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Hi Assassins! So I'm new here. I completed my first challenge successfully, and I'm now ready to become an Assassin. Here is a link to my first (previous) challenge if you're interested what I did. My body stats at the moment (6/4-2015): 20 years old182cm (6") 78kg/172lbs (Morning weight)7.9% body-fat My Main Quest: "To Free My Body" Everything society and our environment tells us is making us less free, we are slaves, and it's getting worse every single second you're not actively doing something to prevent it. If you just go along like everyone else, work 9-5, get wife, achieve kids, buy what society tells you to buy, watch what you're told to watch, YOU ARE A SLAVE. You need to break free. This is my quest, and it's not something you ever reach, because the moment you think you achieved it and consider yourself "done" or "content", you are by definition a slave again. It's a process and the closest you can ever come towards the goal is to keep pursuing. Free your body. The practical application and pursuit of this is to improve myself every day, in every aspect. To do something that takes me towards my goal, and be done with it, then wake up the next day without any worry about yesterday, and do something that moves me towards my goal, and be done with it. A necessity for this is to be open-minded, there is NO progress or improvement if you're not open-minded. It's so easy to get stuck in comfort, in a routine, a lifestyle etc. If you ever find yourself doing the same thing every day, CHANGE IT COMPLETELY. There is nothing worse than being stagnant. Right now, I aim towards becoming an Assassin, and I do so whole heartedly, but the moment I find myself saying "I'm an Assassin" it's time for me to move onto another class, another goal. That's how you grow, that's how you prevent getting stuck. So why Assassin for this challenge? Easy. Because I'm starting to become stagnant as a Warrior. I love lifting weights, and I will never stop lifting, but a couple of months ago I found myself mindlessly waking up, going to the gym, pushing down 6-7 meals/day, going to sleep and repeating. I woke up and broke free from this, I started incorporating flexibility training, a more flexible diet and started researching on bodyweight/calisthenics and became truly inspired. Truth is, I'm not a natural warrior, there is nothing about my body-type that corresponds with lifting heavy weight, but I'm also truly happy that I did start lifting, since it was a real weakness and fear of mine. I was WEAK when I began, not the average person weak, but WEAK. Now I'm STRONG, last time I tested my strength (late January) my lifts were: Squat: 160kg (353lbs), Deadlift: 190kg (420lbs), and Bench: 102kg (225lbs), and I've progressed some since, even if I've focused on leaning out the previous months. My lifts are not super impressive, but I'm just barely one year into lifting. Anyway, It's time for me to transition more into bodyweight movements. I've always admired truly explosive power and speed, so this will be my main focus this challenge, explosiveness and speed. Goal 1 - Muscle-Up (2 dex, 2 str) Yep. It's a huge dream of mine. I never focused or trained for it, probably out of fear. I've been doing Pull-Ups and Chin-Ups weekly since I began exercising, and my back is one of my stronger body-parts, but this one is a mixture of insane strength, skill and explosiveness. I will achieve a strict Muscle-Up this challenge, I'm not gonna be flapping like a fish outa water (of course I'll have to start there), it will be strict, it will be beautiful, and it most likely won't be "Muscle-Up", but "Muscle-Ups". I have the base strength, but lack the skill, meaning that consistent training is required. Components I'll utilize to achieve the Muscle-Up: Baby Muscle-Ups: Muscle-Ups on a low bar, using my legs as needed to learn the proper movement. Clap/Explosive Pull-Ups: I can already do Clap Pull-Ups, so I'll be progressing towards more claps, Chest Pull-Ups, Hip Pull-Ups etc. False Grip Hangs: To get used to the false grip needed for a strict Muscle-Up. Goal 2 - Supermans (2 dex, 2 str, 1 cha) The true mastery of upper-body explosiveness. For those of you that don't know what it is, it's the closest a human will ever get to flying. You start in a Push-Up position, EXPLODE UP with both your legs and upper body (pushing thorough your arms and legs), giving you enough height to completely extend both arms forward (like Super-Man) before catching yourself in a Push-Up and repeating the motion. Why do I get 1 point cha for this? Are you kidding me, I'll literally be flying like superman, now that's sexy . This one required mad explosive power, which is exactly what I'm after. In the book "Explosive Calisthenics" by Paul Wade, this is one mastery of "The Explosive Six" (the Muscle-Up is another). Paul Wade gives 10 progression steps for every of the six explosive moves, so I'll be progression according to the steps in this book. I'm currently at step 4 (of 10), which is Clap Push-Ups. So the components I'll utilize to achieve this will be: Clap Push-ups Chest-Strike Push-Ups Hip-Strike Push-Ups Convict Push-Ups: Clap behind back Half Superman: Extending arms but not legs Full body Pop up: Superman but not extending both arms Goal 3 - Suicide Jumps (3 dex, 1 wis) Another mastery step of "The Explosive six". This one is all legs. You hold a stick in your hands, you jump HIGH, tuck your knees to your chest as you bring the stick under yourself, so the stick ends up behind you, then what? You guessed it, you immediately jump again, bringing the stick back. You need to be able to jump high enough, and be agile enough to bring the stick below you, it's not an easy task to say the least. Once again, I'll be utilizing Wade's ten progression steps, for this one I'm at Step 7, which is a Tuck Jump (jumping as high as possible while bringing your knees as high as possible). The next steps are: Catch Tuck Jump: Same as Tuck Jump, but you catch your legs and push them towards your chest before you land Thread Jump: You hold one leg infront of you while you jump over it using the other leg, to work on the agility and coordination needed for the Suicide Jump Goal 4 - Dragon-Flags (2 str, 2 cha) Yes, I love Bruce Lee. I'm pretty sure this is one of the coolest moves you can do, and it's also one of the best abdominal exercises, which is a nice bonus for them summer abs . Progressions to achieve the dragon-flag: Negative Dragon-Flags: Kicking myself up and lowering myself as slowly as possible Negative Dragon-Flags with static hold: Same, but with a pause at very bottom. Goal 5 - Sprints (2 sta, 2 dex, 1 con) Once again, I wanna be FAST, LIGHTENING FAST. My strong, long legs makes my top speed good, but my acceleration is not great. I will be sprinting 4 times/week for this challenge, focusing on different distances, but mostly on short distances like 30-50m (about 30-50 yards) to work on acceleration. Goal 6 - Staying below 8% body-fat (2 con, 2 cha) My previous challenge was to get below 9% body-fat, I ended up at 7.9%. I'm happy with this, and I want to maintain it. I'm currently carefully reversing out of my deficit by increasing my calories slowly each week. I will keep tracking my weight and body-fat to ensure I don't get above 8%. Also, please don't take the exact number to seriously, I measure on myself with a skin-fold caliper, so the accuracy is debatable, but since I measure the same way every time, it's an accurate way to measure progress. I'd guesstimate that I'm around 8-9% body-fat though. I'll probably drop down to around 7% for summer, but for this challenge I need more calories to reach my goals, so maintaining my percentage is the goal. Goal 7 - Full Bridge (3 con) Yep. The challenge would not be complete without a flexibility goal. I'll be able to do a Full Bridge after this challenge. I'm already stretching at least 30min daily, and I'll be utilizing stretches that directly target areas needed for the bridge. I'm very competitive and put extreme demands on myself, it's hard on the mind, sometimes unhealthy. I've learned to handle it though, much thanks to meditation. I said in my previous challenge that I'll be setting very high goals this challenge, and I believe I have. I do not want easy. If you aim low, you'll achieve low. In the past, I've always set high/extreme goals, and I have this weird tendency to completely SMASH that extreme goal There is no doubt in my mind I will achieve all 7 goals. To complete the challenge I will have to upload a video of myself demonstrating (all of) the moves before May 25th. I'll be active on here and give updates on my progress and training, I'd be very happy if you choose to follow my progress, and I'm very grateful for any help or tips I can get! See ya around, Assassins Godnattish.

[i think there should be a prize for having the longest challenge intro post. I think I’d be a contender... -ed.] Mobile Frame Zero is a tabletop war game played with lots of multicolored dice and customized robot armies made of LEGO, engaged in a full-contact capture-the-flag battle (there’s so much Nerd-Force in that sentence, I blew out three keyboard trying to type it. o0;). The rules and setting are suitably dorky and complex, so I’ll leave it to you to decide how much you want to try to understand them, but the important part here is that customized LEGO robot armies are awesome. I think we can all agree on that. Confession: I’ve never actually played this game, but I love the concept so much that I’ve made a hobby of designing mobile frames and sharing them on Flickr. Main Quest: Become My Own Hero If you’ve been to one of my threads before, you probably know where this is going. My Red Mage balance-lust can never be sated, so when thinking about how I might build a company of frames to field in a game, I was compelled to create a group of specialized individuals that add up to a well-rounded whole. There are risks to this approach, of course, but those can be minimized with flexible tactics. I love me some tactics. tl;dnr Front-Liner: Explosive drills 5x/week Fire Support: Foam rolling 2x/week Assault: Rope Dart Target Practice 3x/week Scout: Sleight of hand tricks 2x/week Rifleman: HabitRPG goals met 7x/week Generalist: Mini Challenge Let’s get versatile!