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The 10,000 swing challenge is the stuff of legends in kettlebell circles. It's been used, copied, morphed and twisted. I'm inviting you to join me in a 10,000 swing challenge. This challenge will be kept very simple but you should add your own flourishes. Simply put, by the time the next challenge rolls out (early April) I challenge you to do 10,000 kettlebell hinge movements. If you think that you're up to that basic challenge, read the Q&A and head over to the spreadsheet to signup. Q&A Q: What's a "kettlebell hinge movement"? A: Any movement taking the kettlebell from below your hips to above your hips counts. This includes but is not limited to swings, snatches and cleans. Q: What if I think 10,000 is too many (too few)? A: You are allowed to do as many as you want, with any weight you want. I would encourage you to do the math, how many workouts will you do between now and April, how many swings will you do per work, now multiply. I would also remind you to challenge yourself. Q: Do you mean one arm or two arm sings? A: I mean any number of arms. A two handed swing counts the same as a one handed swing which counts the same as a two kettlebell swing (one in each hand) Q: What if I hurt myself? A: Please don't but if you do, take care of yourself and come back when you can. The idea of this group is to be encouraging, not punitive. Q: Can I just watch? A: Yes, but I'd encourage you not to. Q: What is I don't have access to a kettlebell A: You could theoretically do this with a dumbbell but honestly, I would say this may not be the right challenge for you.

Damnit, I'm out of Die Hard movies to reference for my 'theme'. And my brain is broken this morning, so this shall forever henceforth be known as the challenge of no theme. -- I feel the need to kick things up a notch for this challenge. Last challenge, while I anticipated a hard go fraught with life changes, what I got turned out to be the status quo. So this challenge, even though things may change in an instant, I'm going to push myself harder. Main Quest I'm still working toward the long-term goal of participating in Mudderella this next Spring and then thinking about moving on to Tough Mudder next fall and still have quite a ways to go before I'm in the kind of physical shape that either takes. Support Goal 1 To this end, my main fitness goal for this challenge is to finish the HasFit Warrior 90 challenge I've been doing now for 8 weeks. I'm over half way done, and can totally see this to the finish line. After Warrior 90, I think I'll join my NF compatriots and pick up kettelbells. The hubs wants to get in on the kettelbell action, too, and wants to have a couple sessions with a trainer under our belts before we go off injuring ourselves. I think this is a wise plan. Support Goal 2 I've been doing so well with food metrics that I'd like to keep that up. And I want to add in some of the biohacker tips I learned about last time from Dave Asprey into the mix. Currently, I'm doing a trial run of the nootropic supplement Alpha Brain paired with GABA at night to see if I like either or even notice any difference. I'll be moving from that to Huperzine, and Huperzine to Bulletproof Coffee. And then combinations to see what, if anything, gives my brain a boost. I will also be adding in other supplements periodically and aim to track those as well. I also want to add a mechanism here for tracking overall tiredness with an eye toward figuring out why and what I can do about it. Am I over training? Am I not getting enough XXX? Is it how I sleep? Support Goal 3 Ummm...... help? I'm drawing a blank here. Mini challenges? Something else? Nope. Got it. Now I remember ... I was thinking of swiping Fonzico's pushup goal. So, like she says: Follow the NF 'How To Do A Proper Pushup' guide, which prescribes 4 sets of as many reps as possible 3x per week, increasing in difficulty when 20 per each of the 4 sets is reached. I will do the full run-through, starting with wall pushups and moving on to incline pushups and then regular pushups from there - and beyond. The article has links to a lot of really crazy variations that might be fun. This is of course on top of my regular HasFit workouts - I may need to add adjustments if HasFit kills my arms, but I will try not to. That Fonzico, what a lifesaver! Life-Related Side Quest As we all know, I love me some food. And writing about food. My blog looks pretty (in a clean, minimalist way) but isn't terribly user-friendly in the 'actually finding what you're looking for' sense. Since I have a few readers now, it's past time I do something about that. This side goal is to clean up and re-structure the recipe listings on my blog so they're user-friendly. I'm working with a Wordpress template here, so I'm anticipating aggravation. Diet/Fitness Side Quest Contact a trainer for kettelbells and actually go for 1-2 classes before starting without direction and injuring myself. This has the potential to turn into much drama.