Burpees, Books, and Brainwork

[WolfDreamer]

Good day, fellow Adventurers and any guests to our guild. I have no clever theme this challenge, but regardless I can promise it's going to be a lot of fun. As always, I plan to continue my usual morning routine, which if you're interested you can view in the spoiler below:

 

Spoiler

• 0445 wakeup
• Lord's prayer, as well as a more personal prayer
• devotional/meditation
• some form of morning movement (Darebee Daily Dare, 7 minute workout, etc.)
• Wim Hof Method breathing/exercise/cold shower
• shirtless and shoeless while taking the dogs out

 

For this challenge, I plan to focus on three goals:

 

 

Burpees: At least 30 burpees per day -- This is based on a physical challenge I saw online. As most of you know, the burpee is one of the best bodyweight workouts, an excellent "bang for your buck" kind of workout that can be integrated into other movements and moments throughout the day. It is permissible to change these up and try a variety of burpee types.

 

 

Books: Read any book for at least 20 minutes per day -- Seriously, I love to read, and I love books, but in the midst of my busy life I often neglect to make time to just sit still with a book. No more.

 

 

Brainwork: Learn about/study something every day -- As a teacher, I should be setting the example of the importance of lifelong learning. Articles, podcasts, websites, NPR, documentaries, Youtube videos, TED Talks, apps, anything that teaches me something. This goal can include schoolwork but must be separate from goal #2.

 

And that's it. Short and simple and to the point. I will also be participating in the Darebee Daily Dare PVP. And of course I'll continue my consistent running routine, visiting the fitness center on campus, and integrating a variety of other movements throughout the day.

 

 

[oromendur]

I personally have some mild PTSD involving burpees, but I can certainly get behind books and brainwork  

 

Looks like a solid plan. Good luck!

[WolfDreamer]

2 minutes ago, oromendur said:

mild PTSD involving burpees

 

Woah! I feel like there's a story there I think I'd like to hear (if you're willing to share, of course). 

 

3 minutes ago, oromendur said:

Looks like a solid plan. Good luck!

 

Thank you, and welcome!

[Tanktimus the Encourager]

Well constructed challenge! I'll be following.

[WolfDreamer]

1 hour ago, Tanktimus the Encourager said:

Well constructed challenge! I'll be following.

 

Thank you! You are always welcome.

[annyshay]

Looks good! Kick butt!!

[Stronkey Kong]

 

Re: Brainwork

 

I'm a huge fan of "The Great Courses" course/lecture series. They're usually like 12+ hours of college course lecture material. And you can buy them using just one credit ($15) on Audible.com. I've used them to "take" the courses I wish I took in college.

[oromendur]

12 hours ago, WolfDreamer said:

Woah! I feel like there's a story there I think I'd like to hear (if you're willing to share, of course). 

 

<chuckle> I was only (sort of) joking.

 

Burpees were a staple of military calisthenics back in the day. They went by the name ‘body-builders,’ and they had counts associated with them.

 

4-count: a standard burpee (crouch, plank, crouch, stand)

6-count: add a pushup in the middle (crouch, plank, down, up, crouch, stand)

8-count: add a pop to a spread-legged plank (crouch, plank, down, up, spread legs, close legs, crouch, stand)

12-count: add pushups during and after the spread-legged plank (crouch, plank, down, up, spread legs, down, up, close legs, down, up, crouch, stand)

 

Imagine early mornings and crap weather and lots of yelling and shouting out of counts as everyone goes through the exercises at the same cadence. Then imagine the inevitable face-plant into the mud when, being smaller and weaker than most, your pushups fail about halfway through the (second) set (of, you know, five or six)... I got pretty good at cheating, but I still got caught out a lot.

 

Later I was introduced to a further development of this torment: the (aggressively gendered, sorry) MAN-BUILDERS. Start in a standing position with a dumbbell in each hand. Be aware that the size of the dumbbells you choose will be seen as a reflection of the size of your, um, shorter leg*. When you drop to the plank the dumbbells serve as pushup bars; they are placed with the handles parallel to your body. Counts are an excessive sixteen: crouch, plank, down, up, dumbbell row right, down, up, dumbbell row left, spread legs, down, up, close legs, down, up, crouch, stand. By the time I got to enjoy these I was high enough in rank that nobody was yelling at me, but they were still viciously difficult.

 

Don’t get me wrong — I’m perfectly willing to acknowledge the efficacy of burpees as an exercise, and I’ve even done them willingly since, here and there when nobody was looking. They’re, well, they’re just not my favorite  

 

*This is DEFINITELY a euphemism 

[WolfDreamer]

3 hours ago, oromendur said:

military calisthenics

 

I had a feeling it might have something to do with military service. First off, thank you for your service (and I mean that sincerely, even if that expression has become a bit disingenuous). Are you in the U.S.? What branch of the military?

 

I didn't serve, but I took three semesters of Marine Corps JROTC in high school, and I remember well the body-builders. I don't think I heard the term "burpee" until college. I haven't done enough of them to be tired of them yet. But I agree that they can be tough. I couldn't imagine adding the dumbbells.

[WolfDreamer]

Update, Week 0, Tuesday:

 

 

Burpees:

• 10 at the fitness center
• 10 outside at home while taking the dogs out
• 10 in the evening

 

Books:

• continuing with Go Tell It on the Mountain by James Baldwin; wow, he's a good writer.

 

Brainwork:

• listened to two NPR podcasts, Hidden Brain and Invisibilia, both episodes about the psychology of empathy and about the pros and cons of empathy.
• downloaded Curiosity, which is an app that contains specially curated educational articles and videos, great for a quick bite of knowledge.

[oromendur]

 

19 hours ago, WolfDreamer said:

I had a feeling it might have something to do with military service.

 

Yeah, I’m sure I’m not the only military person with burpee issues  

 

19 hours ago, WolfDreamer said:

First off, thank you for your service (and I mean that sincerely, even if that expression has become a bit disingenuous).

 

I generally respond that it’s an honor to serve. The disingenuousness you mention can be difficult to navigate, though, because that “thank you” statement can mean so many different things. Spoiler for minor self-indulgent rant:

Spoiler

There’s the generally positive but not overbearing “thank you, I imagine military service must involve some sacrifices, and I respect you for choosing to make them” type (how I’m interpreting yours BTW), which deserves a pleasant verbal acknowledgement. Then there’s the “thank you for serving so I didn’t have to” type (this one generally comes in two flavors: the ‘I coulda shoulda woulda but didn’t and now you’re making me feel inadequate’ flavor and the ‘I could never’ which sometimes comes with a subtext of ‘thank heavens there are lower-class people to do the dirty work’ flavor), which generally warrants only a smile and nod. Then there’s the flag-waving virtue-signaling type, whose thanks are often offered in the same tone used for the Pledge of Allegiance, and who then either wants a cookie for being patriotic or wants to launch into a political discussion I desperately want to avoid. I haven’t come up with anything better than ‘blink and flee’ for those yet, but I’m working on it... It’s nice to have sacrifices acknowledged, certainly, and I do my best just to take the thanks at face value,  but I can seriously do without the political posturing or tokenizing or co-option into someone’s pet diatribe that has become so common these days. 

But anyway — thanks for your thanks, and sorry for the rant...

 

19 hours ago, WolfDreamer said:

Are you in the U.S.?

 

I am (well, not technically at the moment, but yes, I’m American).

 

19 hours ago, WolfDreamer said:

What branch of the military?

 

I’m a Marine (I’m in the Individual Ready Reserve now, but I spent five years on active duty and then had a *mumble*-year career in the drilling reserves).

 

19 hours ago, WolfDreamer said:

I took three semesters of Marine Corps JROTC in high school, and I remember well the body-builders.

 

Ah. You don’t have to imagine, then — you’ve been there and know exactly what I’m talking about.

 

19 hours ago, WolfDreamer said:

I haven't done enough of them to be tired of them yet.

 

Well I guess you’d better get started 

 

19 hours ago, WolfDreamer said:

I couldn't imagine adding the dumbbells.

 

Funny story: one time we were doing one of those ‘everybody call one exercise’ round-robin things, and someone who wanted to show off a bit picked these, and then started a rain of complaints about the lack of larger dumbbells in the field gym. I glanced down at my teeny ones and suggested innocently that we add a shoulder press at the end of each rep to make up for the lower weights. Amazing how the complaints slacked off halfway through the set.

 

That Curiosity app looks interesting. What’s the article-to-video ratio? Is it mostly one or the other, or do they have both for everything?

[Ann of Owlshire]

Looking forward to another Wolf challenge! I love how you’ve packed so much improvement into a few bullet points. 

[WolfDreamer]

5 hours ago, oromendur said:

Yeah, I’m sure I’m not the only military person with burpee issues  

 

Oh, without a doubt. I have other friends who served, and they all share the same opinion: burpees are terrible.

 

5 hours ago, oromendur said:

sorry for the rant...

 

No apologies necessary. I very much agree with your point. And again, most of my friends who serve(d) share similar views.

 

5 hours ago, oromendur said:

Well I guess you’d better get started 

 

Yes sir! 

 

5 hours ago, oromendur said:

That Curiosity app looks interesting. What’s the article-to-video ratio? Is it mostly one or the other, or do they have both for everything?

 

It's more articles than videos. They also have a podcast, which is about 10 minutes of the hosts reading short-form versions of the top three articles of the day, so I guess it would be great if someone didn't have time to read.

[WolfDreamer]

39 minutes ago, Ann of Vries said:

Looking forward to another Wolf challenge! I love how you’ve packed so much improvement into a few bullet points. 

 

Thank you! I'm really glad you're here!

[Grumble]

On 9/11/2019 at 7:48 AM, WolfDreamer said:

I come visit your challenge and get personally attacked. Yeesh!

 

8 hours ago, oromendur said:

Yeah, I’m sure I’m not the only military person with burpee issues  

Definitely not. Everytime I do them I have flashbacks to AIT and curl up in a tiny ball for a moment.

[WolfDreamer]

9 minutes ago, Grumble said:

come visit your challenge and get personally attacked. Yeesh!

 

 

 

37 minutes ago, Grumble said:

Everytime I do them I have flashbacks to AIT and curl up in a tiny ball for a moment.

 

I can only imagine... 

[WolfDreamer]

Update, Week 0, Wednesday:

 

(That's a fair request)

 

Burpees:

• 10 in the morning while outside with the dogs
• 10 in the afternoon as soon as I got home from work
• 10 an hour before bed

 

Books:

• still reading Go Tell It on the Mountain. This book really uses these characters to present a hard look at how awful people can be but also how we tend to harbor secret (and often ill) thoughts about others, even if we don't express it; the tough part is that those thoughts can change how we treat those people, even if it's subconscious.

 

 

Brainwork:

• listened to NPR's Up First on the way to work.
• read an article on Curiosity that presented new research that suggests the big bang wasn't actually the beginning of the universe.

[Sciread77]

I'm so late to the convo already!

 

I love your goals.  I haven't regularly done burpees in years, , but I've recently started because Jessie has instituted them as a family exercise.  

[WolfDreamer]

1 hour ago, Sciread77 said:

I'm so late to the convo already!

 

Better late than never!

 

1 hour ago, Sciread77 said:

love your goals

 

Thank you!

[WolfDreamer]

I'm really trying to do that thing they say you should do where you focus on the positives, think about what you're grateful for, persevere, and all that... but it's pretty freaking tough right now.

 

My stepsister's mother died the night before last. As I'm learning the full story, I'm wavering between upset and angry. I haven't actually talked to my sister, but the story I hear is that her mother (who hasn't been in great health for a little while) went to the ER Sunday for nausea and dizziness. They took her upstairs for a CT scan, and when they were bringing her back down she crashed in the elevator. After that, everything started to shut down. Now, this is the part that makes my jaw drop. According to the hospital, they were not able to find anyone's contact info until Tuesday morning. Could you imagine learning that your mother was basically dead almost two days later?

 

I also learned this morning that my neighbor passed away last night. He had a lung disease and it finally overtook him last night. I'm going to risk sounding judgmental here, but he was a smoker, and many of the people who are grieving for him are also smokers and will likely continue to be smokers. I know it's a hard habit to break, for sure; it just seems... I don't know... I probably sound like an asshole. But it's like someone who drives under the influence of alcohol like all the time, and then gets sad or even angry when a friend is killed by a drunk driver. Or when someone who has survived an overdose and yet continues to use, then gets heartbroken and even angry when a friend or loved one dies from an overdose. Everyone has the right to grieve, of course, but it just seems... disingenuous to me if you continue to indulge in the thing that caused the death of your loved one. I acknowledge my own past hypocrisy in this. My paternal grandfather died from a stroke brought on by his lung cancer. About a year after his death, I started smoking. But I was 13 years old. However, I continued to smoke for about 7 years until I got married, and since my wife was a nonsmoker I decided to quit. I know this isn't easy for everyone. But it just rattles me when I see someone broken over a loved one's death while still indulging in the very thing that led to that same loved one's death.

 

Forgive me if I'm just talking out of my ass. I'm feeling pretty broody today. Anyway, here's yesterday's update:

 

Week 0, Thursday:

 

 

Burpees:

• 10 in the morning while outside with the dogs
• 10 in the late evening
• forgot to the last 10 before bed

 

Books:

• still reading Go Tell It On the Mountain; seriously, though, if you want to read some of the best writing I have ever seen, read a Baldwin novel.

 

Brainwork:

• read an article on Curiosity about the Dolbear Law, which says that it is possible to predict the temperature by counting cricket chirps.

[Tanktimus the Encourager]

Your feelings about the smokers are just as valid as the grief of the smokers themselves. As long as you Express those feelings to us and not them you're fine.

[Sciread77]

1.  That's awful.  

Beware of looking too heavily on the bright side.  It can get you through tough times, but strong feelings need to be dealt with in time.  You're probably fine, but I come from a family in which denial and self-brainwashing has done a lot of damage.  Take some time to be ANGRY about this.  And whatever other feels you need to feel.  Even if you have to get by at work or taking care of some home business by looking on the bright side.

 

2. I'm not a smoker.  My understanding is that it can be pretty rough, especially when combined with certain medications.  I think it was a 2005-2006 research study at the Université of Bordeaux, FR, that discovered that the addictiveness of nicotine increases dramatically when combined with MAOIs, a once-common class of antidepressants.  (Those are the ones with potentially fatal interactions with Benadryl and grapefruit). Smoking does bother me, quite a bit.  It's both infuriating and scary how much of a hold it has on some people. I try to empathize.  I also totally understand your feelings on this, and add an exponent to those feelings with the example with the drinking and driving.  I think sometimes, especially with younger people, a lot of it has to do with feeling invincible and assuming it's not happening to me, and I think sometimes, especially with older people it's at least partly due to fatalism and just coming to terms with "Well, one day this is gonna kill me."  I've seen people do that with a lot of things, including food, some kinds of gambling, and extreme sports. 

[WolfDreamer]

2 minutes ago, Sciread77 said:

sometimes, especially with older people it's at least partly due to fatalism and just coming to terms with "Well, one day this is gonna kill me."

 

Yeah, this is mostly what I'm seeing, but some of these people aren't "older," really (like 40s maybe?). But yet they still have this "Well, we're all gonna die someday," mindset, and then when someone dies as a result of these bad habits, they're still shocked or devastated by it. I also wrestle with the, "We all go when it's our time," mindset, like there is a pre-destined death date for all of us, and we are helpless to change it in any way. If that were true, why take care of yourself at all? I mean I believe in God, but I also believe it is both possible that God knows what is going to happen to us all and that we have free will. I know that seems like a contradictory statement, but the idea that we have no control at all and we "might as well just wing it 'cause when we go we go" just doesn't seem plausible or even practical and it perpetuates a list of unhealthy habits for some.

[Sciread77]

58 minutes ago, WolfDreamer said:

 

Yeah, this is mostly what I'm seeing, but some of these people aren't "older," really (like 40s maybe?). But yet they still have this "Well, we're all gonna die someday," mindset, and then when someone dies as a result of these bad habits, they're still shocked or devastated by it. I also wrestle with the, "We all go when it's our time," mindset, like there is a pre-destined death date for all of us, and we are helpless to change it in any way. If that were true, why take care of yourself at all? I mean I believe in God, but I also believe it is both possible that God knows what is going to happen to us all and that we have free will. I know that seems like a contradictory statement, but the idea that we have no control at all and we "might as well just wing it 'cause when we go we go" just doesn't seem plausible or even practical and it perpetuates a list of unhealthy habits for some.

 

It’s a frustrating thing, to be sure. I work to focus on my locus of control and keep it as internal as possible. It’s been helpful even when I’ve had relatively little control over my schedule if I want to see my family/pay bills/etc. I’ve never liked the fully fatalistic attitude. 

 

Thoughts regarding God having ultimate knowledge of what will happen and free will: who cares?

 

Allow me to explain.

 

*rambles for an hour*

 

 

 

 

WE don’t know anything. WE don’t know if we’re the high-achiever, the hero, the sob story who dies young in a tragic accident, etc. Maybe God does, but for our part, it’s irrelevant. 

 

Guess what? We have choice in our world. You can blame God for your choice to not wear a seatbelt, for example, but you are making that choice. A choice in which you are now opened up to myriad bad endings. Like tragically dying in a low-speed crash. Or deciding to regularly get blitzed. It’s unlikely that a non-drinker will be the drunk driver who kills a family and survives to live with the consequences. 

 

That’s not to say that your chances of A bad ending are zero, but you can, via your choices, make the chances of some endings zero. 

 

Some things may statistically stacked against you. Some things are pretty hard wired into us. Some traumas are difficult to overcome or even impossible in the moment. But in the long run, we do have choices. And those choices we make determine things like what our possible endings are. Whether we and/our children are more or less likely to survive. Whether we are more or less likely to help or hurt others. 

 

People who use “God knows and predetermined all” as an excuse to not try are also implicitly stating that either 1.  They know the will of God/the future or 2.  They’ve actually made a decision regarding their ending. 

 

And look, if I was a 90-year-old smoker who’d been smoking since the age of 12, maybe too much damage has been done to me. I can see coming to terms with probably dying from something related to that. I can see changing being completely overwhelming as making that choice. But it’s hard for me to buy that it’s all predetermined. Predetermination only matters to the finite if we’re time travelers and have a way of knowing the future. Otherwise, taking on that belief is a choice that in and of itself affects that determination.

 

 

*isn't done, but stops to breathe*

[Ann of Owlshire]

My half-sisters’ mother died of lung cancer, at which point two of them quit smoking, so far for good (it’s been about 20 years). The other was doing a lot more than just smoking cigarettes, and passed away herself a couple of years ago as a result of what she was doing to herself. Maybe some people will quit as a result of what happened to their relative, maybe they won’t. We humans are very good at being self-destructive, and it’s a lot of effort to try to not be. (If it wasn’t, we wouldn’t need places like NF.)

 

A friend of Mr’s (some years before we met) passed away suddenly at his local gym (cardiac arrest) and there was a disconnect between the EMTs and the gym staff over who would contact the family. He was gone for 5 days before the situation got sorted, in the meantime his workplace had called his mother when he didn’t show up and his mother had called Mr (one of his best friends/former housemate), and during those frantic days they were trying to figure out where he was. They didn’t know at that point he was dead and just waiting for someone to be contacted. Ugh.

 

Mostly relating these stories to say “you’re not alone” in your feelings and distress. *hugs*