The
Three Strikes project has come to a close. I just couldn't quite beat
the personal bests in the last few movements on my list.
I
started a new notebook to record PBs in November 2011. These records
have been added to since that time. In November I came up with the
idea for the Three Strikes project. See here.
Since
24/11/12, focusing on each movement for a few weeks at a time and
over a period of 50 weeks, I amassed a total of 137 personal bests.
Most of these came at the start of the project when I was lifting
movements that I had been working not long before the project began.
As the project ran on, however, I started to work movements that I'd
had a VERY long break from. The last movement I worked was close-hand
lat pulldown, working the biceps, chest and back. My record was notch
15 from June '11. I struck out straight away, getting 14 each time.
The
hardest part of using the lat pulldown machine is simply getting on
it. I would have finished the project much earlier if I'd have used
the pulldown sooner, and not visited the gym at busy periods.
EVERYBODY loves pulldown. I had to get up sickeningly early and do my
session before work, when I was at my weakest. This is possibly why I
didn't do so well on it. It is good, however, to shock your body by
mixing up your routine. Work out early. Work out late. Hungry. Full.
Tired out. Fired up. Make your body do the work. And get into the gym
at quiet times, work the most popular movements first and leave the
obscure ones 'til later.
Of
course, it would help if OCL had a bigger gym in the town centre!
Other
bits of advice: You get fit when someone else is pushing you. So have
a break from the 3 Strikes project and go to a few classes. If I'd
have done this from the start I would have been a lot fitter, and the
project would have taken much longer to complete.
The
other advantage to extending the project this way: Exposure. I'd been
blogging consistently every Sunday night. When people come to expect
this post as part of your blogging routine, your hits will increase.
Mine did.
This
only works, however, if you have something to say in your blog posts.
If you spend your life in the gym with very little else going on,
what are people going to read about?! Keep your life busy with other
activities, not just hammering the gym. Then you have something to
write about, and your hits will continue to rise. Towards the end of
the project, I didn't have that much going on in my life and hence
didn't write many other blog posts.
This
week, for instance, I've visited relatives down south. I've seen
watched Gravity in 3D at the Imax (fun but average. Predictable. Good
performances from George Clooney and particularly Sandra Bullock. 3D
is a fad that I don't know why the cinema industry has decided to
revive).
I've
also found time to get some reading in.
I've
finished Emergency by Neil Strauss. I gave a pre-emptive review here.
Now I've
read it fully I can say it's a fun, informative read. The most
important information, the urban survival section, emerges in the
last few pages. Read it now, before the “Cormac McCarthy's The
Road” scenario emerges.
I also
finished War and Peace: My Story, Ricky Hatton's autobiography. I
started reading it in the signing queue a few weeks back, concurrent
with Emergency and Ring. It's a funny, interesting account of the
light-welterweight and welterweight former champion's rise from his
humble beginnings in Hyde (5 miles from me) through to his last
devastating defeat at the hands of Russian Vyacheslav Senchenko.
Although
billed as an autobiography, it's pretty clear that editor Tris Dixon
interviewed him over a period of a few weeks and transcribed his
answers straight from the tape, adding in descriptions with Mr
Hatton's consent as they went along. Can you see Ricky Hatton sitting
in front of his PC and tapping out a 14-chapter, 300-page book? It's
a strange blend of Hatton's northern, banter-laiden vernacular and
Dixon's journalistic prompting and tailoring. But Hatton isn't your
regular boxer- he's a regular bloke alright, a pint-drinking,
wise-cracking Manc lad with a girlfriend and 2 kids of his own, but
you don't always get that in a four-time world champion boxer.
An
enjoyable read.
One of
the reasons I started the Three Strikes project was to force myself
to write quickly, to analyse the week's proceedings and hammer out a
quick post. I wanted a bit of pressure to help induce a
Thompson-style gonzo element to my work. Over the last 50 weeks I
think I've become a lot more adept at just getting the fucking
writing written, with only myself to pressure me into finishing. I
start these posts after tea on Sunday nights and put them up as soon
as I've finished. They're usually laden with errors and lacking
details that I meant to put in from the start of the week, but I've
tailored the skill of making notes about anything that might have
happened over the course of the seven days. So this happens less
these days.
And now
I can do whatever I damned well want at the gym! Hooray!
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