Raptron Reaps Rewards

[raptron]

Hi! I'm Raptron, your friendly neighborhood flipperdoo. I competed in my 3rd powerlifting meet a couple of weeks ago and got my big 300# squat finally, hiked a mountain (or what passes for one in New England), and did some sporadic traveling last challenge. With the meet out of the way, I don't have any excuses to stay in what passes for one rep max shape.  

 

So, here we are! I don't really have a theme, I just like alliteration. Maybe I will be rewarding myself for doing the things I already plan to do with the things I'm already planning to buy myself during the post-Thanksgiving sales. MAYBE THE REWARDS WERE THE FRIENDS I MADE ALONG THE WAY -- YOU GUYS!!! D'AWW.

 

 

Soooo, what are we working on? Well, how about we pick some adjectives I want to describe me by the end of this challenge?

 

1. Competent 

• Practice new floor choreo outside of the gym 2x per week
• Run new floor routine in practice at least 1x per week, even if it's just part of it
• Vault 3x over the challenge
• Back handsprings on balance beam every practice

2. Fit

• Conditioning-focused workout 1x per week (can be an add-on to a lifting workout, but must be REAL EFFORT)

3. Steady

• Hand (or other) balancing practice for funsies 2x per week -- random partner acro or pole classes also count!

4. Profesh

• Apply to 5 new jobs THAT ACTUALLY APPEAL TO YOU per week

 

HMMMMM, this might be a bit too much. Maybe it's just enough! TUNE IN TO FIND OUT!

[Mike Wazowski]

Hey there, favorite flipperdoo!!

 

Love the goals, love you, here for all the things. Especially, happy that you're focusing on jobs that really appeal to you - because we all should like our work, at least most of the time!

[Tanktimus the Encourager]

Following. I hope you manage to FIND five jobs a week that genuinely appeal to you.

[sylph]

Here for this <3

[Harriet]

Here for them squats and deadlifts. And the flippin. 

[WhiteGhost]

Here for all this, but especially the flipping and hand balancing  

[Mad Hatter]

Here for flipperoooooos!!!! And general awesomeness of course.

[raptron]

Glad you're all here! 

 

ZERO WEEK THINGS!!!

 

Day 0.2

I thought I had decided to run a work capacity building/slightly hypertrophy focused program, so I did the first workout of that, which had sets of 8 and my golly, my capacity is so bad right now. I was heaving like I just went on a 5 mile jog after the squat sets of 8, lol. 

 

Squats: 8 x 235#, 6 x 225#, 6 x 215#, 8 x 215#

Bench (paused): 4 x 8 x 105#

Curls: 4 x 16 x 15# (oh god)

Skull crushers: 4 x 16 x 10# (owww)

Dips: 4 x 8

 

I think I've mentioned before that I don't enjoy muscle pump, and I, actually, HATEEEE IT. I think it's a body horror thing. I get convinced my skin is going to peel open and reveal like some kind of gooey secret skin I didn't know I had because I've just been in a human shell this whole time and now I'm breaking free. Basically, I shouldn't be doing a hypertrophy program...hahaha. After this workout, I found a different option I'm going to try instead after adjusting/corrupting to fit my preferred workout week set-up of having bench and squats on the same day instead of individual days for each. 

 

When I got home, I watched some Fleabag (love), journaled, and accidentally got into a dumb internet argument with some friends so I was up later than I meant to. I fell asleep quickly, but for some reason the last few days, I keep waking up around 5:30 AM and have trouble falling back asleep. I manage it eventually, but it's weird and I don't like it. The last two nights got warmer overnight instead of cooler so that could be part of it? Maybe I just need to get back into going hard at the gym and the sleep will follow. I slept like a rock after deadlifts on Sunday, lol. 

 

Gymnastics: choreo 1/2, floor routine 1/1, bhs on beam 1/2, vault 0/3

Conditioning: 0/1

Balancing: 0/2 

Jobs: 2/5

 

ANYWAY. This zero week's plan:

W - I forgot gym clothes so rest I guess? + D&D

Th - Lift + gymnastics team selection meeting to set new guidelines for picking the A and B teams for Nationals (there has been a lot of drama and we've realized our old system is flawed, so the board is taking proposals for a new system)

F - beginner pole class! + either a date or a very small Halloween party? or maybe one than the other? idk

S - gymnastics + halloween thing at the lifting gym + THE BIG ANNUAL HALLOWEEN BASEMENT PARTY I LOVE EVERY YEAR

S - seeing my friend's Addams Family show + napping almost definitely 

 

I need to figure out a casual/easy costume for Saturday during the day. Sat night, my besties and I are being Urusla and her eels. I'm being Jetsam.  

[Mad Hatter]

14 minutes ago, raptron said:

 

I think I've mentioned before that I don't enjoy muscle pump, and I, actually, HATEEEE IT. I think it's a body horror thing. I get convinced my skin is going to peel open and reveal like some kind of gooey secret skin I didn't know I had because I've just been in a human shell this whole time and now I'm breaking free.

This is EXACTLY why I don’t like rope climbing! Either that or that an alien parasite is trying to claw its way out of my forearm!

[raptron]

4 minutes ago, Mad Hatter said:

This is EXACTLY why I don’t like rope climbing! Either that or that an alien parasite is trying to claw its way out of my forearm!

Omg, yes that too! It's so awfullll!

[JuiceeTarget]

3 hours ago, raptron said:

I think it's a body horror thing. I get convinced my skin is going to peel open and reveal like some kind of gooey secret skin I didn't know I had because I've just been in a human shell this whole time and now I'm breaking free.

Haha! This is relevant to me as my youngest daughter (who doesn't remember me as anything but weak and pudgy) mentioned that I had some strange bumps on my arms... "Those are muscles, honey."

 

[bigm141414]

On 10/22/2019 at 6:49 AM, raptron said:

Hand (or other) balancing practice for funsies 2x per week -- random partner acro or pole classes also count!

 

Why do I have a feeling you'll soon be basing random people on the street. "Hey my name's raptron, would you like to try acro yoga?" 

[@mu]

14 hours ago, raptron said:

I think I've mentioned before that I don't enjoy muscle pump, and I, actually, HATEEEE IT. I think it's a body horror thing. I get convinced my skin is going to peel open and reveal like some kind of gooey secret skin I didn't know I had because I've just been in a human shell this whole time and now I'm breaking free.

 

Personally, I kinda like it?

 

Is your new floor routine all fixed yet?

[raptron]

8 hours ago, bigm141414 said:

Why do I have a feeling you'll soon be basing random people on the street. "Hey my name's raptron, would you like to try acro yoga?" 

RANDOM ACTS OF ACRO.

 

I need to learn more about basing first before I start throwing people in the air all willy nilly. (I say, unconvincingly.)

 

8 hours ago, @mu said:

Personally, I kinda like it?

I think that's the normal response!

 

8 hours ago, @mu said:

Is your new floor routine all fixed yet?

Not quite! I have abouuuut half ready to go. Another half in the hopper. It's going to be really exhausting, I can tell, haha. I did do that half at practice on Monday with some tumbling! 

 

Day 0.3

I ate like... all day on Wednesday. It was just one of those days where you are hungry non-stop for no discernible reason! I call them Galactus days. I roasted a bunch of chicken and potatoes and brussels sprouts for the next few days of dinner, cleaned my room a little, and prepped for game night.

 

Last night's session of D&D went great. I think I struck a good balance of relevant exposition and interactivity. They made it to the mining town where something akin to a gold rush is going on about a strange new mineral that's started appearing here and in a few other places in the Underdark. Its power has attracted all sorts ranging from those just trying to turn it over for profit, those trying to infuse its powerful properties into new weapons and armors, those who just consume it, and demon cults who are convinced it is a powerful reagent to help carry out the will of their masters. The town itself is an uneasy neutral zone under the protection and thumb of the powerful local trading magnates (who are based off an inside joke company two of my friends "run") trying to run a train to their major claim and get this market really going but keep running into trouble. My PCs mined (heh) the local watering hole for information, including local duergar and Upperdark mountain dwarves who moved in to get a piece of the action. Over their night's rest, they heard ominous flapping and had heard tales about a demon causing disturbances nearby that may just be the same demon who hitched a ride with them to the Material Plane when they were teleported from the Nine Hells. Now they're joining the duergar caravan, since they're pals with the great duergar Warlord they saved from a demon some months back, to their mining claim to try to learn more about this new ore and investigate some of the spooooOOOooky goings on in the haunted mines and try to learn why everyone seems so compelled by this stuff (which I forgot the name for and just kept referring to as THA GOOD STUFF).

 

Gymnastics: choreo 1/2, floor routine 1/1, bhs on beam 1/2, vault 0/3

Conditioning: 0/1

Balancing: 1/2 

Jobs: 3/5

[Tanktimus the Encourager]

2 minutes ago, raptron said:

which I forgot the name for and just kept referring to as THA GOOD STUFF

As long as you don't call it unobtainium. 

[raptron]

23 hours ago, Tanktimus the Encourager said:

As long as you don't call it unobtainium. 

One of my players kept saying that and I was like NOOOooo, it's not that. 

 

Day 0.4

Slipped out of work a little early to lift before out gymnastics team meeting. I had a case of the "I don't wannas" while lifting, but had to hustle because I didn't have a ton of time before our meeting.

 

Deadlifts: 5 x 255#, 3 x 275#, 2 x 2 x 285#, 5 x 275#

Deficit deadlifts: 3 x 8 x 195#

CG bench press: 4 x 8 x 115#

Hamstring slider curls: 4 x 8

Pull-ups: 3, 2, 2, 2

 

The meeting went really well, actually! We had about half of the women's competitors who would be affected by the decisions attend had a healthy conversation. Folks generally seemed to agree on our priorities and a few points for us to move on going forward. We had two big proposals for systems presented, and I think the majority definitely preferred one. We just have to do a few changes and make a couple more decisions Board-side before we can announce the new team building structure, but I think it's a good one. It'll be interesting to see how it plays out! I keep emphasizing in our conversations that just because there is a selection methodology for the "A squad", you can always still compete with the team and that you can even opt out of the selection if you want or whatever because we're still all here to have fun -- it's just some people have competitive goals for Nationals and crafting a competitive squad out of those people seems to be the way the team wants to go, so here we are. I'm hoping it starts to stick because a lot of the complaints were like very specific one-off examples of how these rules would mean excluding "x" from the squad -- and the answer is like "yeah, they would and that is ok! they can still compete with the team!" and I'm not sure how much of that was sinking in, haha. We're kind of moving from a default assumption that you are probably going to be on the "A squad" (because our team was that size) to this squad being something you need to explicitly qualify for and I think it's a lot for people to wrap their heads around. But we can't help that we're soooo popular.

 

I went to my friends house, ate soup, and heckled her provided constructive feedback while she worked on crafting her tentacles for her Ursula outfit for Saturday. 

 

Gymnastics: choreo 1/2, floor routine 1/1, bhs on beam 1/2, vault 0/3

Conditioning: 0/1

Balancing: 1/2 

Jobs: 4/5

 

I got invited to the next round of interviews on my phone interviews but I still don't think I'm super enthused about either of them, haha. It's still good practice for jobs coming down that I may actually care about though, so I'll probably at least do the second rounds and see if they wind up presenting new information that excites me?

[Tanktimus the Encourager]

1 hour ago, raptron said:

One of my players kept saying that and I was like NOOOooo, it's not that.

Of course, Cantfindinite might be an option.

[@mu]

22 hours ago, raptron said:

I'm hoping it starts to stick because a lot of the complaints were like very specific one-off examples of how these rules would mean excluding "x" from the squad -- and the answer is like "yeah, they would and that is ok! they can still compete with the team!" and I'm not sure how much of that was sinking in, haha.

 

ha ha those little moments of gym drama

[Stronkey Kong]

 

Glad your meeting went well.

[Mad Hatter]

Draaaama! Though it sounds like it was very civilised and went rather well considering!

 

How do you feel about this for your own competing? I remember you having mixed feelings at times, will you be trying out for the A squad? 

[raptron]

On 10/27/2019 at 3:58 AM, Mad Hatter said:

Draaaama! Though it sounds like it was very civilised and went rather well considering!

 

How do you feel about this for your own competing? I remember you having mixed feelings at times, will you be trying out for the A squad? 

This year I definitely won't be because I have a wedding the same weekend as Nationals. SIGH. I will still be able to compete in the preliminaries, but wouldn't be able to compete at finals if we qualified, so I'm definitely opting out of A squad this time. In the future? Who knows. With the system we're adopting, I would maybe make it on the merit of my floor scores? I'll see whether I would have even been a possible contender by the end of the season.

 

Day 0.5

I took an intro to pole class! We did some very basic basics, I think? A little climb, a couple of turns, a chair spin, and some body rolling, haha. We made it into a little sequence. Our instructor wasn't particularly helpful, but it was still a neat way to spend an hour.  I bruised up but not quite as bad as I thought I would. I get a serious discount on a second class, so I'll do another at some point soon-ish. However, I just wanna do cool tricks, I don't really care about dancing pretty. They have some trick-specific classes I'll maybe try out as well if they run another sale on class packs.

 

Day 0.6

Gymnastics practice! My body felt good but my brain was really gooey. I practiced floor including the choreography that I have, front tumbling including double salto passes, and a few back tumbling passes. On uneven bars, I did 3 toe shoots including a really good one, 3 free hips, and that was kind of it. I went to balance beam to do 5 back handsprings on the low beam and my hands were doing weird shit (similar to when I broke my finger last year) and that was incredibly frustrating, but I blame it on my mushy brain.

 

After practice, we did some final Halloween shopping and then I took a nap. We got ready at my friend's house, went to the party, were generally terrors as usual, and ended at IHOP. I was in bed around 6:20 AM, haha. 

 

"BE MORE EEL LIKE" 

 

Day 0.7

I got my friend coffee and breakfast before we headed out a bit of a ways away for our friend's Addams Family musical show at 2pm. It was a bit of a struggle, but the show was pretty good! Our friend killed it. We got dinner on the way home. I took a nap and then had to run to the store for non-gamer headphones to record a video interview for one of the jobs I applied for so I didn't look like a total dorkus, as they sent an email asking to have that by the end of the weekend. I hope their facial analysis algorithms are biased in my favor.  

 

I went to bed a bit late because of my naptime situation, but slept pretty well.

 

Gymnastics: choreo 2/2, floor routine 2/1, bhs on beam 2/2, vault 0/3

Conditioning: 0/1

Balancing: 2/2 

Jobs: 5/5

 

Not bad week zero numbers! I guess I have to actually start conditioning now that the challenge is officially starting! Plan for the week:

M - Halloween themed practice -- I think I'm going to do Tony the Tiger

T - short lifting workout + Bruins game 

W - lifting + baking cookies

Th - going out for Halloooooween (omg it's Rex Manning Day)

F - lifting 

S - gymnastics + cookie competition fundraiser 

S - RUN THE STADIUM?

[Mad Hatter]

 

12 minutes ago, raptron said:

This year I definitely won't be because I have a wedding the same weekend as Nationals. SIGH.

Ah shame! How very inconsiderate.  

 

13 minutes ago, raptron said:

However, I just wanna do cool tricks, I don't really care about dancing pretty.

Haha I used to be like that, but now I LOVE the dancing part and the rolling around on the floor part.  

I don't know how the class levels work at this studio, but if they let you you can definitely try out even an intermediate level class. I suspect that what you'll struggle with the most is pain tolerance.  

 

Great pictures!  

[doctorake]

Love the costume!

[Harriet]

Hahaha those costumes look like fun  

[raptron]

21 hours ago, Mad Hatter said:

Haha I used to be like that, but now I LOVE the dancing part and the rolling around on the floor part.  

Hahha, I do like the dancing part but I feel like I can (and do lmao) do that at home in front of my own mirror. I don't have a pole at home!

 

21 hours ago, Mad Hatter said:

I don't know how the class levels work at this studio, but if they let you you can definitely try out even an intermediate level class. I suspect that what you'll struggle with the most is pain tolerance.  

My skin is definitely not prepared for this discipline, lol. I just wanna go upside downnnn though. 

 

Day 1.1

Ok, challenge week begins! My friend passed along our last half of the floor routine and adjusted a couple of spots in the beginning. I think it will look really good when it's all well rehearsed, haha. There is some tricky footwork that I'm still getting stuck on so I'll definitely need to take advantage of that "practice outside of the gym" goal quite a bit. 

 

I did a bunch of uneven bars again, which is becoming a trend, but it's very necessary if I'm ever going to be able to string my new routine together this year, haha. It went okay. I finished my events on beam with leaps, jumps, and some round-offs. I did not feel up to doing back handsprings, despite my goal, oh well. We did some press handstand drills on the floor with sliders and low parallettes and I think my abs died.

 

A bunch of us did dress up as well. I'm Tony the Tiger, beloved cereal mascot.

 

Gymnastics: choreo 2/4, floor routine 3/2, bhs on beam 2/3, vault 0/3

Conditioning: 0/1

Balancing: 2/4 

Jobs: 5/10