Mike Wazowski

Thanks! And that's awesome - still not sure if I'll be able to pull it off without going back to school, also looking into some part-time master's degree programs as potential options.

Haha I try to keep it at a constant level - but I've become quite secure in my old-ness (staying out past 11 is a late night for me these days). Oh yikes! I don't get nightmares, but I'll get grumpy / start obsessing about them if I go without for too long. Agreed - or at least they're satisfying when I'm filling in the good color! My background's engineering, so this was an an elaborate design for me :P.

Woo for other ballroom dancing nerds! Although unfortunately... There are actually two different national championships for amateur ballroom competitors - one in Provo, UT, in mid-March, and another in Baltimore, MD, in late-March / early April. They're run by two different organizing bodies (similar to USAPL and the other PL feds, I think). Partner and I are going to the UT one for sure, MD is a bit more up in the air - UT is more competitive in our categories, but we might do MD as well for the experience. And on the SWIRL side - my company is starting to go into a very big-data-intensive direction (we're already pretty analytical for a bank) and I want to beef up my skillset - also possible that I'll angle for more of a data science-y career in the next 5ish years (possibly with a grad degree, though that's very up in the air).

Oof- I struggle with assuming I'm inconveniencing people by existing all the time! I like the idea of the pull-up bar in the house - I should set up the one I bought for use at my parents' house (go home for two weeks at christmas, don't want to be a total slug) and start making that a habit for when I'm home.

Woo! You got this! I need to get back into Deutsch practice myself, but it might not happen this challenge. Props to you! If you figure out a way to curb the sweets cravings after lunch, I'm all ears! Laghail said it better than I ever could but this meme is the best!

I am super late on following, but popping by to say: PARKS AND REC IS THE BEST!!!!! Excellent choice of a joy totem, even my inner Ben Wyatt approves. Props to you on avoiding overtraining. I have to remind myself all the time that my body can only recover from so much, props to you for recognizing that for yourself (and for recognizing when your hobby had gotten unfun). Spike is adorable. 'Nuff said.

No need to apologize!! I love talking about dance. Not a pro, but a highly competitive amateur, so we're in a weird gray area - I'd call my partner and I semi-pro. She's based out of Houston, I'm in Dallas, but we end up competing all over the country (Salt Lake, NYC, and Baton Rouge in the past year). Love it! I relate to Squidward the most, but I think that's just because I prematurely became a crotchety old man at the age of 10 (give or take). Definitely meal planning, which I already do (and actually do intensely, I end up batching and freezing 3-4 weeks of food at a crack due to my travel schedule for dance, which is not my day job). I'm still torn whether I can have access to chips or candy in my home - I have a bad habit of not stopping once I start in evening snacking. I'm going to experiment by getting a large bag of peanut m&m's for my office desk and allowing myself small servings of those on work days. Something that really derailed me recently was feeling shame when I indulged in sweets of any sort because I was aspiring to cut out sweets completely, and the shame prompted me to eat my feelings and have even more sweets - not a helpful cycle. So my gameplan here is to make it OK to enjoy something sweet (especially because I made good progress despite questionable habits the past couple months AND I know I'm active enough to get away with some empty calories in my diet) BUT also to remind myself of diminishing marginal utility when indulging (#econnerd). Oh god, after seeing your challenge and the beautifully laid out pages, I'm a bit ashamed to share, but here goes... I'm using blue for success, red for a miss - the end result reminds me of the rank badges imperial officers wear in Star Wars, which was quite unintentional but I appreciate it. I don't do a lot for aesthetics in my journal, but I like having a place to collect thoughts, store to-dos, etc.

Hey y'all! Delinquent on posting a challenge thread, but not on tracking a challenge (picked out goals day 1 of zero week, made a janky journal tracker, and...didn't update. This challenge week 4 happens to fall on the week of US Ballroom Dance nationals, where I'm competing, so I won't be ramping up fitness too much and instead focusing on training and eating like I need to for the big event. ...Decidedly not my pre-competition nutrition plan Here's the goals this time around: 1) Maintain successes from last challenge: Go to mass every week Do financial stuff every week (budget tracker, money shuffling, paying off all CC balances) - this is a bit extreme (paying cc's weekly) but has been the best approach to stave off daily money anxiety for me Lift 3x per week, Pilates 3x per week - I fell off the Pilates wagon towards the end, but I need it to counterbalance the spine stiffness / tightness that comes from my strength training Dance solo 3x per week - every weekend is with the partner, so this needs to be three nights in Mon - Thurs 2) Clean up my nutrition / eating: Follow a basic nutrition plan every day - this means eating veggies and lean proteins for every meal and not eating peanut butter straight from the jar, no matter how tasty it is No emotional eating (or getting emotional about what I just ate) - I have a pretty broken relationship with food - I eat to soothe emotions and also get really emotional when I feel like my eating is "out of control" - my goal is to recognize that neither of those behaviors is rational in the moment and substitute a more appropriate behavioral / emotional response (lofty ambition) This pair is really tough for me, there was a 5-day stretch already where I failed on both... 3) Self Care: Sleep 7+ hours every night Pray daily ...self-explanatory. 4) Step up my work game: Limit personal stuff to no more than 30 mins / day Make a to-do list daily and prioritize it to focus on the highest value stuff I've been less-than-stellar at work lately, although apparently still good enough to be an "associate of the month" for my department (apparently I'm good at faking it). I'm gunning for a promotion at the mid-year point, and these two are the first of many actionable steps to help me get there. 5) Educate myself Read "10-minute toughness" (short-ish book with practical steps for athletes and business people to be mentally tougher / more resilient) Go through the first course on Swirl to learn R (data analysis tool) Both of these support my work success, I'm expecting the first to also help in my dancing - mental / emotional toughness is a consistent weak point for me across both. I wanted to pepper more gifs in here, but I apparently hit the max total size with my first one. Still infinitely more than my last challenge, so progress? Image of bujo-style tracker coming soon - it's not very aesthetically pleasing, so don't get your hopes up @RedStone.

So much for updating the challenge... Short post-mortem - stuck with the lifting, did OK with the sleep, making my bed and tidying up my apartment are both pretty much automatic habits. Oh and discovered I despise tracking calories and don't want to ever do it again - makes my math nerd side get a bit obsessive. 50% on attending mass - not where I want to be. Tracking in Excel was a pain, gonna try analog next time. Next challenge, I'll work on maintaining the workouts, upping the ante on sleep a bit (7 hours or more, every night!) and focus on some work habits. New thread (with infinitely more gifs and memes!) coming...sometime.

Some people need to use dumbbells to build up to handling the weight of the barbell (ex. my 60+ y.o. mother who hasn't strength trained in multiple decades, if ever, probably couldn't bench or row an empty barbell, so she would need to start with very light dumbbells on a typical beginner strength program. That being said, like @navis said, dumbbells have value for every level of trainee as they force you to stabilize with more muscles due to their inherent instability relative to a barbell. I typically use them for DB presses and DB benches at high reps (~12 per set) after a main workout that did the other of those two with a barbell (i.e. if I did barbell press, I bench with the DB's).

Awesome results man, congrats!! Seconding what Marissa said, I lol'd real hard at the "rawer than thou" quip.

Preach. This morning's lifting (only work sets listed for the main lifts) Squat 260x5x3 - oof. I did them, but there were some very slow points in the movement and what felt like form breakdowns to get some of those reps up; think I'm going to start doing MF heavy, W light; adding weight only once a week on these (and maybe also slowing down the weight progression) Bench 160x5x3 - getting close to bodyweight here, and they felt tough, but manageable; I definitely need to read up on form on this exercise since mine is all over the place Deadlift 225x5x1 - read a good chunk of Rippetoe's deadlift chapter yesterday evening, realized I was doing quite a bit suboptimally, opted to lower the weight back down and rework up with better form. Chin ups - 8, 7, 5 (supered with abs) Abs work - 16xbicycle crunches per side, followed with 16xper side I don't know the name for them, but touching a hand to the opposite leg in the air while keeping the other leg and arm planted into the ground Barbell rows- 75x12x3 (supered with DB press) DB Press- 25x12x3 Skipped cardio intervals since my ankle was feeling a bit twinge-y and had been all weekend - I started doing some rehab exercises for it again last night, hopeful it'll go back to normal soon In other strength training news, I went on an amazon spree and bought "Starting Strength" and "Olympic Weightlifting for Sports" as e-books plus a set of fractional plates, so I've got lots of reading material to nerd out on and I'm well prepped for the imminent need to micro-load my lifts. Sleep's been interesting - I've been struggling to fall asleep as early as I'd like, but I'm popping out of bed without too much of a fight in the morning, so I think my body's ok with the just shy of 7 hours it's getting some of these nights (or even just shy of 6 hours like yesterday night). Measured waist again over the weekend - down another half inch! Total of about an inch lost off the waist since starting the challenge in early January. Missed mass yesterday due to a lot of laziness on my end (and being potentially under the weather) - will definitely be keeping it in my next 4-week challenge.

Thanks!!! I'll probably be increasing weight less frequently on the squat going forward - I'm planning to review Practical Programming's novice chapter this weekend and probably will implement the light Wednesday protocol Rip recommends for advanced novices (I think I did a version of that this week anyways). I'll also probably start deadlifting every lifting day but make every other one light since I desperately need work on form and grip strength there. Funny point on the feud / snide remarks between BB's and PL's - I can't really care too much either way since I'm a bit chubbier than I'd like and my wilks score is nothing to write home about.

Thanks all! Preface to all responses below: I shifted from Stronglifts to Starting Strength (or at least my variation of it) so I'm doing 5 repsx 3 sets for work sets now (currently doing the most basic SS program w/o the power clean but will likely add it soon). 1. Good to know. 2. Fair point, I wasn't thinking within a horizontal / vertical x push / pull framework when I asked that, and I definitely need to be smart on recovery too. 3a. I think it was a mix of form and progress difficulty - got some corrections on the form front, now I just need to apply them. And planning to order fractional plates soon, since it is such a beast of a lift to progress on. 3b. Definitely grip strength plus form - a mix of feeling like the bar's going to slip out and that I can't keep a neutral spine is usually what causes me to bail on a deadlift. I'm planning to post a form check video soon, I'll add the link here when it's uploaded. I think I've addressed some form issues from a 1-on-1 with a weightlifting coach (we worked on push press, but it highlighted that I had the bar too far forward on overhead). Planning on putting up a form check on deadlift Monday, I know there are some opportunities for me to improve especially on the heavy sets. Good to know on accessories. I'm attempting something similar now, i.e. making sure the accessories aren't the same combo of horizontal / vertical & push / pull as my work sets on bench or overhead (not doing any leg accessory work currently as squats show up every lifting day in SS). Thanks! Definitely adding horizontal pulls by using Barbell rows frequently in my accessory work - I don't like them but I know they're good for me. I'm actually not doing too much on the metabolic conditioning front since I get quite a bit of that from training for dance (every practice includes 1-2 sets of 5x1:30 of full-out dancing), but good to know if I need to change up my strength / conditioning work in the future. Thanks again all for the replies, definitely helpful!

Lengthy update, first time in a while. Had second PT appointment with O-lifting guy on Wednesday, focused on push press (which highlighted some issues in my OHP form), cleans from the hip/mid-thigh (the 2nd/3rd pull?), checked overhead squat form, and checked front squat form. Likely won't be able to work with him for the next week or two (work schedule) but that's ok since I won't be trying to train any of the O-lifts seriously until after ballroom nationals (March 10th and 11th). Workout this morning: Squats 255x5x3, felt grindy on set 2, but still finished strong on the last set - probably getting close to intermediate time since that's 1.5x my bodyweight (note: did a lighter set of squats Wednesday, 225x5x2) OHP 110x5x3, had to clean my warmup sets plus first work set since I was sharing the rack, but overall felt strong in these (the fix from Wednesday PT helped a ton) Deadlifts failed 260x5x1 (but had two separate successful 1-rep attempts, just didn't feel like I had 5 reps in me), suspect I need to do a lot of form work on deadlifts - planning to do some research on deadlift form over the weekend and try to take a form check video Monday (will add link here once I've added it); also didn't use chalk which was brave and stupid - I know better Accessory work: Overhead squat - 45x5x3 (still working on form and depth here, likely will be doing these at low weights for a while to strengthen the upper back and core) DB Bench - 35x15, 40x12, 40x12 (3 second lowering) BB Row - 70x12x3 (3 second lowering, supered w/ DB Bench) Cardio intervals - 20 mins of interval work (90s on, 30 off) on elliptical with moderate intensity - felt good, which is encouraging since I'll add a third set next week Been consistent on my lifting and cardio intervals, not as much on Pilates - my lifting sessions were getting long so I think I'll be trying to do Pilates Thurs/Sat/Sun going forward (but I skipped it yesterday); it's less important than my Odd thought this morning: for most athletes, the hypertrophy is for the ego and the strength is for their sport, but being a dancer mine's actually flipped - feeling stronger's great for my ego but I need the hypertrophy in my chest, shoulders, and upper back for the particular look I'm going for in my sport-art I'm thinking in my next challenge I'll start keeping some sort of recovery / rest / energy level log - I know I've at least mildly overtrained in the past and need to be smart about not getting to that point; TBD what shape that'll take but I know it's important for me Sleep has been going well, averaging over my 6.5 hour goal - oddly, I'm finding that my body's waking up after less than 7 hours a lot and before my alarm - I'm taking it as a sign that I'm feeling well-rested enough Nutrition even though I've stopped tracking calories, I've been tracking weight near daily and my reading this morning showed me down ~6 pounds since the holidays (almost back to pre-holiday weight, embarrassingly); equally good, I'm down ~1/2" in waist size from early Jan. I've written out a draft approach that I think I'll use going forward, so I'll add some sort of nutrition thing back in next challenge. Level up: Making my bed and tidying up my apartment are pretty much automatic at this point, which was the goal of making them daily habits - need to start brainstorming what the next tidy and clean HQ habit I'll build next challenge Mass has been happening every week, but it's not feeling as automatic as I'd like; will likely need to keep in Weekly finances has been a very freeing habit - I pay off all my CC balances every week now so I don't need to worry about bill due dates which is super awesome - I used to get anxious about missing a payment a lot Dance practicing has been pretty automatic, but that's to be expected with national championships coming up I'm thinking my next step in leveling up my life will involve making myself more sociable - I tend to the introvert end of the spectrum so it might be as simple as forcing myself into meaningful small talk with a coworker Tracking thing (with goals I've decided not to focus on hidden - I expect making my bed and tidying up to get to 100% by the end of the challenge week, Pilates is iffy)

Awesome! I plowed through the first 6(?) chapters of PP in about a weekend because I was nerding out - opted to stop there since details of intermediate and advanced programming aren't yet relevant while I'm a rank novice. Reading it really sold me on the importance of adequate recovery, which was missing in all of my past training - I just wanted to keep pushing hard and eventually burned myself out.

^What he said - I'll probably be stealing half of your list (at least) in the not too distant future! Salsa chicken looks amazing! And yay for Pilates - though I've never done a reformer session, I just work out of a book I found in the library then bought. FYI, if you're looking for a primer on squat form, I think Rippetoe's chapter on squats is included in the free preview for "Starting Strength" on Amazon - he advocates a low-bar back squat which may or may not be your thing, but he also has a discussion of why a vertical bar path is important which spoke to the engineering nerd in me.

I dance 5-6 days a week.

Thanks!!! I was expecting this to be a total farce from the intro, but it's a helpful idea to keep in mind the next time I stall out. I saw something similar on Rippetoe's website (maybe) that recommended going up in the first set(s) first based on how many you successfully hit 5 reps on (i.e. if you made the first two sets but missed the last three, increment by +5/+5/0/0/0 the next time). I think fractional plates are first up for me (for press specifically), going to order them this weekend now that an Amazon GC from a credit card reward arrived. That being said, I switched to 3 sets x 5 reps for the time being to try out Starting Strength and so far I'm thinking it may be the program I stick with (lower volume is nice since I have dance practice every day that I lift and I'm willing to have potentially slower gains in exchange for quicker recovery).

Updates for the day - Work set weights (5x3 or 5x1) were squat 245, bench 150, deadlift 240. All felt pretty solid, especially making sure to chalk up for deads and use a mixed grip on the final work set. Attempted some O-Lift work from PT on Wed - opened up shoulders with PVC pipe, tried 5x3 for Overhead Squat with just the bar, and did a couple snatches from mid-shin with the PVC pipe. Overhead squat form was ugly enough that a guy working next to me attempted to give me tips, I'll work on that during my next 1:1 next week (and hopefully also start learning cleans and/or jerks). Also noticing that my overhead / upper body strength in general is weak compared to lower body, so I'm planning to program in some additional upper body work when time allows (probably a superset Pilates and intervals on the elliptical both felt Used new lifting shoes for the first time today - felt good to have a proper firm sole under my feet (Nike Metcon) rather than a 3+ year-old shoes with a slightly cushy one For goals, I'm probably going to kill the yoga one as well - as mentioned above, I programmed out all my strength & conditioning work from now to nationals and didn't commit to any specific active recovery. I'll do squat, wrist, shoulder, and/or leg mobility work when able, but my biggest focus is really on just following my plan - do work when I'm supposed to, recover when that's what's due for the day. Felt some serious overtraining by end of day Wednesday - failed to tell my trainer that I had worked out already that morning, so he probably had me do some stuff for strength building rather than pure technique - I'll be sure to make the ask clearer next time. So by the end of a full dance practice plus a lesson after, I was just *done*. It was helpful to know that there was some physiology behind it (cortisol accumulated from stressors throughout the day) and that it's not a reflection of me being "weak" or other nonsense I've told myself when feeling similarly in the past. Recovery's important, and I'm finally going to start acting on that info.

Good point! Just read the novice chapter in "Practical Programming[...]" and Rip recommends a light squat day on Wednesday as a possible modification once someone is beyond the rank novice stage and struggling to recover from the squat volume. That being said, I'm in the process of switching to a low-bar squat form and it seems to help the back soreness I was feeling immensely so it might be a bit before I pull the trigger on this. Thanks! General challenge updates: I had my first personal training session on Olympic lifts today - worked on the two separate pulls in the snatch in isolation; there is some really good carryover from my dance background and also some instances where I'm going to need to flip a switch between dancing and weightlifting mode (bending wrists at the top, just moving the feet a little out on the jump, keeping head pointing forward the whole time, etc.). I'm really liking it so far, excited to put it into my training sometime later in the year (I'll be practicing technique at low weights - just the bar or the smallest bumpers - for a while on these). In true nerd / Type A personality fashion, I have my dance practices and strength/conditioning workout schedule planned for now until national championships in mid-March. It feels good to have something resembling a plan! Skipped workout on monday - it was a bank holiday so my office gym was closed, I didn't feel like filling out paperwork for a one-week free trial (and I feel dishonest doing so when I know I won't sign up for the service) and I needed the rest after a taxing weekend of dance training Dance training weekend highlighted a lack of anaerobic cardio fitness (basically, I can't do a bunch of 80-90% intensity reps back-to-back like I want to) so I'll be upping the cardio interval to 3x per week I'm planning to nix a couple goals from my challenge: Tracking food - don't like doing it, I think I need to come up with a good replacement like Salad to work - I'm not doing the letter of this, but I'm eating a lot of veggies so I think it was just an overly specific one - maybe 5+ servings of fruit / veg daily will be my unofficial replacement Biking to work - I want to do it for the adventure, but I'm doing a strength and conditioning workout 3x a week (lifting, pilates, and cardio intervals) and dancing 5-6x a week so I just don't think it'll fit without me either skipping a strength workout or getting less recovery in than I'd like (I'm on a recovery kick thanks to reading Mark Rippetoe's books) I switched over to Starting Strength - I think Rip makes a reasonable case in PP for sticking to the core four exercises for a novice until base strength is high, then adding some power exercises (like power cleans). At least I'm telling myself it's his persuasive argument and not just that I don't like barbell rows very much. This morning's starting strength weights were squat 240, press 100, deadlift 220 - switching to a mixed grip helped deadlifts immensely! Also did my Pilates routine (26 of the 40 total exercises in the book I'm using) and 1 interval of simulated ballroom competition on the elliptical - 1:30 on, 0:30 off listening to the dance genres in the order they'd appear, basically getting double use out of a phone app I purchased for practice. Random moments I loved while reading PP: Rip writes about the ironic naming of powerlifting since as a sport it's actually less focused on power than weightlifting is The discussion of the three different energy systems involved in muscle contraction was so fun to read (as a nerd who enjoyed biochem class back in the day) Will post an updated tracker view...sometime. Evenings are busy and I'm trying to limit the amount of non-work stuff I do at work (I say as I type this whole post from the office...).

Hi Jarric! Fellow novice lifter here who's also focusing on increasing sleep, great to see I'm not alone. I'm not the most experienced or qualified weightlifter, but something I noticed in the video is your belly moving in and out quite substantially at the top while breathing - it's possible that this is causing you to lose some ab muscle engagement and putting more of the load into your back muscles as a result. You may want to try learning how to breathe deep downward into your core instead of outward to allow you to breathe without losing the an engagement (if the image helps you find the muscles to make the breathing happen, imagine you have a stiff piece of material wrapped around your belly that won't allow you to puff the belly out with the breath). Also, if reading and self analyzing helps, at least in the US version of Amazon you can read the entire squat chapter of starting strength in the preview section.

I don't let myself go into the Lego section at target for fear that I'll buy everything Star Wars. On the subject of not buying, I packed sufficient food for my trip to Houston for dance practice this weekend (partner lives in Houston, I'm in Dallas) that I didn't need to go out to a restaurant for a meal - estimating at least $20 saved over the course of the weekend!

As best I can tell, form is good - personal trainer (USAW guy) did form checks with me on squats and deadlifts and didn't have much in the way of corrections other than using a wider stance (which I've since incorporated). Is the rule of thumb for switching to intermediate only around squat weight, or should I also be at some benchmark for bench, press, and/or deadlift?

Challenge update: All goals at 100% for week one except tracking food and pilates (planning third pilates session tomorrow, so it'll just be food tracking). I knew food tracking would be tough, so even the 50% success rate at tracking every singe thing I eat is still better than nothing (and it's opening my eyes to how calorically dense some of my choices are, which was one of the main goals). Did stronglifts today; squats are starting to feel brutal, possibly a sign I'm close to the end of my novice gains (BW 170#, squatting 235 for 5x5 today). I'm debating switching over to starting strength, but keeping the 5x5 volume for the bench and press; main downside I see is I'll be at square one with the power clean.