Grayspeed takes on January

[Grayspeed]

Let it be known that 2016 is the year of asskickery.

Yes, that's a word. Shut up.

 

 

Main Quest.

My main quest is to develop my confidence and physical health/fitness to the point where my low self esteem no longer holds me back from living life the way I'd like to.

 

Main Objective for this 4WC.

Make a start on working towards my fitness goals for this year - check the spoiler section in my sig for details.

 

Quest 1 - Bringin' flexy back. +4 DEX

Inspired by reading this article on NF, and the fact that my flexibility is pretty disproportionate to the rest of my overall health.

I will do at least two minutes of stretching every day.

 

Quest 2 - The ever present pushup goal. +4 STR, +1 STA

Nothing new here, I'm aiming to increase the amount of pushups I can do in 5 sets by 1 rep each week until I get to 100. My previous record was 60, so this challenge I aim to reach 64 push-ups in five sets. Increase pushups by 1 rep each week.

 

Quest 3 - This totally counts as Jedi training. +2 STA, +1 CON, +1 STR

Yeah, blame Star Wars for this one. I've always wanted to be able to do handstands but have a fear of being upside down. This also applies to my goal of being able to do forwards and backwards rolls.

It's gonna be a long process of baby steps which I'll start by doing wall plank practice 4 times a week.

 

Quest 4 (life quest) - Earning my pen license. +1 CHA, +1 WIS

My handwriting is embarrassing. Not just messy, I could deal with messy, and I swear it's getting worse. Time to sort it out. For this challenge I will practice handwriting 3 times a week.

 

 

Grading - Weekly pass/fail system

Each quest will be assessed on a pass/fail basis each week. At the end of the challenge stat points will be awarded based on a percentage system.

4 Weeks success = A (100%)

3 Weeks success = B (75%)

2 Weeks success = C (50%)

1 Weeks success = D (25%)

0 Weeks success = F (0%)

[Grayspeed]

Quest Resources

 

Quest 1

Nerd Fitness flexibility post

 

Quest 2

Scooby's Workshop pushup tutorial and progression

Pushup pyramid workout info

 

Quest 3

Nerd Fitness article on handstands

Article on "exploding head syndrome"

 

Quest 4

Blog post about improving handwriting as an adult

Possibly the only handwriting instruction video on YouTube that doesn't put me to sleep

[Grayspeed]

Week 1 Checklist

• Monday
• Wall plank practice
• Stretching
• Tuesday
• Stretching
• Pushups - Successfully met this weeks goal of 61 reps
• Handwriting practice
• Wednesday
• Stretching
• Handwriting practice
• Thursday
• Stretching
• Handwriting practice
• Friday
• Stretching
• Wall plank practice
• Saturday
• Stretching
• Wall plank practice
• Sunday
• Stretching
• Wall plank practice

Problems encountered:

Wall plank - After getting past a certain angle I experienced some surprising pressure in my nose/forehead. Reading this article about (the horrifyingly named) "exploding head syndrome".

[Grayspeed]

Updated first post with grading rules.

+1 CON on the wall plank goal is because I'll be overcoming a fear and increasing a resistance/tolerance to pressure during handstands.

I'm not sold on the character creation feature yet, the old levelling system suits my needs better right now. I'll probably just use it for "big" goals for now.  

 

I also made a really nice table in Word but I can't figure out how the hell to paste it into a forum post. Time for some homework.

[SaffronTurtle]

The forums didn't like my tables either. I think I ended up using a different format but if you figure it out i'd like to learn how

[Grayspeed]

The forums didn't like my tables either. I think I ended up using a different format but if you figure it out i'd like to learn how

It's not looking too hopeful    I'll probably just do a check-list kind of thing..

[Grayspeed]

Week 1 = Success 

Given up on my table, I'll just keep track of the challenge with daily(ish) updates in the this thread

[Grayspeed]

Edit: Forum being offline causing weird double post issues

[Grayspeed]

Monday

Wall plank and stretching. I touched my toes! Still getting nose pressure during the wall planks, it's not painful any more but I constantly sneeze when I get right-way-up which is pretty funny  

[Grayspeed]

Tuesday.

Handwriting practice went well, realised I put way too much pressure on the pen and have been trying to loosen up a bit. Still trying to figure out why I can write the same word 3 times and have it look like 3 different people's writing, sometimes it looks like the person changes halfway through the word...

Got my stretching in post-workout, did a few squats for the mini, stairs will not be fun tomorrow.

Might do the weekly pushup test tomorrow, depending on how much sleep I get and how much work wears me out.

[Grayspeed]

Wednesday.

Pretty productive day. Didn't do the pushup test today but did do handwriting, wall planks, and stretching.

 

Had a small revelation - I should really learn to safely bail out of a handstand/wall plank. It makes sense to learn forward rolls before I take wall planks much further. I'll continue with the wall plank practice for the rest of this challenge, but next time I'll swap them out for practising for forwards/backwards rolls. This will also probably help with my fear of inversion.

[SaffronTurtle]

I think there's a saying, something along the lines of 'You've got to learn to fall before you learn to fly'. In any case, wise decision to learn how to safely bail! 

[Spear Warrior]

When I practice handstands I often kick up so my back is fairly close to a wall. Then I can touch the wall if I fail backwards, and push so I fall on my feet. It is a second-best solution, though. I too need to be able to bail safely any direction when I practice on an open floor.

[Grayspeed]

Thursday

Stretching. That's it.

 

Friday

Did the damn thing today! Handwriting, wall planks, stretching, and pushups.

Kicked ass with the pushups. Sets of 18|13|13|11|10 for a total of 65! That's an improvement of 4 reps, gonna be tough to beat next week.

[ixaera]

Nice! Damn! You killed it!

[Grayspeed]

[Grayspeed]

Saturday

Handwriting and stretching. My girlfriend oversaw the handwriting practice to keep me on target, she's a tough taskmaster  

Decided that if I get 100% in each goal I'll treat myself to a medicine ball.

[Grayspeed]

Sunday.

Stretching and wall planks.

 

100% for each quest this week 

 

Monday.

Stretching and wall planks. Got closer to the wall than ever today. Still a long way from 12 inches, though

[Grayspeed]

Tuesday.

Handwriting and stretching complete. Did the pushup test for this week, didn't quite manage the display of pushing improvement I got last week but still improved by 1 rep. 

This weeks pushups = 18|14|13|11|10 for a total of 66.

 

I'm actually working on the next challenge now, as I think the stretching has succsessfully become a habit I'll be doing something new (but sort of related) next time.

[Grayspeed]

Wednesday.

Stretching & handwriting.

 

Thursday.

Wall planks and stretching. Also did pull-up variations for the mini, I can get a decent amount of reps on negative/assisted but my performance from dead hang is disheartening. As soon as the weather gets better (my only place to do pull-ups is outside) I'll probably add pull-up/chin-up training to my challenges.

[Grayspeed]

Friday.

Just a bit of stretching

 

Saturday.

Wall planks, stretching, and handwriting practice

 

Lately I've been considering using challenge threads as a pseudo battle log for workouts and such, might try it out for the rest of this challenge to see how it goes.

[Grayspeed]

Sunday.

Stretching and wall planks.

Week 3 = 100%  

Got the next challenge all ready to go, pretty excited with the progress I've made over the last month 

[Grayspeed]

Monday.

Stretching and handwriting.

 

Today's workout:

5(ish) minutes joint mobility and dynamic stretching

10 minutes Jumping Jack intervals (60 seconds work,10 seconds rest x10)

 

Superset 1 - 5 sets

10 Diamond Pushups

20 Alternating Lunges (10 per leg) Note: My intention was to do Assisted Pistols but I hurt my knee on Friday (slipped on wet decking..) and it's still tender

Superset 2 - 5 sets

10 Assisted Pullups

12 Bodyweight Squats

 

Kettlebell finisher. Did this routine, but skipped the squats as knee was being a sissy. Set a timer for 10 minutes and did as many rounds as possible (didn't record how many)

 

Followed by about 5 minutes of stretching

[Spear Warrior]

Note: My intention was to do Assisted Pistols but I hurt my knee on Friday (slipped on wet decking..) and it's still tender

A wise decision.

[Grayspeed]

Knees are somewhat important, I hear.

 

Tuesday.

Stretching, handwriting, and wall planks were had.

No workout today but did do some flat leg/knee raises for the mini. This one's gonna be tough, this kind of stuff isn't really in my wheelhouse. Hooray for stepping outside comfort zones