BattleBear

I also skipped my workout on Sunday (but I mowed the lawn) and got sick eating cookies yesterday...

I did 3x10 incline crunch and twists with a 15lb med ball, and 3xmax (which was a lot, i just didn't count) of laying on my back a lowering a 10lb weight over my head to the ground without my rib cage opening up (another thing I picked up in aerial silks). That one wasn't particularly difficult, but it does train the upper abs to stay tight when doing pull ups and what not.

Hello! So I would love to travel and do more, but I'm kinda poor-ish. So in an effort to save munnies and still travel, I joined couchsurfer.com. If you don't know what it is, it's a website where people open up their homes for people to come and stay while they are traveling, which I think is super cool. Let me say here that my father has instilled in me a healthy dose of paranoia. I don't usually trust strangers, and therefore go to certain lengths to make sure I am safe. I am traveling with my sister, so I'm not alone. I am a level 13 Warrior Monk with a black belt in Jujitsu (Sometimes my sensei gets really taken aback by how "lethal" I am (his words, not mine)). So in those respects I do feel more safe, and couch surfer does have policies and procedures to make sure people are safe. Do y'all have any tips or tricks to safe travel when staying with strangers? My first trip is to central Texas for Tough Mudder on May 20-22

How tough are you? Are you one tough mudder? My sister and I have signed up for the Tough Mudder run in Central Texas. It is to take place in Smithville, about 2 hours outside of Houston. My sister and I are going to volunteer on the 21st and run it (on a volunteer discount) on the 22nd. We are looking for two things: 1) Nerds who want to run this mug with us. (neither my sister nor I are going to run the whole distance, we are not scouts ;)) 2) A place to stay near the location. I am kind of poor and can't afford to spend too much money on lodging, but if you let us crash at your place, I will clean your house/apartment/whatever Friday night in appreciation for a place to stay. We will likely arrive Friday afternoon, be gone most of Saturday and Sunday, and leave Sunday evening. You are more than welcome to be on our team, but you don't have to come to the run if you don't want to! Love you guys, hope to hear back!

Speaking of hanging knee raises; I start off really well, but after a few reps I start swinging and my grip slips. Then I fall and have to start again. Do I just need to improve my grip strength or is there a technique for not swinging? ... or both?!

O no, this wasn't in the air. This was on the ground, but meant to increase your core strength. No lie, aerial silks exhausts me like nothing else. You need a very strong core to make it look as graceful as the professionals do.

Tacked on this little beauty I learned in aerial silks class. Goes like this: never let your arms or legs touch the ground. crunch, pike,v-up, roll over. I know it hardly makes sense, but I did them because I knew they hurt. 3x4 was all I could do

Belly dancing for the win!! I learned a little but never joined a troupe or anything. It's harder than most people think. And I pretty much am trying to be my Dragon Age Inquisition (and origins) character. A Warrior Dwarf. I can't get any shorter, but I can certainly get stronger! And that's another thing that I love about this place - nerdyness is allowed and encouraged. With other aspects of my life I keep the fact that I'm a nerd on the DL because I feel like I would be judged for it, but not here!!

I was having the same dilemma. Obviously, being warrior class, they tell you not to worry about the number on the scale because muscle weighs so much. But I do want to loose fat, and I really don't think that I have 40 lbs of muscle in my body that's making me "overweight" a good bit of this is fat. I just ordered some calipers, so when they come in I'll know more about my body composition. I'm excited for them to arrive. Man in video cleared up a lot of my questions for me. Good job, Man. Now I just need to get my diet to the point where I'm doing those things. Only problem being: I HATE FOOD LOGS! I hate the time that it takes to write it all down. It's just so inconvenient for me. It's not. I just hate doing it. It really wouldn't take up that much time. Now I'm rambling. Done.

We absolutely do not judge here That's what I love about it. If you have a naturally slender and "healthy" looking body, in no way are we going to put you down for wanting to get fit. Fitness is for everyone of all shapes and sizes! Even the ones most people think are already just fine. I'll be honest (as I feel no need to lie) I joined nerd fitness because I wanted to finally loose weight. Most people did not think that I needed to loose weight because I carried it very well. I didn't look 180lbs. But I wanted to loose around 40-50 lbs. Now that I've joined, by big "Why" has changed. I realized that looking good was not nearly good enough motivation to keep me on track. I wanted to be a raging bad ass. I wanted to be strong. Very strong. I wanted to never be afraid of walking alone. Where you begin doesn't matter as much as where you are going, and we are excited about your journey! Welcome to the Rebellion!

So we can do any number of exercises for any number of reps we want as long as it's three sets? Like I can do one ab work out for 3x5 or 4 ab workouts for 3x16 each?

I missed the last challenge, but Imma do this! Whatever ab exercises I want to do with as many reps as I want to do? As long as its 3 sets?

Hey, where you at? It's Monday and I don't see no post! Tell me that you go to the gym in the evening and you were planning on doing it today, just at 6pm or something.

That looks awesome! When is it? The website said it was in 208 days.

Brace yourselves, graduation is coming. And I have no idea what I'm doing. If I can't get a civilian job I've pretty much settled that I will go into the Navy. I would probably do supply, because I'm an MBA. Boring! I want to do intelligence. Honestly, I think I would do well in either path. I have two big problems: 1) I hear the Navy relies heavily on BMI, but according to BMI I am obese. Everyone I told that do said "I don't believe you" Even when I tell people that I weigh 177lbs they're like "I don't believe you" because I'm not big. I'm quite muscular and therefore dense. But I honestly don't think that I can drop 30lbs at this point. At one point that was my goal but now that I'm powerlifting, I can see that dropping 30lbs isn't exactly in my best interest. What's a buff girl to do? problem #2) I won't be able to take my dog... but there's not much I can really do about that. Any current military or former military wanna give me some tips? Pros and cons of active duty vs reserve?

I'm in Hammond. My sisters (Also into nerdfitness but I don't think they are on the forums) live in New Orleans and North of Baton Rouge, so I pass through both cities pretty often. If we're doing a meet up, I would love to partake! I'm way more excited then I think I reasonably should be to meet fellow fit nerds.

50/50 done. I wasn't expecting to make it all the way to 50 but I did. I was expecting to fall over once I was done, but I didn't. Thanks for the challenge, it was quite fun

I'm working my way up to a pull up. My sisters and I have been planing on getting back tats soon. So the other day I was craining my neck around to see kind of where I want it to be and I noticed how fantastically muscular my back looked. Most recently I did 3 sets of negatives 4,3, then 3.

I just sent you a linkedIn invitation. Hopefully it was to the right person! I would love to relocate! I'm currently in Louisiana and I've been wanting to get out for a long time.

I too have a question (which may have been posed earlier in the forum but I didn't want to go through and read every post). Warm up sets: When do you do them? Before that specific exercise or in your warm up? How much do you lift for warm up sets? How many sets do you do for warm ups? On a different vein: I've started to get some lower back pain, which up until this point I've just been chocking up to muscle fatigue. But during my squats (specifically when my ass hits the grass) and my deadlifts I've felt what I can only describe as a pulling pain (mild pain) in my lower back. My 5x5s on both of these exercises are around 100% of my body weight. Could it be my form or is it just time for a weight belt?

Imma jump in on this challenge. Squats are tomorrow morning, so I'll let you fine people know how it goes. Definitely doing easy mode as I am still technically a beginner. I just know the people in my gym are gonna give me nasty looks for taking up the only squat rack for a long time. But they'd just as soon jump on the Smith machine (booo). Any cthusuls. We'll see how far I get.

Who is looking for a job? Who is hiring? I'm going to graduate May 2016 from my MBA program (master of business administration). One of my professors made a point today about leveraging your circles of influence. Obvious interests: nerd-dom and fitness. Less obvious interests: human trafficking prevention/rescue/awareness. Mostly, anything helping people (MBAs are flexable). I have experience with Event coordinating/planning, volunteer coordinating, organization creation (I've been a part of 3 creations), Microsoft office, spreadsheets, etc. If any one is hiring or knows an organization who is hiring grads/MBAs, please let me know. Comment or message me and I'll send you/whomever my resume. Bottom line is I love you guys and this community is the coolest, most supportive conglomerate of total strangers that I have ever come across in my life. I feel like you guys (even though I don't actually know you) are my friends. Thanks!