smashmp

Oh hi!

**UPDATE** 4/27/15 I never got around to lifting last week as planned; my lower back has been screaming at me. I thought it was karate or weightlifting-related but it's more painful waking up in the morning and remaining sedentary. I've been grumbling about a new pillow for months now, so I finally just shut up and ordered one. Once it arrives, we'll see if it at least helps my back/neck/sleep issues. Since I wasn't in a state to lift, I did my basics! Also took my dog for a few nice long walks to loosen my back up. Still tracking food and indulged in a couple beers - two to be exact - and goal shots to celebrate the Blackhawks win over the Predators. Back is feeling somewhat better today. Goal is to get up from my desk every half hour to walk and stretch it out a bit. When I get home, it's time for more basics (hopefully a video of my kata) and some light barbell exercises. Week 2 sucked...week 3 will not.

Suddenly (within the last few months) my husband has just straight up quit on squats and DLs. It's oddly discouraging for me, since he's my workout buddy and I wanna celebrate his gains in addition to my own. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Hello all. Not sure why I haven't posted here before. I'm in the western suburbs. Was hoping to go to C2E2 this weekend, but life had other plans... Anyway, hello local nerds! Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Week 1: Overall, a good week, but a week of silly injuries. Dealing with mild lower back strain (probably hyperextended during the last set of a deadlift), sore feet, whacked my knee and shin slipping in the rain and managed to chop a chunk out of my thumb while making breakfast Sunday. Graceful, I am not. Tuesday (karate class): Lots of basics drills, which is great since that's exactly my goal area of improvement over these next six weeks. Oddly, some of my blocks have weakened, so I spent much of the class making adjustments. We also ran through chinte - black belt kata - as a a group, so that was pretty awesome. I love when we baby belts get the chance to try an advanced kata; our instructor is awesomely inclusive. I made good on my goal of dedicating 30 minutes a day during week 1 to karate basics. Even threw in a bodyweight circuit Saturday to compensate for the lack of lifting. Also, I got my squats up to 125 lb; that's a far cry from my 165 lb PR, but it's a rebuilding phase. Knocked out 3 sets of 5 reps and felt damn good. However, only lifted 2 of my usual 3 days. Also created my karate quiz! I just threw it up real fast using 000webhost; I'll move it eventually to somewhere less ad-filled. Week 2: Rough week so far. I've gotten back into the habit of writing down my food intake after some recalculation. I'm pretty discouraged today since today is measurement day, and both my bodyweight (up to 166 from 164 last week) and measurements squeaked up a tick. I know bodyweight shouldn't matter quite as much, and it wouldn't had my waist measurement gone down instead of up. I'll quit beating myself up, because it's been a busy, productive week otherwise, and today is lift day. Tuesday (karate class): Oof! Sensei kicked our asses. Imagine the karate equivalent of leg day. I'm still feeling it 2 days later, but it was good. My stances are improving, but my kata is a bit wobbly from recalibrating my stances and making sure my hand placement is correct. I'll update further after the weekend. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

No matter how cliché it might be, Bruce Lee is the ultimate monk to me. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

It was great and frustrating at the same time. I love and hate when testing is coming up because our instructor does NOT let up on us. Which is good. That's exactly what I was hoping for. He's big on basics, even though half our class is black belts. We did get to do a more advanced kata as a class that the black belts are working on. That's always my favorite; getting the chance to do something that I probably won't encounter again for a few years Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Eldritch Horror, mostly. The husband and I recently got the D&D starter set (don't judge too harshly, I've never had anyone to show me the ropes). Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Thank you, and you'll rock that 10k! I love seeing progress in other areas. It's amazing to go from hardly being able to keep up in a sparring exercise and then seeing how much strength and endurance has been gained by weightlifting. Truthfully, my deadlift goals have largely been based around my bodyweight and what I can physically withstand for a full set. When I started, I would alternate between adding weight throughout a set, usually increments of 2.5 to 5lbs. The one thing that helped me was to track everything. Deadlifting, in particular, is the one thing in my life I don't overthink, but the benefit of writing down every single workout was what helped me determine what goals were feasible and when. When my weight dropped to 165 from 185ish, I was only deadlifting about 135. So, my goal was to set small incremental increases each week until I could compete a full set of deadlifts at 165. From there, I did the same to see if I could deadlift my weight when I started and made those small weight increases each week until I hit my bodyweight (185) a year ago. Everything since then has been a bonus. So really, it depends on what you can do without risking poor form or injury. A lot of plates have been added and taken away due to bad form. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Gah, I'm late! Seeing as I recklessly abandoned my first 6 week challenge, it's time to try again; this time with a tangible goal at the end of the challenge. Main Quest: Improve strength and endurance for karate and lifting. As some may know, I'm in love with powerlifting and I also practice Shotokan karate. The two don't particularly go hand in hand, but they do complement each other. While I'm psyched I've gone from deadlifting 135lb to 205lb in less than a year's time, my squats fell prey to poor form and I'm not at all where I want to be for bench presses. Shotokan is all about strong, low stances and quick and powerful punches. Here's how I'm gonna do this:Dedicate 30 minutes each day to karate basics (kihon), focusing primarily on blocks and leg position, holding for 10-15 seconds each.Squat with purpose. While there's little more satisfying than driving up from a heavy squat, my focus here will be maintaining balance and form while driving up from the squat at about half my normal speed.Pass my karate exam on May 17, 2015! This is my end goal for this challenge. If I pass, this will push me into the intermediate level. If I don't, I'll try again during Fall exams .Life Quest: Memorize kihon (basics) commands in Japanese. Since this next exam will push me into a somewhat more advanced level of training, I'm expected to know at least some of the movement commands in Japanese. So why not study them all? In lieu of flashcards that I'm sure to lose, I'll use my nerdy know-how to build a electronic mini-quiz for myself. Maybe this will even morph into another side-quest where I actually fiddle around with my Raspberry Pi!Accountability: I plan to update this thread every Wednesday with my overall progress for the week and recap the previous Tuesday night's karate class. **Last Update: 5/20/15 (see comments)**

I'm late on my reply game, but yeah! You can set the alarms in your phone app by tapping on the device in your account settings > silent alarms. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Hard to believe it's only been 2 months since I hit 195, but I have news... I hit 205 lb deadlift today!!!!

I've got to level my BE hunter; she's only at 90 atm. Haven't played her since WoD began. Regardless, I'll be on tomorrow working on my alliance lock (91) and I'll give some time to my BE hunter as well.

I'm central as well.

My battle tag is SmashMP#1750

I've got a 90 blood elf hunter to add to that mix.

Agreed. I'm in. I'll even drag my husband into it.

I actually have an old Night Elf alt that's a Druid. Probably build her up and see how it goes.