High volume ain’t just for workouts . . . engineering school.

 

I’ve been lazy with posting lately and my presence in the world as an author might have dropped off the face of the planet as a result . . . at any rate, now that I’ve started school, I’ll be even more obscure. The shitstorm of work hasn’t quite touched down yet, so I wanted to take this last opportunity to write about random things, because I’ll be needing to write about not so random things very soon.

So where did that 6-week high-volume training plan get me? Not as much as I’d hoped, but I think 20lbs was ridiculous and unrealistic given my wrist measurements. Reading about any given frame’s capacity to naturally support lean muscle–based on height and other measurements–was a big game changer for me. Of course nothing is impossible, but the kind of time and energy needed to be 200lbs + of lean mass in my case would be a full-time job, and one that would leave me pretty poor and lonely. In the end, that high volume, high carb routine got me around 10lbs in 6 weeks. Guys often explode with this protocol, but my body loves high carbs anyway and I didn’t really end up changing the diet that much from what’s normal to me. Gaining was hard. Lots of fluctuation every week. I did enjoy the high volume workouts. Spending two or more hours just seeing how many sets you can do is fun. At least to me it is. But that could just be because I come from an endurance sport background anyway. Maximal effort outside of sprints is a bit foreign to me, even now.

Now, the high-volume work is schoolwork. I have 8 courses per semester in the civil engineering technologist program I’m taking. It’s going to be hard, but from what it looks like, it’s again an issue of volume and not so much intensity. In these technology programs, they pretty much distill the subjects to the things that are most relevant. It’s just that there are a lot of things to study. And as anyone who has done GVT knows, lower intensity doesn’t necessarily mean shit!

As an introvert, the social dimension is, in the end, another course in itself. If you read between the lines, every single instructor seems to have a warning for people who like to figure out stuff on their own. Introverts have to fake it to get a job in this field; that much has been made pretty clear more than anything else at this point. I know this and understand it and am okay with it. I’m not one of those anti-extrovert ranters. But it is a little unfair, I think, to single out people for certain cognitive differences. I mean yeah, the social aspect itself–dealing with people/potential clients/employers/being pleasant/blabla–makes sense in that regard, but for the purposes of actually getting through your course material, encouraging introverts to join in on class discussions makes our work harder than it needs to be. This doesn’t mean we are looking for an excuse not to talk to anyone–far from it. Confident introverts are fine with talking with others in class, but if the task at that particular moment is to figure out a problem and the teacher is nagging you to talk to your peers in order to figure it out, not all of us are going to process information that way. When I upgraded my physics and so on, I mostly worked alone but could hear the discussions taking place in the groups that had formed–people helping each other, teamwork and so on. Having that many people stumbling through a problem totally derails my cognitive process–it’s very hard to follow a train of thought to its logical end (and thus grasping the concepts so much more thoroughly) when dealing with a torrent of half-baked ideas and people talking over eachother.

I don’t think that kind of learning has much to do with workplace teamwork.

The funny thing is this though. Despite that I don’t rush to work with everyone else to figure out physics problems, if someone wants help and I can help them, I have no problem stopping my work to give them a hand. Quite a few times I’ve been the only student patient enough to help this or that person who just wasn’t getting it.

I don’t really get how and why people can still entertain the simplistic view of introverts–simplicities that would totally gloss over the example I gave above–and feel threatened by them. There’s no relation whatsoever between anti-social or unconfident or uninterested students/workers and people who process information a bit differently to others.

But that’s the way it is. So introverts have to fake it. Then maybe when they prove themselves in the workplace as professionals–and probably only well after that–they might be able to out themselves and be allowed to take a few minutes alone when they need to and not fear being blackballed for not being a team player.

Again, don’t mistake this for complaining. I don’t really care what I have to do to do what I want . . . I’ve had plenty of practice outside my comfort zone and am not that worried about playing the extrovert game as best I can. It’s just something that’s being talked about a little bit more these days, and I want to help push it into the open.

 

Speaking of the game, this Elliott Hulse video blew me away. Nothing I didn’t already know, but the way Elliott crystallizes it is incredible. It’s so simple. We call everything a game but forget about the fuckin’ game piece.

 

I was on the fence about whether or not to continue training the way I want. It would mean a lot of 5am mornings. But after watching that, I knew that despite what other people said, training was still the right thing to do.

 

 

Oh yeah. Archon. I really can’t wait to get that out, but am still struggling with the best way to release it. I want a cover, damn it. And if I wait until I write the second episode, it would be easier to interest a couple of epublishers out there, which would get me my cover. And maybe a slight increase in legitimacy. So. I don’t know. Unless anyone wants to donate dieselpunk cover art, I’ve got some decision making to do before I do anthing with it.