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Knee Strength 8: Strength Side

Byjack

I’ve been feeling the need to add much more intensity to my knee workouts but I don’t know what. I sought out some outside help from one of my favorite youtube channels that I discovered: Strength Side.

1. Foam Roll Lateral Leg, 2-4 min. each leg
2. Single Leg Hinge Stretch, 20 sec. hold x 3
3. Knee Circles, 20 each direction
4. Poloquin/Peterson Step Up, 15-20 (beginner) or 8-15 reps (full range)
5. Single Leg Calf Raise, 10-15 each leg
6. Sidelying Leg Lift, 8-12 reps with 6 sec pause at top
7. Split Squat, 8-12 reps, pause 5-10 sec on last rep before knee touches ground
8. Squat to Seiza, 2-6 reps *only if knees feel healthy

Hamstring Leg Curl, 5-10 reps

I also found a free version of Knees Over Toes:

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Bedtime Challenge 3: The End

Byjack

I realized something. It is the end of my bedtime challenge! I have only three days in which I actually violated the boundaries of the challenge:

  1. First time was for work, when troubleshooting an issue took me until 11:30 PM, I went to bed at 12
  2. Second time was for my girlfriend, helping her with a school project until 12
  3. The third time was when the challenge officially ended already, on the 17th (challenge ended on the 12th) when I was feeling too overwhelmed to pack for my trip back to my parent’s house for the holidays.

Although the challenge is over, the work continues.

It is even more critical now because I have a lot of issues with keeping control of my life while at my parent’s house and the bedtime routine isn’t as nice as I would like to have it. I will keep this challenge going for a few more days to solidify some of the more important aspects of the challenge such as the morning routine, and nighttime routine, and fulfilling some of the things I need from the nighttime (alone time, creativity, productivity, fun, and space).

Instead, I am feeling pretty much that my space and time are particularly intruded on in recent times and I need to find ways to meet those needs.

Overall, I am extremely proud of myself and look forward to all the health benefits this will afford me.

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Mewing and Tongue Position

Byjack

I’ve always had trouble finding a relaxed position for my tongue at the roof of the mouth. I always felt that I was forcing it and in the past when I tried to “mew” I got terrible headaches.

However, I noticed I spend a lot of time breathing from my mouth and I wanted to fix things so I used a bit of connection theory to come up with an idea on how to hold my tongue and I came up with this simple technique:

  • Imagine your spine ending at your tailbone and reaching up all the way and ending at your tongue
  • Imagine keeping your spine open at extended

This imagery has a couple of benefits:

  • Most importantly for me, this allows me to move my body and my tongue without feeling like I cannot maintain tongue posture (mewing always felt static and forced to me)
  • Simple and seems quite relaxing to me

Vision Exam Challenge 1

Byjack

Today I booked at eye exam.

The date of the exam is Tuesday May 25th, which gives me about 6 days to prepare.

What I’m looking for this exam to do is to validate where I am visionwise and jumpstart my journey to better vision.

I’m going to be using the following ideas.

  • Feel the feelings
    • Don’t need to try to relax or try to tense, just notice the feelings and sensations
  • Feedback loop
    • Lots of vision tests to understand whether or not I’m improving or not
  • Analogies
    • Understand how vision works and try to strengthen and stretch where needed
    • Use the same knowledge from stretching a good posture here (muscles work in groups)

Understing the Eye

According to this article, it says:

“When you look at things that are far away, muscles in your eye relax and your lens looks like a slim disc.

When you look at things that are close, muscles in your eye contract and make your lens thicker.”

So the key is to relax right? Well, yes and no. Muscles always work in groups. If certain muscles are constantly too tense, then there are certain muscles that must be weak (since if one set of muscles never relaxes, the other set must always be weak).

After researching further, I found the muscle responsible for focusing the lens of the eye. It’s called the ciliary muscle and it looks like it doesn’t actually work in pairs but is like smooth muscle tissue of the stomach.

An interesting article is here and I signed up for the guys course to see what was up.

Vision Challenge

Byjack

Today I got a formal eye exam. The results are to be expected. I started using the computer a lot more, and I am very tired (from staying up late). My prescription is about half a diopter than 2-3 years ago.

My plan is to buy from Zenni optical (1.5 diopters lower) and if I am able to improve my vision from there, I will reach out to a bunch of eyewear boutiques to see if they will give me a deal for lots of lenses I want to buy.

My measurements are 143 mm for frame width, 15 mm bridge width, 132 mm temple arm, my PD is 64 mm.

I’m trying out these frames: https://www.zennioptical.com/p/unisex-fullrim-acetate-plastic-square-eyeglass-frames/2067?skuId=206725

Total came out to be about $52 dollars. I really need a better option if I get my vision better.

Measurement today is 11 cm. 100/11 = 9 diopters

So figures that the prescription came out higher today.

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Valorant 15: Reframe

Byjack

I’ve been doing my Valorant challenge for about four months now and I haven’t seen much progress.

I think there are a couple of changes that needs to happen.

  1. I need to be kinder to myself. I don’t have much time for gaming and this is my very first FPS game. I have already improved by quite a lot in the time given.
  2. I need to be a lot more focused on learning and make the learning less effort. I will try to play only one ranked game every day on my main and VOD review that.
  3. I need to focus the rest of my time with having fun with Valorant. Creating more motivation is important.
  4. I am going to get more outside help, will get more people to review my gameplay with me.

I am going to make a list of things I actually like doing on Valorant:

  1. Trying new agents
  2. Playing on my smurfs with ridiculous challenges:
    • A specific gun (sheriff, marshall etc.)
    • Play only with guns from ground, never buy
    • Rushing in as quickly as possible
  3. Deathmatch can be fun
  4. More aggression in general

Core Wounds 8

Byjack

Today I wanted to look at the core wound of feeling like no one will truly understand me and or truly love me.

Sharing Circle

I was in the circle

Of kings they said

I didn’t want to be there

I was just too sad

But they opened up the space for me

To tell my story

Of how I fell in love with a girl

Who I felt others wouldn’t approve of

But I still loved

How I felt like things went wrong

But not because I broke them

But because life

Sometimes

Isn’t easy or simple

I cried

When I thought about it

Felt safe to feel it

Like the time when I was at the party

Solomon turned to me

And said

I know how that feels

And Tim asked me to

Channel it into the karaoke 

My pain my loss

I feel that pain now