digdscpl

Thanks for the encouragement. I forgot to post an update. I have continued to do mobility work and prevention. It's somewhere in the middle, I know that even light dead lifts well cause it to worsen. I did those the day before it went south again. Therapist says I have hypermobility. So it's important I do the strengthening to stabilize that area more. Sent from my SM-G900P using Tapatalk

Goals 1 and 3 I have done well with the first week. I was doing very well in fact, something loosened up and I could go for most of the day pain free. I was sort of afraid to do the exercises in case it undid what I achieved. So I have done none of that. However, I did some thing later earlier this week anyway that seems to have done that anyway. So far, sciatica is winning, but the battle continues. Sent from my SM-G900P using Tapatalk

It's almost a year since my last 6 week challenge. During that challenge I slipped a disc in my lower back doing deadlifts and it really threw me off track, failed to complete my PLP, stopped running, scaled back my workouts, etc. Now almost a year later, two physical therapists, and a chiropractor I'm still dealing with some leftover sciatica. It was nearly gone, but then started creeping back in. I started to realize that this had a lot to do with me not continuing the stretches and exercises that were helping things (due to just plain getting lazy). No more excuses, this is my quest to to defeat it once and for all (do or do not there is no try). Mission: Defeat my sciatica pain. Goal 1: Mobility - Consistently work on stretches and mobility to specifically address the sciatica pain. This includes the stretches instructed by my physical therapist, but also additional mobility exercises I've learned through JagRoop at Mobility WOD (www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhGomxWgCss). Target is to work on these 5 days/week. I'll try to do these stretches on weekends also, but I can't predict where I might be (camping, etc). WIS+3 DEX+3 Goal 2: Strengthening - The primary area that I can strengthen to help with this is core stability. I'm going to just start out doing the physical therapist prescribed exercises 3 days/week. STR+3 Goal 3: Prevention - Prevent further aggravation through maintaining good posture and standing up frequently at work. I use a lumbar support, but I forget to bring it to work sometimes, so the goal here is to bring it and use it, and using a reminder alarm - get up out of my chair and stand/stretch regularly every day at work. WIS+3 CON+3

Injured myself doing deadlifts in the middle of this challenge, and have not gotten back to full capability. Injury to the lower back is causing sciatic pain, I'm working with a physical therapist and its improving a little each day. But I don't want to injure myself further so I fell short on a couple goals. Nevertheless, I still made some great improvments. Full write up here

LEVEL UP! Goal 1: PLP - Target was to reach day 60. I lost a few days here and I only reached day 50. 50/60= 83% = B - STR + 2.5 STA + 1.6 Goal 2: Skills work - I ultimately did not achieve any of these skills because my training was cut short on these, I could not perform the progressions of these with my back injury (pistol squat, handstands, l-sit). I did however practice these skills and make progress for half of the challenge so I will issue a C - STR + 1 DEX +1.5 Goal 3: Cuts - Target - 17% body fat - loss of 6 lbs. Initial scale measurements 180 - 19%BF Final measurements- 173.1 - 15.7%BF. Goal achieved! Despite adversity (not being able to do my regular workout), I was still able to achieve a loss here, I had gotten as low as 168 though, so I know I can continue to cut fat in the future through diet adjustments. A - CON +3 WIS +2

Ok I missed posting a few weeks. I'm still recovering from the injury doing deadlifts, so things have gone off the rails a bit. The pain moved from my back to my sciatic, and it has varied day to day. After it didn't seem to get better, I got an appointment with a physical therapist, but they were booked until tomorrow. So... here's where I am at.. Goal 1: I am not going to make it to day 60 before the end of this challenge, I am currently at Day 48. I missed several days when I first injured my back. Last week it didn't bother me to do pullups and lunges and pushups so I got back onto it and made some progress. After this past Saturday it has been hurting quite a bit so I haven't done anything for the past two days. Goal 2: I couldn't practice anything here after my injury so I'm not going to meet this goal. Goal 3: I gained some back since I haven't been able to workout as often. I also admittedly ate crappy over labor day weekend. But I am still down to 172lbs and 16.1% so I think I've met this goal assuming I can maintain this. However, I plan to continue trying to cut more fat. I have been eating as much Paleo as I can, and I also cut out diet soda entirely. Overall, pretty disappointed because I was making good progress until I hurt my back on a stupid deadlift. Hopefully I can get back to 100% once I start therapy and can reach these goals in the next challenge round.

Wooohoo

Ive got physical therapy scheduled. The pain has moved to my glutes and down my leg...sciatic(??). I did some sprints today, no problem, pushups and pullups no problem. Situps aggravated it though.

Late update... Goal 1: Was on track until Thursday when I injured my lower back doing deadlifts at crossfit. I lost a lot of mobility and couldn't continue exercising Goal 2: I've spent more time on handstand practice than any of the others, injury derailed this. Goal 3: Continued to eat well until Friday when I went out of town and I ate at some of my favorite old restaurants and cheated a bit. However, I still have not had any soda since the start of the challenge. No weigh in has been done.

Back still hurting, gonna have to keep resting it, I think I'm going to have to drop out of this challenge

I injured my lower back doing deadlifts yesterday... won't be able to do these until that is feeling better. Waiting at the chiropractors office right now.

Day 5 done

Day 4 done.. .late post

Don't forget double unders.

Week 2 update - so as I said in the last update we were travelling, camping, doing museums and water parks during the early part of last week... this affected my ability to work on some of these goals. Goal 1: PLP - I missed a couple of days (Mon, Tues) mainly because we kept busy with various activities and hanging out with friends... there were places to do pull ups at the campgrounds I was at but I just didn't do it. I did hit a few one of those days and I actually was able to do 7 strict pullups in a row which was a PR (at the beginning I was doing 3), so the PLP has definitely improved my ability to do pullups. I continued through the rest of the week with this program and I completed through day 35. I have been trying to keep the sets (sessions really because I have to stop and rest a few seconds after several) at 10 or below, so like yesterday was 9,9,9,8. When I get to 40 I'll probably break it up to 5 sets, and so on. However, I am now up to being able to do 8 straight, so as I get stronger I may not have to break it up as much. The lunges are really no problem at all. Doing push ups in sets of 10 or less is also quite easy at this point so I've started to throw some variation in them, doing some wide and some diamond, I may start doing some decline as well. Maybe I should just break up the pull ups but do the lunges and pushups in larger sets. I am doing each of these sets at various times throughout the day (e.g. one before work, one as soon as I get home, one a little after dinner, one before bed). Goal 2: Practiced pistol squat progress some more, but only worked it one day. It doesn't feel like I'm making that much progress here. I practiced handstands some more, I'm working on my form so that I can have better balance for the freestanding. I managed to hold it away from the wall for about a second. I practice these every few days. My 3 year old son tries to do it with me. The L-Sit progressions I usually get a chance to do when my wife and I watch a show on TV at the very end of the day, but with the travel this didn't happen, so no practice until last night. Overall core strength is getting better thanks to the pull ups and the PVP I am participating in. I made several L-Sit attempts and what I have come to find is that my hamstrings are just too tight to straighten my legs out fully, this problem also manifests itself in some of the ab exercises in the PVP program. Therefore, I am going to start incorporating stretching through the day to improve flexibility in my hamstrings (calves, quads, glutes, hip flexors as well ... legs). Goal 3: Travelling made this a little tricky. I did indulge in a couple cookies and I can't blame that on travel. But, I tried to make the best I could out of the situation without driving my wife nuts. We were on the road one day and the only place around was a McDs at the truck stop so that's what everyone ate, but I got a burger with no bun and did not eat any fries (ridiculous on the calories and not so nutritious), but bought some cauliflower at the truckstop (they had packaged cups of fruit and veggies which was pretty sweet). I ate a philly cheese steak with the bread at the water park and I also drank some green tea that I'm pretty sure was artificially sweetened. Otherwise I haven't drank any soda since the beginning of this PVP (before that I drank "diet", but I have been suspicious of the sweeteners causing some of excess fat). I try to avoid bread and grains as much as possible without making things too difficult for the rest of the family. I'm not sure I ever want to make Paleo my lifestyle, but I know I can give it 6 weeks or so. I cheated with some awesome pizza this weekend as well, but I ate much less than I would normally have, and then I had a very small dinner later. I have started to notice more when I have eaten enough and stopping instead of continuing to eat because it tastes good or I don't want anything to go to waste. Most days I've kept track of everything in myfitnesspal so I have a good idea of how much carbs, calories, etc I am consuming. I can compare this to a month ago when I tracked it for about a week and I can see a big difference. Ok so that was maybe too much detail for this. Here's the important bits: Weight: 168 (-6 lbs from last week, -12 lbs overall: 6lbs a week seems a bit crazy but, I guess its just beginner gains - "losses") Body Fat: 14.7% (looking in the mirror it doesn't look like it, compared to pictures of this range on the nerdfitness article on body fat, but it does look improved. My running "fanny" pack had to be tightened this morning, my jeans are ridiculously baggy)