy to be back on 5/3/1.

Everything went fine. From the first half of the cycle I picked up a few things to improve upon. One is bringing my rest periods down during the assistance work — 1 minute between all sets and reps, just keep things moving along. So on paper, it looks like everything went down, but it’s because of that change. But it’s assistance work, so as long as there’s some work, fine.

Added in calf raises, because I want to round things out.

One thing I fell back to debating? Adding in unilateral work. I cannot deny that things like split squats really help with my knee stability, as much as I hate doing them. My knees haven’t been feeling so hot lately, and I’m wondering if it’s the removal of the unilateral bodyweight work. One way to find out. 🙂 That said, I’m thinking about keeping my changes light this time around and if I do add them in, let it be during the next cycle. We’ll see — all depends how my knees feel.

Otherwise, things were fine. On the 5+ set I just shut it down at 10 reps tho I could have done more. I do expect this is all good signs towards getting my strength back and being able to beat my lifetime PR’s before the end of 2016… and at this rate, hopefully not just beat but blow them away.

I played around with some stuff. Because of all the pains I’m feeling in my wrists and elbows and such, I played around with things like using that “eagle claw” grip — relieves pain on the wrist, but I don’t feel as stable. Plus I then pull my shoulders together more, which puts more stress on my elbows. Grr… can’t win. 🙂 I’m thinking about going back to full grip, keeping it wider, and wrapping my wrists (at least until the pain goes away).

Music: Black Label Society.

5/3/1 Simplest Strength Template

  • Squats
    • bar x whatever
    • 110 x 5
    • 135 x 5
    • 165 x 3
    • 180 x 5
    • 205 x 5
    • 235 x 10 (shut it down at 10)
  • Straight-leg Deadlift
    • 150 x 10
    • 175 x 10
    • 205 x 10
  • Leg Curls
    • 30 x 20
    • 30 x 12
    • 30 x 10
  • Hyperextensions
    • BW x 17
    • BW x 17
    • BW x 14
  • Crunches
    • BW x 17
    • BW x 12
    • BW x 10
  • Standing Calf Raises
    • 60 x 15
    • 60 x 14
    • 60 x 10

Hebrew Hogger 2016

/ hsoi

What are you doing July 31, 2016?

Can you get yourself to Nashville, TN?

If so, you should attend the Hebew Hogger 2016!

This is a unique tactical conference in that it has no live-fire events. In the wake of the Orlando terror attack, the importance of skill sets tangential to firearms utilization have been heavily underscored…but how do you get, “those,” skills? This conference will help you learn, earn and hone those important, “soft,” skills that can, and will, save lives. Topics include performance paradigms, criminal psychology, threat identification, edged weapons defense, emergency medical skills, legal issues, and more. AND IT’S ONLY $100!

You can read all about it at Dr. Sherman House’s blog

Look at the presenters:

  • Dr. Sherman House
  • Dr. William Aprill
  • Claude Werner
  • Paul Sharp
  • John Jayne

And it’s only $100

Unfortunately I can’t make the event, but bah gawd what a deal!

Some of the top traininers out there. Talking about some of the most important stuff out there. Yeah I know… gunz and ammo and #pewpewlyfe. All that’s good, but I can tell you that the soft-skills being taught at the Hogger are going to do FAR more towards keeping you safe on a daily basis and throughout your lifetime.

And it’s all going to a good cause.

 

2016-07-01 training log

/ hsoi

Finishing up my first 5/3/1 week after returning to the 5/3/1 program, and I’m generally happy.

My right wrist has been bothering me, a lot. So today I wrapped my wrists for every pressing set. That helped a bunch, despite not being used to wraps. Funny thing? My wrist feels great now! The chronic pain is all gone — the compression of the wrap did something I guess.

The 1+ set went well, about what I expected. I did have some balance issues — I think it’s the 45-wheel and how that just changes the feel of things. Will just need more work to get used to it. I am improving on my setup tho; Press setup has always been a weak point for me, so happy that’s coming to a spot.

Otherwise, things went well. Again, rest periods during the heavy work is maybe 3 minutes between sets, but on assistance it all drops to 1 minute of rest. Just get the work in and get out.

So that all said…. with this first cycle under my belt, let’s look back a bit.

I’m happy to return to 5/3/1. It’s simple, logical, and just works. It felt awkward at first, but all feels pretty good now. I do feel like I’m not getting enough (daily) volume, but I’m trying to balance that by remembering that I am feeling just a bit sore post-session AND then the overall volume is going up, so I am expecting this will lead to better things for me. Yes, I might try eventually upping it a bit per-session, but something minor like a “first set, last”. Right now tho, no such change.

I will roll into another cycle immediately (no deload). I may not always keep that, but I’m feeling very good so I see no reason to take a deload right now.

I am going to change up my assistance work a little bit. I realized that I’m getting a lot of lat work, and I’d like to change up a bit to drop a bit of that in favor of more upper-back work. So for instance, keep the chin-ups, drop the pulldowns, add face-pulls. I’ll also keep the pull-ups of course, but I’ll probably be less strict about the style of “up” that I do in favor of whatever aggrevates my elbows least. That sort of thing. I’ll continue to tweak this. I really don’t have any “weak points” to address (my weak point is everything), so assistance work really is just trying to be comprehensive; I feel like I’m missing a few things. So I’ll make some minor changes, keep the same approach of 3×10-20, and just roll on and see how it goes.

Very excited about it all. Happy to be back, looking forward to the progress to be made.

Music today: a mix of hair metal

5/3/1 Simplest Strength Template

  • Press
    • bar x whatever
    • 65 x 5 (warmup sets superset with band pull-aparts)
    • 75 x 5
    • 90 x 3
    • 110 x 5 (work sets superset with chin-ups)
    • 125 x 3
    • 140 x 7 (7RM PR apparently)
  • Close-Grip Bench Press
    • 135 x 5 (sets superset with chin-ups)
    • 155 x 5
    • 175 x 5
  • V-Bar Pulldowns
    • 100 x 20
    • 100 x 16
    • 100 x 12
  • Cable Rows
    • 100 x 15
    • 100 x 12
    • 100 x 12
  • Skullcrushers (superset with curls)
    • 55 x 20
    • 55 x 18
    • 55 x 14
  • Close-grip EZ-bar Curls
    • 50 x 20
    • 50 x 16
    • 50 x 12

Lessons from the Texas Salsa Fight

/ hsoi / 3 Comments

There’s video going around about a fight that broke out at a Mexican restaurant, apparently over salsa.

This is apparently the original video/posting.

There’s a few important lessons we can learn from this video in terms of keeping yourself safe.

First, bad things can happen around you, suddenly, without warning, and without your direct involvement. Yet, you’ll be affected. It’s important to admit and acknowledge this reality of life.

Second, don’t worry about WHY something is happening. It’s very natural that the first thing to pop into your head is trying to figure out WHY this bad thing is happening. Trouble is, it will consume you, you won’t be able to come up with an answer, so it will continue to consume you. Meantime, the bad thing continues to happen and you continue to be at risk. You can think about WHY later on; right now, you need to do all you can to respond to the situation and make yourself safe. Put this into practice in your daily life. It’s difficult at first, but the way to do it is when things happen, if you find yourself asking “why it this happening?”, recognize you’re asking why, defer asking why until later, and shift gears to deal with the immediate situation.

Third, every time you walk into somewhere, identify all the exits. There were two obvious exits in the restaurant, but both were blocked by people fighting. You know where there’s another exit? Through the kitchen. Yeah fine, the kitchen is “off limits”, but in a case like this? I’m heading for the kitchen and out the back door. People backed away and felt trapped because they couldn’t get to the obvious exits. So be sure to identify all possible exits.

Fourth, this is not a time to get involved. In a case like this? My choice is to leave immediately. Head for the back, head for a non-blocked exit, and get the hell out of there as quickly as possible. Once I’m out and safe, call the police. Even if I got somehow “involved” (e.g. I got hit by a flying chair), I cannot let that draw me into this bad (and stupid) situation — this is not my fight, this is not a good thing, this is not something I want to be involved in, this is not something worth dying over or going to jail over when the cops show up.

Make these decisions ahead of time. Have your plan NOW, so when stupid shit like this erupts suddenly and unexpectedly and you find yourself caught up in it, you can proceed in a manner that maximizes your safety.

2016-06-30 training log

/ hsoi

Another good day.

Deadlifts went really well. I’m finding my groove again — and it’s a different groove than before, but I believe a better groove.

The 1+ set went mostly well. Around rep 8 my left knee opted to feel weird and buckled a bit — it’s whatever’s wrong with that knee, acting up. I took a few seconds pause then kept going. I hit 10 and shut it down. Very happy with hitting 10 reps, but the knee made me nervous. I still did my front squats but had reserves and was going to watch it, just in case. No problems tho.

I also realized afterwards that I did it all overhand grip. Usually when I get to my heaviest sets I go mixed grip whether I need it or not, to ensure I’m used to that positioning. But I’ve been doing other sorts of deadlifting for so long now and always overhand grip it that I just did that again here without a thought. I was really happy about how smoothly that went. I’ll of course stick with overhanding it as much as possible because getting stronger.

Most everything else went well, but I did make a change. I am stepping away from Good Mornings. They wind up putting some odd pressure on some cervical vertebrae, and I always wind up bruised there. I’ve got enough neck issues, I don’t really need to risk anything here. I would like to try to find a solution (maybe some really good pads?). But instead, I just did some leg curls. I saw something from Charles Polquin about varying leg curls by having the feet in flexion vs. extension. I realized some time ago that if I start flexing my feet then the movement is a lot easier, so I’ve been doing them in extension. I find I get more out of the movement with extension, but opted to try today in explicit flexion to see how it would go. Well, the muscles on the front of my shins got a good burn from the isometric hold, I cranked through the reps just fine, but the reps just weren’t as quality – that tension causes me to cut the range of movement short. I may play with it a time or two again before I shelve it.

Then for the glute bridges I put my feet up on a bench. Man, I was really feeling it in my hamstrings, especially after the work I had just given them. Quite interesting. I am going to progress on to the elevated feet and doing it one leg at a time, but who knows… this might actually prove to be a useful thing for me.

All in all, really good. Looking forward to Pressing tomorrow, and then kicking right back into the next cycle with no deload. Huzzah.

Music today: Amon Amarth, “Jomsviking” and “Deceiver of the Gods”.

5/3/1 Simplest Strength Template

  • Deadlift
    • 135 x 5
    • 160 x 5
    • 190 x 3
    • 240 x 5
    • 270 x 3
    • 305 x 10 (10RM PR)
  • Front Squat
    • 145 x 5
    • 165 x 5
    • 185 x 5
  • Leg Curls
    • 30 x 20
    • 30 x 20
    • 30 x 30
  • Glute Bridges (feet elevated)
    • BW x 15
    • BW x 15
    • BW x 15
  • Crunches (superset with the bridges)
    • BW x 15
    • BW x 15
    • BW x 15

What happens when you don’t have anything to protect yourself?

/ hsoi

People fucking die.

– Tom Araya, Slayer

During a June 27, 2016 concert in Pratteln, Switzerland, Tom Araya – singer and bassist for the band Slayer – had this to say during his stage rap:

Is it true that every household has to own a rifle or a gun? No? I thought everybody was supposed to have a rifle or a gun in their home. It’s not right? How else are you gonna defend your country?

Where you are in the world, you need to protect yourselves. Not from each other, but from invaders. And you know what I’m talking about, right? You should be aware of your invaders — people that come here to do you harm. It’s not right. You should be able to protect and defend your country. That’s the way it should be everywhere. ‘Cause when you don’t have anything to protect yourself or your fellow countrymen, what happens? People fucking die. They do! Don’t they? Yeah. You can see it going on.

I’m not gonna name names, but you can see what’s going on in other countries. ‘Cause they can’t protect themselves. And that’s what I’m talking about: being able to protect yourself and your fellow countrymen and your fucking country. I’m being serious, man. This isn’t a fucking joke. You know, it really sucks to know that other people die, because you can’t protect them. That fucking sucks.

Video here:

(h/t Blabbermouth)

2016-06-28 training log

/ hsoi

That went quite well!

I continue to enjoy my first 5/3/1 week back on the 5/3/1 program. Setting an 8RM is great! Worked up, and the 8 felt strong and good. Left a little in the tank at that. It does tell me that I am pretty light, but again I’m good with that because things will go longer before I have to reset. So far all signs are pointing to progress. 🙂

I am firmer on how I’m going to make some slight modifications come next cycle.

First, I will remove the pulldowns from bench day here in favor of shrugs and we’ll see how that goes. I’m debating also removing the pulldowns from Press day in favor of something like face pulls, but we’ll see on that.

Second, I am going to add some basic calf work on my squat and deadlift days. Just the 3×10-20, one day standing, one day seated. No big deal. If I do any funny variations maybe one set will be toes forward, one toes out, one toes in. And I even thought I might do 2×10 then 1 all-out set. We’ll see. Nothing big, just something.

I also started to wonder today if I should up the volume a bit, like a “first set last” approach. Maybe, but that’s too early to consider. At earliest I’ll bring in that after this next cycle, but even then I may not. I feel like a little more volume would be good, but that could still be me being used to how my body feels hitting things 1x/week whereas right now I’m technically hitting everything 2x/week… so I don’t need to boost things too high. But if a little more might be more productive, I have to consider it. We’ll see.

Finally, one change I started with today that I’m going to carry through — this assistance work is really light stuff, and I’m going to keep doing things to shorten but intensify the work. Basically, 1 minute rest between sets. I’ve been letting it be longer, like 2-3 minutes, because of some influence from Paul Carter’s “Inception” as well as some other things out there I’ve been paying attention to. And while there’s something to it for me, the reality is that the amount of work done on these Pressing days coupled with long rest periods just adds up to a long time in the gym and I can’t really afford that. So, while my numbers will look like they’re dropping, meh… it’s assistance work and I’m beefing it up.

So today, dropped the assistance rest to 1 minute in between. As well, I continue with supersetting. Here the extensions and curls, and the curls were alternating across the body.

Music: Slayer on shuffle (again)

5/3/1 Simplest Strength Template

  • Bench Press
    • bar x whatever
    • 95 x 5 (warmup sets superset with band pull-aparts)
    • 115 x 5
    • 140 x 3
    • 170 x 5 (work sets superset with neutral-grip pull-ups)
    • 195 x 3
    • 220 x 8 (8RM PR)
  • Incline Press
    • 135 x 5 (sets superset with neutral-grip pull-ups)
    • 155 x 5
    • 175 x 5
  • Wide, neutral-grip pulldowns
    • 110 x 20
    • 110 x 13
    • 110 x 13
  • DB Rows
    • 55 x 10
    • 55 x 10
    • 55 x 16
  • Overhead Triceps Extensions (superset with curls)
    • 45 x 20
    • 45 x 20
    • 45 x 20
  • Hammer Curls (alternating, across body)
    • 25e x 16
    • 25e x 14
    • 25e 12