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Hi Everyone! I've been a long time lurker around Nerd Fitness, but have recently committed to being more active and joining the community! I moved to Boston a year ago, completely changed my career, and have been through a lot of changes that have made me lose track of my fitness goals. My overall goal is to exercise (bodyweight and yoga) three days a week for my first challenge. To accomplish this I need to do the following: 1. Start slow - I have a history of wanting to do too much too soon and getting hurt. I'm tired of this and am going to take it slow until I build more strength. 2. Schedule my workouts - I will write my workouts on the calendar and in my planner so they're part of my day. NO EXCUSES! 3. Work Out In the Morning - At the end of the day I will find an excuse to do anything besides working out. If I get up early and work out I have energy for the rest of the day, and I feel like I've accomplished something right away. I'm excited to get started and see some positive results, and get to know you guys. Thanks!

I'll begin w/ the basic format that Hazard lays out in the "Start Here" thread: Here I Go: Pick a Main Quest: Begin the first 4 weeks of a advanced 5K plan (I have the endurance as I just completed my 5th Half Marathon) w/ a focus on building speed (Goal PR in a 5K I have the week after challenge concludes on Thanksgiving Day). Pick 2-3 SMART goals: Run all prescribe runs for plan formulated by Endomondo: "Experienced Going faster plan targeting 5-15KM race distances for runners that are already active" 1 day per week Strength Solutions Course at Applied Fitness Solutions 1 day per week Weight Loss Solutions (Circuit Training) Course at Applied Fitness Solutions Begin Physical Therapy for Lower Back Pain (First Week of November) Not let Deer Hunting opening week (Final week of challenge) derail my fitness plan (its happened... a couple of times...) Not eating out/carry-out more than twice in a week. (Mission: cook your own damn meals) (added 10/25/2017) Create your Challenge Thread: Introduce Myself: I do my fitness activities under the Social Media / Blog Identity I created (shortly after the premature birth of my first child), Miles4Milestones / @4milestones (I'm much more prolific on social media than with the blogging but I hope to change that soon). There are those that call me... ...Mike. I found Nerd Fitness kind of randomly, but probably because it has a similar bent of being part general nerdery with a side of fitness (or the reverse) a while back but only recently committed to being truly active. Hobbies: Digital Design, Aspiring Cosplayer (thus far limited to making costumes for my kids), Hunting (I'm far from the archetypal hunter/sportsman, but it is my preferred source for free-range meats), Trains, Cooking Favorite TV Shows: GoT, Westworld, Trek (most, if not all), West Wing, SW: Rebels Favorite Movies: Star Wars (even at least 1.5 of the prequels), Star Trek (we do not speak of 5), Godfather 1/2, The Manchurian Candidate (one of my all time favorites), The MCU Movies My challenge (See above)

Hello runners! What type of strength work do you do to complement your running and to prevent injury? Obviously squats/lunges are great to build leg strength. I know developing your core muscles is really important too-- what's the best way to do this with a compound movement? My knees often feel... wobbly... after running, and I'm afraid one day they won't hold up enough for me to keep jogging. What exercises do you recommend to strengthen muscles around the knee, so that doesn't happen? I have good shoes from a running store and no arch problems. bodyweight / no equipment exercises are best. :-) Thank you for any knowledge you can share!

Brothern and Swole Maidens, I have been asleep for too long And allowed Broki to run amuck. Time to wake up and get back into fitness and stop eating everything and getting my drinky drinky on But now is a new year, and new start and time to stop this and pay for our sins But, the goals are still the same: Fitness/nutrition Q1: Gym all the time, but don’t be afraid to take rest days, don’t be afraid to take some days off if the lower back feels strained. Snowboarding counts as a gym day Q2: Do Physical Therapy every day, even on days not going to the gym. Q3: Track all the foods and eat at a deficit. Superbowl Sunday will be the reward day for this awesomeness. Q4: Post before and after progress pics to show awesomeness achieved. LUYL: When there is fuck around time at work, take the free classes that they give me and stop surfing the internet.

The further i go in lifting the more i realise what a number a 15 year desk job has done on my body and posture. I'm slowly coming up with a bunch of moves that i try and fit in every day in order to counteract what some people are calling a modern day cancer. I was just wondering if anyone else had any suggestions of good things to add, and for what? What i've got, broken down into problem categories is below. These are in addition to a balanced lifting routine.... Rolled shoulders/kyphosis --------------------------------------- Face pulls Band pull aparts Shoulder dislocates Handstands (jfreaksho) Scap dips (get in a dip position, and push your shoulders down as far as you can, away from your ears, with straight arms) (jfreaksho) Scap pushups (similar, but from a pushup position, and horizontal instead of vertical) (jfreaksho) Inverted rows (jfreaksho) Anterior pelvic tilt --------------------------------------- Glute bridges Quad stretch Hip flexor stretch hollow body holds or planks (jfreaksho) General mobility ---------------------------------------- Caveman squat Caveman squat pushing knees out with elbows Foam rolling Thoracic bridge (this really fits into all categories, i also want to work up to the thoracic bridge flow) http://phraktured.net/starting-stretching.html(jfreaksho) http://phraktured.net/molding-mobility.html (jfreaksho) Kettlebell hardstyle swing and get-up (Machete) Books and resources ----------------------------------------- Becoming a Supple Leopard - Kelly Starrett (500+ pages) Free+Style - Carl Paoli (400+ pages) Simple and Sinister - Pavel Tsatsouline (100 pages) (Machete) MobilityWOD principles (hour long video) - Kelly Starrett (Machete) https://youtu.be/3WOpb8PrrSc http://www.mpcalisthenics.com/stretching/the-7-stretches-of-highly-flexible-people-2(BaconHunter) Basically, lets throw ideas around and get our modern day selves fixed! Cheers

Hello all! Being a glutton for punishment, I am back for my 8th NF challenge, the one that will bring me full cycle to one year as a rebel. After a lot of internal debate, I am stepping back a bit to come at my goals from a different direction since my current approach has lead to 3 joint injuries and a series of dietary meltdowns. I remember reading a statement one time claiming that the mind cannot truly process a negative (meaning, we only understand it as the opposite of positive). For example, imagine "no hamburger". You can't do it. You could imagine this Or this but neither a cancelled hamburger nor an eaten hamburger is a "negative" hamburger. So, I want to explore my theory that I am struggling so much because I am focusing on negatives: losing weight, cutting sugar, etc. And negatives are, well, negative. The mind can't handle wanting less. The mind wants more. I would like to come at this from the other direction. What can I add that will improve my health and build my body? Let's try this: Eat Vegetables with Reckless Abandon Mark (of marksdailyapple.com) once described the primal diet in terms of "rampant consumption of vegetables". This term really appealed to me: rampant, uncontrolled, wild eating...of vegetables. Let's try it. Minimum of 5 servings of veggies per day. For the sake of the challenge, a serving = 1 cup leafy greens or 1/2 cup other vegetable, and "vegetable" shall include quasi-veggies and technical fruits, such as squashes, avocado, tomato, and sweet potato (but not white potato, legumes, or corn). It is my hope that rampant consumption of vegetables will naturally replace other, less healthy side dishes without focusing on deprivation. Bodybuilding (Baby steps) As much as I am tempted to jump right into a bodyweight workout to add strength (which I know was effective from last year's efforts), I feel I need to spend one challenge on building up my joints that I know are weak, so I stop having all these discouraging setbacks. So this goal is twofold: a) Gentle movement in the form of walking, dancing, yoga, extreme gardening, or whatever moving opportunity presents itself and appeals to me (3 hours/week) The idea is to do a variety of things to prevent repetetive motion injuries. 15 minutes of mobility exercises for hips, ankles, and wrists (following the plan laid out by my PT last year) every day And, that's all folks.

Background: A long time casual runner, I've decided to make running the focus of my fitness to gear up for a 1/2 marathon. I would really like to ensure my physical sturdiness to make sure running will be a life long passion. To do this I'm pretty sure a stretching and strength training routine would be helpful to complement my running. The internet, in a search, is so varied in opinions, I'm not sure what is what. So NF runners and scout types out there: 1.) What bodyweight exercises would you suggest for a comprehensive 2x a week strength training program to aid runners. Direct answers, sample routines, or links to valuable resources are all appreciated! 2.) What would you suggest for a preworkout and postworkout stretching routine to prevent injuries and increase performance as a runner? Again direct answers, sample routines, or links to relevant resources would be awesome. Thanks in advance, you guys rock!