Adarq.org

now everything is blue.

yeah that's true, although a 5" improvement in consistent jumps over four years is a pretty terrible rate of progress. here's hoping that last inch or two of PR jumps comes more quickly. i think i'm already almost there.

anyway, losing squats was a mixed bag for sure but i think a net positive. it'd be nice if i'd cut them out by choice rather than because of a lower back issue that also blocks me from doing other stuff (ME DL bounds, jump squats, heavy RDLs). but making me get out of the rack and focus on other stuff was a good thing overall.

on that note, i definitely tweaked my lower back during the workout yesterday and forgot to note it. everything feels copacetic today, though.

not sure you have to throw the baby out with the bathwater. doing anything strenuous for the first time in a long time is going to wreck you, but the IME the soreness and drain go away pretty quickly if you do it a few more times over the course of a couple of weeks. i think where you went wrong is probably, as you said, just taking on too much at the first go. if you rest up and then add basketball in gradually you can play and train.

not saying you should, just saying.

did you just guess the distance on the 200? or is there a track now?

it's right under the bold button for me.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=2851091692912&set=vb.1728101681&type=2&theater

well shit.

my left pec/anterior delt was, um, burning this morning. low-grade, not really painful, but definite burning sensation.

???

Yes, incredible performance. Also incredible finish at Green's goal, so very difficult and beautiful.
I liked how USA played, they were bold against an undoubtedly superior opponent. Would have been such a shock if they scored that goal at the end of normal time.
Fair elimination though, with 38 vs 14 shots ( 27 vs 9 on target ) it would have been a real shame if Belgium did not advance, sorry guys.

This is a good point to post a wild sequence of things i would like to happen. I have been thinking it ever since USA hosted WC back in 1994 but it is becoming more realistic(uh-oh) now:
I want USA to go better, make a great course at some major tournament like WC. That would maybe raise the domestic 'marketing value' of the sport. It would bring some more funds and attention etc etc, more good players, better MLS etc. After some iterations, we could see USA's sports industry focus at football ( fuck you handegg ) and finally reach a point that we would see a USA  lineup with 11 NFL level athletes in there. That i would love to see, for the beauty and diversity of the game! Anybody feels/digs that??? 

this is the dream. i love handegg, it has its own beauty and thrills and my most favorite of all teams happens to play it (go blue). but i also want us to be better at soccer. and this is something we say every four years, since 1994 and even before: everyone's so excited, all these kids are going to want to be clint dempsey or tim howard now. and the thing is, hundreds of thousands of kids here grow up playing soccer. i played it as a kid. but if they stick with it their talent is squandered or, as you said, they decide to play our football or baseball or basketball. it's an article of faith with a lot of sports fans here that allen iverson would have been an unstoppable monster as an attacking midfielder or forward.

a few things need to happen beyond that for us to become elite:
1. more kids need to become like dempsey and jozy altidore, who grew up playing every waking moment with much older and more skilled people.
2. we need to either shift toward a euro style of talent development (i.e., ajax or barca-style academies) or start to have many more parents allow their kids to move to holland when they're 12. the US has basically IMG academy and that's it. it's not enough. this is one of the major hopes for klinsmann, that even if he leaves in four years he'll have really helped reshape the youth talent development of US soccer.
3. our soccer players need to stop playing in college. it's a humongous waste of time for anyone with pro potential, but a lot of our players spent extremely important formative years (18-22) being limited to 20 hours a week of practice and games, and that with inferior teammates and against inferior competition. this limits our basketball players, too, but we have such a massive talent gap still with the rest of the world that we get away with it. and it's not as bad in basketball because the players with truly elite potential only waste one or two years this way. in soccer not many come out early; the potential rewards aren't as great and the thinking goes that you're better off "having the [university] degree to fall back on."