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Whoop for the Battle Log!! This is going along with my challenge as a Warrior. 4/15 Squat:115 lb x 5 140 lb x 5140 lb x 5140 lb x 5140 lb x 5140 lb x 5150 lb x 5 Did a 150 just to see how it felt to squat my bodyweight, it was awesome. OHP:45 lb x 555 lb x 570 lb x 570 lb x 570 lb x 570 lb x 570 lb x 5 That last set was a good push. Deadlift:85 lb x 5105 lb x 5105 lb x 5115 lb x 5115 lb x 5115 lb x 5115 lb x 5115 lb x 5 I was supposed to just do 105, but the guy spotting me encouraged me to go harder and I loved it! My goals were: Squat:140, OHP: 70, Deadlift: 105I accomplished: Squat 150, OHP 70, Deadlift 115 Excellent first day!

Warriors: Minus the Armor After the battle has been won, after the long fight has come to a close, after the all deeds have been done; a warrior just wants to remove their armor. But lets be honest for a second, no one likes stripping down if they're not comfortable with what's underneath their chain-mail. Hence the challenge, to lose the most excess body fat within the constraints set forward. A few of us fearsome warmongers were discussing the idea of cutting a bit of weight from our lives. Things were said in the heat of the moment about who could lose the most and who could lose faster and whose stallion could mount the world. We're warriors, these things happen. But what came of it was a head to head, to head, to head, confrontation of epic proportions. Would you expect anything less? Here are the rules: Eat whatever you want, diet however you want, use whatever means necessary, besides for the Groupon for liposuction.We're counting percentage of fat lost. That means the fat mass lost during the competition relative to your body weight.Using the standard Naval Body Fat calculator and the BMI Body Fat calculator as two points of reference.We'll check in every Friday/Saturday with simple updates and have our final weigh in on 5/25. Post your starting stats using the following criteria: MeasurementsWeight: Height: Waist(at narrowest for female, at navel for male):Hip(at widest):Wrist:Forearm(at widest):Neck(at narrowest):StatsBMI Body Fat:Navy Body Fat: Fat Mass:Lean Mass:PhotosFrontSideBack Entry Fees: We've discussed how to go about providing a fitting trophy for the winner and have decided to use a pooled money method.Everyone will be required to send $10 to a PayPal account that will be held til the overall winner is decided.All winnings will be spent by the winner towards something fitness related or NF merch. Please know that we're not making the mandatory buy-in to restrict anyone from joining. We just know that people tend to take things a bit more serious when money is on the line. If you are unwilling or unable to buy-in, please stick with the challenge as a non-eligible participant. We'd like to see as many people try to lose weight as possible.

Meat Tanking : Level 8 No, it's not exactly Summer yet, but it's coming. And this Warrior is not prepared. I'm not saying I'm haughty, but a brother likes to look good. So, as a bit of comradeship, there is a Weight Loss PvP between myself and a few other warriors(insert link here). That's one of the main parts of this challenge. The other is the SpringStrengthShowdown. Gotta bring the fury to that thing. I may be the lowest number on the lifts leaderboard thanks to my inability to pick 500lbs off the ground. So, I'll need to catch up in other areas. Goals Drop below 200lbsI know, I know. Adult males weigh over 200lbs. I'll eat again, promise. I'm just pretty sure I need to get under 200 to win the PvP."How will you do this, Setheth, we all know you love to eat your face off." Good point, I'll be eating under these specifications. Check MyFitnessPal if you want to keep up with how I'm doing.And, as usual, I get by with a little help from my friends. Break 1100 @ SSSOkay... this one is going to be iffy. It relies on me hitting 4 wheels+ on squats, which I haven't done yet high bar. This is what I'll be looking for:Squat 405+Bench 250+Deadlift 440+I've toyed with the numbers on my Texas Method spreadsheet. It's more of a 3x5 now, but it still hits the lifts I want. Mobility Work at least once a weekNot sure why I ever stopped doing this, probably because I'm an idiot. If you're not working specifically on mobility once a week, you're doing it wrong.Establish a financial planI have a few loans that I'm capable of closing out in the upcoming months. I'd like to get a plan put together on how to accomplish this. So, there's the basic write up. If any of you have actually followed those links, you'll notice two things: the diet is keto and the lifts are almost the same weights as last time around. Keto should be fun, I already eat at around 60-80g of carbs, so dropping down under 20-30 shouldn't be too tough. I've started this already but am just working on getting my calories down to where the sheet says I should be. I have trouble eating below 2600 calories at this point. Need to take off another 300kcal on top of that, bleh. As for the lifts, well, the end of my last challenge was less than stellar. I've reset a lot of the numbers to reflect that. I'd like to be able to continue this linear progression, but I have no idea if I'll actually be able to. That's why I've moved from 5x5 to 3x5. We'll see how this goes. I've been adding in finishers and more technical stuff the more I read through the olympic weightlifting book I picked up. Those are always a fun way to burn through an extra 10-15 minutes of grueling form work. My bruised thighs say hello. The other two goals are self explanatory. Stretch more, find a band to tack with, and just figure out how to get your hips more forward in your squat. Finances? I suck at money, so I want to spend some time actually looking at it in the upcoming months. I'd like to have a bit of a nest egg for when I head to Vegas in September. I'm not saying I'm gonna blow it all, but I might...

Welcome back, Warriors. The first challenge asked great things of you. To take form check videos of yourself and to share those videos with others. That's no small task. The second challenge asked greater things of you. To give back to those around you and to help wherever possible. I'm hoping that everyone was able to take something from watching the videos of your fellow warriors. Your guild leaders have been watching the interaction between you all and are completely blown away by how people took to the second challenge. Whether it was someone asking specific questions or giving detailed critiques, we loved all of the feedback that you gave each other. But receiving that information is only the first step. You have to put that new knowledge to the test. Take the feedback from your thread, or even from someone else's thread, and put it to use in your lifts. I know that week 5 and 6 are the home stretch, so you're going to be working towards your own specific challenge goals. But that doesn't mean that you can't spend some time working on form. Your Challenge We're not expecting everyone to take form check videos again, you can if you'd like to. Fixing form takes longer than 3 weeks, we understand. This is your chance to start making changes, not to finish them. Over the next two weeks, we'd like for you to start putting extra effort into your workouts to making fixes to your form. Whether it's spending time getting lower in your squats or pulling back more on your deadlifts or getting your shins more perpendicular on snatches; whatever it is, comment in your threads about how you're working towards fixing your form. Your Rewards +1 to Constitution for bettering your form

Alright my little war themed minions, time to move on to the next section of our challenge. The first round consisted of getting up the gusto to take a form check video of yourself. If you're anything like me, you spend the last couple of minutes before uploading these things completely ripping apart your own form... and your outfit. Then seeing the little things that you had read about here on the forums or in other publications, but hadn't really understood until you had the chance to sit back and watch your own body in action. Well, now that we're past the initial personal viewing, it's time to reach out to your brothers and sisters in arms. A pretty decent number of us got together and put up videos of ourselves. Now it's time that we come together and start helping each other out. I want to preface this by again reminding everyone of a conversation that happened in my thread earlier in the week. We were half joking/discussing how I had been upset with Corey for calling me out on my squat depth when BigM made a great point: When you enter the Warrior's Forge, you leave your ego at the door. No one is here to make you look stupid or hurt your feelings. Some of us may be a bit more blunt than others, but we're all here to help. Anyone who has ever put a video of themselves on youtube or on here knows how humbling and scary it is to have the possibility of the entire world looking at your flaws. We understand. We're here to help you improve on your lifting, to make sure you don't injure yourself, and to help you reach new levels of bad ass-ery. Your Challenge The second round of this challenge is going to consist of you visiting the threads of your fellow Warrior's threads and taking or leaving advice and critique where possible. This is going to be a bit harder to show that you've completed the quest, I realize that. Realistically, not everyone can offer advice, but everyone is able to learn here. Over the next two weeks, I want you all to find at least two videos to watch and leave responses in that person's thread. If you're leaving a critique or advice, please cite specifics. We don't want to see, "you should open your stance more". That's vague, we'd rather "you should close your stance because as Tony Gentilcore points out, if your feet are too wide when deadlifting, your knees have no where to go but in." Your Rewards +1 to Wisdom for learning from others+1 to Charisma for helping othersGuidelines Follow at least two of the links below and leave some feedback on the Challenge threads. For our newer members, you can ask questions or just note what it is that you learned from the poster's videos. For our more elder members, please provide guidance and feedback on someone's form with specifics for what they can build upon and any sources that may help them. (Don't just tell everyone to buy Starting Strength, that's not always feasible). List of Vidyas msuRoo : Clean and Jerk, Snatch, and SquatsCoreyD : Bench and Squats and Press and DeadliftMrRed : Squats and Moar SquatsFyreFlies : SquatsRob_ : Front Squat and Moar Front SquatsMasterOfCows : Goblet SquatsFoxz : Squats and Barbell Row and BenchBlueberries : SquatsAthena : Squats and BenchNerddanika : SquatsWildross : Squat/Press/Bench/Deadlift/Bad ass-eryTerinatum : BW SquatsStrawberry Squatcake : Squats and BenchHeathBar : Clean and PressLaura : Rack Pulls and Rack Pulls v280's Medium : Reverse Banded Deadlift(aka he lifts a small car)MirGSS : Squats, Press, Deadlifting, and gangsta rapLilhit : Deadlift and SquatsChaze : Deadlift, Front Squat, and Good Mornings(sans shirt)Goad4you : SquatsIfItPlugsIn : Squats and Bench And RowsThis is Seth : Back Squat, Front Squat, and DeadliftPrincess Heather : BenchKatariana : Squat, Press, and DeadliftMax Power's beard : Deadlift and SquatsThe Form Check Forum You have until 3/24(PAX East!) to complete this. Good luck!

Warriors, come out and plaaaaaaaaaaay! Welcome back to another 6 week challenge. We're here in the guild that puts strength on a pedestal. We want you to lift the most that is physically possible for whatever your body allows, and then some. But the most important piece of lifting heavy is lifting correctly. If you keep trying to pull 315 off the ground with a rounded lower back, you're going to deadlift yourself into a world of pain. But that's what we're here for, to pick out the miscues and missteps and misguided form that we all fall in to sometimes. This forum is full of able bodied and able minded lifters who have read their fair share of books, watched their fair share of instructional videos, and some are even certified trainers in their field. We're very lucky to have them and would be foolish to not rely on our guildmates for support whenever possible. Let's start by example, watch these two videos and see if you can't point out the main differences between them, besides for the length of my sox. Video 1 ( ) It's low barBar path is too forwardFeet aren't wide enough apartHips aren't hinging correctlyIt's a good 3 inches above breaking parallel Video 2 ( ) High barKnees track over the toesBar path stays over center of the foot, except for 5th repHips bounce down in the hole, ensuring a below parallel finishLast rep the hips fall backwards, showing a weakness out of the hole Those videos were taken a year apart. After I received some feedback from my fellow nerds, I reevaluated the way I was squatting and dropped the weight back down until I could nail the form properly. I'm writing a lot though, so I'll wrap it up. Your Challenge Weeks 1 and 2 will be the first section of this challenge. In this time, you will be tasked with taking a form check video of yourself and putting it into your thread. The video can be of any technique that you are unsure of, anything at all. I think my DL is wonky, so I'm gonna have BigM rip it apart. You may worry that your elbows aren't tracking perpendicular to the ground during your OHP or maybe you're unclear where your hips need to be to break parallel on a squat. You are under no obligation to post this video, use it for your own devices. I will say that the videos will come into play later in the challenges though. I'll stress again that it is of course a big step to post photos or videos of yourself on the intertubes. We know. We had a member who used to wrap a shirt around his head because he didn't want to have his face on youtube. His videos were some of the funniest things I've seen in a while. That said, it is entirely possible to mark your youtube upload as "unlisted" so that only the people you give the link to can view it. Please don't think that any of us would judge you in any way. We're all here to help each other out. Your Rewards +1 to Wisdom for realizing that your form may need help+1 to Charisma because you're now on youtube, as a celebrityGuidelines Please include the following details along with your form check. Weight UsedCurrent 1RM/5RM for exerciseThese two bits of information are useful because weight used is a huge factor. Me deadlifting 135 is going to look a lot different than me using 315. As you get closer to your heaviest, your form will start to adjust to muscle memory. That's what we need to work on. You have until 3/9 to complete this. Good luck.

Well it's another one of those stretches where I will be on the road for at least a few days every week, possibly for the whole challenge. So my goals will be built around that... to a certain extent. Fitness Goals: Goal 1: POWER (I really wanted to use a gif of for this goal, but hey, Terry Crews is hard to beat) Anywho, this one is all about learning the Olympic lifts and building up some power instead of the old "Grind 'em out" attitude. Since my workouts already have one day of Olympic lifts built into it, I'm going to focus on practice more than anything. So 3X a week I will practice forms as best as possible (in case I don't have any sort of stick to practice with in hotels) Goal 2: Mobility, do more of it. More Mobility. I did ok on the last challenge, but I still need more. I'm aiming for 15 minutes a day five days a week. Goal 3: What should I eat... Since I'm going to be on the road so much, I need to eat better than normal road fare. I generally burn a lot of calories when I'm working out in the field, so fast food now and then isn't going to kill me, but then neither is a salad on occasions I'm going to have to rely on whey powders more heavily than I like to keep my protein up, but it'll be a small sacrifice compared to adding in 250g of carbs trying to get an extra 50g of protein. So the goal of this one is do the best I can, and make decisions based on what I'm doing that day. Life Goal: I've got a handful of things I keep putting off. Three things specifically... 1) Deal with the retirement fund. (It's some funds that built up from my work out in Texas, I need to roll them over into a new account). 2) Contact a realtor. It's time to start seriously looking for a house. 3) Make a friggin appointment with a chiropractor. I've got to man up and do it. So to recap: Fitness goals 1) Practice olympic forms 3X per week. 2) Mobility 5 days/week 20 min/day 3) Eat the best I can given circumstances. Life: 4)Take care of business.

Meat Tanking: Everything IS bigger in Texas Level 7 Interesting side note, that photo up there, that I've been using for a few levels now, is the top returned image on google if you search for "meat tanking". As with my last challenge, I'll be sticking with the Texas Method for my lifting. This cycle is a bit customized to my wants/desires/needs and incorporates a few more lifts. It is still the same Volume/Light/Intensity weekly breakdown with a weekly linear progression, so I'm sticking to the core ideals. I just added in a few things here and there based on my own feedback after last challenge ran through the vanilla method. So the basic break down is now... Mondays(volume) : Back Squat / Bench / Deadlift Wednesdays(light) : Front Squat / OHP / Rows(pendlay) Fridays(intensity) : Back Squat / Bench / Cleans At the end of this cycle, I should be at the following numbers, so consider them Goal #1... Back Squat : 5RM @ 385 Bench : 1RM @ 255 Deadlift : 5RM @ 405 Goal #2 : Catch AngelaTheGeek at Front Squats. Ange, I love you, but I've just gotta come after you on this one. I hit a 285 front squat yesterday night, just to see if it was possible to catch up. She's at ~303lbs, I want 315 but will settle for 305 at the end of the challenge. Goal #3 : Start running again? Let's put a 2 mile stipulation on this. I haven't run in what seems like forever, but spring is coming. And spring means getting back into Soccer and all the random 5k's I get talked into. Goal #4 : Find somewhere to live.My roommate, bless his heart, has fallen for a lady and they're moving in together in September. This means that Setheth is all alone now. My current apartment is actually within my price range even if it would be me alone in a three bedroom, but I feel like I want to try somewhere new. So, lock down 3 possibilities for apartments by end of challenge. New Spread SheetPhotos, in Battle Log thread

Meat Tanking: Preparatory Measures Level 6 Overview: This will be brief as I'm cold and sick and still haven't figured out how to make this new editor format things in the manner that I want. Besides, I already rambled for a good while in my 2013 Battle Log thread. This challenge will consist primarily of prepping myself for the larger picture challenge that I'm setting up in that thread. So, a small part of the whole, with a lifting goal thrown in just because I get bored if I don't tax myself in some way. Gonna drop the points thing this time around, I enjoyed it at first but at the moment, I'm not in the mood to deal with it. Fitness Goals: Get back into the habit of logging food intake. Calories ~ 2000-2400 Protein > 200g Carbs < 60g Fat ~ everything else Snatch 135lbs I hit 125 down at my brother's over vaca, but it didn't feel good. I need to work on balance and form, like a shit ton. PLP Challenge This one seems fun. Besides, I like the benefits that people found on it. Inch and a quarter off my waist? Sure! Instead of 60 day, it'll be 6 week. That's like... 42 days, right? Life Goals: Finish my books. I'm currently reading and need to finish both: Primal Mind, Primal Body Practical Programming Summation: So there you go, simple and clean. Each of these things leads towards what I plan on being a great yearly challenge. But to start that journey, I need to finish up this prep work. Still working out if I want to log daily in here and then weekly summation in my battle log... or the other way around. We'll see how the week goes. Anywho, onward and upward. Workout Plan: Texas Method Food Blog: The Strength Agenda