This Joseph Greenstein strength training experiment isn't working out so well. At first I felt great but now my body seems to have crashed and burned. I've been feeling increasingly fatigued the last week or two now. Today my head hurts, my body's overheated, I've no energy at all, I feel kind of nauseous and... I'm worried about the occasional pains in the general area of my gall bladder...

Then I wonder if feeling this way is unrelated to trying to exercise as I think Greenstein did... Possibly but I won't chance it. I really feel bad. Particularly worried about the pain in my stomach. Both my sister and my mother have had their gall bladders removed. That's something I'd like to avoid having done. That of course though, should really be a matter of diet and not exercise...

Anyway, I'm on fire. Which is the problem with exercise. I've this strange body where I get to feeling this way if I'm not careful. What it is about me that makes me this way I don't know. Again, it seems generally that if I manage to be very consistent then I'm fine. But if I miss too many days, this happens. I maybe missed too many days. But what I was trying to do started becoming too taxing and I really needed to rest a bit here and there.

I'm a fool for trying such experiments. I should really just do sensible exercise. The Greenstein experiment was nice though in that I slept great... And the first three weeks were great all around.

Sleeping incredibly good for the last month or so now. During that time I've started exercising differently and started working as an RN. And started working night shifts. And have generally less stress I guess. I guess.

I think it's the exercise though. Started exercising as I think Joseph Greenstein essentially did. As an experiment. Greenstein was a professional strongman noted among other things for his exceptional longevity. Into his 70's he could still rip horseshoes in half. Also he only weighed about 150 pounds. Also instead of being a protein stuffer he was a near vegetarian.

As best I can tell he got that way simply by routinely attempting to bend a horseshoe. Although along with the strength in his hands he developed the ability to bite through metal, etc.

Anyway, intrigued by that idea for strength training. So, once a day I've been trying a single time to do a one arm chinup. Which at my weight only 3 people in history have ever even allegedly done. Also then I do a single set of one arm pushups with form that makes them as hard as possible.

It's a combination of scientific curiousity along with wanting to be in a decent shape. I still weigh 242 pounds. Although I look a bit better.

I had almost reached the point of a one arm chinup a few years back following a very slightly more orthodox training regimen and being 20+ pounds lighter.

Anyway, sleeping incredibly well now. Never have insomnia. Sleeping through the day deeply. Able to sleep whenever I think I ought. Then feeling very good while awake.

I had gotten away from the slow long distance running because I was losing the ability to run fast at all. For the SLD I remember managing 11 miles at just under 12 minutes per mile. So instead I started running much faster. Running 30 seconds then walking. Even with walking half the time my pace was up to 10:30 per mile that way. But I guess it had been just too long since I'd done much fast running and my knees started hurting then. So then I went 2 or 3 weeks without running to let my knees get better. And then my back started hurting again. I hadn't noticed just how good it had been feeling during the SLD (we generally notice what hurts, not what doesn't). With no running I've gone back to waking up at 4AM with my back hurting so that I have to get up even though I'm still sleepy.

OK so...? I guess try to combine the two types of running somehow. The thing is even alternating with walking I can cover more distance that way with fast running/walking then I can with the slow long distance. That makes the slow long distance truly seem a waste. So, not sure how to proceed exactly. OTOH, all that stopping and starting is mentally just a little annoying. I suppose 5 minutes of the stopping and starting and then go to the relaxing SLD? It was really nice having no back pain.

As to how I physically look, the SLD does nothing at all for me. As to my heart rate, the SLD does nothing for me. Was 75 resting. For that the run fast/walk is great. In two weeks my resting heart rate dropped to 52 BPM. Also I gain muscle and lose fat. I don't know. The SLD is close to useless except mentally it was enjoyable and my back started feeling really good.

Trying to get back into lifting weights. Managed 3 chinups with 70 pounds attached to me @245. (pr is 105x3.7@225) And 90 lbs x2 for dips (pr is 120x3). Of all the endless ways to strength train I wonder if the best for me is just one hard set every 6 or so days. And then the thing being that I can't expect to improve a rep each time. More like hope to improve 1/5th of a rep maybe. And then try to make that improvement without injuring self.

Mr. Emphryio you have what is called the sensitive artistic temperment. In ways not true and all in all you're probably no more or less sensitive than the average person but that's just what we call it. But your issues with insomnia show it clearly. You have to mimic exercise forms such as what your ancestors have been doing for tens of thousands of years lest you'll find yourself unable to sleep and increasingly unable to stand 14 hour workdays on no rest at all. You can't do a standard strength training routine as is popular these days. The weights are too heavy. It doesn't correctly mimic what your ancestors did. Such lifting to the edge of eccentric failure sends a message to your brain that something is wrong! And your brain won't let you sleep, because something is wrong! You have to use much higher reps and keep it light. Explosive lifting is fine though and much like olympic lifters still get plenty strong without ever doing dead lifts, so you can manage to exercise without insomnia while hardly turning into a weakling.

See with lighter higher reps you immediately can sleep; you can even eat chocolate right before bed. The endless nightmares are another issue though.

Sleep

Bad sleep. Got back into a very very short unorthodox strength training regimen. And... it's messed my sleep up. Insomnia. Feel like an old person the way I keep waking up at exactly 3AM every night. When younger I would have trouble getting to sleep but usually provided I didn't have to get up early could sleep really good and hard beginning at 5am. Today not till almost 8AM and still a mostly light sleep...

I did last night have a period where the thoughts quit making sense (which is normally when you then cross over into sleep) but instead I think the period of nonsense thinking just kind of stretched out quite a bit. Stretched on and on. Was offcially sleeping? If so it was very light. Light enough that I suddenly switched gears sort of... like going up a steep hill, into sleep paralysis. Something I hadn't had in quite a while... Which I kind of enjoy. Brings back such memories of childhood. And I really want to experiment from within it. As the imagination works differently there. But I've developed a reflexive thing where I immediately jump out of it in terror. The worry is suffocating. As I'm truly paralyzed. What if somehow my wife moves and pillow gets right over my face? People don't normally just suffocate. They wake up, or shift in their sleep... But I'm truly paralyzed! I can moan and that's it. At least there's no old hag trying to suffocate me. What a horrible stereotype.

Anyway I immediately jerked out of it.

Before this insomnia I had routinely fallen asleep like so: thoughts quit making sense, original piece of music starts playing in my head, and off I go. I used to monitor for the original music and jump up occasionally to record it. Then I'd just wake back up enough to examine it. Now I just don't even bother. I'd rather just enjoy sleeping I'm afraid. I can manage to write music when awake well enough........

What happened last night that was interesting enough to be writing this was that after jerking myself out of sleep paralysis I did a version of the original music but instead it was abstract pictures with perfect silence. I suppose if I were a painter that might be what happened every night. When I wasted such time playing chess my nonsense thoughts would be things like going to the grocery store by knight jumps, etc. The pictures were very pretty though. How wonderful it'd would be to just have such a show going whenever I wanted it. Combined with music...

Do the voices come from inside your head or outside? That's what is asked of schizophrenics.

From where does this music and these pictures come? Inside or outside? Inside. But I'm not consciously creating them. I'm just the audience. But I am creating them. I know that. I feel here and there a part of me creating them. That's what I think schizophrenics lose, is a sense that a part of them, is them. At least maybe that's part of it.

Strength training

I can barely be bothered to write this. I suppose it's something I know that most people don't. Something that a lot of people could benefit from knowing. Unfortunately they're too stupid to manage it. Even when they're told it.

Protein stuffing increases physical strength by roughly 5 to 15% depending on the person and particular muscle. This is to say ...oh 200 to 300 grams of protein per day increases strength by roughly that much as opposed to something normal, like 30 to 40 grams of protein a day. (A healthy vegan diet.) Protein stuffing is not cumulative at all. You don't end up 30, 40% stronger a couple years later thanks to continous protein stuffing. You'll still be exactly the same amount stronger (assuming otherwise equal calories and nutrients..). Thus protein stuffing should just be used if you want your strength to peak for whatever stupid reason.

It's sad that many young men are stuffing themselves full of protein. I did it myself for a few years. What a pitiful way to live. Also hurts veganism.

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A more useful way for a man to peak his physical strength is to think about sex daily quite a bit while not actually having sex. After about 5 days strength can begin increasing this way. But not much point in doing the effect beyond two weeks if that. This can cause a large increase in strength, again, depending on the person and particular muscle. Huge effect on my hamstrings, personally. Added extra 100 pounds to deadlifting and could hold own against Michael Jordan in a slam dunk contest.

People miss this effect because it takes at least 3 days to kick in and once you have sex again there's a one day lag before you become weaker.

But this second effect is known here and there. Ali's one trainer Bundini Brown knew it. Someone locally (wrestling coach) was aware of it, he brought it up for some reason. It's out there, here and there. Lost and found I'm sure right back to the ancient greeks at least. (A training secret of many competitive athletes perhaps...?)But never found any evidence of this knowledge online.

Which is depressing but then consider the subject/s I guess.

The protein stuffing is actually more depressing. I've never found anyone who seems to have quite figured it out... And there are people who do strength training controlled studies, check nitrogen levels, etc. It's doesn't make me feel even the slightest bit special that I'm not aware of anyone else who figured it out. It feels like the sun's been blotted out. I really have read the literature. The top "experts" on this. They don't know. Such is life.