Knurdle

That sounds like a lot of fun. I've always wanted to be a clown when I grow up. I can already ride a unicycle and juggle. I'm just waiting for this internet fad to pass and my programming skills to become useless for me to join the circus!

It's been a few years since I've run any considerable distance but I remember the great feelings I had. 1) Being able to eat whatever I wanted. I was eating everything in sight at one point and still losing weight. I wasn't eating healthy but I didn't really know better back then. Beer, pizza, fried foods, etc 2) The feeling of running when it just starts to rain. Especially in SoCal when it's so hot most of the time. It's such a nice feeling. 3) The runner's high when you just feel like you could run forever. 4) Running past cars in traffic. Used to run along this particularly bad stretch of traffic and I would always race to see if I could beat the buses. 5) Getting away from it all. I was hating my job when I was running a lot, it was great stress relief.

I think I have a similar issue. I'm able to partially pop out my left shoulder, it's something I've always been able to do since I was a kid, great to gross people out with. It's never really been an issue, I've had it pop out once while playing basketball when I was in my early 20s but it just popped back in after some massaging. Anyway, I've noticed that when I do pullups, I start to pull up first with my right arm to get past that initial dead hang so that my left shoulder doesn't pop out of socket. The other thing that I've discovered is that it's really hard for me to do knees to elbows because I can't go from a dead hang to twisting my body to bring up my knees. My arms feels like it's going to just pop out of completely. So I've had to do knees to elbows with a partial bend at the elbows.

I would say a combination of what everyone else has said. I tried doing the negatives once I was able to do about 5-6, then I started doing them just once a day to max reps, that got me to about 8. Then I took a few days off to rest and came back at it again and my max jumped after those couple days of rest. I actually just did my max chinups(12) and max pullups(11) after about 5 days of not working out at all due to being sick and just being busy in general. That was a nice surprise. So to summarize my rambling, try the different techniques everyone else mentioned and try resting a few days every couple of weeks.

I'm up for a hike or something but I'm in the Westside of LA. I'm up for something in the Santa Monica mountains or something a little closer to LA. Crystal Cove is a little far from what I remember.

Have you tried doing negatives of pullups/chinups? Do as many as you can regular ones that you can, then at the end, stand on a chair or jump up and slower lower yourself. I also found that just doing a max set everyday helped me increase my max faster than doing sets every other day. I started just doing pullups in the morning and then chinups at night. Hope that helps.

I haven't been very active in the forums but I was working out. My fitness goals. 1) 10 pullups (5 currently) - B+ - I hit 9 pullups and 10 chinups. 2) Workout 4x a week. I'm currently only doing it 3x a week. - A - I was varying my workouts more and just working out whenever I had the chance. 3) Start jumping rope, at least once a week. - F - Didn't jump rope even once. I couldn't find my jump rope and I just gave up. Diet Goals 1) Drink less beer. I work at a startup with friends and it happens way too often that'll we go out for lunch and get a beer. I need to skip those beers. Totally empty calories and I do it more out of being with the crowd. Totally unnecessary. A - Totally cut back on the beer and bad food in general. 2) Try intermittent fasting once. I'm going to try skipping breakfast/lunch once this challenge and reassess how I feel. Might do it more if I find it useful. - F - I started to try it but I got so hungry, I couldn't concentrate at work. Life Goals 1) Work on my linkedin profile. I have no plans for looking for a job anytime soon but when I want a new job, I don't want to have to scramble. I want the job to come to me, not to have to hunt for the job. - F - Fail, didn't even look at it. 2) Sleep more. Get to bed before 12 as much as possible especially if I'm at home and just putzing around on the computer. A - Made it a point to get to bed at a reasonable time each night. So all in, I would say it probably averages out to a C? I feel like I'm a lot stronger, doing the 10 chinups was great even though I wanted 10 pullups. My diet has changed dramatically and I think that was partly to blame for my failing at fasting. It's only been in the last week that I haven't been hungry all the time. I was eating almonds constantly at work because I was hungry and I haven't had any in the past week I think. I think it took a while for my body to adjust to a better/less carb diet. Though weight loss wasn't a goal, I've lost about 5lbs but the best thing is that I've gone down a belt size. I haven't measured myself but I think I've lost about 1.5 inches off my waist. I think the best part of the challenge has been that I feel like these are lasting changes. I don't crave bad food as much, when I do eat something bad, I really feel the effects of it on me. I've always been the eat everything and eat a lot of it kind of person. The only thing that has saved me so far has been my fast metabolism. But these last 2+ months of eating better has really changed how I feel about food. I say 2+ months because I started working on stuff before the challenge.

10/18/11 (Morning) 9 pullups - New PR! 10/17/11 (Morning) pushups 15,12,15 close squats 25,20,20 knee tucks 20,20,15 planks 60,60,60 10/16/11 (Morning) 7 pullups 10/15/11 (Afternoon) 10 chinups - New PR! 10/14/11 (Morning) 8 chinups 10/13/11 (Night) pullups 7 knee tucks 25 flat bent leg raises 20x3 10/13/11 (Morning) chinups 9.5 close squats 30,25,20 pushups 15,12,12 10/12/11 (Evening) pullups 8 close pushups throughout the day 6-8 at a time. 10/9/11 (Evening) pullups 8,7,4 close squats 25,25,21 close pushups 9,7,5 lunges 10,10,10 knee tucks 20,20,15 3 mins between circuit

Been lazy about updating this thread but I'm still going. Still losing weight. Down to 157lbs this morning and getting stronger. I hit a PR of 9 chinups a few days ago. My goal was 10 pullups but those have been slower to come along. I've been getting bored with my routine so I'm trying new things. Did a circuit thing yesterday to try something new. Also, I've been trying to read more. I feel like for most of the exercises, I'm adding endurance but not getting stronger. So I think I need to step it up to the next level. 10/7/11 (Morning) (1 pullup, 2 pushups, 3 squats) = 1 round. Did 16 rounds in 10 mins. 10/5/11 (Morning) chinups 9,6 squats 40,30 pushups 15,13 lunges 20,20 3 mins between circuits. 10/3/11 (Night) Knee tucks 35,35,25 10/1/11 (Afternoon) pullups 6,6,3 squats 40,25,20 pushups 19,14,12 lunges 20,15,10 Did a circuit, 3 mins between circuits. 9/29/11 (Night) Pushups 11,11,13,11,13 Trying to put my hands closer and closer together. 9/28/11 (Night) Knee tucks 35,30,25,20 9/27/11 (Night) chinups 8(4),4(4),3(4),1(2) 3mins between sets of chinups. New chinup PR. 9/26/11 (Night) squats 40,40,40,30 Practiced frogstands. Holding it for maybe 5 seconds.

That's awesome! I'm at that annoying point where my current belt hole is too big but the next one is just a little tight. I can do it but I'm not sure it would be comfortable the whole day. As a result, my pants have been falling off of me.

I love the idea of a 4 year old calling out 'unhealthy cereal'! That's awesome!

I have a daughter who is turning 2 next month and we've been pretty strict with her diet. It has also changed our diet for the better, using almost no salt, more fish, etc. What kills me is when we go to birthday parties and other parents ask. You're not giving her cake/candy/sweets. Like she's missing out on some huge thing. If she hasn't had it, she isn't missing out on it. I'm sure she'll have more than enough opportunities in her life to have all that stuff, why introduce it to her at such a young age. It's not like she's begging for it and we say no. We'll give her a little taste if she asks for it and that's enough for her. We're also pretty lucky in that she loves to eat everything and she seems to really like the healthy stuff. fish, broccoli. We're also trying to be more active as a family, parks, hikes, etc. I spend enough time in front of the computer and I know that has rubbed off on her. Maybe there needs to be a parents group on here.

Just here to update my workouts and progress. I've been doing really well with eating well and not overeating. Making good food choices when I eat out. I weighed myself yesterday and I was my lightest I've been in maybe 2.5 years which isn't important in itself but still surprising. I hit 158.4lbs. I need to take measurements as well but the pictures I've been taking have been showing progress. I attempted to try intermittent fasting but I was so hungry, I couldn't concentrate at work. I'm not sure if I can do it. It's also been a total failure in terms of jump rope. I swear I had a jump rope but I haven't been able to find it in the garage. It's one of those things I kept seeing around but then I can't find when I want it. 9/25/11(Evening) chinups 6.5,5,4,3 pushups 17,13,10,7 9/22/11 (Night) knee tucks 30,30,22,15 9/21/11 (Night) pushups 13,11,9,7 pullups 4(2),3(2),2.5(2),1.5(2) 9/20/11 (Morning) squats 25,20,20,20

New PR on chinups yesterday. 7.5, almost got to 8. I'm a little bit sore this morning but it feels good. I've had a little bit of a sinus infection or something all last week and it's been kicking my butt. Finally got a good night sleep last night after I took some decongestion meds that knocked me out. 9/18/11 (Morning) chinups 7.5,4(2),2(2),1(2) pushups 12,8,9,7 knee tucks 20,15,15,15 9/17/11 No workout but we had a block party in the neighborhood and I was carrying my daughter around for a good couple of hours. On top of that, took her for a long walk in her stroller. So I was carrying around ~28lbs all day. Not a traditional workout but my left arm was sore by the end of the day and I was pooped.

Congrats! You killed your time!