...and with that, Week 3 of my workouts has come to an end as Week 5 of my overall program begins Monday. You'll recall that I began with the Rock's Jumanji routine which went through a transitional period until it morphed into something I like. I feel good about it and I've tried to keep out reps that have no practical application (for me) outside of the weight room. Yet, I highly value the weightroom as a highly-controlled environment to maximize gains with incremental shifts.

I'm still developing my Saturday workout with its Taekwondo forms. As for now, it's basically just a focus/theme of the day to work on—which is fine, but I'd like to optimize the time. I began using 45 second rests between form reps. I also started off at a walkthrough pace of Dan-Gun this morning as its steps came back to me again. I picked up some speed, practiced some of the technique on the bag, and finally finished with about 3-4 reps of Dan-Gun with an aggressive approach. As the weeks increase, I'll be digging down into my old toolbox and pull up these forms back into use.

Where I would welcome the community that being a part of a Taekwondo school provides, I'm unsure if I would be interested in ever returning. I'm not interested in TKD as a sport. I HATE its sport's approach of point sparring, i.e., once a strike/kick is judged as scored, the match stops. That makes no sense. If you're going to go with points, have it scored like how it was when I wrestled, cumulative and no stoppage. But, that's a conversation for when I step out of the DeLorean twenty years ago.

Community is critical though at this point, I don't know what direction it'll go. I'm rather limited out here in the country. And I'm unlike any of my neighbors: I don't have a single piece of camo or own a pair of overalls. But, I've got a beard that will rival the best of them! No, the reason I want community is not in of itself, but the understanding of how being around positive people with similar goals can help spur my own development. But maybe I'm being naive in a world full of pretense.

I made a shift back to a lb of romaine a day because I reached the point where eating 5.7 oz of spinach for lunch and then again for dinner made me dread it. I've reduced that by half and I still wish I could punt it altogether...but it's hard to beat the nutrition per calorie.

I'm excited for the fall time...