[movement] milestones

[kaberett]

Numbers.

On the 18^th of February last year, I was shifting 2100kg per gym session.

As of the 11^th of February this year, I'm moving 4290kg per gym session.

The 90kg extra was because I slightly lost track of how much I actually needed to increase to hit "doubling my volume in a calendar year".

Which is precisely the kind of numbers-based goal I spend a lot of time working very hard to avoid, because shooting for specific numbers is a really excellent way to get me to stop listening to my body and fuck myself up right proper.

But this time I noticed because I was, in January, so close -- 3880kg at the end of January, 4080 on the 7^th of Feb -- and I decided that indulging my fondness for Good Numbers was probably actually safe-enough here.

So I did, and I got away with it, and I have a small fuzzy glow of satisfaction.


I'm also, of course, now trying to fixate on "maybe I'm having to spend more time asleep because I'm actually doing rehab work in the gym", because I am still desperately looking for The Thing That's Making Me So Tired because I really want to be spending less of my time asleep -- but hey, I'm starting out at home by (getting Adam to nudge me into) using my shower stool and my kitchen seating more, and I'm pretty sure the gym isn't actually making much of a difference, and on the gripping hand: moving my body in ways that feel good -- and playing the horn more! -- are things I enjoy and find valuable and worthwhile, so. I get to do this.

Incremental progress. Here I am.

Comments

[niqaeli]

*fistbump!*

Incremental progress! It gets an extremely bum rap, but it's where most of the progress IS. Small increments are what we do best, often.

<3

[kaberett]

it's so DULL to be WORKING ON though >:(

(you are getting regular smiles of recognition at aerial for the grousing about WELL I GOT IT CLEAN ONCE, because that is where I'm currently at with horn warm-ups...)

[lunabee34]

Yay!

[mdlbear]

Go you!

I took a short walk today. Very short -- one block. But more than I've done in a while.

[kaberett]

incremental progress! well done you, and hurrah for Moving A Body. <3

(and, like, to be clear: that's more walking than I typically do.)

[mdlbear]

Thanks! Newton's First Law of Motion would seem to apply here. Or should.

[chiasmata]

❤️ yay!

I work on the principle that both chronic inflammation and existing-in-this-world-while-autistic are exhausting. Also, YES, you get to use your energy however you see fit.

[kaberett]

Much affection <3

[horselizard]

*applause* that is a shitton!

(also numbers, shared in a spirit of helpfulness, but will remove if misjudged:)

i recently acquired some free weights and have been doing gentle weekly sessions with them, so to give myself some context for your numbers i roughly calculated how much i'm moving each week, and it's, like, an order of magnitude less, and i don't have any particular physical health issues, so in conclusion, GOOD GRAVY, YOU ROCK :D

[kaberett]

TO BE CLEAR this is over uh... five different fixed-path machines, with 3 sets of 10 reps on each, because free weights are Probably A Bad Idea For Me (or at least definitely were when I was being shown how to do rehab physio that didn't damage me, and I have no idea how to access sensible guidance except via an NHS clinic that probably isn't going to accept rereferral). So! This is legs stuff also. :-p

But yeah when I started doing this On The Regular at all in July 2018 I was moving 250kg a week and... that! is a big difference, actually! even if it's less than the order of magnitude increase I got in my first year of gym-based work :-p

... I'm pretty pleased with myself, and also relieved I didn't screw up this latest increase >_>

[horselizard]

even spread over multiple machines/reps/limbs that is still A Lot! you have every right to be pleased with yourself, and yeah i'm glad you didn't break yourself getting to this point :P

[kaberett]

also holy shit I hadn't actually realised I'd reached a point where "the amount More Weight I lift in a week is comparable to my initial ENTIRE WEEKLY MASS", that's... FASCINATING to have worked out, many thanks for the prompt :D

[horselizard]

:D

[cesy]

2100kg is still a pretty impressive session.

[kaberett]

<3

[ewt]

Well done you! Excellent stick-to-it-iveness.

Also, it is entirely possible that the increased strength from shifting weights is making the tiredness marginally less bad than it otherwise would be. At least, it works that way for me: Tired Strong Ewt can do more thing than Tired Feeble Ewt, all other factors being equal, and too much strength training or other exercise at once gives me pain (in a pretty predictable manner related to the exercise I've overdone) rather than diffuse exhaustion. Bodies are weird and yours may respond differently.

I do hope you eventually find out What Is Making You So Tired, though.

[kaberett]

Adam as gym buddy definitely helps! (38 sessions out of 52 weeks in the last calendar year, including 6 weeks in the middle where the gym didn't have any level access for Reasons.)

I think that on many grounds the increased strength is making me hurt less overall, and I... strongly suspect it isn't a cause of the More Tired, but I'm really bored of needing at least one three-hour nap most days and would really like to have that time to Do Stuff, so given a failure of thyroid meds to magically restore me to More Energy I keep desperately casting around for More Things It Could Be That I Should Blame. :( So I don't propose to cut down on the gym, but I think maybe I'll try to do a better job of tracking sleep over the next couple of months while keeping weights/resistance steady, and see if there's actually any correlation...

[ewt]

I stopped needing my longer naps a few weeks after I got folate supplementation, and then stopped needing naps much at all after I started sleeping sitting up (and incidentally sleeping through the night rather than getting up 3 times to pee). I still don't know whether the problem is/was dodgy ticker --> kidneys making more urine to try and lower blood pressure --> waking up to pee --> excreting all the folate --> ticker getting dodgier, or whether there is some other thing (sleep apnoea? shoulders getting sore from being slept on, then incidentally waking up to pee because of that? Thyroid Stuff? Some other thing I haven't figured out? I do snore, so sleep apnoea is a strong possibility, but Himself also snores and this makes it hard to tell who is doing what sometimes...), but, I am going to keep going with the sleeping sitting up thing until I decide it's convenient to mess with it, especially since the ticker symptoms seem to have pretty much evaporated.

I have an OURA ring I use for sleep tracking. A while before I started sleeping sitting up, I thought it had broken firmware, because it kept showing me being awake for a lot of each night and I was sure I was sleeping more than that. Turns out it wasn't broken, I was just too tired to remember that much wakefulness. I remembered the getting up to pee, but not the failing to get to sleep again afterward.

[redsixwing]

*cheers* Wow!

I'm glad the Good Numbers did not also result in much ow.

Good luck in finding the Thing That's Making You So Tired!

[oracne]

Go you!

[halojedha]

Ooh, the total kgs lifted is a metric I haven't used before. It's a satisfyingly huge number!

[kaberett]

YEP. And is one the app I use to record What Even I've Done In The Gym spits out for me automatically under the "analysis" tab, and it's quite nice to watch it creep steadily upward. :D

[jesse_the_k]

Hooray!

(As someone who overdid swimming by two minutes on Sunday and has been feeling it every single minute since.)