Ceejbot

More work on the milspec pushup.

More strength training yesterday, once again concentrating on the muscles used in the simple pushup, which remains beyond me. If I could lose the remaining 40 pounds I’d like to lose, I could be slamming out pushups all day. But I haven’t yet, so I can’t. So I struggle.

The scheme was exercises in pairs: a easier exercise to activate the muscles, at 4 reps, followed by a harder exercise to slam the muscle, a 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 reps. Up to six sets of the pairs, or until form degraded. The exercises were very similar to Monday’s (presses, flies, skullcrushers, triceps extensions) only they were bench variants instead of floor variants. Barbell and dumbbells both.

I’m really sore today, and taking extra care to eat a lot of protein. The temptation is to stop eating and just starve myself. That’s the way we’re told to lose weight, after all! And it works… briefly. So I plod on, avoiding carbs and losing it agonizingly slowly. But permanently. Or so I hope.

Rhinoviruses suck.

Yesterday was a pure strength day at the gym, mostly because I have been sick with an upper respiratory thing for the last week. I’m still sick, in fact, but feeling much better and definitely restless after a week without lifting weights. So I avoided cardio, on the theory that breathing hard and deep would get me coughing horribly, and shoved weights around.

The focus continues to be the perfect pushup. Just one milspec pushup, some day. So there were two muscle groups focused on: a circuit of chest pressing exercises, and a circuit of tricep exercises. First we tried to find the right weights for each exercise, where I could maintain perfect form while doing an explosive-power rep. Accelerate up, slow controlled descent. 3 exercises, 2 reps each exercise, 6 full sets of the circuit.

bench press @ 85#
straight arm floor fly @ 17.5# each
incline press @ 50#

skullcrusher @ 50#
floor dumbbell tricep extension @ 20#
tricep cable pressdown @ 37.5# (whatever that means on the cable machine)

It’s interesting to me that the standing triceps press demands a core lockdown that the others don’t. Your whole body is involved in a bench press if you’re doing it right, but for all the presses I was concentrating on keeping my shoulders in the right position. For the crushers & extensions, I was concentrating on not using my lats and keeping my elbows motionless. (Harder than it seemed!) But for the cable thing, solidify core, go.

I finished by doing thrusters at heavier weights than usual. Fran specs 65# for women. I tried 70# and then 75#, which were surprisingly do-able. I mean, if I’d tried to do 45 of them, as Fran requires, I’m sure I’d have been on the floor afterwards. But doing that would sure make Fran easier…

iPad keyboard dock fixed.

A month ago I commented on weaknesses of the iPad keyboard dock accessory. Specifically, I complained that the volume buttons didn’t work and the headphone out volume was fixed at a painfully loud level.

This week’s iPad iOS software update fixes that bug. The volume buttons on the dock work the way you’d expect now, and the volume rocker also works while you’re docked.

I still prefer the bluetooth keyboard because I like to have the iPad in landscape mode more often than portrait mode.

Just three things today.

Thoracic mobility work using tennis balls and a foam roller thingie. Wow, this one was a shocker.

Rack pulls: new personal best of 305#. The weak point was my grip; the rest of the posterior chain felt okay! Perhaps I’ll be able to blow away that 255# 1RM on the deadlift soon.

Front squats in a wave pattern: new theoretical 1RM is just over 135#, given how I did with the sets. My form on this exercise improves every time I do it.

My route tomorrow.

From where it gets interesting to where it gets boring again.

View Larger Map

In sane human-edited words:

84 east
880 north
580 east
I5 north really briefly
120 east
all the way through Yosemite, baby, 130-ish miles
395 south (80 miles)
left onto CA-168 east (38 miles)
this continues on 266 south, which becomes NV266 east (40 miles)
right onto US 95 south (50 miles)
get onto I15 south (4 miles)
exit 38B for Flamingo Road
hello the strip

563 miles driving total, 10.5 hours estimated.

Today’s to-do list.

✓ Therapy.
✓ Gym.
✓ Noon: peace & love sign for Ringo Starr’s birthday.
✓ Bottled water, toothpaste, sunscreen, for car.
✓ Gas for car.
Inspect/wash car.
✓ Death Valley route y/n?
Pre-load iPhone with route map.
Commit route to wetware memory.
ICC25 raid at 5pm.
Friends & family guild night at 8pm (half an hour before the ICC25 is supposed to end.)
✓ Pack.
Prep tiny cooler for car.
Set mental alarm for 6am.
Sleep.
Try not to implode.

ETA: Interestingly, and maddeningly, the iPhone maps app can’t handle Google directions with waypoints in them. That is, because I manually moved the route around, the maps app can’t parse the url any more. Suck!

Mrs Who?

As you might recall, the startup my husband works for was purchased by Walmart several months ago. The assimilation process has been slow, but he’s finally been orientated and indoctrinated as a new Walmart employee. They said at his orientation that normally they make new employees learn and perform the Walmart cheer, but they learned the hard way that their software engineering acquisitions react to this very badly. So he didn’t have to do it.

One of the perks of Walmart employment is apparently a Walmart card that does… something. Discounts? I have no idea what it does. We got two, one for him and one for me. His has his full name on it. Mine says “Mrs Zink”.

…

Yeah.

We decided that yes, David’s mom should probably get this card as the only actual “Mrs Zink” in existence in the family. And she’d probably use it more than me, since I’ve only been in a Walmart once in my life and that was when we were driving across country and lost Spike’s dog leash. We were in South Dakota or something and some giant box store was the reasonable leash acquisition option. David assures me it was a Walmart.

No, wait, I think David’s brother’s wife changed her name. I don’t get it, but apparently some women still do it.