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| JULY 2022 |
Where it all began -- the first full month of Daily Exercise Tracking. File been modified, initially there is only PullUps, Dips, PushUps and Runs.
Apr till Jun 2022, I had no clue what or how I am doing. daily, just pickup my dumbbells for some press and curls or do pushups and whatever exercises that comes to mind, to slowly rebuild some base strength.
The fear was so great of not able to pullup-- in these 2 months I only stared at my pullup bar but never even mounted it once --- until 25th Jun and did my first 4 after a very long time.
LsitChinUps, Squats and Dragon Flags actual daily numbers were added on starting in Oct-Nov 2022, although I was doing a little of each even during the start of tracking in Jul 2022.
IGP- stands for "Intermediate Goals- for Pullups" because all these started with the obsession of getting back to be able to do pullups when I stunned myself with ZERO pull on 09 Apr 2022. This was when the whole back to fitness journey began....
This month also marks the first Monthly Reflection series -- and a trademark of all my long and wordy posts...
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| AUGUST 2022 |
"Noob Strength Gain Syndrome" in Aug... gone ballistic with >1000 pullups this month. Had too little rest time in between.. Started getting tendinitis issues!
Pain is real, Lesson No.1: Pain can be good but too much pain from being over zealous is just being stupid and being obsessively ego driven...
Aug write-up for the Monthly Reflection series sees the forming up of my first Health and Fitness SMART GOALS. I absolutely suck at SMART GOALS for work, so taking the opportunity to do it with something I like in my personal interest and see how to learn and apply that back in work context.
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| SEPTEMBER 2022 |
Lots of overseas work trip this month. Pain in the elbow and shoulders were bad... took more time off to try and recover. All "daily staples" in the red compared to Aug.
Took the opportunity since reducing upper bod training vol. to focus more on cores. The road back to not just visible but functional 6-packs intensifying now....
p.s. I absolutely hate doing core exercise but lucky enough to have easily visible abs -- but visible is not the same as functional as I am learning now. Not even going into the advance stuff like planche and levers etc-- To be good at even fundamentals like pullups pushups and yes even squats-- strong cores is a must.
Sep Monthly Reflection touches on practicing but haven't added Dragon Flags into the "Daily Salad" here yet..that will be next month (below)
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| OCTOBER 2022 |
Started on L-sit Pullups but still focusing mainly on regular pullups and doing my first weighted pulls.
Although I was doing 10+ pulls in my daily first sets now but just 5kg weighted pullup was a lot different!. Grip start to slip after 5 reps and I can barely hang on.
Every Thursday I was giving training sessions to the girls in office after work mainly focused on core exercises which I also needed for myself to build up further basic strengthening.
First month of adding Squat and Dragon Flags into Daily Log here... it took a while because adding one more column means more commitment to myself each month! But with these 7 columns now-- it represents total body training-- UPPER, MID and LOWER are all at least covered by 1 specific exercise
Monthly Reflection series for October is all about Core-strength and injury recovery management.
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| NOVEMBER 2022 |
Had this "crazy" idea in the middle of the month after reviewing all my pullup stats...
To hit 5000 pullups before Dec 31 for this year (ie total count since I started logging in Jul to Dec 2022)
Added the last and final column in these tables-- the L sit Chin Ups after some pragmatic considerations. My hip flexors are still too weak to do L sit Pull Ups for now, thus better switching to something that can be done (not that my L sit Chin Ups are all that great-- just more manageable than L-Pulls at this time)
Monthly Reflection for Nov is just a toss of all the thoughts that came to mind.
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| DECEMBER 2022 |
A MEMORABLE MONTH!.. First, a work trip to Paris removed another 5 days of pullups from reaching my 5000 reps self-imposed challenge. Then I was Covid positive immediately upon returning home! Total of 7 straight days of no-pulls.
Had another 885 reps to complete in the next 20 days. Was seriously asking myself if I should continue with this challenge. Still feeling weak and not recovered at this time. Decided after much thoughts... I will push on with the pullups but at the expense of the other "daily staple" exercises this month. Also had to break up my pullups each day into 2-4 smaller sessions. Luckily I have a pull up stand in the office. So it was morning, afternoon and then back home in the evening-- adding the reps up each day.
It was the hardest month of pullups done so far... but manage to get ahead of schedule and hit 5005 reps by 28th Dec. Rest one day and did another cursory 10 reps on the last day of the year...
Monthly Reflection for Dec is just a longer rambling of the above, with a few more numbers.. Consider that as an FPI-- Fitness Performance Index assessment of sort to wrap up Yr 2022... back to finish up my year end work reports and related KPIs.