Life is never static. Our decisions will be influenced one way or another. Many of my friends by now would have noticed the changes in my social media posting even though it's not always frequent with the "re-surrection" of strength training since Apr this year
The pandemic and subsequent WFH has gotten me to start running. A lot. But that didn't neede a lot of extras. a good pair of running shoe until the mileage is up and then comes in another pair. Doesn't take up too much space in the house. A smart watch in 2021 to start tracking heart rate. A first for me. Otherwise everyday I was just tracking my mileage on and Excel file and plotting on online map each time to get the distance after a run. Tedious but a nice exercise as my mind goes through each section and recalling how it felt and what I could have done to improve etc...
Apparels didn't add much to the wardrobe either.. Couple of tank tops and shorts from Decathlon. Oh socks.. yea those only have so much life in them so there a couple more pairs than all other things add together.
Fast forward to Apr 2022.. after losing almost 13kg from 2 years of running and a calories deficit diet for most days... the realization dawned on how weak I have actually become. Sure, my cardio was right up there but trying to do a proper pullup seems impossible. Hard for some who can never perform pull up all their life to imagine why. But coming from my abilities from younger days, it was simply an unacceptable situation
Next I Googled around about muscle mass/ strength loss and training-- the word "Sarcopenia" pops up. I became paranoid as I read on.
Apr 9- started Day 1 of my come-back to strength training... since 1995! I stopped and was at my peak belting out 225 pounds for bench press and still easily do 20+ pull ups at a go.
All I had at home is pictured above but minus the gymnastic rings, palallettes and weight vest. The weights had been lying around since I barter trade some stuff with Eddie and Lewis.
No bloody idea what I need or wants to do... Searched my memories of how and what I did during younger gym-rat days.
Bicep curls were excruciating because of a pinched rotator cuff but most weight exercises I was simply wobbly and lacking core stability.
In short-- my body was 3dit 4dit and a 2dit dah--- Morse Code for "SHIT"
Fast forward-- 2 months mostly working out with my adjustable dumbbells --I finally got the courage to go and mount the pull up bars again.
4 -- on 25th Jun
Yes, just 4 but it was a big improvement over 2+ months ago. From there it was just a whole series of intermediate goals I set each time to achieve and improvement came in quick and fast. At the same time I changed nutrition plans and went heavy into protein and no more of the calorie deficit regime.
I was down from 80kg- to 67.5kg during the running-- and my goal was to get back up to ~74kg with fat loss and muscle gain at the same time.
Next I discovered the world of Calisthenics... before that I only thought of the word and associating it with mundane things like push ups, pull ups and dips etc. Boy, was I ever wrong...
Ok exercise is probably the best overall word and some will say its like trying to divide tofu and call it different things like pylometrics, calisthenics, pilates or tabata etc... not arguing here.. but I started to get interested in more advanced moves like planches, muscle ups, dragon flag etc
All of these requires certain amount of higher muscle strength and or mind-body connection to perform.
But I was still pushing out with the dumbbells and a tricep pull down rig on the doorway pull up bar.
It just never occurred to me what I was really training for. What are my priorities? Sure... to get bigger and better shape than before...