Letting Go

Never mistake anger for fear. Andy Kirkpatrick.

It’s a new month which means a change in my strength training programme. I’ve gone back to April’s schedule which is “compound burner sets” with a lower body/upper body split. I like this schedule best because, although I am stiff and sore the day after training, I can fool myself that I get an extra day of recovery before training again because my lower body rests (sort of) while I train upper body.

Compound burner sets are an interesting way to train. You do 6 to 12 repetitions of a compound movement (for example weighted back squats) and then you follow immediately on with 15 to 25 repetitions of an isolation exercise for the primary muscle group you worked (something like leg extensions or lean backs if you did squats as your compound move). After a couple of minutes rest (I generally do a bit of stretching) you rotate through this couplet three or four more times. The day after, you will discover why this is aptly called a “burner set.” Predictably, I woke up this morning with that characteristic “day after leg day feeling.”

I’ve been thinking a lot about the uncomfortable conversation I had the other day, which was a follow up to a disagreement that happened on a sea kayaking trip. For over 18 months I’ve thought that if I did two very, very minor things differently I could have prevented what happened. Today, as I woke to the utter predictability of DOMS (delayed onset muscle soreness) I finally realised that the blow up was just as inevitable. The timing could be modified, but the festering resentment was never going to go away. I could have prostrated myself in a replica of Dandavat Parikrama as the Hindu pilgrims do and nothing would have changed. At heart, I am a fixer, and it drives me a bit nuts that I can’t fix this, but sometimes the fix is simply to let something go.