From 5a51c2e89b5acff1d23767fd4bb4a380fe7bdc6d Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: counterweight <counterweightoperator@protonmail.com>
Date: Tue, 3 Mar 2026 13:28:20 +0100
Subject: [PATCH] fitness writing

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       <h2 id="writings-header">Writings</h2>
       <p>Sometimes I like to jot down ideas and drop them here.</p>
       <ul>
+        <li>
+          <a href="writings/my-fitness-journey.html" target="_blank"
+            rel="noopener noreferrer">My fitness journey</a>
+        </li>
         <li>
           <a href="writings/how-i-write-some-articles-im-lazy-about.html" target="_blank"
             rel="noopener noreferrer">How I write some articles I have a hard time getting started with</a>
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+<!DOCTYPE HTML>
+<html>
+
+<head>
+    <title>Pablo here</title>
+    <meta charset="utf-8">
+    <meta viewport="width=device-width, initial-scale=1">
+    <link rel="stylesheet" href="../styles.css">
+</head>
+
+
+<body>
+    <main>
+        <h1>
+            Hi, Pablo here
+        </h1>
+        <p><a href="../index.html">back to home</a></p>
+        <hr>
+        <section>
+            <h2>My fitness journey</h2>
+            <p>Nowadays I find myself in the best physical shape I've ever been at. I'm stronger than I've ever been.
+                Pretty decent cardio-wise, not at my peak but close. I'm overall very active, and I can jump into any
+                physical activity without having second thoughts. I sleep like a baby, perform like a machine, eat like a
+                pig and it's all good. I'm at a very good weight. And there are so many other things in my life that work
+                nicely because my body is working nicely.</p>
+            <p>I'm very happy about this because, for a long time, I really didn't think I would find myself in this
+                situation. Historically I was not an active person at all. It took many years of back and forth, making
+                mistakes and trying things, to get my groove in and settle for the habits I have now. And those habits
+                are great because it's literally costing me no effort to maintain myself in this state.</p>
+            <p>So I thought I could look back a little, reflect on how I got here. Perhaps you can learn from some of
+                the mistakes I made and some of the things that worked for me.</p>
+            <h3>Growing up</h3>
+            <p>When I was a kid, I was a normal kid. I liked to play and have fun, but I was pretty terrible at sports.
+                Not a cripple, but surely a rather clumsy kid. I wasn't really talented for most sports, usually falling
+                in the bottom 25% of the distribution in terms of overall skill and performance.</p>
+            <p>I guess part of that was just genetics and natural talent, and part of it was simply that my parents were
+                not the most physically active people. They never engaged in any sports, never did any physical exercise
+                or went to the gym. So I had no input from them in terms of physical activity or motivation around that
+                area. I would just play because I was a kid, not because of my parents pushing me to go for it. As I
+                grew up and playing slowly became less of a thing due to age, sports also slowly faded from my life (and
+                I was quite happy about it: it's not fun to be the loser systematically).</p>
+            <p>The only exception in this path is that I did do a couple of years of martial arts when I was around 11
+                or 12. That was nice, it was a lot of fun and it helped me boost my confidence. And surprisingly, I got
+                kind of decent at it. Being used to the bottom 25%, just being average at something felt like a massive
+                success. But then I went into my teenage years and my head was quickly filled with other stuff. I
+                eventually dropped out of it.</p>
+            <h3>The dark ages</h3>
+            <p>During my teenage years, I didn't do shit. I played no sports nor trained my body in any way. I don't
+                think I ever tried to do anything until I was 18 or 19, already in university. I signed up for the gym a
+                couple of times, checked online for routines, downloaded them, tried to follow them. Would usually last
+                two or three months and then drop out. It was boring, not motivating, and I also had no clue what I was
+                doing. When I look back at how I was training at those times, I can see so many mistakes. I would try to
+                go too hard, have overly ambitious routines that were completely not sustainable. Nutrition wasn't in
+                place, technique wasn't in place, exercise choices were probably extremely poor.</p>
+            <p>I also tried jogging for a bit, but similar experience. Would do it for a while, then eventually lose
+                consistency. On and off for years.</p>
+            <p>When I was around 20 or 21, I was living in Germany and really short on money, so signing up for a gym
+                was not an option. But near where I was living there was a park with some bars, and some days there was
+                this German fella, I think his name was Leo. He was insane good: super ripped, in extremely good
+                condition, did all sorts of complicated exercises like it was nothing. The kind of guy you see training
+                and go "oh wow, that's amazing." He would give me some tips and I really enjoyed training around there
+                with him. Still, I wasn't extremely consistent. But it was a good intro to doing calisthenics in a bar
+                park, since the closest I had done was bodyweight training when I did martial arts in my younger years.
+            </p>
+            <p>And in that park I fucked up my ribcage doing dips on the parallel bars. One day I went too hard, and I
+                would guess the technique must have been absolutely terrible as well. That day, after finishing a set, I
+                just felt this little stab in my chest, which I didn't give much importance to on the spot. Then the next
+                morning I had super intense pain in my chest every time I tried to move or breathe. I'm pretty confident
+                I searched online whether I was having a heart attack. It slowly faded but not completely, and it stuck
+                around for at least a couple of years. That was my first big fuck-up with training and injuring myself.
+                After that, I learned not to exceed myself with risky exercise like dips, to respect my natural ranges of
+                motion, and to just take it easy for the most part.</p>
+            <p>That chest pain got me away from exercise for a long time because any chest exercise would hurt quite a
+                bit. Push-ups were a no-no. And how's a man supposed to train if he can't do push-ups, right?</p>
+            <h3>Some progress, then rock bottom</h3>
+            <p>Around 23 or 24, I went a bit harder with running. Started jogging more regularly, signed up for a 10k,
+                did a decent job, ran a couple more races, and eventually finished a half marathon in under two hours. A
+                year or two where I was jogging regularly. That was nice. I eventually lost my habit, but it was a good
+                experience and there I learned how to do resistance training decently. Also proved myself I was capable
+                of training for a feat like a half marathon, which was nice since I would have never identified myself as
+                a runner before.</p>
+            <p>Then, by the time Covid hit, I was not active at all. Absolutely zero gym, calisthenics, no jogging. And
+                then we were thrown in our cages with the curfews. Being locked down all day was absolutely terrible. I
+                wouldn't move around. I was working quite hard at my desk, long days of sitting. My back was hurting like
+                I was a grandpa. I was smoking a pack of cigarettes a day. Probably drinking more than I should. For a
+                few months it just spiralled down into some mornings where I would wake up and go "god, I feel like shit
+                every single day."</p>
+            <p>Actually, let me backtrace a little. A few months before Covid hit, I had a traffic accident and broke my
+                leg. Had to get surgery on my knee. I was bedridden for a couple of months, then had to slowly learn how
+                to walk again. It's hard to explain how bad it is to be bedridden for that long.</p>
+            <p>So Covid hit on top of that, and I just went worse and worse. Maybe one year, one year and a half into it,
+                I was in absolute shit shape. At that point, it started to click in my brain that this was not normal, not
+                good, and not something I wanted. I guess sometimes you really need to lack something to truly appreciate
+                it and feel the need for it. Greener grasses, yadayada.</p>
+            <h3>The turnaround</h3>
+            <p>First thing, I quit smoking. One morning I woke up with my usual chest congestion, you know, where you
+                have to go to the bathroom and spit the hell out of yourself for five or ten minutes. All morning I was
+                just feeling it and I was like "I'm so done with this." I quit cold turkey that day, never went back.
+                Took no effort. Since then, I always advise smokers who want to quit to consider as a possible strategy
+                to just smoke themselves out. Smoke every single minute, as much as you want. Heck, smoke even when you
+                don't want to. Maybe that way you'll just get sudden rejection for it like I did.</p>
+            <p>Then I started training a little at home with a few dumbbells. Basic stuff: rows, squats, floor presses.
+                And I took it really easy because I was in such terrible shape and I had learned from my leg surgery
+                rehab that when you're at the bottom, you really have to take it easy coming up. That was one of the most
+                enlightening things I figured out. When you're in a really bad shape, don't rush it. You will go up
+                eventually and things will work out, but don't force yourself to do stuff you're not ready to do. Do
+                something that feels comfy, even trivial I would say, and start doing it regularly. From that point on,
+                you can start pumping the numbers.</p>
+            <p>I was extremely busy with work, working from home, so what I would do is train during my lunch break. 15,
+                20 minutes. Four exercises, a few rows, a few presses, a few squats, maybe just nine sets, done. Cook my
+                lunch, continue with life. Very humble training for a busy guy.</p>
+            <p>Precisely because what I was doing was not ambitious, it was pretty convenient. We're talking about
+                working out for 15 to 20 minutes in a lightweight way at home. I didn't change clothes. I didn't get in
+                my car and drive to a gym. I would sometimes cook as I was training, leveraging the rest time between
+                sets. It was extremely convenient and humble, and because of that, I was actually able to make a habit
+                out of it. One month, two months, three months. Eventually it just grew into a habit. I stayed with this
+                attitude for at least a year. That was the first time in my life I was actually consistent with strength
+                training.</p>
+            <p>The habit stuck and slowly, I increased the intensity, but with an extremely relaxed attitude. I wasn't
+                tracking myself heavily. I wasn't pushing hard to pump the numbers. I was just happily trying to feel
+                well and then every now and then I'd throw another half a kilo here, another half a kilo there. Do 4
+                sets where I used to do 3. Do 8 pushups instead of 6.</p>
+            <p>I also started jogging casually, doing 5k's here and there. Same principle: very humble jogs with no
+                intense pace goals, trivial to include in daily life.</p>
+            <h3>Calisthenics and the bars</h3>
+            <p>Eventually I started working for a company with a nice office close to the beach, literally a few meters
+                from the sand. Right in front of the office there was an absolutely amazing calisthenics bar park, with
+                all the pull-up bars you could figure out, all the grips and heights, parallel bars, row bars, everything
+                you can imagine. Training in the sand was really nice.</p>
+            <p>I made a habit of training whenever I went to the office. Sometimes in the morning, sometimes at the end
+                of the day. I would train at the bars regularly and some days go for a 5k near the beach. I just kept my
+                sneakers at the office and grabbed them whenever I felt I had the energy.</p>
+            <p>At this stage I had clearly recovered all of my shitty physical condition from the curfew, smoking and
+                drinking. By the way, by the beach stage I had already stopped drinking as well. I've been smoke-free
+                and alcohol-free for a few years now.</p>
+            <p>Things kept improving. I was feeling so great that I could actually be a bit more ambitious with my
+                training. And it just worked. It didn't feel like I was pushing myself too hard and I didn't have weird
+                pains. Also, because I was in decent condition and not smoking or drinking, I was getting incredibly good
+                sleep, so recovery was much better. I also lost quite a bit of weight due to it all (though most of the
+                merit I think goes to quitting alcohol completely).</p>
+            <p>Eventually, I kind of got addicted to the bars. The habit had completely stuck with me. Since then, I
+                train at different bar parks depending on where I'm working or where life takes me, but I'm always
+                finding some bar park and going there 2-3 times a week. I even got a weighted vest, so some training
+                sessions I'll go quite hard with heavy pull-ups and dips.</p>
+            <p>And that's where I sit today. I'm stronger than I've ever been. I can crank out 10 pull-ups any day of
+                the week when I'm fresh, or squat cleanly with the missus on my back. And what I today call an easy day
+                would have been outright impossible for me to perform in 2020. That's pretty cool.</p>
+            <p>I'm not doing great with jogging right now because I stopped for a few months, tried to pump the numbers
+                too quickly when I came back (lesson learned), and hurt my Achilles tendon. Working on recovering that,
+                and then I'll just be very humble again with my 5k's. But right before that, I could run you a sub-hour
+                10K on any normal day, even if I had not been prepping intensely for it the weeks before.</p>
+            <p>The only thing I might be missing is some stretch work for flexibility and mobility. I've been thinking I
+                should probably try some yoga classes. Not to become a master at it, but to have my joints pushed to the
+                extreme positions every now and then. I'll probably do that at some point.</p>
+            <h3>Lessons</h3>
+            <p>If I look back, here's what I would tell my past self, or anyone who's starting out or struggling to make
+                exercise stick.</p>
+            <p>The most important thing is to start ridiculously small. So little volume, so little frequency, that it
+                almost feels pointless. A couple of days a week, five minutes of something that doesn't even feel like a
+                challenge. You might think that's not getting you anywhere. You're so wrong. Listen: first, you need to
+                prove yourself that you're capable of doing something trivial consistently, because doing something
+                consistently is all that matters. Once you prove you can do that, slowly increase, but very slowly.
+                Don't be in a rush. Don't try to make every session a challenge. You have a lifetime of exercising ahead
+                of you. Get to a certain level, stay there for a few weeks until you're bored, and then bump it up a
+                little bit. So little you have a hard time noticing any difference. And then repeat. Same for cardio.
+                Never jogged? Just go out and do two kilometres. You should be able to pull that in under 15 minutes. Do
+                that for a month, a couple of times a week, then do 2.5 kilometres. Take years to get to something
+                significant. But eventually you will get there, which is the important thing. And you'll make it because
+                you took it easy, you didn't injure yourself, and you didn't give up because your training plan was too
+                hard and completely incompatible with living a normal life. It feels counterintuitive, but by being kind
+                of lazy and doing very little, you eventually grow into doing a lot.</p>
+            <p>Along the same lines, make it trivial to start exercising in your daily life. Remove every bit of
+                friction you can. If you can afford to have equipment at home, have it ready and accessible, not buried
+                in some inconvenient closet. If you just have to reach for it and start, there's no excuse. The moment
+                it takes a couple of minutes to prep for exercise, you can talk yourself out of it. Same for jogging:
+                have your sneakers and clothes ready to grab, have one route you always do, don't plan it, don't think
+                about it, just go. Calisthenics bar parks have worked nicely for me precisely because they need zero
+                prep. You show up and the bars are there, ready for you to jump to them. And don't shy away from short
+                workouts either. In 15 minutes at a bar park you can do a lot. You're not going to break any records,
+                but it's way better than doing nothing. I never do long strength training sessions. I'm pretty confident
+                80-90% of my workouts sit somewhere between 15 and 30 minutes. You can get quite decent results with
+                that. And if someday you have the time and energy to punish yourself for an hour, be my guest. But don't
+                feel you have to.</p>
+            <p>Finally, get your weight sorted. Being at a good weight is insanely convenient for exercise. Running,
+                lifting, all of it. Being overweight is a fucking pain in the ass, messes with your health in many ways
+                and just doesn't let your body work properly. If you're clearly overweight, getting your weight down
+                before you start training hard will make your life a lot easier. Things like running are terribly tolling
+                when you're heavy, whereas at a healthy weight it feels so much more pleasant, which helps you stick
+                with it.</p>
+            <p>That's it. It took me many years to get here, but I'm rolling with it. I'm having fun with the bars,
+                I'll be having fun jogging with no pressure very soon, might throw the yoga in. I keep it easy. Whenever
+                I feel like I have some extra energy and bandwidth, I push myself a bit harder for fun. Not on a
+                schedule, not with any pressure, just because I feel like doing it. Whenever I seem to have no energy or
+                time, I just do what I can afford to. But the key is: I always do a bit, no matter what.</p>
+            <hr>
+            <p><a href="../index.html">back to home</a></p>
+        </section>
+    </main>
+
+</body>
+
+</html>
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