Where does it hurt?

Lifting log/medblr.

[liftingisthebestmedicine]

Tues 18th August 2015 - Squats/Bench

Squats (LB): 110kg x 5, 100kg x 8, 90kg x 11 Bench: 100kg x 4, 80kg x 8 Incline DB Bench: 32kg x 5 x 8 One Arm DB Military Press: 18kg x 5 x 8 Misc: Tricep pulldowns, face-pulls, cable machine lateral raises

Squats didn’t feel too bad. Definitely hit a plateau with my bench though. I’ll try one or two more times to get 100kg x 5 before I reset.

[blue-lights-and-tea]

Sad but true

[liftingisthebestmedicine]

Monday 10th August 2015 - Squats

Not kept up with logging training progress recently. This is where I’m at roughly: Bench: 100kg x 4 Press: 65kg x 4 (reset from 70kg x 3, using very strict form) Power Cleans: 72.5kg x 5 x 2 (need to work on catching the bar low) Chins: 16kg x 4 x 4 In this time, I had one idiot come up to me and tell me while I was cleaning that I wasn’t deadlifting properly. I don’t know how these people get through life. Today’s sesh... Squats (LB): 110kg x 3, 100kg x 7, 90kg x 10

Also did a bunch of snatch technique work with just the bar and 40kg, and some bro stuff that I didn’t take note of.

I felt weak, squats felt tiring, and it’s frustrating. I’ve started a new job which is really kicking my arse at the moment. I’m in a severely understaffed department at a hospital which is severely underfunded. Started on Thursday, finished 2 hours late one day and 5 hours late on another. Making time to eat/drink/piss is also very difficult, and even if I can find time to train while I’m here, I think that not being able to eat adequately will be a serious problem for making progress. Hopefully they’ll get more doctors in, I feel like it’s really unsafe for patients at the moment. On night shifts for a week now, so probably no training till Sunday at the earliest.

[liftingisthebestmedicine]

“I won’t live to see my next birthday...so we’ll celebrate it tonight”

I work on geriatrics. I previously worked on oncology/haematology, and then surgery. It will always be somewhat unsettling, but death is an intrinsic part of my working life, and certain aspects of it, I’ve grown accustomed to. This was different, though. This was a ball on the weekend. I took a taxi there, and the taxi driver asked me, “So...what’s the event? Someone’s birthday?” I had no idea how to describe the event I was going to, but it felt like the opposite of that. I looked after her a long time ago. She was my first patient on that job. She was the only patient who was there for my entire tenure on the haem/onc ward; following chemotherapy for her leukaemia, she was neutropaenic, with her bone marrow obliterated and her body unable to mount any sort of immune response. Every time she looked like she was improving, another infection would rear its ugly head and she’d be dosed to the eyeballs again with heavy duty intravenous antibiotics. Despite this, she was always spirited, and always found something to laugh or smile about (at the expense of my consultants, wherever she could manage). Fast forward a few months, a few different jobs and countless other patients later, I’m guilty of forgetting about her. I receive the news from a colleague: remember her from the haem/onc ward? She didn’t successfully find a stem cell match. She decided she didn’t want any more chemo with months and months in hospital; she’s chosen to go home and die. Then everything I remembered about her came flooding back; though she may have been pushed to the back of my mind over the months, I didn’t forget anything. And my heart sunk when I was told she’d decided to stop treatment. She’d invited me, and the rest of the ward, to a ball to celebrate her life, with all the lives she’d touched along the way. I had seen patients die as a medical student. I warily anticipated having to do seemingly scary things as a doctor, like verifying deaths. But this was something that I didn’t expect. When I worked with her, we were all hopeful she’d find a donor, and that was still the situation when I left. It came as a shock to me that this is what had happened for this patient whom I’d grown so fond of.

I’m long removed from her care, so I could fortunately take my invite to go to the ball. I saw her in a wheelchair there. I’d never seen her so weak, and it was heart-breaking. She gave an impassioned speech, where she told everybody that she wouldn’t see her next birthday. It sent a chill down everyone’s spines. But always seeing the silver lining, she declared that it was her birthday that night. I caught her later on, and she told me about her plans to now visit Australia, something she always wanted to do, but could never manage from the confines of the ward. As enthusiastic as she was, I also remember the myriad bouts of depression she went through, and the frustration she was constantly battling. I saw it when she’d tell me about her dreams of being at home, washing clothes. Things that we don’t just take for granted, but consider tedious. Small things that would bring her a world of joy. She knew that each new infection meant at least another few weeks in hospital, waiting for her temperature and inflammatory markers to stabilise. There wasn’t a day I saw her that she didn’t pray to get better and leave the ward. She only stayed in the hope of the team finding a donor for a stem cell transplant, which was the light at the end of this long tunnel. It’s been a month or so since I found out, but I’m happy for her now. I learned a considerable amount of medicine on that job, but more importantly, I’ve learned a lot from her (and all the other inspiring patients and their families on that haem/onc ward) about stoicism, resilience, the value of hope and the importance of dreaming. I may never meet anybody as strong as her in my life. It’s weird to know that I’ve seen her for the last time, and that soon she will die. But as sad as it all is, I’m glad all that’s behind her now; I’m glad that she can go to Australia as she always dreamed.

[liftingisthebestmedicine]

Sunday 2nd August 2015 - Squats

Squats (LB): 107.5kg x 5, 97.5kg x 7, 87.5kg x 8 20 minutes in the gym (half of which I was mobbing). Doing a bad job recently of making time for the gym. Found this quite tough. Hopefully I’ll put in a better performance when I have more time for a normal length session.

[liftingisthebestmedicine]

Friday 31st July - Bench/Chins

Bench: 100kg x 4, 90kg x 7, 80kg x 8 Chins (weighted): 15kg x 2 x 5, 15kg x 4 This session was done in about 12 minutes. Not too bad considering the short rests, though I was annoyed I didn’t get 100kg x 5. Chins, I meant to do 15kg x 3 x 5. I missed the last rep because my makeshift belt was dangerously close to catching my balls. Sort of like the panic you get when you realise you might shit yourself doing squats...but much worse. I’ll get that rep next time.

[liftingisthebestmedicine]

Thurs 23rd July 2015 - Squats/DB Bench

Squats: 107.5kg x 3, 97.5kg x 5, 87.5kg x 8 Incline DB Bench: 32kg x 5 x 8 Power Snatch: 40kg x lots of sets and reps

Shit sesh. Bit lazy with squats, could have done more and I will do next time. Tried to OHP, but when I worked up to 70kg I got really light-headed and had to drop the bar. By this point, the session felt like a write-off so I just decided to do whatever. Spent a lot of time working on my snatch technique and trying to go straight into the overhead squat. It’s a lot more fun than standard powerlifting, and I’d probably like to go in that direction in the future.

[iraffiruse]

[nessthebeautifulmess]

Powerful & creative imagery

[liftingisthebestmedicine]

Wed 22nd July 2015 - Back Stuff

Pendlay Rows: 72.5kg x 5, 62.5kg x 9, 52.5kg x 12 Chins (weighted): 15kg x 4 x 4 Lat Pull-downs (cable): 66kg (I think) x 3 x 8 Quick one. Nothing exciting. Squats and other stuff tomorrow.

[liftingisthebestmedicine]

First impressions

Going to start at a new workplace within a few weeks. It’s a considerable distance away from my current workplace. Went there to drop off some documents. Briefly overheard two doctors talking whilst walking past them in the corridor. I’m going to assume they were gastroenterologists. I *think* what I heard was regarding an OGD (small camera down the throat). ?Gastro Registrar: ...and then after the procedure, he told me it felt like getting a “lubey throatwank”!

I’m going to be in this place for a year.

What the fuck have I gotten myself into?

[liftingisthebestmedicine]

Cork Asians

Annoying, miserable radiographer on. Anal about everything. Gets a bit funny about paper requests from acute medicine without everything on the form filled in, including ethnic origin (options being Caucasian, Afro-Caribbean, Asian and ‘Other’). I see a 19 year old girl who’s in with her sister, complaining of mild chest pain. Sounds like costochondritis, but she should have an X-ray anyway. She looks like she’s probably white. Me: Just for the X-ray form, can I clarify your ethnic origin? *points out and shows patient the options on the sheet* Patient 19F: *look of bewilderment* u wot m8 It was an ambiguous look of bewilderment. I assumed she shot me such an incredulous look because it was so palpably obvious that she was white. Me: ...I’ll put down “Caucasian.” Patient 19F: oi wot did u call me Me: Sorry, I... Sister: OI WOT DID U CALL HER M8 Me: White. Are you white? I’m trying to ask if you’re white. Patient 19F: yh of course im white. obvs. Sister: we aint no.. *finger quotation marks* ..“cork. asian.” we’re white. obvs. i fort u wz a doctor. fort u wz smart. Fine. But I’m circling “Other”. Because you bloody well are a “Cork Asian”.

[liftingisthebestmedicine]

Sun 19th July - Squats/Bench/Cleans

Squats: 105kg x 3 x 5 Bench: 100kg x 3, 90kg x 8, 80kg x 11 Power Cleans: 70kg x 5 x 3 Handstand press-ups (wall): 5 x 7 Pull-ups: 5 x 7 Long weekend. Felt pretty tired, and squats were hard. I’ll probably start reverse pyramid programming for squats from now on, similar to what I’m doing for bench and OHP. Bench went well, and I’m glad I’m (just about) back to triple figures. Had a long break between 100kg and 90kg, I don’t expect I’d normally get that many reps in. Cleans were inconsistent but improving. Need to work on consistently engaging the all-powerful arse clench to reap maximal benefits.

[cluelessmedic]

An excellent outline of why Jeremy Hunt is dangerous for the NHS.

[liftingisthebestmedicine]

And once you’ve read that, sign the petition below to get him out. He’s destroying the NHS, and this petition isn’t just for NHS staff; it’s in the interests of EVERYONE who uses or may one day need to use the NHS. https://www.change.org/p/david-cameron-mp-resignation-or-removal-of-jeremy-hunt-mp-as-secretary-of-state-for-health

[liftingisthebestmedicine]

Seven Day NHS

I don’t want to rhyme Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt’s surname with a certain rude word. Everyone else (including myself) has already done it ad infinitum, but he’s really asking for it these days. So you want to introduce an NHS where doctors work seven days of the week. You think doctors DON’T already work the weekend? I don’t know about other hospitals, but in mine at least, I struggle to think of a specialty that doesn’t have at least one of its consultants doing a round on the weekend. And then the rest of us maggots, of course. It’s absurd how such a fucking imbecile ended up being in charge of the NHS. It’s alarming how he has no understanding of the workings or issues surrounding the system. So, you force your consultants to be in on weekends and the NHS will magically operate at the same capacity as it does on weekdays? What about the nurses, pathologists, radiology staff and countless others you actually need for a hospital to run? Are you planning on sorting any of that out? If so, where’s that money coming from? It’s definitely not coming from the tax breaks for all of Cameron’s rich buddies. Maybe it could come from the £12 billion savings in welfare cuts? Well, there are a lot of patients in geriatric wards around the country who are awaiting “package of care”. This means they’re all fine and dandy and ready to be discharged, but can’t quite go because apparently social services and rehabilitation aren’t that important. How much does that cost the NHS? You could also just take the current workforce and spread it a bit thinner. You could have more junior consultants like you’re planning, against the grave warnings of all professional bodies. The problem there, of course, is that people will die. But as long as you and your government look like you’ve achieved something (even if you’ve actually made health services substantially more dangerous), then that’s what’s really important, isn’t it? I think the idea of a full capacity seven day NHS is great, but without a significant budget increase (pay attention to this, Jeremy - I said INCREASE, not CUT you mincing twat) it isn’t going to work. Pull your finger out of your arse, Jezza, and maybe start listening to people who actually work on the shop floor and know a bit about the system. Because right now, you really are being a bit of a c*nt.

[liftingisthebestmedicine]

Thurs 16th July 2015 - Squats/Push Stuff

Squats: 102.5kg x 3 x 5 Behind-the-Neck Press: 40kg x 5 x 8 Incline DB Press: 30kg x 5 x 8 Decent squats, despite being quite tired. I would have done OHP but I was feeling weak and I knew I wouldn’t get 70kg x 5. Decided to do a “light” day instead, sort of assistance. BtN pressing feels odd, but I mobbed my shoulders beforehand so they were OK.

[liftingisthebestmedicine]

Tues 14th July 2015 - Squats/Cleans

Squats: 100kg x 3 x 5 Power Cleans: 67.5kg x 5 x 3 Weighted Chins: 15kg x 5 x 3 Met some Crossfitter in the gym who was snatching big weights. He gave me some good tips for my cleaning. He said a good cue for him was trying to explosively squeeze his arsecheeks together to get the hip extension. This has always been a problem for me, so I gave it a go. I’m surprised at how effective it was, 67.5kg flew up. I think I should be able to make some decent progress with cleans now. Otherwise, squats were easy, chins were not. I’ll make slow but steady progress from 15kg now.

[liftingisthebestmedicine]

Sun 12th July 2015 - Squats/Bench

Wasn’t planning on training today, following the copious amounts of alcohol consumed last night and only getting 3 hours’ sleep in. However, UFC 189 made for such inspirational viewing that my inner Rory MacDonald/Robbie Lawler (they both fought like absolute studs) forced me to smash a quick session. Squats (low bar): 97.5kg x 3 x 5 Bench: 97.5kg x 5, 87.5kg x 7, 77.5kg x 11 Squats felt quite easy. Bench was a grind, and I was hoping for more reps on the last two sets, but I was definitely in no good state to train so I can’t complain too much. Health permitting, I will keep my squat above my bench from now on.