Beyond 4AM Strength Routines

Yesterday's post was a pivotal waymarker. Of chief import are the answers of the questions we ask of our foci. Or, in the case of my 3AMs, why am I picking up this darn thing just to put it down again?

"Does this bicep curl make me look cute?"

At the end of the day, aesthetics just does not brew my morning coffee. When training serves as a bridge—YES ABSOLUTELY SIGN ME UP. But, I have achieved passing my genes to the next generation; the time for me to be foster a mate for offspring was twenty years ago.

"Don't worry, folks: I have saved the human race."

If I am only lifting for aesthetics, I gotta come to the realization that I ain't 19-20 anymore. That skillset has long been lost. It is not unlike my ability to do lunges, something I used to crank out endlessly—even adding kicks! And these days? Nada. Along the way, I recognized that kicking out of a lunge was not a core value. Don't forget, we operate in scarcity; I did not pull resources from other projects to apply time to maintain that outcome.

Don't get me wrong: dropping the weight, eating carnivore and encouraging movement are among my secondary targets. I want those things to augment the vehicle to do the things I have earmarked.

3AM

As I have for some time now, I awoke at 3AM. It was not to get in the right frame of mine to make that Bruce-Banner-to-the-Hulk transformation. Perhaps a more apt analogy is the "time to make the donuts" guy. This week, I am testing out a new approach: using the morning to bake fresh bread daily. Naturally, I multithread the process. Sure, there's the mixing and kneading that takes place, but after that, there are two sessions of allowing the dough to rise and then the 35-45 minute bake. These windows open up some opportunities.

Yes, I am the carnivore who bakes bread.

By the Power of YouTube

For breakfast this morning, I skipped the bacon, eggs and ground beef for a New York strip steak. I considered spending, oh, I dunno, a couple of hours with a soie vie thing, before taking it on the Lodge cast iron skillet—wait, wait, I broke that in the days of the ice house.

No, unlike the bread, I wanted it NOW. And I recalled the beautiful Kelly Hogan's suggestion of an air fryer routine. 15 minutes later and I've got a beautiful steak!

It only slightly diverged from a morning routine that typically involves my plowing through an egg taco with bacon and watching a few minutes from the boys in the Duck Call Room.

I continue to develop my skills in the art of the dungeon master in Dungeons & Dragons. A new resource for me, Matthew Colville's 111 episodes on this storytelling for specific purposes will serve me well. In time, as my knowledge of the structure develops, I hope to scaffold it akin to Wonderium's Hannah Harvey.