2024-10-16
I have, in three days, gotten sit-ups to 110, and press-ups to 82. This is a decent improvement, and actually I can already see improvements in the amount of press-ups I can do: I have gone from only a few press-ups (well, about six) that I could do, to having done tonight ten. I think actually it is not to do with having gained muscles, or anything like that: after all, I would not have gained any particular strength in just a few days. Instead, it is I would say to do with the quote-unquote mind-muscle connection. I can do ten because I am not being sabotaged by my own mind telling me to give up too early.
The mind has an unusual power. I wonder how much of capacity is due to the mind limiting what can actually be done, and how much is a true incapacity. For instance, when I begun the gym, I could not lift very much: I could only push about 15kg on the chest press. Now, I can push a lot more now (about 42.5kg, maybe a bit more here and there), but did so by making fairly fast gains. Certainly, there are gains that are made: I can tell that because my muscles are actually bigger. But I wonder how much the initial gains were actually just me getting more "used" to the idea of doing the exercise.
Likewise, I am now taking creatine (well, I've had a week of not taking it because I've been on holiday) and wonder, if I do get any benefits from it (I can't say I've so far felt any advantage from it) whether again, those benefits are placebo, or actually as a result of the effects of a full store of creatine; probably, a little of both.
Anyways. The point of my adding press-ups and sit-ups to /thousands is so that I, at least partly, have something where I can see I'm making much faster progress. I wonder if there should be some kind of "minimum bar of difficulty" for the thousands. For instance, wv and the gym are both quite difficult to a thousand of. Both will require several years of dedicated effort. Likewise for doing the guitar, or art. For instance, if I continue to do one drawing per day (which, if the drawings do get better, which I don't think they will for a long while even if I continue it every day) I will get to 1,000 drawings after three years. However, for squats, press-ups will get to 1,000 after fifty days if I do 20 each day, and if I do more than that, even less. For instance, if I do fifty, then I will be looking at only 20 days to complete. Of course, once I hit 1,000, then I will be able to increase it to 2,500 or something like that. The question is, whether this is really an effective way to handle it, or whether I should have it be higher from the start (e.g. set it to 100,000). Really, I suppose it doesn't matter. See, I am overthinking things, and falling into the problem of thinking too much about details and not about just following through whatever I have at the time. Really, the entire point of the thousands system is to try to generate motivation and tracking for myself to do tasks, in a way that does not provide excessive overhead in terms of tracking (that will then kill my desire to do the thing) and just provide a metric. Ultimately, it does not matter what the goal is. I can always amend these later. The point is, I need to do them regularly. For instance, I need to do press-ups every single day without fail, or drawing much the same, or wv where I can, to make sure I am always progressing in what I do.
Still, I think there is advantage in putting a few things into thousands that are easy to do, because I know I can see a good boost in the progress bar when I do these, where for instance the progress for other things, e.g. wv is far far smaller. I would have to write 20k+ words in order to get the same progress I would get for maybe two or three minutes of press-ups. And, once I get the ability to do more press-ups, both in that I am healthier and in that I will have overcome the limitations my mind places on me, I will be able to knock through maybe fifty press-ups per day (being able to do more at a given time, thereby making it easier to get a higher number) and whatever other exercises as well (also: consider whether to drop sit-ups for just plank) and hopefully will see certain gains from that physically, and will be able to soon get a milestone done and feel more confident from that, I suppose.
Have a good one.
(Also, yet another day where I've not hit 1,000 words!)