Senior Project Update #2

One of my favorite stories from senior projects happened this past week when I was doing decline bench presses. I forgot to put my feet under the handles which meant I had lost a substantial amount of leverage. I picked up the bar and did one rep. As soon as I lowered the bar again I knew it wasn't going back up. My friend was looking away at that moment and didn't see me struggling. The bar somehow ended up on my neck so naturally I started making screeching noises. My friend quickly came over and took the bar off my neck as we were both laughing hysterically about the noise that had just come out of my mouth. I wasn't hurt and was able to complete the set later but nonetheless it was a very memorable experience.

I have learned that form is the most important part of lifting, not how strong you are. My friend has been doing his best teaching me form but sometimes I just can't get it quite right so we need to find a different exercise for me to do. This is most apparent with Dead Lifts. I have the strength to compete the sets but I am unable to get my back completely straight which risks injury. So as I get more experienced with lifting I get better with my form as well.

My main goal from last week was to start learning how to read and write in Russian, which I have! Below is a picture of me staring intently at a kid's Russian book trying to decode the letters. So far I've gone through around 1/4 of the alphabet trying to relearn what I had started to learn around two years ago. At this point I know around 1/2 to 2/3 of the letters and can sound out letters and guess words. I'm no expert but I'm pretty sure that isn't a perfect strategy. The dream is to have gone over all the letters and vowels (it's a little different in Russian) before the end of senior projects.

My schedule for the week was lift Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday. On Tuesday I tweaked my left elbow which meant I skipped Wednesday and Friday but I'll be back on the grind starting Saturday!

My meals this week consisted mostly of grilled chicken and smoothies. The only thing new I tried was to grill salmon, it turned out okay but not as good as when my mom makes it.

I don't have any questions at the moment but I'm excited to get back in the gym!



Comments

  1. AnonymousJune 4, 2021 at 11:32 PM

    Yes! I did that this past week! My bar path is much better when doing bench press and I think I see myself going pro in the near future.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Senior Project Update #4

 I think my senior project has been quite successful both in the weight room and learning to read and write in Russian. On average, I worked out 4.5 times a week and I am practically done learning all the vowels in Russian which would conclude learning all the symbols and mean I would just need to practice to get faster at reading. Cooking was definitely harder. It was tough to consistently cook every day as well as find new recipes to try. Especially this last week with baseball starting I would get home around 8 and not have time to cook.  I think I have met most of my goals from the start of the project. While I don't think I can be totally independent in the weight room yet, I have definitely made serious strides to get there. My form has improved drastically and I'm starting to understand the routines. I have gotten better at cooking but I haven't gotten to the place where I don't need the recipe. And with reading Russian, although I can technically read (but not w...
Read more

Senior Project Update #1

Image
 My senior project is to simply build good habits that will help me in college and later in life. I am building a workout plan and learning new recipes daily to help accomplish this feat. Since I am more of a beginner when it comes to weight lifting I employed the help of one of my friends. He has monthly workout plans that he has fine tuned over quarantine and we're at a similar body build and strength so the partnership works well.  I chose this project because during Covid I found it hard to get exercise with gyms being closed down and sports not happening. As things start to open up, and people getting vaccinated this seems like the perfect time to get back into the gym. Using Milo's gym is an improvement over more public gyms because we can work at our own pace and not feel pressured to increase weight, etc. Most days after basketball and one day on the weekend Milo and I meet at his house to lift, hitting different muscle groups each time. After that I usually get home a...
Read more