[SymphonicDan] and the Checklist [level 9]

[SymphonicDan]

Good luck with your driver license! I took my lessons when I was 18 and I sucked at it. I really sucked. I still don't know why they gave me the license (The theory test I passed it during the first week, but the practical driving test, oh lord, it took me 4 attempts!). Then I got this job where I had to drive a lot from town to town by hellish country secondary roads, and then is when I really learnt to drive!

Ha yeah, so many people have told me that the key thing is to get lots of practice!

 

I am SO impressed at how you PR numbers go up and up and up! With these results you can allow yourself a "lame" weekend from time to time, can't you? Congratulations!!!

Thanks It depends why the weekend is "lame"... if it's enjoyable and relaxing with a catch-up on sleep, that's great... it is involves 18 hours of motionless procrastination then it's neither enjoyable, relaxing nor refreshing and feels like a waste...

 

So curious to see what you are planning for the next challenge, have you thought about the no-pr-chasing thing yet? How to combine the benefits of a routing to follow-through for a while with the joy of surprise elements to keep your taste for excitement satisfied?

This might be THE challenge of all challenges, haha

Not yet! But I have a few ideas... like saying that PRs only count if they're during the last 2 weeks... or having a purely work-based goal (practise this movement 2x per week, do N sets of that exercise every week, etc,)

 

Really hope you didn't and don't have the same storms coming we had in Germany over here... was hectic with massive trees falling over everywhere and glass panes coming loose in the Munich main train station, so whole station being closed down. Not wishing that to anybody

even with a fraction of that - you could hold onto your rings, but what if the tree, they're on starts swinging with you? You might end up a space cowboy  

I'm kidding, be really safe, please

Nope, this is England so everyone gets excited saying "OmGz0rs the storm of the century is afoot!" and then a mild breeze and a few spots of rain brush across the country... followed by dramatic front-page headlines like "HORRIFYING scenes in Torquay as SEVERAL garden chairs blown COMPLETELY over!"

 

I hope you're okay in Munich, your storm seems actually bad Rings in the wind is fine though... the only difficulty is catching the rings in the first place

 

Ahhaha I nearly wrote "gymnastics wings"... now why can't that be a sport?!

[SymphonicDan]

Much gymnastics happened today!

 

Challenge #1: the checklist:

• bar muscle-up: had 6 serious attempts at this on the high bar at gymnastics, and felt so close on 5 of the attempts, but I'm just missing a little bit of height. The bar's thinner so it's harder to wrap my hands around, but I wasn't wearing shoes, and the absence of their weight is an advantage for this
• bar false-grip pull-ups: given how hard it was last week to get 3 reps of this, I'm amazed, but I managed 5 super easily I could've done a few more but some cheerleaders wanted filming. So anyway, that's the 13th item off the checklist
• upstart / glide kip: some attempts, but the core part wasn't so great today
• pull-ups: 13, 12 (close to PR, but no PR broken) plus a few more work sets, including some with my legs in front (not quite an L-sit as I don't have the strength) which works my arms more rather than my lats
• frontflips: some work but nothing new
• cartwheels: actually made some progress on these for once! I took a video, and it seems that my entry is okay (although should raise my first leg sooner) but my legs bend and do silly things half-way through, so I need to keep them straight and hopefully everything will line up

I also did some handstands against the wall, and some crow poses to stimulate some muscle memory ready for my big handbalancing push as soon as the weather becomes warm again. Also with the cheerleading girls we were doing some weightlifting with people, so deadlifting each other and doing squats with someone sitting on your shoulder. One day I'll be strong enough to pull-ups with someone on my back, but I'm not yet!

 

Challenge #2: core exercises: flips and handstands and L-sit pull-ups and upstarts and parallette L-sits, but nothing specific. I'm planning on going to my old gym with some friends tomorrow so I can do some core stuff then.

[Lara]

- Hei, Dan, how are you PRs going?

- Great, my front squat is at two cheerleaders and my deadlift at three and a half!

[Mad Hatter]

Squatting people is so much more fun than squatting weights! Human leg presses are also a lot of fun. Never tried deadlifting anyone though. Hmm I bet I could deadlift B...

[SymphonicDan]

- Hei, Dan, how are you PRs going?

- Great, my front squat is at two cheerleaders and my deadlift at three and a half!

Hahaha Unfortunately I don't have quite enough hands for three and a half cheerleaders, so I won't have to cut any into pieces to find out!

 

Squatting people is so much more fun than squatting weights! Human leg presses are also a lot of fun. Never tried deadlifting anyone though. Hmm I bet I could deadlift B...

Ooh, human leg presses must be good because of the extra stability required to keep the person above your hips. If you try deadlifting B and don't manage it you can always blame him for just not holding himself solid enough like a barbell

 

Yesterday I had weights gym plans but my friend couldn't go and I realised that all I wanted to do there was overhead press, so I didn't bother. I might go today to the bigger gym and do some OHP, squat, deadlift, etc., I'll see...

 

Also I had some millionaire's shortbread in the afternoon which turned out to be a huge dose of sugar, which I think made me hyperactive and stressed until past my bedtime... sugar is good only when you're going to use it... not when it's pumping around your bloodstream with nothing to do...

 

Challenge #3: understanding Spanish: the 6th week for this was vaguely supposed to end on Wednesday but I hadn't done enough, so I did my second hour yesterday (combination of speaking with Talvi, listening to the radio, and reading a psychology book I have in Spanish) so I'm counting that, and have the rest of the 7th week to do my 2 hours.

[SymphonicDan]

One of my friends is getting especially into gymnastics rings training, which gives me extra motivation to go out training even when the weather is very overcast, cool, grey and generally English. I wasn't feeling particularly strong today, so no PRs were expected, but I did try some new stuff that will be useful in the future.

 

Challenge #1: the checklist:

• horizontal rows: not a checklist item, but beat my PR from 15 to 17 and it's about time, since I can already do several archer rows which are much harder
• archer ring rows: no PRs, but another friend (two came with me today) videoed me do a set and my form is better than I realised yay However, the first one sets me swinging into subsequent reps (slightly cheating) so I should be careful not to do silly things with the rhythm
• pull-ups: (using a bar to avoid twisting into neutral or chin-up grip) only 10 but I think this is because the bar was a lot thicker, which makes gripping on harder
• ring push-ups: wasn't feeling optimistic here, but blasted out 23 (near PR of 25) followed immediately by another work set
• dips: didn't train these specifically today, but did investigate Bulgarian dips, which look like the following and are considerably harder for me:

 

Note that the elbows stick out rather than be tucked towards the body. I'm not completely sure how the muscles used vary between this and the standard dip, but it seemed to be working some unfamiliar muscles or unfamiliar ranges of motion. It would be awesome one day to get the iron cross, and this will help strengthen some of the muscles for it:

 

 

I'm not seriously considering the iron cross yet as something to train, for several reasons:

• it is very hard
• I have other interesting things to work on
• if I rush it then I'll destroy my bicep tendons

...but even so, it's nice to future-proof my training. One of the many reasons I'm working on heavy pull-ups at the moment is to promote strengthening of the bicep tendons for more extreme stuff I'd like to do in maybe 1-3 years' time.

 

Also I was trying L-sit dips, which place more emphasis on my pectorals (weak) than my lats (strong), so they're harder and better training.

 

Challenge #2: core exercises: small amount of skin-t3h-kitties and L-sit holds (well, advanced tuck even if not a true L-sit)

 

Challenge #4: no lame days:

• Friday: bank holiday in the UK: went out cycling and shopping (for an unconventional dinner party I'm hosting next week) and had my second driving lesson (where we started driving around amongst real traffic and tried to get out of the habit of staying in 1st gear all the time)
• Saturday: aforementioned rings training, plus some creative work for a charity, and the day's not yet over!
• Sunday: plans for climbing, cooking and Spanish
• Monday: another bank holiday: plans for weightlifting with a friend I haven't seen for ages

If this all goes according to plan - or if make alternative good plans - I keep at a grade A for this challenge.

[Lara]

we started driving around amongst real traffic and tried to get out of the habit of staying in 1st gear all the time

LOL!! They will even want you to shift into 3rd!!! Good luck!

Congratulations on the A grade! You rule!!

[raptron]

Ooh, L-sit dips. Very nice.

[SymphonicDan]

Today was climbing day, followed by eating, and explaining complicated things to Talvi by saying random Spanish words and hoping she can read my mind. Climbing was good - I managed the crazy overhang one, did everything except one crux section for a 6b that's I'd usually consider to be above my level, and a couple of other successes that I can't remember.

 

Challenge #1: the checklist: tried a bar muscle-up but it was obvious that the relevant muscles are still recovering. I'm going to keep the checklist running until the next challenge is active, because I'm hoping for more progress in the overhead press and pull-ups, and a couple of other things. So far, I've got 13 items for +0.50 STR, +0.75 DEX, +0.50 STR & +1.00 CHA.

 

Challenge #2: core exercises: I've done more core work than usual this challenge, but not as much as I should, so I'm getting grade C and +1.50 CON

 

Challenge #3: understanding Spanish: listened to 15 minutes of Spanish news on the radio and figured that I have no idea what % of it I understand, but it's a lot less than 55% (my criterion for grade D) and so this is clearly going to be a fail. What did I do wrong? I think it's just that I set myself a rather ambitious target for understanding and that was nlikely to end well.

 

I spoke with Talvi for just over an hour, and that went well. Despite understanding only a sprinkling of phrases on the radio, I can understand 95% of what Talvi says without any effort. Maybe it's because Talvi doesn't usually speak with the background noise of gunfire and Hungarian translatees Or maybe that the news reporters speak ridiculously fast most of the time...

• I've got to do another 45min+ study in the next few days, and I'll get grade A for the goal of "2 hours per week studying Spanish"
• For my goal of "use my Spanish notebook" I've really only done a minimal amount, so I'm getting grade D for that
• For my goal of understanding the radio I'll get grade F and I'll pick a better sub-challenge next time

Overall, that gives me +1.25 WIS

 

Challenge #4: no lame days: today involved climbing, lunch out with friends, starting folornly at the supermarket that was closed for Easter, and Spanish, so also not lame I'm doing gym things and shopping things and more eating out tomorrow, so that gives me a grade A and +1.00 CHA for this challenge

 

Overall, my provisional stat looooot is:

 

STR:  +0.50

DEX:  +0.75

STA:  +1.00

CON: +1.50

WIS:  +1.25

CHA: +2.00 (total: +7.00 POINTS)

 

I'll update the stats properly when I close the checklist and complete my Spanish work. Overall the challenge has been good for several reasons:

• speaking Spanish has felt so much more natural
• my core strength has actually increased so that I can almost hold hanging L-sits, whereas before I could barely get my legs above 45 degrees to the downwards vertical
• my muscle-ups and upstarts are much closer
• my ring strength has increased noticeably
• (other minor things)

Here's a happy face:

[Talvi]

"And explaining complicated things to Talvi by saying random Spanish words and hoping she can read my mind" - lol!  That works both ways, since I brought up Buddhist monks and tried to discuss overhangs. 

 

Well done on everything this challenge!!  So many PRs and much productivity and Spanish!!! 

 

Would you include working in your Spanish notebook as part of your challenge again?   Do you think that you could work more with it or do you think that maybe that approach didn't work for you?

 

Plus, maybe you should try listening to some other radios (tunein.com) since they will have different presenters and styles.   Or even, why not try and watch some televised Spanish news

[lucky fire dragon]

your ring work is so impressive as is your overall progress

Very inspiring!

 

Congrats on the Spanish, too, so cool

 

 

 

Here's a happy face:

 

hahaha, there's the one to talk about more fanfare being appropriate

[Lara]

Plus, maybe you should try listening to some other radios (tunein.com) since they will have different presenters and styles.   Or even, why not try and watch some televised Spanish news

 

I agree with Talvi. You should try televised programmes. I used to listen to radioFrance news when learning french and it was hard, but sometimes I'd go to a friend's place who had tv and we'd see some movie and it'd be much more easy to follow the plot. Radio news go fast, they change subject quickly, and you have no clue what they're talking about without an image. Why don't you get yourself some subtitled movies?

 

By the way, you did great this challenge... but that you knew it already, right?

[SymphonicDan]

Would you include working in your Spanish notebook as part of your challenge again?   Do you think that you could work more with it or do you think that maybe that approach didn't work for you?

 

Plus, maybe you should try listening to some other radios (tunein.com) since they will have different presenters and styles.   Or even, why not try and watch some televised Spanish news

I think the main problem with the Spanish notebook part of the challenge is that I seldom found things that I felt were important enough to write down... ideally whenever I'd find myself unable to express something in Spanish, I'd find out a way of doing so and make a note. Instead I just found a workaround and forgot about the specific difficulty.

 

Next challenge I might add a vocabulary-learning aspect instead with Mnemosyne, not quite decided yet... it worked well for the mental calculations challenge so probably it will work well for this.

 

I do still have on my TODO list to have a look at that series site you sent to me, and I'm thinking of putting something else like this into my next challenge

 

THE NEXT CHALLENGE FORUMS ARE UP ALREADY WHAT IS THIS I THOUGHT IT WERE SUPPOSED TO START ON APRIL 20TH?

 

I agree with Talvi. You should try televised programmes. I used to listen to radioFrance news when learning french and it was hard, but sometimes I'd go to a friend's place who had tv and we'd see some movie and it'd be much more easy to follow the plot. Radio news go fast, they change subject quickly, and you have no clue what they're talking about without an image. Why don't you get yourself some subtitled movies?

 

By the way, you did great this challenge... but that you knew it already, right?

I don't watch many movies - and with subtitles I'll just read the text in whatever language (reading Spanish is easy) and not pay attention to the speaking. I did enjoy Harry Potter y la cámara de sécretos on the plane back from Singapore... so I would like to do more practice like this rather than listening to the news in Spanish and understanding little except for "Síria" and other names... thanks for the advice

[SymphonicDan]

[regarding the obscene involuntary faces people make when doing lat raises...]
 

Pics or it didn't happen.

 
You've waited 18 days, but I've now had the chance to get a suitable atrocious picture haha:
 

[Talvi]

I KNOW, I CHECKED THE CHALLENGE Q&A AND IT IS SUPPOSED TO BE 20TH!!! WHAT IS THIS MAGIC???

Epic facial expression (I can't see how you will ever regret putting that on the interwebs), but more to the point - Woah! Look at your arms!!!! Every muscle is perfectly defined and popping out!!!   Impressive!

[SymphonicDan]

Today I met up with a friend to go weightlifting, and we had such an epic long crazy session... about 3-and-a-half hours And then we went to the all-you-can-eat Indian restaurant and refueled with lots of chicken and lemonade etc.

 

Challenge #1: the checklist:

• deadlifts: I haven't bothered with these for ages, but was feeling virtuous today and gave them a go. (Note: previous PR was 125kg) I got up to 120kg, where I almost dropped it as my grip gave way - I guess my grip hadn't recovered from climbing yesterday ...so I decided to experiment properly with mixed grip (as I was advising Lilith last week, but never really did myself). Suddenly 100kg was easy, and so was 120kg, and I ended up smashing my PR to 137.5kg (from 125kg) (303lb up from 275lb). I couldn't believe it (and definitely the bar was set to the correct weight!) as it's the first time I've beaten any PR by 12.5kg, and I think it's unlikely to happen again for a long time Next I set the bar to 127.5kg and did a comfortable 3 reps, so that's 3 new items off the checklist (130kg x 1, 137.5kg x 1 and 127.5kg x 3)
• bench: wasn't on the checklist, but today I lifted a new PR of 62.5kg (up from 60kg) and I'm going to give my gymnastics some credit for this strength improvement Also did some work sets at 55kg
• overhead press: 40kg x 6, and couldn't lift 45kg, so I'm actually no stronger than at the start of the challenge... so I'll need to do a whole load more work on this another time to push through the plateau
• squats: 95kg was hard enough today, and there was a queue for the squat rack so I didn't hang around

Also did a load of pec flys and assorted dumbbell work, and some overhead squats (where you hold the barbell above your head with straight arms). I struggled massively with this at 30kg before, because my shoulder flexibility was poor. Today I got 40kg for 8 reps and it was my arms that gave way rather than my back Not sure how I've made this improvement, but I'm happy nonetheless!

 

Challenge #2: core exercises: kinda irrelevant now that I've already graded myself for this, but we did an especially punishing set of core exercises to finish off the session today

 

Challenge #3: understanding Spanish: still 45 minutes' work to do before Thursday

 

Challenge #4: no lame days: 100% non-lameness completed!

[Lara]

Suddenly 100kg was easy, and so was 120kg, and I ended up smashing my PR to 137.5kg (from 125kg)

OH-MY-GOD!!! O_o  Amazing!!

 

 

I didn't know Mnemosyne. I'll take a closer look, but it appears to be similar to Memrise. They both seem to use spaced repetition. I've been using Memrise for almost a year now and it works nice too. You can follow courses or build your own.

[raptron]

YESSSS! IT'S LAT RAISES FACE! Bwahahah!

[lucky fire dragon]

that face is priceless

 

So many end of challenge PRs, woweee

And as always your joy in your sport is delicious!! What an awesome challenge!

[SymphonicDan]

I am so sore today! biceps, hamstrings, middle back, everything! I think the deadlifts are to blame for the majority of it haha. Tomorrow I have gymnastics, but I'll see how my soreness feels then... I can imagine it being a rather low-key session, but I can work on cartwheels and frontflips.

 

Also, new challenge is up! Absolutely no PR goals in it - but 100% process-based. I need to sleeeep now, so I haven't looked at anyone else's new challenges, but I'll start my following probably tomorrow when I have free time

[Lilith]

Oh wow, really cool that the mixed grip upped your deadlift PR, that is just too awesome! 

[SymphonicDan]

So much DOMS today it's incredible! My middle back is very sore (in a good way) but the prize for the strongest ache goes to this little muscle at the back of my shoulders that I didn't even know existed until today haha.

 

I think I'm benefitting from all of this loads though - I must have had nearly 4000 calories on each of Monday and Tuesday, plus a load more today - and I'm actually feeling pretty good with it and not full at all

 

Yesterday I investigated a new gym near where I work, and a lot of friends are interested in giving it a go, so the gym people have suggested some sort of group discount if I show some people around, which I like doing, so that might happen soon.

 

Had gymnastics today, and it was good despite the DOMS of doom.

 

Challenge #1: the checklist:

• cartwheels: had some advice to go in more slowly, which seemed to help... and then some more tweaking of position... I'm not vertical and my legs are bent, but it's seeming a lot better. At the start of the challenge I said the cartwheels looked like a spider in a hurricane. Now it's more like a frog in a tumble drier - an improvement for sure but I'm not getting any checklist points for this
• frontflips: some generic practice, focusing on adding a tuck no matter what... slight progress but nothing worth contacting the newspapers about
• upstart / glide kip: more experimentation with this today - finding ways to get my hands to slide around the bar at the end so I can get into a good position. I still think that I need more core strength for this move, and luckily that's something that features in my next challenge...

Challenge #3: understanding Spanish: did my 45 minutes of Spanish this evening, which means I do secure my grade A as promised

 

Okay, that's the end of this challenge for me! I'm now levelling up to Level 10! Double figures! Thanks everyone for all the support it really does motivate me, and I actually think I would be noticeably less fit and skilled if it weren't for the accountability and the advice that you give me!

[Lilith]

Woooo I'm glad you finished the challenge in style! Level 10 is a great benchmark! 

[Mad Hatter]

Hahaha dat face!

 

Way to smash this challenge. So many PRs! Will be interesting to see how your next non-PR based challenge compares.