Monday, November 26, 2012 0 b*tchin

Starting Strength

Dear bloggie,

Just wanted to rant about my latest workout routine which I a couple of weeks ago implemented. It's the "Starting Strength" by Mark Riptose. What's the major difference of this routine? Well, for starters it's "strength" routine instead of "body building" routine. What this means is it's for building strength as in how much you can lift instead of how big ur muscle is. So how does the workout look like? Like tis:

Workout A
Squat 5x3
Overhead Press 5x3
Barbell Row 5x3

Workout B
Squat 5x3
Deadlift 5x1
Bench Press 5x3

Just do 3 session each week, repeat Workout A, then Workout B then Workout A again for 1st week. Next week, Workout B, Workout A and Workout B... Repeat and rinse. I sorta dig the simplicity of this workout, not to mention the time. In case if ur wondering what does 5x3 here means? Well 5 is the reps and 3 is the sets.

While it's just 3 exercises per session, let me assure you these compound exercises will stress ur body. Some probably be thinking, so little exercises where enuff for pump and build muscle in balance? Well, the concept of this exercise is to make strength gains, the best way is to do it as often as possible.

Hence the 2 workout split... We workout our full body thru these 5 big compounds exercises. A very different concept in strength training is that we stress out our CNS (Central Neural System) as opposed to "the pump". Hence each set is done with around 2-3 minutes rest, as we need to be at maximum recovery when we lift for 5 reps with heavy weights.

Personally, I find the workout more intense then my normal body building routine but it lacks the pump sensation as well as worn out feeling which I normally feel after doing around 3 exercises for a muscle group. My muscle also typically recover within 1 day or 2 which so far, with exception of the deadlift and squat day, where I had to sometimes take extra day off for my lower back to recover. Adopting this new routine, I introduce Squat,  Deadlift and even Overhead Press which I never done before into my routine. The squats are also killing me. Squats are actually performed every workout. While I feel my squats really haven't reached the weights to tax my quads yet, I find myself sweating and panting like crazy after performing these every session. As for deadlift, I still am unable to perform it with proper form as my lower back would still sometimes arc at the lowering phrase which put it at a high risk for disc herniation, so I really haven't rake up the weights for this exercise yet. And incase some of u are wondering where's the arms and abs work in this routine, the beauty of this compound exercises is that they indirectly workout the arms and abs. Try doing a overhead press and feel your core working to brace you body upright as u stabilize and push the weight on top of ur head.

Results... Well, nothing dramatic as I made some gains in bench, row and as well for overhead press. However my leg feels quite worn after doing this routine for some time as I suspect the accumulated wear and tear of doing squats every session stacks up. Oddly, I feel my legs are stronger as if there's a it's brimming with energy... Maybe it's just my mind trick... I also feel stronger around my lower back thanks to the squat and deadlift which targets the posterior chain muscle which include my lower back. My lower back is a neglected muscle which I rarely exercise in the past, hence when I did my 1st deadlift, I really feel this part sore.
Friday, November 23, 2012 0 b*tchin

Perks of owning a blog

Dear bloggie,

"We accept the love we think we deserve - Charlie, Perks of Being a Wallflower"

After a super depressing day a work today, I decided to let some steam off by watching a movie. Planned to watch the "Rise of the Guardian" but when I saw "Perks of Being a Wallflower' at the same time slot I had a intense struggle to either watch Santa Claus, Bugs Bunny, Jack and the Beanstalk and co. beat the crap out of someone or watch some teenage angst... After a LONG 1 second juggling my thoughts, I decided to ffk my plan to watch this movie with MFR and watch it alone now instead (after all, I can bet my shoes he will ffk me for a gal anytime).

The movie begins with,

"Dear friend..."

Hmmm... Sounds f*ckin familiar... Personally, I find the movie a bit disturbing. In the sense, I actually feel a kinship with Charlie. Being a wallflower myself, I can perhaps understand the emotional hardship he is going thru. Most people tend to think introvert want to be left alone but the truth is introverts still do crave for human interaction (talk, dance, look at each other, etc), it's just introverts find these activities very exhausting, hence their need to go in their hermit's cave to recharge. Anyway, back to the movie... Overall I feel it's a good movie but sorta get the feeling of lack flow to it, sorta like the "Zap", suddenly they best frens. "Zap", he has a girlfren... "Zap" he's groping hermoine emma watson's boobs... The movie does remind me of American Beauty in the array of elements the movie tries to display as American culture. While not as sarcastic funny like American Beauty, it does convey a rather darker tone in the story. I like the description "Coming to age" movie of a teenager to life. Main problem I feel for this movie is a lot of the themes such as love, self appreciation, being different, etc which is the core of the story is perhaps better suited to be read instead of seen. When u read, u can stop and ponder about it but when ur watching, it like a non stop stream of things go thru ur brain non stop and u don't have time to properly process it. Still I highly recommend this movie, or better still go instead buy the damn book, it's available at MPH or Borders at RM35.

So dear friend, while this most certainly is not the last blog entry of mine, I would like end this entry with another quote from the movie/book...






Thursday, November 22, 2012 0 b*tchin

Emo @ Work

Dear bloggie,

The last few weeks been a f*cking hard week. Why? Mostly work issue... Having thrown my letter to management, a few days later, due to the number of people doing the same as well, the big boss of this department came down to try to come up with a win-win situation. After some interview and discussion with the all parties a compromise was reached... A few days later, a staff meeting was held with good news that they will compensate for the no bonus this year due to s/w sales no meeting it's mark by a salary increase adjustment to market price (Wat ever market price is).  A day later, 70-80% people retracted their resignation letter, word is management "shown" them their "adjustment". I however wasn't even offer such proposition (Well, it's not like I would retract even if they offer me it, but it sorta stabs a hole in my self confidence for my contributions to this company, not to mention my dumb thinking of accepting a below market price salary when I worked here).

Well, to make matters worst, I seem to come under the firing range of my superior lately as well. Call it f*ck luck, a bug of mine which I was fixing really made me tear my hair (yea, still got some hair left) due to some framework changes. To fix my bug, I had to comply with the changes in framework which resulted in a f*ckin mess. By complying to the framework "fix", I practically had 2 same bugs that show different outcome due to the older solution become backward incompatible due to the "fix". Today, they announce, they fixed the framework and we need to revert all the "fix". God knows, wat kinda behavior my 2 bugs are gonna display now.

Team planning, was put in cold storage... Fine with me, doing small story and fix bugs... Then got criticize for my bug which was a behavior not covered in my user story acceptance criteria. I recall getting this bug and a brief talk with the bug logger and my team lead gave me the behavior for that scenario. Explaining the fix to the team, my team lead "question" why the fix behave such way. I felt like giving a tie slap, but part of my mistake as I didn't cover my ass by adding a remark "Team lead confirmed behavior XXX" in the bug. Some of my colleague sympathized on my predicament came to my aid to defend my argument on my fix, but to no avail.

Then moving on to another bug, which they try to generate something and the system just ended the task without generating anything but no display any error message (Due to null pointer exception). I easily pint point the problem as the 2 peoples that "engineered" the whole process didn't even bother to assigning some values required for the generation. I felt like banging my head to the wall when I got rap for not having adding any validation to the generation. Some of u may probably think, "Yea, why didn't u add any validation". Call me to obsess with "whose responsibility" , but if u want something added in does it make sense to tell me you want it in to begin with especially when there's like a f*ckin prerequisite that states I can assume the damn user assign those values in the story. I recall being told validation not required when I did the code. Yes, yes... Stupid stupid me not to documenting down what was verbally told to me. Yet, again I foresee myself still getting rap even if I document it down as by "code ownership" argument, I should raise this lack of validation issue. Yes, we "own code"  here...

I get my arse f*cked during appraisal for being a damn code monkey, writing code based on acceptance criteria. Never thinking myself if the criteria make sense of not. Always expecting to be feed a IN and OUT scenario to validate my work, never thinking of my own scenario. So recently I log a bug (Yes, we developers are currently doubling as QAs as well) for a scenario that not covered in the acceptance criteria, I get the simple "that scenario not cover".

My morale is super low at the moment... Just hope to complete my remaining time in peace here.
Saturday, November 10, 2012 0 b*tchin

PP

Dear bloggie,

Attended my PP class today. Man, oh man... I starting to doubt if I can be a instructor de...

My mind suddenly went blank during my turn to cue people to perform the exercise. The master instructor cue sounded so easy to say when he said it. But when my turn to cue, my instructors all jumble up each other. When to inhale, when to exhale, shoulder alignment, neck alignment, rib and ASIC connection... OMG WTF!!! Screw up 2/3 of my lab work which involve practice teaching.

Lucky, my instructor was there to guide me a bit on how to teach coz she know I have 0 experience in teaching. Main problem I feel is I hit the panic button when my turn to teach. If I kept my cool, I would probably have not done so bad.

Other than cueing, my brain is perhaps overloaded by the amount of theory information taught during today's class. I'm amazed by the theory part, as it seem the fundamentals are really deep. They build upon studies and basic behavior of our body and tie em up to build a strong argument on the 6 base principles that we should look out for when performing any pilates exercises.

Blown my brain off... I believe the only way I can improve my cue is to find some white rat to experiment on. Practice make perfect. Anyway, tis is all for this entry as I really tired due to almost 8 hour grind my brain and body today. Tomorrow got another 8 hour for this course, then a month before my Mat level 1 class. Ciao
Tuesday, November 6, 2012 0 b*tchin
Dear bloggie,

You know how much I missed saying the words "Dear bloggie"?

Anyway, been quite sometime since I last blog (Okok, it been almost 1 month +). Having the uninteresting, dull and boring life I have, a few small things occur during this small time period. Let's see...

Ended another chapter in "The Hobbit Loserrit"
The Road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can,
Pursuing it with eager feet,
Until it joins some larger way
Where many paths and errands meet.
And whither then? I cannot say.
My countdown officially started today yesterday. Decided it time to move on. Company is currently in a pretty big mess... But I already thought of leaving quite a long time ago de... Only 1 thing held me back... but guess it's time to let go of that one thing...

Lost of apple my eye
What can I say... with my "charisma" and "bright" personality, doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure this one out. I try to forget it, but a part of me refuses to do so... Stupid, immature, retarded? Lead me down the dark side of the force, it has... Maybe contributed to the above event... Or maybe prolonged the inevitable end of the chapter... I imagine it's like losing an eye. Hurts and you will always be reminded of the missing eye... It's up to one really how chooses to moan, grunt and agonize upon the lost eye or use the other eye to look forward.

Crouching swan, hidden rocker
Bad analogy I know, so sue me... Yes! Finally so much confusion on which "chew pai" (style/school/etc) I wanna waste my $$$ on, I finally settled on Wing Chun a school. Practiced a month+ at the studio and liked it better than the previous one, so I signup for the course. After a LONG 2 months wait, tada... Tis Saturday, my journey down the way of wuxia jedi @$$clown pilates begins... [Play Star Wars Empire theme here]

Running blues
My last run was the Centro run, which I had drag myself 1/2 way to the finish line. With the knee injury, have been taking a LONG break from running. Still run on the treadmill but for light cardio only, around 10-15 minutes only. Probably lost all my accumulated stamina... Not joining any runs this year anymore. Planning to return to running? Unsure... With all the weights and pilates training I been doing lately, I find it hard to slot in these runs without burning myself down. Probably start small with a 5K run which puts less stress on my leg and require less time in training.

Hulk up
I finally lifted my ban on 2 exercises that most deemed as "king of exercise", the deadlift n squats... I done body weight squat before but never deadlift but I avoid these 2 barbell version of these exercises cause I deem them too dangerous to do without a spotter. I understand these 2 exercises are GREAT exercises but only if done with correct form. Do wrongly and SNAP ur gonna break something... Anyway, I find barbell back squat pretty intense. I find myself quite "chuan" (exerted) after doing only 3 sets of these. And for deadlift, my 1st few sessions of deadlift reveal my weakness in lower back as it would round when performing this exercise (due to insufficient lower back strength and technique). So I drop the deadlift for a few session to focus on lower back exercises like back extension and good morning for technique. To my amazement, I was able to perform a decent light weight deadlift after that... Still a long way before I can really start piling up the weights for these 2 exercises.

So that's all I have to grunt about for this entry... Hopefully it won't be another 1 month+ for the next entry...