Friday, 26 June 2020

Body recomposition: monitoring bodyweight workouts

05/07/2020 push-ups 3x10, pistol squats 3x2/leg, ring bent-leg L-sit 3x20s, fat grips bar hang 3x20s 
03/07/2020
push-ups 3x10, pistol squats 3x2/leg, ring bent-leg L-sit 3x20s, fat grips bar hang 3x20s
02/07/2020
ring bent-leg L-sit 3x20s
01/07/2020push-ups 3x10, pistol squats 3x2/leg, ring bent-leg L-sit 3x25s
30/06/2020ring bent-leg L-sit 3x20s
29/06/2020push-ups 3x10, pistol squats 3x2/leg, ring support hold 3x20s, hanging leg raises 3x4
26/06/2020
push-ups 3x8, hanging leg raises 3x5, heel-supported floor L-sit 1x60s, pistol squats 3x3/leg
Notes:
05/07/2020 - finally was able to support myself with the rings only touching my palms and not touching the straps at all, for L-sit still can't straighten legs
21/07/2020 - taking a break for about 1.5 weeks now, work shifting to a long term night schedule and still need to do stuff during the day so re-adapting to exercise gradually (messes me up paired with night shifts)

Thursday, 25 June 2020

My attempt at polyphasic sleep, parts 6 and 7 - why I'm pausing the experiment

Log for days 6 and 7:
  • Due to external factors I suddenly need to do a lot more physical work for the next few weeks so I am reverting to monophasic sleep. Using night hours productively is beyond cool but I need to be physically well rested and can't risk any sleep deprivation just yet. I may as well take the opportunity to recover any sleep debt if there was any and work out my monophasic sleep length properly - silver linings, right?
  • Having said that, here are my takeaways so far:
    • A six hour core at night is amazing - I have two young kids and get woken up at least four times a night and am considerably more refreshed after six hours sleeping like this than doing shorter cores or even monosleep before normalising my sleep schedule.
    • I can get REM naps in the mornings when I can sneak them in. They're short and I barely sleep 5 out of the 20 minutes sometimes but even then it's still nice. While it feels like that should be a core in its own right time does not currently permit much sleep during described REM peak hours. Afternoon naps for me are hit and miss, it's hard to actually make time for them due to my life commitments and such.
    • None of this could have happened due to adaptation due to the short time frame - maybe some sleep deprivation assisted in having REM naps but anything else occurring from adaptation is unlikely. I think actually having a sleep schedule and sticking to regular sleep times made the biggest difference so far.
    • I usually work at a computer either teaching, working on projects or studying myself so the extra night hours polyphasic sleep unlocks are beyond perfect. I can actually work with clients in far away time zones more conveniently because of that so, literally, polyphasic sleep upped my bottom line this week. Definitely coming back to this once I catch up with things in a few weeks time.
Witty catchphrase,
Dif Pol the Differentiative Polynomiality

Tuesday, 23 June 2020

My attempt at polyphasic sleep, part 5

  • Log for day 5:
    • So this one is weird. I was not sleepy for the nap times whatsoever and unfortunately was too busy to take time out to lay down so no napping was out of the question - both today and yesterday. I will move posting my updates to the afternoon or late evening as it makes better sense time-wise and mornings now are a bit more hectic with early wakes and work right after.
    • What I have noticed so far is that a 6 hour core and no naps, presuming I actually got the full six hours in without being woken up, leaves me refreshed and not really wanting to nap until presumably the next core. I had a similar schedule two years ago with a later six to seven hour monosleep and occasionally napped on my train ride home when I felt tired which worked okay. As did coffee or alcohol (go figure, it's energy boosting for me in low enough doses, e.g. drunk enough to still test as zero alcohol in 15 minutes or so, so not drunk in the slightest, don't drink and drive - take the train). To be honest sleep tastes the worst of the three.
    • Got the wife on board with the idea of a sleep schedule so we worked out a feasible arrangement for the two of us as well as moving the kids' sleep time another hour earlier to prep for school time. Current plan is for both to adapt to a sane schedule with enough sleep time to cover a long time. This should lead to having the energy to restructure the day more for better nap time access.

Witty catchphrase,
Dif Pol the Differentiative Polynomiality

Monday, 22 June 2020

My attempt at polyphasic sleep, part 4

Log for day 4:
  • Yesterday's naps were hard for me to fall asleep due to external noise. Fell asleep for core very easily, woke up easily at 02:30 but felt a little sleepy, went downstairs to stretch and wasn't sure why my chest suddenly hurt and face was sore - magically it was 04:00 and I was face down on the living room carpet having crashed (guessing I microslept while stretching lying down?). Clearly crashing like this is dangerous and I was lucky this was in a safe and controlled situation with no one else put at risk but I'm altering the schedule to something more forgiving today onwards (settled on E2-ext moved earlier and planned naps to coincide with train commutes during the academic year in the freak chance this is the only time I can nap) - 21:30-03:30 08:10-08:30 17:20. The new plan is to adapt to something much more forgiving and to be able to flex the naps within the commute window (or to learn to nap standing like a horse would lol). I reverted to mono for the rest of the night to be functional for today's tasks and plan to return to adapting from tonight onwards as 6+ hours would normally be my usual mono sleep time.

Witty catchphrase,
Dif Pol the Differentiative Polynomiality

Saturday, 20 June 2020

My attempt at polyphasic sleep, part 3

Log for day 3:
  • Switched schedules to E3 as the math worked out to give more achievable total uninterrupted sleep with a reduced core allocation and an added nap (23:30-02:30, 05:00-05:20, 08:40-09:00, 14:40-15:00) when I factored in the most likely times the kids wake up randomly at night based on past trends. Testing a theory that adaptation would be easier without interruptions given slightly shorter total planned sleep instead of constantly interrupted longer planned sleep (being a zombie after a night of interruptions is basically what made me experiment with polyphasic). Waking up now had about 20 minutes of sleep inertia as opposed to over an hour last night, 3 hour core without interruptions, fell asleep semi-quickly. Yesterday's naps were weird, nap one was difficult to fall asleep (likely from needing too much coffee to stay awake, likely after interrupted core sleep the night before) and nap two was moved 20 minutes due to external factors after which I woke up around 5 minutes early feeling amazing (which lasted all until the next core). Only had 2.5 cups of coffee throughout the day, kind of low for me but I'm getting a feeling too much coffee messes with the naps' effectiveness making falling asleep harder. Starting this morning with 1/3 the usual amount of coffee.
Witty catchphrase,
Dif Pol the Differentiative Polynomiality

Friday, 19 June 2020

My attempt at polyphasic sleep, part 2

Log for day 2:

  • Both nap times yesterday I found it hard to fall asleep initially. First nap woke up groggy (probably aftermath of the crash before) but subsided 20 minutes after. For the second nap I woke up before the alarm but was not at all rested, again subsided 20 minutes after. At night, one hour before the core it was really hard to stay awake. I kept microsleeping but took measures to not crash by watching youtube tutorials for some freelance work I'm trying to get into - dropping my phone on my face seems to help avoid microsleeping longer than the time it takes for the phone to fall. 2/3 of the time into my core I got woken up (family life, what can you do) and fell immediately asleep after addressing the issue. Waking up from the core after an interruption was DIFFICULT. Probably only thing that kept me awake were immediate parental duties as soon as my alarm went off.
Now time for coffee before work.

Witty catchphrase,
Dif Pol the Differentiative Polynomiality

Thursday, 18 June 2020

My attempt at polyphasic sleep, part 1

I'm starting a polyphasic schedule for better sleep and reduced total sleep time. I'll try logging as soon as I'm up as I'll likely be too groggy at first for other things. And I need to practice my writing - I gotta write, ya'know?

Today is day two of starting my Everyman 2 schedule (23:30-04:00, 07:40-08:00, 14:40-15:00). It's the most reasonable for my goals while still reducing total sleep. I'm still drinking coffee doing this, alcohol is okay but I drink so rarely and so little that it isn't worth mentioning further. Also next to no social life as I'm a full-time student, work part-time from home, married with two kids - my social circle tends to respect their own time and especially evenings so no late nights in the foreseeable future. Oh, and for what it's worth I'm continuing to eat keto and intermittent fasting that I took up from early March 2020 'cause it makes me feel just so much better that not doing it.

Some thoughts on adaptation: I have gone through severe sleep deprivation since 2013 routinely up until 2018 due to my old job's schedule. Zombie me and normal me are best friends and zombie me is fairly okay at imitating normal me by now. On the other hand crashes and microsleeps happen randomly due to my lifestyle without attempting polyphasic sleep and it's the first time I actually have a sleep schedule, so I guess here goes..?

Log for day 1:

First core (now two days ago technically) I got woken up (family life, huh). First nap I chilled out but didn't doze off, still refreshing. The second nap yesterday actually had a short dream, something about playing outside with balloons - beats me but I woke up refreshed and happy and that's all I care about. Last night I microslept (possibly napped or crashed for almost an hour) some time after 22:00 and was woken up at 23:00 having no memory of dozing off. Did not seem to affect my core much today (just groggy) but since this was day one, worst case I can count one day less and just continue on as I am, no gains lost. I just really have to avoid laying in bed doing nothing.

Witty catchphrase,
Dif Pol the Differentiative Polynomiality

Wednesday, 17 June 2020

Initial post

Dear reader,

This is an introductory post about this blog. Yours truly has never blogged nor really written much informal non-academic or non-technical anything so this will be a lot of fun and a lot of awkwardness in one place.

Having recently started implementing some significant lifestyle changes and wishing to contribute to documenting what I have found in trial and error when research turned up empty, all what I found will slowly be making its way here.

Witty catchphrase,
Dif Pol the Differentiative Polynomiality

My attempt at polyphasic sleep, part 9 - "Task failed successfully, regrouping"

What a big break between updates! So I have been busy trying a few things, failing most of them - busy with life in general from putting to ...