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I've decided to embrace the Tropes that rule my life, and in particular this one has been my guiding star for the last few months. I lost about ten pounds since Christmas, though it's still a little bit of an unpredictable roller coaster,and perhaps I've finally made some progress on leg strengthening, but I'm MOVING better at MMA than I ever have. Footwork, shifting, ducking and weaving, and the always-tricky forward switch-kick. I am not lighter, but I FEEL lighter. And a big part of that comes from figuring out exactly what's wrong with my legs and my core, and the specific deficiencies. My hamstrings are tight as steel, my hip flexors are almost non-existent, and my obliques are absent, presumed missing. As part of repairing my mobility, I will be concentrating on these three zones, and the techniques associated with them. Challenge #1 - Hammy I discovered that by doing high forward leg swings, inside and outside, there's a LOT of tugging and pulling in the hips, many of which cross that border from "wow, THAT'S a wierd feeling" to "WOW, that's NOT somewhere I should feel pain!" These are essential for me to perform leaping side squats, high front kicks, high back kicks, and virtually anything that involves LANDING after a jump. These are also important considering I'm trying to up my game from a 5k to a 10k at this year's Storm The Hill. So the routine will be: high forward leg swings, inside and outside, at least 5 sets in the morning and 5 sets at night forward high stomp kicks on the heavy bag (quantity to be determined?) standing floor touches, IE, bring forehead to ankles. Deep breathing, meditate, feel those darn things loosen. Challenge #2 - Hippy The hip flexors are huge for me. I hadn't realized that nearly all of my workout routines completely ignored this part of my body. There's only two real cures for this: stretching and direct manipulation. SO, the stretches will be key to start me off, mostly pigeon pose and... this one I was trained to do but don't know the name of, where I rest my foot on something behind me, between knee and hip height, and then to careful leg bends with the other leg. The deeper I go, the more the leg behind me is stretched. After that, there's two important direct manipulations for me to concentrate on, which directly apply to both MMA and running: knee raises (planning to do walking heel-turn knee raises, to simulate forward roundhouse kicks) and jumping squats (preferably jumping 180 squats, once I get a little better at the landings). I can only do a handful of these before I go from "Hey, this is pretty easy" to "OH GOD THERE'S NOTHING LEFT". These muscles burn out so, so fast. There's a lot of bending and a lot of jumping in this one. Challenge #3 - Belly The abs, especially the obliques, are tremendously important for any ground-fighting, and for head movement. I figured most of head movement was, you know, the head, but the head is attached to the spine, and the spine starts moving most easily at the bottom. Ducking and weaving? The whole point is basically to crunch your abs and tilt to the side, while keeping your eyes on your opponent, your chin down and your neck straight. Head movement is all belly. And that's going to be challenge number three. It's also very important for distance running, because just keeping my body upright and not slouching, my chest open and my lungs pumping, is a HARD ab workout when you're my size. Whew. Fortunately, this one is perfectly manageable, but I need to find somewhere in my house to set strings up. I can do this WITHOUT the sliplines, but it would be nice to be able to link this to what my eyes are seeing. Bonus Challenge - Upsy-Daisy I am bringing back my oldest NerdFitness challenge... doing a gosh-darned handstand. Starting with wall-stands, deep breathing, and... we'll see where we can go from there.

Hello Assassin's guild! I spent my first challenge in the first timer's club and spent a time deliberating whether to join assassins or druids, but here I am for this challenge focusing on an acrobatics goal which fits more in the assassin's realm. I really enjoyed the first challenge, saw a lot of growth, many compliments were received when I got home and even my parents commented I look like the best shape of my life! So very rewarding overall. this first post will sound very businessy and numbers. kind of dry material, but my updates and other posts will be more candid I promise. I welcome gifs and other forms of support as well. Here comes round two! STATS: I'm 21 and now 134lbs. my current body fat percentage rests at 26.5% as of Dec 24th, this was measured with an electric scale, but I have purchased calipers and will update that soon. my belly button waistline is currently 80-85 cm (flex-relaxed). I'm hoping to improve these numbers in general which I'm sure will happen along this challenge, but I'm just going to keep track of them and see how they change over the course of the challenge. My goal is to be able to be able to base (in acrobatics this is the person supporting the person in the air) for my acrobatics partner for a fairly unique routine in which we play both flying and basing roles. I also want to make more progress in yoga which I practice regularly as well but will not be keeping track of that here (though I may make some breakthroughs and post some of that as well.. not my main focus for this challenge) This means I have the following tasks: Reduce my body fat percentage, be able to lift my partner's goal weight (135) and then some for safety, and prepare choreography for the Acrobatics routine. I've sorted out strength training as a main path of goal fulfillment so this is my main course, practicing is important, and the food intake is for proper fuel and to reduce body fat. the following will be my evaluation criteria each week: Goals: 1. Go to the gym and lift A = > 5x per week B = 4x per week C = 3x per week D = 2x per week F = < 1x per week 2. Practice Acrobatics A = 3x per week B = 2x with addtl practice per week C = 2x per week D = once per week F = Not at all 3. Reduce intake of foods that fall outside of the Paleo diet to 3x week at most A = < 1x a week B = 2x a week C = 3x a week D = 5x a week F = > 5x a week Life Quest: Finish at least one verse of spoken word each day A = > 6x a week B = 5x a week C = 3x a week D = 2x a week F = < 1x a week I've included my life quest which is to create and perform a spoken word piece which I hope to perform at a poetry slam on February 8th. Gym regimen and weekly grade out will be updated daily here Motivation: so that I can say honestly and with confidence the following about myself... I feel strong I am able to assess my limits I am confident in my ability to accomplish the desired performance