BenWo

Yes the YAYOG has been awesome, and not only for the fact that it's a good workout. I think what I might like best about it is having the app on my phone that just tells me exactly what to do each day and also keeps a log of everything. I seriously don't have to even think about a system for tracking anything at all or worry about planning or rotating muscle groups, it's all taken care of. So Updates... Day... 32 - Pretty sure I'm off by one or two days on some of my earlier numberings. Despite my infrequent updates I'm kicking ass in all the areas I set out to. Handstands: I feel like after the minor setback I'm right back on track and seeing progress in small ways again. I've been doing kick-ups against the wall and then trying to pull my feet away from the wall by pushing with my fingers. I feel like I'm developing some real balance this way, and even though I haven't hit any notable durations balancing myself I can tell I'm starting to get better at it. YAYOG: Still killing it, not too much to report. Given my current schedule I'll be back on track to start Week 7 of the program on Monday. Running: Haven't missed a week yet, though so far this week is proving slightly trickier due to weather. I'll certainly have time in the next few days though and the weather forecast is looking amazingly beautiful. I can't believe this challenge is almost over though, only about a week left!

Absolutely that's what matters! Never give up. And I'm totally the same, I'm way more interested in getting over here to post my progress than on my own challenge thread. So, time for a bunch of catch-up posting, and hopefully I'll also catch back up to the schedule I started on by the end of this week. Week 5 - Day 3 10/13/2014 2x Pull Ups: 5 (unassisted) Let Me Ins: 12 (I hate these so much) 2x Let me Ins: 5 (ugh god, much more hate) Towel Curls: 12 (biceps, aww yeah ;D ) 2x Let Me Ups: 5 (These were interesting, we had company so I was trying to stay out of the main rooms. Used the pull-up bar in the bathroom doorway with my heels on the countertop.) Let Me Ins: 12 (Whyyyyy! Make it end!) Seriously, I hate Let Me Ins. It barely feels like I'm working my arms/back at all, but it burns like crazy in my legs. Week 5 - Day 4 10/14/2014 2x V-Ups: 5 Russian Twists:12 2x Hyperextensions: 5 Swimmers:12 2x Supermans: 5 Leg Lifts:12 Nothing much to mention for this day, the V-Ups + Russian Twists combo was definitely killer, the rest all felt really similar. Week 6 - Day 1 10/15/2014 2x Push-Ups: 5 (Feet at knee height) Shove Offs: 12 2x Military Press: 5 Thumbs Up: 12 (less popping this week, but still noticeable) 2x Close Grip Push-Ups: 5 Seated Dips: 12 The seated dips get so brutal by the end Week 6 - Day 2 10/16/2014 2x Back Lunges: 5 Toyotas:12 (oww again) 2x Lunges: 5 Side Lunges:12 2x OLRs: 5 Squats: 12 By the end of this I always love the squats, so nice to keep both feet planted firmly on the ground. So woohoo, bunch of progress on catching up, no to mention the great workouts!

Week 5 - Day 2 2x Back Lunges: 5 Toyotas: 12 - (holy crap these are brutal at the end!) 2x Lunges: 5 Side Lunges: 12 2x OLRs: 5 Squats: 12 Great leg workout, but still glad it's over! I'll make sure not to combine this with a running day.

Thanks! I am doing great! Yep the meat was plentiful, I hardly ate anything else at all! As for my head, it actually never hurt that much, just looked unpleasant. It's almost completely healed now though so no worries! Day 24 - Back at it. Got back into the swing of things doing my regular workouts today. Began week 5 of the YAYOG program, looks like the next couple weeks are supersets, so things like pushup/dips combos. It felt really good today. For handstands I've taken a half-step back and did kick-ups with my back to the wall. I probably was over-eager before since this felt like the right point to be at, I was able to attempt to balance myself while still keeping my hands and arms tight and planted due to the wall providing a catch. Looking forward to more progress soon I think.

Week 5 - Day 1 Hopefully I'll be able to catch up a bit over the next few days, I'll feel bad if I'm not back on schedule by week 7! Really liked the supersets today, arms day is always fun though, right? 2x Push-Ups: 5 (feet at knee height) Shove Offs: 12 (hands hip height) 2x Military Press: 5 (hands on ground) Thumbs Up: 12 -- I had a weird popping sensation in my chest and right shoulder every rep on these, no idea what's up. It wasn't painful, but it wasn't very comfortable either. :-P 2x Close Grip Push-Ups: 5 (thumb tips touching, hands on ground) Seated Dips: 12 (legs straight) *** EDIT: I finally went and entered all my info on the spreadsheet. Woo.

So another big gap in updates, but not so big a gap in my challenge work at least! Day 23 - I am still here! Diet wise things are going awesomely, I had planned a cheat day over last weekend due to going out to a nice restaurant with friends (rodizio grill), but when I did an estimate of what I'd eaten, even erring on the high side, it didn't come out to nearly as much as I'd thought, so it wasn't even a cheat day in the end. Handstands got me into trouble over the weekend though, was trying to get my practice in for the day on Sunday evening, practicing kick-ups and I overbalanced and sort of landed on my head. No real injuries except for a bad rug burn on my forehead... :-P It did make me take a day off though, so it's still going to take a while to catch up on the days I'd missed previously. That also put me behind for the YAYOG workouts, but those wont be so hard to catch up on. I did get my run in today at least! Ran the usual 2 miles, overall average pace of 10:06 per mile! (first mile was 9:18) The first 3/4 of a mile felt horrid today, I really had to push myself to get through it. The second mile felt surprisingly better than usual, hence the much lower overall time. And of course thanks to those of you who have been stopping over and posting!

Well I feel a tad behind, but looks like I'm actually in fairly good company... so here's to catching up! Week 4 - Day 3: 10/7/2014 LMI: 12/12/12 LMU: 12/12/12 LMI: 12/12/12 Towel Curls: 12/12/12 Those towel curls work way better than I expected, after a only a bit of practice it's been really easy to push myself on every rep! Week 4 - Day 4: 10/8/2014 Leg Lifts: 12/12/12 Hyperextensions: 12/12/12 Russian Twists: 12/12/12 Swimmers: 12/12/12 Felt good on all these today, did the workout after my handstand set. Leg lifts were about 5 seconds per rep; Hyperextensions were 3 second hold, 2 second rest; Twists were sloowww, at least a full second per knee; Swimmers were held about 2 seconds each side, really pushing for height. It was really good to get back to the program after a few days skipped, I'm super excited to get into week 5 tomorrow!

Hey just came to check out your thread as a fellow YAYOGer and here I see you're also a fellow Wisconsinite! Fall is looking awesome so far this year, by far my absolute favorite season. Great work with the YAYOGs (as usual by this point!) and looks like you're blazing through your challenge. Good to hear you're liking the yoga as well, I'm thinking about adding some of that in next challenge...

Day 17 - The Legs day from HELLLLL It's been 7 hours since I finished my workout, and my quads are still burning. Let me start at the beginning though... I started with handstand work, as per usual. I've decided that since I hit the 60 second hold yesterday that it's time to start shifting focus towards balance work, so going forward I'm thinking 4 days will be balance focus and 1 day will continue to be holds with wall assistance. At least until I hit the point that I can balance for 20+ seconds, then it's all just handstands. So today I tried doing some Kick-Ups to a free-standing handstand and had moderately acceptable success. I must have made at least 30 attempts, and a couple of times I was holding something for up to 5 seconds. After doing my handstand practice I realized that it wasn't raining outside and I should get my weekly run in. I've got a usual route now that comes out to 2 miles, so that has become my standard distance. The run went fairly well, though tons of room for obvious improvements. Overall pace of 10:44 minute mile, new PB! My fast start is what got me there though, I pushed myself really hard and runkeeper tells me I did the first mile in 9:22. Of course I then suffered for it in the form of a really painful stitch in my side for a lot of the second mile. I at least partly blame the really humid air as well, it felt really heavy to breathe today. So crazy difficult run completed, I went back home and got started on my YAYOG workout. Of course I would pick leg day to go running beforehand. (I knew this in advance, I guess I'm a glutton for punishment, or maybe just a glutton for hitting those damn challenge goals no matter what!) There were at least two points where I really didn't think I would be able to finish up a set, but I managed to push through and finish all the prescribed reps. So here I am, legs still burning. (oh look, 8 hours since workout, dang I write slowly) I'm a little concerned for how I might feel tomorrow, who knows if I'll even be able to walk? But tomorrow is an arms day, so who cares, right?

Week 4 - Day 2 BS Squats: 12/12/12 Side Lunges: 12/12/12 Squats: 12/12/12 OLRD: 12/12/12 Agggggh. I ran 2 miles (10:44/mi average, new PB) before doing this workout so I felt the burn in every single rep. I really wasn't sure I'd finish every rep today but I pushed through the pain. Success.

Thanks, it felt good!

Haha yeah I tried that one day near the beginning, even after resting a long time I pretty much just landed on my head.

Thanks guys Sorry for my sporadic updates on this thread, I've been re-adjusting the schedule of my life and so I tend to spend a lot less time just plopped in front of the computer on weekends. Really a pretty good thing all around I think. so... Day 16 Everything has been going well and according to plan! I'm just coming off a couple days off of my workouts and happily I've broken through a plateau on my handstand progressions. I've been doing an interval-like progression where I'll hold a wall-handstand for as long as I can, and then rest for a minute, then do another one as long as I can, etc, until at least my 5 minute minimum has elapsed. I've been hitting about 35-40 seconds at most, and usually falling to 20 seconds for the last couple. Today I wasn't sure how I'd feel doing them but my arms felt super sturdy and I was able to hold out for 60 seconds on the first attempt! Held the second attempt for 40 seconds but my arms were starting to shake quite a lot by then. Did the YAYOG workout shortly after (woah, arms day all around). Only thing that's slightly off is the frequency of handstands, I'm currently a day behind. I'm not going to count it out as missed until I give myself a chance to make it up next week though.

Week 4 - Day 1 Push Ups: 12/12/12 Military Press: 12/12/12 Close P-Ups: 12/12/12 Seated Dips: 12/12/12 I'm working on handstand progressions for my 6w challenge and always do that work before I get to the YAYOG for the day. So today these were preceded by a 60 second and then 40 second handstand against the wall. Plenty of extra difficulty due to that, really had to grind out the last reps each set.

Week 3 - Day 4 Core day! Did 12/12/12 of everything and with a grin on my face! Actually that's not true, I took the leg lifts insanely slow so I was gritting my teeth by the end. (8 seconds per rep) Also I finally figured out swimmers! Before I had been trying to just match the movement shown in the demo video on the app, but today I decided to just lift as hard and as far as I possibly could, and hey, I could really feel it! Can't believe this is the end of the third week already, seems like I only just started!

Day, um... 11 Oh dear god it was the day from hell. Not exactly in a bad way though. In the interest of staying current with my goals I decided to pull out all the stops and do all three things today. I ran 2 miles (11:06 per mile average), then I came home and tried to hold myself in a handstand, and then just shortly after I did the YAYOG workout (it was arms day thankfully). I am so dead and sore, but I feel like it was a bit of an accomplishment to get it all done and put me in a pretty good mood going into the rest of the week! Now I'll also have time to start work on my next batch of jerky this afternoon.

Hey I'm still in this, just had a weekend completely away from the PC, it was so productive! Anyway, here's my catch-up post... Week 2 - Day 4 (9/20/14) Side Lunges: 37 (+1) OLRD: 36 (+6) Squats: 72 (+6) Russian Twists: 106 (+11) For lack of a better idea I just pushed as hard as I could on the russian twists. It burned by the end. Week 3 - Day 1 (9/22/14) Classic PU: 12/12/12 Military Press: 12/12/12 Close Grip PU: 12/12/12 Seated Dips (straight legs): 12/12/12 For most of these I was shaking on the last few reps, but not quite at muscle failure. I wasn't sure exactly what was meant for "close grip" pushups so I just kept the tips of my thumbs touching. Those were the toughest of the group. I was also washing dishes in the rest periods this day. Efficiency! Week 3 - Day 2 (9/24/14) BS Squats: 12/12/12 Side Lunges: 12/12/12 Squats: 12/12/12 OLRD: 12/12/12 What the shit. This KILLED my legs. Who thought 108 reps of quad focused exercises was the way to go anyway? My legs almost gave out when I tried to go down a flight of stairs about an hour later. So anyway that's me caught up! I can't access google services from work so I'll have to update the spreadsheet later!

Thank you to everyone for the comments and update queries! I haven't fallen off the earth, I just had a very computer free weekend! I've kept up with my challenge so far so it's all going well! The YAYOG workouts are still happening and I'm keeping pace on those. Handstands are still really tough! I'm able to hold myself upside down for about 4 sets of 20-30 second holds. My arms are really shaky by the end though. Running, well, I had to adjust and do a YAYOG workout yesterday which ended up being legs hell. Had to postpone the run until later today, but it was the right decision since I nearly fell down the stairs just trying to walk out to the car a bit later! Only tiniest "slip-up" was that I went over my calories one day by about 150, but this isn't a primary concern on any of my goals since I am always under. Yesterday, for example, I ended up being under by about 350, even after giving in and eating a cookie at work. As for the jerky? I can say it turned out YUM! I used about 3.4 lbs of top round and it came out as 26.4 ounces of jerky. I've eaten nearly all of it already (just since saturday night too) so I'll be making another batch this weekend to share with some friends.

Completed this in my challenge thread.

Week 1 Mini Dungeon Here are some questions to put your goals to the test: Is your overall quest achievable (over a short or long period of time)? Is it reasonable? ​​Absolutely, it's a medium to long term goal, but doable. Do your 3 quests all build towards your main quest in little ways, or are you taking on too much? Do your quests have sub-quests or is it just one thing to focus on? ​​I'm taking on a fair amount to be sure, but it's all building on the work I've been doing the last few months. All my goals build very directly towards my main quest. Are your main goals realistic? Can you scale them to smaller steps to fit your life better, even if it will make it take a little longer to achieve them? ​​The goals are very realistic, they don't add much to what my schedule already was. If need be I could scale them back, but I wont see much progress if I don't push myself. Are your goals able to be measured and tracked? What will you use to track them? ​​The central thing tracking all three goals is this challenge thread. But more specifically I use MFP for food tracking, the YAYOG app to track those workouts, and RunKeeper to track my run days. The handstand practice I just use a timer and the log it here in the thread. How are you grading your goals? Are they pass/fail (“every dayâ€, “not even once over the six weeksâ€)? Is there a reward for the effort, or are you only grading yourself on whether or not you “lose the weight†or “run the distanceâ€? ​​All grading for my goals is enumerated in the original post, none are purely pass/fail. There are things that I could certainly reward myself with, but I don't need them and am not in a position to be buying things. Honestly seeing myself progress is quite a good reward. What is your plan for continuing/altering/grading those goals if you become ill or injured? ​​If something happens that really truly precludes me from reaching my goals for some time I will allow myself to skip a period of time with only a minor penalty, provided I do some extra credit later once I am able. Did you take into consideration any special occasions (Labour Day, Independence Day, birthdays, anniversaries, etc) that may occur during the challenge? What modifications do you need to build into your goals for those? ​​There aren't any major events happening for me over the course of the challenge. A few get-togethers and birthdays, but nothing I can't factor in to the schedule. Do any of your main goals conflict with each other? Will one goal make it hard to do another? ​​None of the goals conflict exactly, but they can add difficulty to each other as I will be working out 5 to 6 days a week between them all. Do you already have the time in your schedule to actually complete the goals you’ve set? If not, what are you planning to do to make time for them? ​​All of my goals are very light on time requirements, so far an hour a day for 5 days a week has been plenty. Are you trying to build multiple habits, or is all your energy focused on your main quest? ​​I am largely focused on the main quest and using each of the goals to take me in that direction. The main habits that I'm working on are healthy eating and making time for exercise. Your mini quest: Make sure your goals are definitely SMART. Overall I feel like my goals are straightforward, achievable, and build toward my main quest. So in my evaluation my goals qualify as "SMART". For completing this mini quest you will receive an additional +1WIS at the end of the 6 weeks. Stat point! Gimme! ;D

Thanks! And I'll still make all my goals, I'm sure of that.

Day 5 Well today did not turn out at all as planned. My wife bruised her knees up pretty badly by tripping on an escalator, so my afternoon ended up being running errands rather than getting in my workout. I actually just went and did my handstand work as I had a chance for a break at work. Figured I can't really afford to push that back another day if I want to be sure to hit my goal. On a happier note, part of the errand this afternoon was picking up some meat so I can finally try my hand at making some beef jerky! I love beef jerky as a good protein-rich snack, but it always seems to go super fast and be rather expensive, not to mention some mild concern I have over the crazy sodium content. So I picked out this recepie and was able to get it all prepped and marinating before work tonight. Since everything was so rushed this afternoon I didn't get to take pictures as I was hoping to but I'll have time to take some tomorrow night when I'm dehydrating them.

Thanks guys! It was a nice moment. Day 4 Ow. Ow ow ow my legs! So yeah the DOMS has arrived from my run yesterday. Especially for my calves and shins. Did my handstand work and the YAYOG workout for the day and they went pretty well, though I felt a bit worn down. Diet wise I did really well, it felt like I ate a good amount and still came in a fair bit under the calorie limit. Not much else of note, looking forward to wrapping up the first week of the challenge!

So sorry to hear that, I hope everything works out alright for you and thanks for all the effort you put in!