Alright 6-pack, no more hiding from me now.

[Barmacral]

After reading Steve's latest blog post, I think I'm gonna give the 6 week challenge another try and see how it goes. I plan to have a 6 pack by the second weekend of May, and I'm training for a tough mudder (which happens that weekend), but I would like to see some shorter term results. For that, I've set my goals to be much smaller this time around, but ones I know I can do.

 

1. Spend 20 minutes working out every day of the week.

2. Complete the 100 pushups program

3. Hold the Hollow body position for 1 minute

 

4. Get a job. Any job, but a job.

[GradSchoolVixen]

Good luck with your goals!  I definitely feel you with #4.  It's rough out there.

[Waldo]

How far are you away from a 6 pack?

 

Good luck with the challenge.

[karassa]

Good luck!  

[Barmacral]

Grad - Thanks, for me it is a bad time of year. There's a lot more jobs in about 4 months time.

 

Waldo - I've got a way to go yet, still at a 34 inch waist. I shouldn't have any issues getting it by May though. Might post a picture when I do my next check-in on the 17th.

[Barmacral]

So yesterday was a total write-off, as the final Wheel of Time book came out, so I spent 12 hours straight reading it cover to cover. Today however, I did week 1 day 3 of the 100 pushup program, some pullup / chinup work (I can do 1 chinup, but not a pullup yet), and a bit fencing drill for warm up.

[scarletleavy]

Good luck with the 6 pack! I'm also trying for one, but having trouble getting past the "4 pack" stage. 

[karassa]

Barm: my agenda for this weekend:

 

Sat: Get up, go to riding lesson. Come home shower.  Read.

Sun: Read more if necessary. Catch up on sleep not attained due to aforementioned reading.

 

 

So I feel ya.

[Barmacral]

scarlet - Thanks, best of luck to you too! I never actually considered that I could get stuck on a 4-pack.

 

karassa - Be prepared for a weekend of awesome.

 

Yesterday I did an ab workout: 5 sets of - bicycle(?), hollow body for 20 seconds, the first stage of dragon flag progression (raising legs into the air and slowly lowering them).

 

Today I did a lower body workout, 3 sets of 10 of each: squats, lunges, burpees, mountain climbers. Feeling pretty wiped from that.

[Barmacral]

Did week 2 day 1 of the pushup program today. Definitely going to have to repeat it. I finished, but I had to take mini breaks between pushups and I think my last few weren't such great form.

[Barmacral]

One thing I love about this site, this evening I was feeling lethargic (I have been staying up too late the last few days and made myself get up early today, so lack of sleep as a result), and was debating between napping and walking to the local doughnut shop for a doughnut and a hot chocolate. Not really happy with that debate I opted to come to nerdfitness, and within 20 minutes of browsing around here reading stuff I was entirely motivated to go get a workout done, so I got up and did one and now I feel great and am glad I don't have that doughnut. Go me!

 

I did an ab workout and tried something new today, doing a dead hang from my pullup bar. Managed 20 seconds each time, I'll have to work on that.

 

Yesterday I didn't do a formal workout, instead I did chinups every time I walked past my doorway all day, and then in the evening I did 50 wide-arm pushups with my feet elevated on the couch. While I think it is better for me to do all of my workouts at once normally, yesterday was a success and I'm not adverse to repeating the experiment and seeing how it goes in the future.

[karassa]

Congrats on being victorious over the doughnut!

[Barmacral]

Thanks! I must say it felt good the next day looking back and thinking that I did a workout instead of getting a dougnut. Tomorrow (well, technically today) when I wake up I'll be doing my monthly check-in. I took today as a total rest day because I've been doing a lot of upper body workouts lately (I try to only do lower body ones when the home owners are out since it involves jumping around, and I can't do it in the basement due to height restrictions - the only place they want me to do it... and they've been home a lot of late) and based on how hard the exercises were yesterday, I think my body needed a break to recover. Tomorrow I'll be right back at it though.

 

I've started reading the four hour chef (it was cheap, so I picked it up) and so far it is neat. One thing caught my eye that I'm starting to try though, in the book Tim recommends having 30 grams of protein within the first 30 minutes of waking up, that this will help with weight loss, which I am currently focusing on. As such I've started trying this out and having a protein shake in the morning every morning. The only downside is the stuff I'm using is what my brother uses for bulking (I got some from him to try protein shakes out) and it tastes awful. Just as soon as I get through it, a friend of mine has other protein powder that he recommends I try, that should taste much less horrid.

[Dervish]

Aiming for that 6-pack as well. Have the muscles for it, I just hid it well. Will you do any dietary changes towards the pack as well?

[karassa]

Yeah, that's the big problem with protein powder.  It comes in these HUGE tubs, and it's relatively pricey, so if you get one and you don't like the flavor, you're kinda stuck.  But that 30g of protein does help!  What I was doing was having two eggs (I have this nifty plastic thing that lets me make poached eggs in the microwave) and a protein shake (by supplementing with the eggs, I could get a powder that was maybe lower in protein, but it gave me more options for finding a flavor I liked)

[Barmacral]

Dervish, I started eating primal back in November, and though I'm no 100% primal yet, I'm probably 70-80% of the way there. I drink too much beer still, plus with the roommates I have it can be overly challenging to cook primal. Fortunately I do most of the cooking and am converting one over to primal, so it is going well for me.

 

Karassa - I'm lucky in that I've got a friend who has been letting me taste his protein shakes, so I can get an idea of what to expect and help pick a flavour that way.

[Dervish]

Enlighten me, what's the difference between primal and paleo?

[Barmacral]

The simplest way I've seen it explained that obviously is a very barebones and incomplete way of explaining it is that Paleo is your meat and veggies, and Primal is the same thing, but with dairy. For more information on Primal, I'd recommend going to Marks Daily Apple.

[cammocat@gmail.com]

Sounds like you are doing pretty solid! I'm a fan of the NF last minute motivation as well. Don't suppose you watch Ninja Warrior? I always default to that if I feel like becoming apart of the floor.

[Barmacral]

I don't, and from the little bits I've seen on youtube, I'd love to see the show, but not being a tv person, I have no idea where I could go to watch it.

 

I did my monthly check in yesterday and was only down half an inch from December, which isn't unexpected. Now that the Christmas season is past and I have no excuses for indulgences, I'm hoping to pick up speed and see better results next month.

[Barmacral]

So I looked in the mirror today and realised that my chest looks like all muscle and no fat Granted, not huge muscles yet, but still, that was a good feeling.

[Barmacral]

I haven't really provided an update as to where I'm at yet.

 

Pushups - I'm not going to complete this goal by the time the challenge is done, as I'm finding myself repeating week two a lot. I've done day 1 of week 2 three times, and day 2 will be done a second time when I next work on it. I'm alright with this though, as I know that it is because my triceps aren't gaining strength as fast as the program wants, but they are still making huge gains. On a side note, does anybody know any bicep exercises that don't involve the chin up bar? I can't do a chin up yet (I'm working on it) and would like to balance out the amount of tricep strength gain with some more bicep strength gain.

 

Working out 20 minutes a day - I've been good at this so far, I've missed two days only, one was a pre-planned rest day that I needed, and the other just got really busy because my brother came by for a visit. I don't mind, since I got right back to work the next day.

 

Hollow body - This is at 25 seconds, and I feel confident in upping it to 30 seconds the next time I do an ab workout. Looking forward to being able to do a minute, then I can go onto the cool stuff like hand stands and dragon flags.

[Waldo]

All pulling motions work the biceps.  Inverted rows are a little easier than chinups, they work the biceps.  

 

Without curling weight, the only other suggestion I would have is a planche lean.  Start in a straight arm plank, with your hands backwards  (fingers pointed to toes) or as close as you can get comfortably  then lean forward over your straight arms as far as you can.  You should be in a hollow body position and pushing your shoulders down as hard as you can.  This will provide a great deal of torque to your elbow, your bicep will flex hard to prevent elbow hyperextension.  This is arguably as good of a bicep exercise as curling is.  Hold it for time, but don't go to failure (rough on the elbows).

 

Don't worry too much about the biceps though, they are fairly useless muscles.

[Barmacral]

Oh, thanks! Definitely did not know any of that.

[Jakob Kopfeld]

Looking good with the challenge thus far I'd say.

 

Very well done