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Intro: Hazard is presently a 43 years-old, 5'9" and 219 lbs male. (That's 174 cm and 99 kg for you metric folk). Epic Quest: Conquer the muscleup on Gymnastics Rings This is how it's done, yeah? In my last NF Challenge I... Current Quests to progress me along my Epic Quest: My goals for this NF Challenge are improvement on... Basic Support Hold on Rings Full Flexhang on Rings Testing: My starting numbers are... Rings Support Hold: 25 seconds Rings Full Flexhang: 24 seconds The Goals: Any amount of improvement is acceptable. Being better next month than I am this month is success. The Strategy: I have an already well-established personalized fitness routine using an 8-day split rotation. I'm going to try training the Support Hold and the Flexhang each 1 time per my 8-day training "week". Or roughly 5 times each during this NF Challenge period.

Intro: Hazard is presently a 43 years-old, 5'9" and 214 lbs male. (That's 174 cm and 97 kg for you metric folk). Epic Quest: Conquer the muscleup on Gymnastics Rings Current Quests to Get Me There: My goals for this NF Challenge are improvement on... Basic Support Hold on Rings Deadhang on Rings Testing: My starting numbers are... Rings Support Hold: 3 seconds Rings Deadhang: 26 seconds The Goals: Any amount of improvement is acceptable. Being better next month than I am this month is success. That being said, I'm expecting to break 1 minute on the ring deadhangs fairly quickly and move up the skilltree to training full flexed hangs during this challenge. My basic support holds, on the other hand, are starting at a very low time and need a lot of improvement to reach 1 minute, so I'm expecting to be training basic support holds throughout this entire challenge, while hoping they reach a minute by this challenge's end. The Strategy: I have an already well-established personalized fitness routine using an 8-day split rotation. I'm going to try training the Rings Basic Support Hold and the Rings Deadhang each 2 times per my 8-day training "week". Or roughly 10 times each during this NF Challenge period.

****Warning: This thread will most likely contain images of videogame violence, including CGI blood**** Grayspeed's December Challenge So, I was originally going to do a Star Wars theme this month because Rogue One is coming out. But I've also been replaying Assassin's Creed 2 this past week and AC just seems more "fitnessy" and relates to my goals a bit more. Also, this is the Assassins Guild. My goals right now are to grind away at NF Rings, get more sleep (I've let my sleep pattern get really messed up lately), and increase the amount of cardio I get. Let's go! Quest 1: Agility Agility and speed are essential skills for any assassin. You can't wipe out De' Pazzi if you can't catch them. Increase agility and speed by performing three HIIT focussed cardio sessions per week. Quest 2: Climbing Strength Climbing all over buildings and looking like a badass is what makes Assassins so great. To build up the strength to do this I will need to do a Nerd Fitness Rings workout at least three times per week. Quest 3: Alertness Having an alert state of mind is vital when you're heading into Templar territory. Especially when you're outnumbered 20 to 1, as Assassins often are. To achieve Master Assassin-like awareness I will get plenty of rest by being in bed by 10:30, five nights per week.

After 18 consecutive challenges here, I've made lots of progress but the challenge format is no longer motivating me, so I've decided to make a shiny battle log to track the projects and habits that I'm working on As an introduction, I'm a 25-year-old software engineer from Cambridge, UK and I like to do: gymnastics & handstands trapeze, gymnastics rings & slacklining weightlifting & bodyweight bouldering football healthy eating & living spanish salsa dancing piano composition travelling competing for Britain at mental calculation The colours are used to distinguish topics so my posts are easy to read. So my format for this battle log is to have a few projects going on at any time, which I'll start/stop whenever needed, and set specific goals/challenges when I want. When I need accountability, or have something cool to share or something to ask, it will go here There's also potentially a new cool thing that I'll mention later on if I think about it more seriously... ~~~ Current projects (updated May 12th) ~~~ Climbing / bouldering: I'm going on a mountain-climbing trip in Italy in June, so I want to get my skill back to make the trip as enjoyable as possible. There's going to be via ferrata, a glacier, and probably rock climbing involved so I want to be prepared! Healthy eating: although I like eating healthy foods, in practice I have too much unnecessary foods - that make me over-full, have energy spikes or bad skin quality. When I ate super well in 2013 these things were never a problem. not impulse-eat desserts eat bigger portions of healthy food if needed find a greater variety of foods to eat at home (otherwise I default to 4 bowls of cereal, which cant be good). Training outside regularly: in 2014-2015 I was training regularly at the various things in green and red above - and the zenith of my training was probably last Summer when I made the compilation video (in my signature). Since then I moved place and we had a long cold season and I'm out of the habit. I want to be doing handstands/rings several times per week, and getting stronger again!

I thought I was getting kinda good. I've done the bodyweight circuits, I'm pushing up my reps on push-ups and pull-ups and squats and all that jazz, but I felt like I was leveling off and not making a ton of progress (and not particularly having much fun, either). Don't get me wrong, the gains are nice, but I was beginning to feel a little repetitive, so I took a chance on something really off-the-wall for me. I've had a weight bench before and hated it. Barbells and dumbbells bore me to tears. I wanted something functional but challenging and, if at all possible, a little unique. Call me shallow, but I love to be able to answer questions like "what are you up to?" with something that raises eyebrows. So I invested in some gymnastics rings. And holy hell, did they serve up some humble pie. I tried some pushups and got maybe one or two before my arms lost control and the rings tossed me on the ground. I tried a dip, lowered myself down and couldn't get up again. Tried a pull-up and literally laughed out loud at myself as I flailed just above the ground. So I looked at some introductory exercises and started a slow road to getting acquainted with the rings and building some functional strength, and I'd be lying if I said that despite my epic fails and grunting and inability to power out even a single rep, I have never had so much fun working out. (As a bonus, my three-year-old freaking LOVES swinging on the rings. Score!) I do have one concern, though. When I'm above the rings (dip position especially) the top side of the ring presses pretty hard into the back of my forearm, and it feels like it's bruising. Now, I know bupkis about form aside from what little I've read on the intro guides (going by the one at Gold Medal Bodies at the moment), but it doesn't seem like I'm doing anything weird to cause this to happen. Is it just something I have to ride out and toughen up to? Anybody have any tips on that issue, or any suggestions for a newbie on the rings in general? (And my apologies if this is the wrong place to ask!)