Three Strikes: Week 29

I'm smashing through problems at the moment.

An insanely complicated Inland Revenue form was hanging over me like a curse this week. I managed to get hold of Fluffy Oakes, who has a bit of knowledge about income-related issues, gave me a hand filling that in.

Same old: I'm hammering through Scribophile, getting good feedback on stories and poems that you'll see through this site soon. At the gym, I'm working on movements I haven't looked at in 18 months in some cases. Mixing cardio into workouts has caused me to lose a LOT of strength, it seems, but despite this I've still beat one personal best.

Chest Press with horizontal grip: up 1 notch.

PBs will be thin on the ground for the next few months, I suspect, but essentially, this doesn't matter. I go to the gym to get in shape, and that's what's happening right now. Even if I don't beat a PB, I'm still gaining strength.

Take Leg Press, for example. My PB is plate 13. I hit this in May 2011. This month, I started working on this machine as part of the Three Strikes project. My first strike was at plate 9. Ignoring such a massive muscle group has damaged me. Even the countless running sessions I did didn't get me close to keeping at that level of strength. The next day, I tried again, hitting plate 10, then plate 11 the following day. This being the third strike, I won't be going back to leg press for the foreseeable future.

This is one drawback to the Three Strikes project: sometimes three gym sessions aren't enough to get your strength up to a level you're happy with. You can see yourself improve, but not enough to bring yourself back to a previous level of strength. Essentially, though, if you record the weight you lift when you hit a strike, you can still see your strength increase.