Short term

• For two weeks I’ll suspend my leg training. – That’ll be really hard to do, because I love my squats and deadlifts.
• So that my core doesn’t feel neglected without squats and deadlifts, I will do some hyperextensions and abs work. Gotta get toned for summer anyway.
• Say goodbye to my gains (for now).
• If the knees feel better after that, good!
  If not, time to see a doctor and get his opinion on the rest of my plan. (If he says I shouldn’t squat, I’ll try to find a competent doc.)

Long term

• After that I’ll start training the knee stabilizers with wall sits, lunges and maybe single leg squats, while also focussing on glutes and hamstrings (I’ve been wanting to try single leg romanian deadlifts for a while now, since I can do them at home with my limited weights).
• A few weeks later, I’ll try squats again.

General

• Work on flexibility and stretch more.
• Pay more attention to not lock my knees. – Of course in exercises, but also in every day life.
• Add glucosamine and chondroitin to my supplements.
• Review my diet. – Wanted to do this anyway. More omega 3, selenium, anti-inflammatory, anti oxidants.
• Finally get a foam roller.
• Consider getting knee sleeves. But only if I can’t go without them and not without a doc.
• Leg extensions: Never again!

Already doing

Of course, I am already doing other stuff for quite some time and will just state that here for the interested reader, that might have similar worries or problems.

• Train the legs. – While I can also search the cause for my worries here, this is also the way to help the knees. Stronger leg muscles will support the knees. I hope I’ll just need to add a few exercises.
• Maintain good form when training. – Again, while I can also search the cause for my “problems” here and there’s often room for improvement, I’m quite confident my form doesn’t suck. I also often get compliments on it from more experienced lifters and novices ask me to coach them.
• Warm-up! – On Leg days, I’m running a few minutes as well as 2-3 warm-up sets. But I should pay attention to no cool out and if I do, warm-up again.
• Stop if it hurts. – Duh!
• Maintain a balanced diet and drink a lot. – Well, I mostly do that, but I have to admit, that I’ve been cheating a bit more lately.

Links

I’ve read several articles on the topic and here are the most relevant and/or comprehensive links about it.

• eMedTV: How a Healthy Knee Works [Video]
• YouTube: Basic Knee Anatomy Video [Video]
• YouTube: Basic Anatomy of the Knee and Associated Injuries [Video]
• Wikipedia: Knee – Obligatory link
• T-Nation: No Need for Knee Pain – How the knee works and how you can counter problems with them.
• T-Nation: 18 Tips for Bulletproof Knees
• Stronglifts: 10 Tips to Stop Your Knees from Popping and Cracking

Mediocre at best. Not a complete waste of time, but still hardly worth it. Let’s have a look at some details, though. My first thought of the movie was: Jonah Hill is getting too old for these roles. Not that those deadbeat character comedies rely on credibility or have an age limit, but still, it’s getting hard to believe. The kids are okay, well they’re kids. And each of them has a small little problem, which gets solved during the course of the movie, to give them reason to be there, aside being part of the main story. But that’s it, every time a small conversation and it’s over. Most of the characters are semi-entertaining, with Sam Rockwell being the one that sticks out the most, even more than Jonah Hill, which is bad for a leading character. Which brings us to the main question of a comedy review: Is it entertaining? Yes, somewhat. You don’t find yourself laughing all the time, but it does mostly have a slightly funny feeling. Then again, it’s lacking originality and you might just smirk, because you knew what was coming.

Deutscher Titel: Bad Sitter
Links: IMDB: The Sitter, IMDB: This Review

And I’m a bit in a dilemma about my movie reviews. I write them in English for a wider readership (as if) and for practice. But the movies I review are usually already long out in the English speaking countries and are just about to be released in Germany. So I actually should write them in German, so they are not as out-dated and more suitable for the appropriate target group. Okay, I shouldn’t use the term “target group”, since I know not many people are even reading them. And if I would like to tackle that, I would need to set up several topic-oriented blogs, which would lead to several untended blogs and/or would kill too much time. Nah, I think I’ll just leave it like it is for now. Only reason to reconsider the language choice for the reviews would be some other place to write them for, like a newspaper or something. Which I won’t do I guess.

Favourite quotes: “Target goal: Leave a good looking corpse.” (Goth girl on Fitocracy.); “Train like your stronger, fitter, evil-twin is plotting to kill you.” (Also seen on Fitocracy.)
The last quote is interesting, since I tend to say that I am my own evil-twin, because of the beard.

Fitocracy points: 2874 – Resting the legs, just upper body and back exercises… if you don’t count the squat coaching I did on Tuesday for three guys in a row.

A comedy drama with several storylines connected through Ned. Now, unlike the mix of comedy and drama I saw a few weeks ago (50/50), this one is focussing more on the comedy part. Actually this is like a romantic comedy, that’s stronger on the funny side and swaps the romantic for drama, while also keeping some of those romantics. Complicated? No, it’s just to show how indifferent I am about this movie. I’m not saying it’s bad, but it’s not really good either. It’s nice to watch, but doesn’t show anything new. Actually you know the side-stories from many other romantic comedies, just shortened down to the basic stuff. Again, that makes me indifferent, for it makes those stories more bearable, but then again it’s leaving things out and still makes it predictable. So my general recommendation for this movie is: Meh.

Link: IMDB: Our Idiot Brother

But I got my new wardrobe on the last weekend, 4 weeks earlier than announced. Now I can put my cloths in there, instead of having them in three different rooms. That’ll free up some space to clutter up again.

I also posted my first movie reviews to IMDB, which can be read there. But of course that’s not necessary, since I also post them on this site.

Oh and on the long weekend, there was also the medival festival on Stettenfels. Has been nice, as always and I got myself a bunch of arrows. I really should take the time and finish my longbow, so I can disgrace myself participate in contests.

But of course I should also finish my scabbards and finally work with all the leather I gathered over the last two years. Then there was that soldering iron, I wanted to use to decorate some horns. And let’s not even think about the leather armour I wanted to make for sparring. (That protective jacket for fencing masters may be strong enough, but kills a lot of the agility I need for 3-dimensional fencing.) Well, I won’t get bored.

Favourite quote: I wish people would love everybody else the way they love me. It would be a better world. – Muhammad Ali

Fitocracy points: Week 17: 2955 + lvl2 squat achievement + level-up to 28 – Not much time on Friday and Sunday, but still kinda good. Week 18: 2418 – No gym on Tuesday, but doing a bit more on Wednesday and on Sunday I only did One-Arm Push-ups. Oh yeah, I can do them now!

The movie starts out as a spy thriller, at least looks like it, but soon turns into a mixture of Escape from New York and Die Hard in space. The story is about as deep and predictable, but this ain’t the kind of movie you watch for the story. Instead, you watch it for some fun and action. And this is what you get. While the action in the beginning (spy thriller part) is the best of the movie, you can enjoy some shootings and explosions later. The characters on the other hand are very swallow; especially the main protagonist is very one-sided. He’s making up for his lack of emotion with funny comebacks and one-liners, though. And by that I mean about every single line he had in his script. But it’s okay; it’s not turning the movie into a comedy, but still adds a good part of fun to it, just gets a bit annoying every once in a while. I should also mention that this is a Luc Besson movie, which means that it’s quite good for what it is. But a thing that really bugged me was the pace. Things often go fast from one thing to the next, so you get the feeling things are left out or the movie could’ve at least been better with a few more minutes spread over the entire flick, just to slow it down a bit here and there. This is also one of the reasons they actually blow the only semi-deep moment that tries to carry a message. Maybe you have to wait for the Directors Cut to get this. Which brings me to the conclusion: If you like to see a good action flick on the big screen, go for it, it’s really enjoyable. If you just add flicks like that to your time killer list, wait for the DVD and hope there’s a Director’s Cut version of it.

Links: IMDB: Lockout, IMDB: This Review

This movie is inspired by a true story, the story of the writer Will Reiser, and Seth Rogen was really his friend in those hard times in real life. Now, combining drama and comedy is something difficult to do, but the director Jonathan Levine and writer Will Reiser manage to keep it at a good balance, at 50/50 if you like, without melodramatising it or turning it into a laughing stock. The story may pick up slow, but gets really good, revealing the difficulties Adam has to face and the friendship he receives. What I also like about the movie is the lack of romance. Sure, there is this thing going on, but it’s really subtle and the movie would be about the same without it. They are not ruining the touching plot with a cheesy love story. On the story downside, there are a few things that seem neglected, like Adam’s job or his old greyhound Skeletor. They are not important for the story, but the way they are introduced and sometimes mentioned, you get the feeling that there should be more to it. Levitt’s acting is really good and you can feel all the different moods and stages his character goes through. And I’m really surprised, that Rogen cannot only play the funny parts, but the serious ones as well. It’s also mainly thanks to his contribution, that the movie avoids drifting into a depressing one and can keep its drama/comedy balance. The characters are likeable and generally played well. Overall quite a good movie to recommend. So, unless you prefer mindless action flicks or stupid comedies, go see this one, I enjoyed it.

Deutscher Titel: 50/50 – Freunde fürs (Über)Leben
Links: IMDB: 50/50, IMDB: This Review

Fitocracy points: 2973 [50 from quest] – My upper and lower heavy routines weren’t that good this week.

Zitat: Ballistische Experimente mit kristallinem H2O auf dem Areal der Pädagogischen Institutionen unterliegen striktester Prohibition! [Can't really translate that quote well into English, so just in German this week.]

Gesehen bei Ikea. Entweder sind die Gestalter dieser Symbole faul oder sie haben einen sehr feinen Sinn für Humor. Findet den Fehler und entscheidet selbst.

They’re back. And yes, they really did get most of the cast back, even the side characters. Unfortunately they didn’t really learn to act in all those years, but then again, no one is watching American Pie for the high-quality acting. The characters have developed, but haven’t really matured. Some gags are good, some are not that good or a bit stupid, while others are tasteless. For example, I really didn’t need to see Jason Biggs’ dong, the joke would’ve even worked without it. And that’s one of the things I never liked about the American Pie franchise. They have some quite good and funny parts, but blow it with grossy grade-school and/or fecal humour. But I have to admit, the movie isn’t that bad. Well, at least it’s way better than everything else that came after the first movie (which isn’t that hard, because everyone was worse than the predecessor). And here’s the controversy about the tightrope walk they had to do with this movie. They want to get back all the old fans of the movies, which should’ve grown out of this kind of movies, while also pleasing the new generation of movie goers, who want that kind of humour. So we have all the “old” characters/actors, who are familiar to the old fan base, while targeting the humour of today’s teenagers. And I have to admit, they do this actually quite well. So yeah, if you’re an old fan, you can get a bit nostalgic and won’t be disappointed by American Reunion. And if you’re young and new to the franchise, you can have a good time as well. But if haven’t seen an American Pie movie before, you should at least watch the first movie, to get to know the characters, since they don’t get much of an introduction. And if you don’t like American Pie, this movie won’t make you love it, since it’s basically the same old stuff.

Deutscher Titel: American Pie – Das Klassentreffen
Link: IMDB: American Reunion, IMDB: This Review