2022.1.3
92,0 kg — yep, that’s holiday fat that I’ll be stripping off gradually over the next few weeks.
Morning — Strength Block Week 1 Day 1: Push
Warm-up
3-minute timer per set
Push-ups with feet elevated on chair
3 x 6
Military Press with hands raised on first step
3 x 6
Close-grip push-ups
3 x 6
Assisted dips (legs bent behind and feet on chair to help push up)
3 x 4-ish — the elbows definitely don’t like this one; I’m going to have to experiment a bit to find a more comfortable way of doing these
Forgot the 5 minutes of thoracic stretching this morning
To mitigate DOMS after the long break, and to gauge joint stress (elbows and wrists today), I’m keeping things easy this first week.
Afternoon: PLP
For P & P always explosive up, 1-2-sec pause, 6-sec eccentric; for L always 6-sec pause at bottom each side
Day 7: Pronated grip: 6 + 5 + 4 + 3 + 2 (20)
5 minutes of thoracic stretching.
To put a positive spin on things, there’s clearly much room for improvement here. Strength was abysmal today — you’d almost think I’ve never done a pull-up in my life. But the only way is up, right?
When using pronated grip for pull-ups, I’ve always used a thumb-over grip because it always felt stronger and more stable to me. However, I’m trying out the more conventional thumb-under grip because I think the former might be contributing to my elbow pain because of torque on either the shoulder or elbow joint (or both). Time will tell whether this makes a difference. Certainly, it should improve my grip strength over time.
Because of the specific symptoms, I’m beginning to suspect that my elbow pain might really be a pinched ulnar nerve, rather than tennis or golfer’s elbow. The pain is on the outside (rear) of the elbow, right between the humeroradial joint and the humero-ulnar joint, rather than to one side or the other, and there’s no pain or heat to the touch, but often when moving the shoulder into certain positions with the arm fully extended or fully contracted. With the arm fully extended, there’s also some pain when applying lateral pressure from the outside to the humeroradial joint. And there’s pain when applying pressure to the hand with the elbow at a 90º angle, such as when kneeling and pressing on a table to your side, to assist with standing up.
I definitely needed the long break to help the elbows and shoulders recover, and so I’m now keeping a very careful eye on all of this and doing everything I can think of to prevent it from getting worse.
He called you Nancy! Haha! What are you gonna do about it!?!”.