Archive for the ‘BodyBuilding’ Category

I have full strength back on the weights and lost no body weight.

Cardio however I am easing back into very carefully as COVID can damage your heart.

I did my first run since I got sick today – a very easy one. Will do another 2 runs this week & next week will try & push it back to pre COVID fitness if I can.

Its now nearly 3 weeks later. I have been negative for several days now. I was still weak as a kitten after the other symptoms had gone.
A walk down the street would wipe me out. I edged back into the gym on 4 days doing light cardio & a few calisthenics & stretching.

Yesterday I did a light weights workout & felt fine. I got cold watching TV however & this triggered the cough to come back. It had been gone 3 days. Now I’m keeping super warm & the cough has vanished.

I will do a heavier weight session tomorrow & may suss out a dry sauna to cook the remaining virus out of my system for a couple of weeks. I have also read that HBOT is a great therapy post COVID but the nearest one is miles away so may save that for when I leave Nelson.

It started on last Friday night 25th March. I had a bit of a sore throat all night. Four of my flatmates were already positive so I had been RAT testing for days always negative.

Seen as my throat was sore I decided on the Saturday morning to swab my tonsils – Positive. That Saturday it progressively got worse. At first I thought it was gunna be largely asymptomatic like a mild cold.

I ended up spending most of the Saturday & all of the Sunday in a nasty fever with my tonsils stabbing with pain. The main thing with COVID fever is it totally drains you of all energy. I was a big blob of jelly in bed with stabbing tonsil pain.

I was pretty delirious but managed to get together all the medicine I needed. Anti-histamines, paracetamol & throat spray.

Also plenty of supplements.

I boosted my Vitamin D for weeks anticipating this & still got sick as a dog.

The fever broke in my sleep Sunday night. I awoke Monday with very damp pillows & sheets but no longer in fever & with a much clearer mind.

What remained was a terrible paralyzing cough which would have me bent over coughing until I almost passed out several times.

This violent coughing in turn led to me coughing up quite bloody phlegm for 3 days. Prior to this it was a purely dry cough.

Today I am much better but still positive. I awoke at 6am feeling great. My toes & fingers were tingling with circulation again. My spark is still missing though & I soon felt like I was stuck with a nasty cold again. Went back to sleep & awoke at 1:30pm.

Maybe tomorrow or the next day I will be out & about.

Worst thing about my Omicron COVID?

48 hours delirious & weak in fever.

Son of a bitch after all this time I finally caught COVID. I am triple vaccinated & its probably Omicron B strain.

This is the 3rd day & I just had 48 hours of delirium & weakness plus tonsillitis. Fortunately my fever broke last night & today is a little better.

The main thing with COVID is it zapps every speck of energy out of you during the fever stage. I have been consuming water constantly so have not experienced headaches or joint pain.

Hopefully better in a few days

Former competitive powerlifter, strength exhibitionist, and coach Bud Jeffries passed away on Friday, Jan. 21, 2022 at the age of 48. His sudden death occurred while he was training. Jeffries’ wife, Heather, posted the news on Jeffries’ Instagram page on Jan. 22, 2022, revealing that she had tried to resuscitate him herself before medical help arrived onto the scene.

Bud had the COVID a few weeks back & was hospitalized for a few days.

COVID IS NOT THE FLU.

Rest in peace Big Buddy.

I feel great lately. Its summer & I am still in Nelson hiding from COVID. Auckland will get the Omicron strain soon so I am happy to continue my stay here.

Things did get boring over the winter which was cold & wet but I did forest hikes & kept up my gym work. In Auckland the gyms were shut for 4 months.

Isometrics has made me stronger while protecting my joints. I also started regular running again after about 15+ years.

On top of the cardio & isometrics I have been regularly doing Hippensteel stretching.

I have also been taking Deer Antler Velvet & 4000iu of Vitamin D daily on top of regular supps including the fucoidan

Nelson in summer is resplendent. Very nice for hiking, beach & alpine activities.

Now they have a nice little biofeedback & EEG machine for sale. But its not cheap & the real value is that you can login & have all of your data analyzed by the software which also has an excellent inbuilt training program.

There are cheaper options for the EEG however. There is Olimex surface mount version of the openEEG

This device has few channels but there is a new design just released for an even better device with 32 channels. It has a lower amplifier gain however. freeEEG32:

You can get these devices from below:

https://www.olimex.com/Products/EEG/OpenEEG/EEG-SMT/resources/EEG-SMT.pdf

https://www.crowdsupply.com/neuroidss/freeeeg32

Now thats the hardware for cheap but you still need the software for the mindmirror feedback. Thats OK its not such a big deal.

Brainbay is one software that can do it http://www.shifz.org/brainbay/

Other software that can do the job is BioExplorer http://www.cyberevolution.com/

BioERA is yet another sofware option http://www.bioera.net/index.shtml

The awakened mind people have done many years of research with the Monroe institute & others and they can provide you with a great deal of support in this training.

I think Awakened Mind neurofeedback is a great program to do in addition to Autogenic training. You have a very powerful mind enhancement system by combining these two programs.

This time I am in Nelson not Auckland CBD.

That’s good as there are beaches & mountains to hike on and nice fresh air.

The problem is all the gyms are shut & I have no equipment. In Auckland I had heaps of gear to train with. Now its all still there in storage.

I had 2 weak strength bands & a jumprope here. Was doing all my training at the gym. I just snapped one of the bands.

Lucky for me I have my Bergen. My massive SAS commando backpack that can carry 120 liters of gear.

That means I can load it up with rocks & train hard as. Problem solved.

Concentrative Self Relaxation

Autogenic training is my favorite form of meditation. Its like a cross between the relaxation response & deep hypnosis.

The original text books by Shultz are available on Internet Archive.

The training consists of the relaxation exercises and more advanced meditation exercises that open up your minds eye very vividly.

Many people only ever do the basic exercises which is like learning to drive but never actually doing it again.

Others get stuck & cant progress beyond without months & months of practice everyday.

I have had difficulty transitioning to the advanced meditation phase of autogenic training

Something I used to be able to do as a child

It helps to know what’s actually going on & I have figured it out

In autogenic therapy you are intimately tuned into the afferent and efferent nerve interaction

As you progress to the advanced stage exercises there is an actual shift in brain state

The nerve signals reverse direction – there is an electrical polarity shift in the brain

Imagination and Reality Look Different in the Brain

The measurable electrical polarity shift I read about somewhere else possibly in the book body electric – I will hunt for more information

I believe it was referenced in relation to the loss of consciousness – but will have to find the literature

This is an actual physical reflex that the stimuli of the autogenic training coaxes from the body

As I recall when I used to do it as a child there was a sensation of an actual change in state before the spontaneous onset of colour visualization.

So there is a quantifiable scientific basis to it that can be used for feedback. Once you have changed to this state the visualizations become very vivid