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Write down my thoughts on exercise

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<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=edge">
<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0">
<link rel="stylesheet" href="/style.css">
<title>Exercise</title>
</head>
<body>
<h1>The meaning of exercise</h1>
<p>I haven't always like exercising.</p>
<p>For a long time, anything more intensive than the running I had done on the playground was seemingly so out of reach.
I could only look on at people in the track and field teams and their performances, labelling them in my head as
someone of a different class.
</p>
<p>Someone beneath me.</p>
<p>I'll admit, it was an ugly emotion. I prided myself on academics, and was only moderately good at anything
sporty — and only by virtue of brute effort. I saw physical exertion as a lower function, something to be done
by those whose intellect couldn't take first place.
</p>
<p>But, slowly, this entrenched idea began to be chipped and hacked at, until some years ago it was finally dislodged.
I came to regret looking down, deep down in jealousy, upon people who could do better than the bare minimum of
physical achievements. I started to want to also claim that ability for myself.
</p>
<p>So, over time, I've decided that I also need to start exercising, regardless of how <a href="/exercise/weakness.html">hopelessly
weak</a> I really was. After it occurred to me that, in addition to the mind, there was the body, just waiting
to be taken to its limits, it did make me, who tended to be a bit competitive, feel somewhat left behind,
as it was. I wanted to do much, much better, and now I've decided that's exactly what will happen.
</p>
<p>I'm sorry to everyone I looked down on before; I've written down my feelings here to express how
shameful and disgraceful this jealousy is, but also to document this stage in what I today perceive as
a chance for me to evolve: a chance, also, to penetrate new boundaries and make the most of the body
I've been given. Everyone, I'm gonna join you up there at the top!
</p>
<h1>My fitness goals</h1>
<p>Well, that theatrical speech aside, I do still take this stuff seriously, and I've got a number of physical
goals I'd like to attain as part of my overall journey in life; in exercise, my ultimate goal is to
to maximise the strength and physique I can feasibly build, slowly working up to the highest levels of
fitness and health. Ultimately, it's all for the health, so I'm looking primarily for both strength and
hypertrophy, and only to a lesser extent endurance and conditioning. Nevertheless, I also want to supplement
the above with hearty development of the cardiovascular.
</p>
<p>Despite talking big game, at the beginning of my journey in ~2020, I probably started off at a place of
lamentable weakness: I could, yes, do a pull-up and a push-up, but, lacking any sense of motivation or direction,
I never made considerable progress until I started taking it seriously—in 2024. Even in 2024, I'm still weak beyond
belief, but my progress is coming along: in addition to building up my pull-up repetitions to about 10+,
and push-ups to the 10s or 20s, I'm taking steps to build towards muscle-ups and, eventually, planche,
and one-armed variations of the above. To this day, my legs are still poorly developed, which I've been
more conscious of lately, so I'm thinking of doing more squats to remedy this. I can't say if it'll be enough,
though, and I also don't have any plans yet what to do when simple squats stop making any progress.
</p>
<h2>Final targets</h2>
My goal repertory of exercises I want to be able to do are:
<ul>
<li>Back exercises</li>
<ul>
<li>Muscle-up</li>
<li>Slow muscle-up</li>
<li>One-arm pull-up</li>
</ul>
<li>Chest exercises</li>
<ul>
<li>Planche</li>
<li>Plance push-up</li>
</ul>
<li>Shoulder exercises</li>
<ul>
<li>Iron cross</li>
<li>Handstand pushups</li>
<li>One-arm handstand</li>
</ul>
<li>Core exercises</li>
<ul>
<li>Dragon flag</li>
<li>Human flag</li>
<li>L sit</li>
<li>Front lever</li>
</ul>
<li>Leg exercises</li>
<ul>
<li>Pistol squat</li>
</ul>
</ul>
<p>The truth is, with just the above, it would be insolent to high hell to call myself much of anything,
but it's probably the most I can do without sacrificing something else. I'm nowhere near there at all yet,
and I apologise if I've been arrogant in listing these goals and with my feelings and all,
but I will try in future to vindicate these ambitions and make this page more than just a burst of hot air.
</p>
</body>
</html>

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<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=edge">
<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0">
<link rel="stylesheet" href="/style.css">
<title>Weakness</title>
</head>
<body>
<h1>How weak I am</h1>
<p>You start to realise how pathetic any normal person like us really is when you glance towards the top.
You see people lifting 200kg or more on their shoulders, hanging effortlessly apparently in defiance of gravity
off the side of a pole, climbing trees like their ancestral DNA had been fully unlocked, running at breakneck
pace as though it were a mere footrace; basically, I feel very, very weak in comparison.
</p>
<p>Obviously, it's no surprise that the rank amateur can't compare himself to the masters,
but it does make me ashamed to think that, with my current level of strength, should a time come
when it is put to the test, it will most certainly yield to most anyone my better.
If something were at stake in an altercation, like an encounter with violence, I couldn't do much
to protect anything. I resolved as I began to make some minor progress that that has to change.
</p>
<p>It's far too arrogant still for me to claim anything of the sort, but they say that as one progresses
in something, they contrarily realise just how far away they really are from being capable of the very
best; the more competent, the more humble and reserved, and the more inadequate, the more arrogant.
In the end, I'm glad at least to have been able to witness, through places like YouTube,
just how hopelessly far away from the top I am as I am now, and how impossible it likely is
to make it there. The redeeming silver lining, however, is that that all isn't necessary at all.
</p>
<p>My personal goals revolve around the same notional goal as "calisthenics": to maximise the beauty of the body.
Again, I must apologise for the grandiosity I seem to be exuding, but my dream is not to stun people in the
streets with a six-pack of abs or a tanned-up beach bod, but rather to make the most of what the body already has
inside it; to unlock first of all its strength, and secondly to harness it in synergistic beauty so as to
control it elegantly and handle it with grace. To be able to walk around with every muscle efficiently
supporting my gait, and to bend in gentle loci described by a body that's in total control of its movements.
That's all i really mean. However pretentious that still does sound, though…
</p>
<p>So, even though once I do reach such a stage, it'll be very dubious to claim any level of strength at all,
I can still be glad that my goal is achieved. Even if unable to master the heights of professional athletics,
I can still master my own body.
</p>
</body>
</html>