I need a space to gather some thoughts here on this, so uh… here.
I actually took a couple months off from exercising, believe it or not. I mean, except for like… sporadic stuff. IDK, maybe I wasn’t feeling well. It’s possible. That… illness, or whatever, was never formally diagnosed, and it seemed to come and go as it pleased.
But nevertheless, this year has been much much better than previous ones. I still think I might have fixed things by killing the you-know-whats, so good.
But I still took a lot of time off. I do this sporadically, and TBH it seems to help things in the long term. That way when I go back to working out I do so with a fresh eye. It allows me to re-consider things and to cleanly re-draw the map, so to speak.
Every year I add more… stuff, to the routines I do, and this year is no different. I’ve added a handful of squat variations to my basic dumbbell routine, which should make the onboarding process to the hallowed pistol squats a little easier. Because Christ, those things are tough. I still can’t get even close to a good form with those. I need to some transitionary exercises, and the ones I’ve added should suffice.
I also filled in a few gaps in my basic dumbbell routine, things like overhead shrugs, etc. What I’m trying to do here (and, I think, have successfully done), is to hit every muscle, basically, from my neck to my ankles, with three or four basic dumbbell exercises. To execute, I do the whole routine in one fell swoop, for a grand cardio… experience. A true whole body routine, with those comfortable, contoured PVC dumbbells I love so much. It’s a lot of fun.
That’s the standing dumbbell routine. For the laying down one, what I’m doing now is a complete routine- presses, scapula presses, flys, triceps stuff, etc, and everything else. And then, I’m doing it over again, with a pilates twist, by re-doing everything with my feet and legs elevated in the air. And then, I’m doing it all over yet again, in the bridge position. Not with heavy weights, lol. Just those PVC things. Hilariously weird but it works, the pilates style stuff and the bridge routine I do to increase my core strength, since I guess I’ve figured out the next step in my pilates stuff, too.
For the pilates, my long term goal is to incorporate a variety of bridge-based leg lifts, circles, and other types of exercises, but I don’t quite have hip strength, yet. Hence the dumbbell stuff I discussed above. They will serve as a… bridge, lol, to doing those.
Also this year I’m doing incline pilates exercises, too, by propping myself up and doing leg circles, lifts, corkscrews, butterflys etc. at an incline, which is… different, IDK. It’s much harder, in some ways. I’m still doing the traditional stuff too, of course.
All of this pilates stuff is now being done because all of the traditional exercises are too easy. I’ve mastered stuff like oblique V-ups, for instance. There’s no challenge there anymore, so I need to go hunting again. I mean, you know.
For now I’m nixing the pushups and doing isometrics instead, since those are more fun. Fun is a key element, here. Pushups just aren’t… fun, lol. So I’ll do them some other time. Maybe I’ll wait on those and finish the bridge stuff and the squat stuff first, IDK. That should make them easier anyhow.
I mean, any guy who can do a pistol squat should be able to do pushups easy too, right?
I mean, IDK, lol. I guess we’ll see.
I still have “noodle arms”, though, as was pointed out in Frenemies. I mean… IDK.
It’s kinda weird, honestly. My arms are still spindly looking but oddly enough I’m confident that I’m stronger than 99% of the adult population out there. It’s strange. I mean, when I go out and look around, I often struggle to find anybody, really, that I suspect could match me in terms of overall strength, despite how my arms look, lol.
There is always that one guy, though, for sure, lol.
It’s a good thing that my exercise goals so closely match those of my girlfriends. There’s a kind of serendipity there for sure.
I’m not sure I’ve talked about this much but I also do face exercises- the facial yoga stuff that is popular with women, chiefly. I like that stuff, too. I make it a point to work out every muscle on my face regularly. Like… seriously, lol. I have them all catalogued, and have been cobbling together my facial exercise routine for something like 15 years now, off and on. I hit everything, including the eyes. It’s a lot of fun, sometimes, which is I guess kinda the theme here.
I wish pushups were more fun, lol. I mean, you have to get down on the carpet and it’s dirty down there and kinda dusty and… you know.
So, yeah. The long term goal here is to, by the end of this year, perfect my bridge dumbbell exercises, incorporate a variety of bridge based exercises into my pilates routine, perfect my incline pilates exercises, and, maybe, do a full pistol squat, with good form.
Maybe the pushups will wait for next year. IDK. I will continue with isometrics though for sure.
Ok, good, then. For this little corner of my life I got a plan going.