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Welcome to the place where I write things For those of you who are new, I'm an amateur gymnast and weightlifter and I intend to spend as much of my summer as possible learning cool bodyweight skills. I also do slacklining and climbing, I'm learning Spanish and I occasionally write piano music. Over the past few challenges (this is my 10th with the Assassins, woo!) I've been working on holding steadier handstands, improving with the gymnastics rings, increasing the weight on the four main lifts, and learning frontflips/backflips, amongst other things. Although I enjoy experimenting with cool physical activities, often I lack the motivation to actually improve at them. So for the next two challenges, I've chosen a special tool - a special incentive - to motivate me to actually learn new skills and gain new strength! I'm going to make a training sampler by September. And of course, if I'm going to make a training sampler, I'm going to want to improve as much as possible so that I can fill it with the best stuff possible So this challenge, I'm going to push the boundaries of my best/favourite skills. However, there's a small complication at the moment that I have a broken toe (I think) so I'll need to nurse that back to health before I can do proper work on the leg-based skills Goal #1: bodyweight skills: the following exercises are good for me but I'm much less likely to do them unless I have some motivation. I intend to do several of these each week: adductor stretches 4 days per week - for deadlift and squat mobilityfalse-grip pull-ups (4 sets / 15 reps total) - I want to tidy my ring muscle-upweighted pull-ups or 1-arm rows (each arm) (4 sets / 15 reps total)plyometric push-up variations (1 good session with warm-up) - I want clapping-behind-the-back push-upssession of pistol squat variations (each leg) (2 sets / 15 reps total)three handstand practices in a weeksession of experimenting with kicking moves (like in tricking - more details when I start experimenting!)The following are cool achievements that I would like to have managed by the end of the challenge: bar muscle-up (yep, including this again haha)ring forward rollring shoulder stand or handstand (hard! although I've never tried...)pretty cartwheel on both sidesparallette L-sit for 10 secondsstatic handstand for 10 seconds10 second handstand walk where I'm control of the direction the whole timering dips +30kg x 3front lever Manx pullback lever Manx pull[Disclaimer: "Manx lever" is a term I made up to describe these since I couldn't find a decent existing name. The leg position reminded me of the Isle of Man ("Manx") flag] Scoring: for the exercises, each week I get +0.25 DEX if I do 3 of the exercises, and +0.25 STR extra if I do 5 or more. Until my foot is healed, I'll accept doing 4 rather than 5 as I won't be able to practise pistol squats, kicks or handstands. As there are 7 weeks, I will ignore my best week when calculating the points. Total: +3.00 For the cool achievements, I'll award +0.25 DEX & +0.25 CHA for each one I manage (maximum 6 - I'm unlikely to get that far!) Total: +3.00 Finally, I'll subjectively award up to +1.00 CHA extra if I do lots of other interesting work towards the training sampler - such as flips, slackline, other experiments. Goal #2: workout plan: usually when I do a workout (strength or skill) I arrive with no plan, and just do things at random. This has its advantages (fun and flexible) but also its disadvantages (unfocused and unproductive). Therefore, each week I'm going to plan a one of my substantial workouts in detail beforehand, and execute it according to plan. Other workouts can be carefree and experimental, but I want to have at least one structured/planned one each week. +3.00 STA (there are 7 weeks, so I'll get +0.50 for each structured workout - except the first such workout won't count) Goal #3: sleep early: similarly, my bedtime has been pushed later and later, so that these days 1am seems like an early night. Really to get at least 8 hours of sleep I should be sleeping at 1.00am at the latest. There are 48 nights during the challenge, so I'll award myself: grade A: 42 nights - 48 nightsgrade B: 36 nights - 41 nightsgrade C: 30 nights - 35 nightsgrade D: 24 nights - 29 nightsTotal: +2.00 CON Goal #4: eat clean: recently I've been a bit lazy with eating sensibly, so I'm going to make a special effort to eat according to my high standards this challenge. In particular, I've been eating too much sugar, and not always at sensible times. Graded subjectively. +2.00 CON available. Goal #5: driving theory: in the UK we need to take a theory exam before taking our practical exam. I'm learning to drive, so I should stop procrastinating this, book a test, study, and hopefully pass. +1.00 WIS for passing before the end of the challenge. Thanks for coming by to see my challenge - I'm hoping to make lots of good progress, and spend lots of time outside enjoying the sunshine And the rest of it updating this giant task list haha. ~~~~~ TRACKING ~~~~~ specific exercises: - grade C- week 0: HLR, PiSq, ExPU ©week 1: FGPU, Add, PiSq, ExPU (A)week 2: FGPU, 1AR, hs2 (F)week 3: ExPU, PiSq, 1AR, hs1 ©week 4: ExPU, wPU, HS3, PiSq ©week 5: 1AR, HS3, Kick, FGPU, ExPU (A)week 6: wPU, hs2 (F)skills achieved: - grade D- 10-second parallette L-sit+ up to one stat point for other work - grade B pre-planned workouts: week 0: YES - weightliftingweek 1: YES - ringsweek 2: YES - ringsweek 3: YES - bodyweight & TODO listweek 4: YES - weightliftingweek 5: YES - field gymnasticsweek 6: () grade A/Bsleep early: week 0: +++__++ (5)week 1: +____++ (3) (8)week 2: +++++++ (7) (15)week 3: __++_++ (4) (19)week 4: +____+_ (2) (21)week 5: ++_++_+ (5) (26)week 6: +++__+() (4) (30) grade Ceat clean: grade C driving theory: passed comfortably grade A