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Welcome to my 8th challenge thread I've now been on these forums for one year (anniversary on January 3rd) so I'll start with a motivational list of some of the things I've accomplished in that time:recovered from a shoulder injuryimproved Spanish listening and speakinglearned to walk across a slacklinetracked macronutrients for a weeklearned not to set overly-ambitious challengesheld a 10-second handbalancecreated a YouTube video of my handstand progressjoined a second gymnastics gymbought climbing shoes so I can go bouldering properlyentered a Spartan Raceincreased strength in the bench press by 30%15 pistol squats on each leglearned Olympic liftingbought gymnastics rings and started training regularly with them It hasn't been easy, and there are plenty of things that I wanted to accomplished and completely failed with... but the last challenge has been good. So while I have some momentum, I'd like to make as much more progress as possible... Challenge #1: BODYWEIGHT SKILLS: +2 DEX, +4 CHA These are 6 skills that I'm currently working on and I think may be possible by the end of the challenge: ring muscle-up: I maybe got close to achieving this last week, but I'm taking a break until January 5th to let my right forearm tendon recover from the stress I've been putting on it while practising this. bar muscle-up: some say it's harder than the ring muscle-up, but I find the wrist position slightly easier. I'm also taking a break on this until Jan 5th. upstart / glide kip: this move requires good technique and lots of core strength. I've done some work on the first part of the motion, but don't feel close to "getting" the move. It's one of those things that 6-year-old girls seem to find much easier than 1m85 men like me... archer ring pull-up: I can do the very top part of these, but not yet strong enough to do the bottom part... so it's clear what I have to work on +0.50 CHA: each hand, with ring starting above head height+0.50 DEX: either hand, full movement+0.50 CHA: each hand, full movementfrontflip: I've done these nicely on the bouncy tumble track onto a crashmat (and once without) but need more consistency and to tuck harder. +0.50 CHA: high safe consistent frontflips on tumble track without crashmat+0.50 DEX: high safe consistent frontflips on floor with crashmat+0.50 CHA: high safe consistent frontflips on floor without crashmatbackwards walkover: I can do this with my feet on a 60cm platform and would like to not need the platform at all. Need to improve back flexibility, core strength, and technique. +0.25 CHA: 40cm platform+0.25 DEX: 20cm platform+0.25 CHA: without platform Each move carries +0.25 DEX and +0.50 CHA. The last three skills can award partial points as described. Archer pull-ups and frontflips carry double points for double awesomeness. Challenge #2: SQUATS & DEADLIFTS: +3 STR I've found a couple of gyms where I can safely practise heavy squats, and I've recently improved my deadlift form. My legs are strong and can handle high volume, but I'd like them to be more powerful like in my old high jump days. Therefore it seems that now is a good time to work on increasing the weight I can squat and deadlift. From experience with the bench press and overhead press, I expect to be able to add 20% to each lift during these 6 weeks. SQUAT: currently max 80kg (176lb) - grade A: 100kg (220lb) - grade B: 95kg (209lb) - grade C: 90kg (198lb) - grade D: 85kg (187lb) DEADLIFT: currently 110kg before fixing form (242lb) - grade A: 130kg (with good form) (286lb) - grade B: 125kg (with good form) (275lb) - grade C: 120kg (with good form) (265lb) - grade D: 100kg (with good form) (220lb) Challenge #3: MENTAL CALCULATION TRAINING: +2 WIS, +1 STA At the end of last challenge I mentioned that I was working on a secret project - and this is it. In 2012 I was actually a competitor in the Mental Calculation World Cup, flying out to Germany to perform multiplications and cube roots etc. with the best in the world, and ranked in the top 20. The training itself isn't super exciting, so in 2014 I didn't enter the competition, and instead travelled around Asia haha. However, entries are opening soon for Memoriad 2016 - a huge mental sports competition that will be held in Las Vegas. If - and that's a big "if" - I can improve my arithmetic skills enough to qualify for the free accommodation etc. then I'll enter. One of the events is calendar calculations, for example calculating that 2015-Jan-01 is a Thursday. In the competition, you have 60 seconds to find the day of the week of as many random days as possible. My record was 24 dates in 1 minute with no mistakes. I've now improved my algorithm, but this means that I have to remember a code for every day of the year (e.g. Jan 1st => 5) and for every year in the century (e.g. 15 (in 2015) => 6) - quite a significant mental load. I'm going to be using the spaced repetition software Mnemosyne, along with a metronome to ensure that I can recall each correct code in less than 1 second. +1 STA for keeping up with the memorization procedure for the full 6 weeks (after which I should be finished, yay) The whole point of this is that I should be able to beat my best score (calculations in a minute), so I'll award myself +2 WIS for this: grade A: 35 (beating the current British record)grade B: 30grade C: 25 (beating my old record)grade D: 20 Challenge #4: AUXILIARY EXERCISES: +3 CON The other goals this challenge will make me do lots of pulling, core and legs strength training, so I want to do some moderate-volume work on pushing motions (bench, press and push-ups) to ensure I don't get any muscle imbalances. I would like to work on handstands when the (British) weather gets warmer again, so I should do some preparatory strength training for that. I'll also need to do some auxiliary exercises to increase my chances of success in Challenge #1 - bridges, high pull-ups, low dips, toes-to-bar, jumping drills etc. I'll award myself up to +3 CON (subjectively) for how conscientious I am with this. To get grade B I'd need to be doing some specific workouts 2x per week, as well as focusing on relevant exercises during gymnastics, weightlifting, etc. It's January 1st today, and I'm officially starting the challenge now Progress summary:frontflips consistent on tumble track: +0.50 CHAring muscle-up achieved multiple times: +0.50 CHA & +0.25 DEXsquat at 100kg (220lb): +1.50 STRdeadlift at 125kg (275lb): +1.00 STRcalendar dates @35/minute: +2.00 WIScalendar memorization: +0.75 STAauxiliary exercises: +1.50 CON

My last challenge was centered around an irresponsibly enthusiastic list of feats of skill and strength that I wanted to achieve. I did actually make good progress, but it hardly scratched the surface of what I intended. Now I've learnt to set more realistic targets, my next challenge is going to be more process-based than success-based. Challenge #1: PRIORITISE SLEEP I demand quite a lot from my body and myself - so the least I can do is to keep it the healthiest state possible at all times. At the moment, the weakest link is sleep. I feel so much better when consistently getting 8+ hours than when I'm getting 7 or 7.5 hours. Therefore, for the next 6 weeks I will go to bed at 00:30 at the latest, giving me at least 8 hours and 20 minutes to rest before my morning alarm. A: 36 times in 42 days (+2 CON) B: 34 times in 42 days C: 30 times in 42 days D: 24 times in 42 days 09-JUN: ++++++_ (6) 16-JUN: ++_++_+ (5) 23-JUN: +++__++ (5) 30-JUN: +++_+_+ (5) 07-JUL: ++++_+_ (5) 14-JUL: ++++___ (4) (grade C) [Note: entry for each day refers to the sleep from the previous night] Challenge #2: TRAINING Two things that have been noticeably beneficial already this year are consistently doing core exercises, and consistently doing pull-up/muscle-up exercises. Other parts of my fitness are currently not limiting factors for anything I'm working on, so I'll concentrate on these for a while and see how that goes. What counts as core exercises? - 3 sets to failure of V-sit sit-ups or leg raises of some description - a gymnastics session involving lots of flipping What counts as muscle-up exercises? - a climbing/bouldering session - 3 sets to failure of appropriate dips - 3 sets to failure of an advanced pull-up variation - 3 sets to failure of pull-down machine I want to be doing one of these 5-6 times per week, so I'll have a slightly silly scoring system for this: - 1 point for doing some mixture of core and muscle-up exercises - 2 points for doing one or the other - 3 points for doing a full amount for core and full amount for muscle-ups A: 70 points in 42 days (+2 STR, +2 STA) B: 66 points in 42 days C: 58 points in 42 days D: 46 points in 42 days 09-JUN: 3 2 2 2 _ _ _ (9) 16-JUN: 3 2 _ 2 _ 3 2 (12) 23-JUN: 2 2 3 2 2 _ _ (11) 30-JUN: _ _ 3 3 3 3 _ (12) 07-JUL: _ _ 3 3 3 2 2 (13) 14-JUL: 3 _ 3 3 _ 3 2 (14) (grade A) Challenge #3: HANDSTAND EVOLUTION VIDEO I've been working on my handstands quite a bit this year, and at the moment my best handbalances are 5-6 seconds and look super unstable. I've been recording some handstand examples when I'm practising, for feedback so that I can learn. My intention is to compile a selection of these examples into an "evolution" video, annotated with training notes. For example, things I'm trying differently and other training I've done, and whether these are helping me balance. Hopefully it will be useful to some people learning handstands, but also it will just be cool to see the evolution. However I need to actually finish getting good at the handbalances first! +1 DEX for staying on my hands for 10 seconds +1 DEX for improving my form irrespective of how long I can hold the handstand +2 CHA for posting a useful video including footage of me doing good handstands (grade A) - see video here Challenge #4: SPANISH I've been learning Spanish on-and-off recently, and it's time now to restart, after a 9-week break. Previously, I was practising 4 times per week (process-based goal) so now I'm going to mix things up and aim to be able to understand spoken Spanish (currently my weak point). I'll assess how much of general conversation I can listen to and grade based on that. A: understand 85% (+3 WIS) B: understand 75% C: understand 65% D: understand 55% (grade F - totally ignored this!) Challenge #5: FEARLESS One major thing that I find is holding me back - especially in gymnastics - is being too risk-shy. For example, freaking out of trying scary moves even when its exactly what I need to be working on. Plus in general life I sometimes find myself avoiding opportunities that are obviously worthwhile risks. So I have an entirely subjective challenge, to be graded subjectively, to break past as many fear barriers as is sensible (Don't worry, I'm not planning to do anything ridiculous). +1 DEX, +1 CHA is the maximum score (for an 'A' grade) (grade C) As usual, I'll update reasonably regularly whenever I have news