Yes I know I talk too long...

[Tomodachi]

Well, I'm not sure what exactly I should say here, so let's start with where I came from, leading up to now, then get into where I'm headed(I'll stick with fitness goals, otherwise we would be here all night).

I'm 18 years old, 6'0" and just over 210lbs.

I'm a huge nerd that always wants to be the video game hero. I will rave about Assassin's Creed, Resident Evil(Leon FTW), Final Fantasy, and possibly some anime if you stick around long enough to listen.

I'm not sure how I first heard of parkour, but I immediately decided I had to have it...and then never set myself on a serious training regimen. I intend to change that.

I learned of capoeira through my favorite manga: Death Note, and when I learned of an instructor in my city I jumped straight into that(there's no doubt that I can take on a hard workload as long as there's someone to compete with. I nearly puked the first few classes but never quit)... That was about 2 years ago and I sort of drifted away from the classes due to school and work, but I'm still intent on earning at least 2 ranks.

At the start of this year I began a free weight strength training program with my dad. I actually felt like I did really well, but then I eventually got discouraged and stopped lifting(I can give my weight lifting stats if anyone is actually interested).

So now for where I'm headed, in no particular order(except parkour, that actually is number 1).

One of my myriad long-term goals is to match my parkour skill to any proficient Traceur out there. That's a lofty goal, I know, and probably one I won't reach, but I say shoot for excellence, and is falling a little short of spectacular really a failure?

Like I said, I want to earn at least 2 ranks in capoeira. That would be a yellow cord in my style of capoeira(grupo unidade if any capoeiristas read this). Those guys have wicked endurance and speed. I want that.

I'd like to increase my running endurance to as high as possible. I know I'm going to start with getting the 200 yard benchmark, then figure it out from there.

Some day, I would like to learn a little tricking: back-flip, kick-the-moon, butterfly twist, I love it all. It's not at the top of my priorities yet, but it'll get it's chance.

I'd like to participate in at least one MMA fight. I'm a born competitor and what better competition than martial arts?

I really want to be able to do weighted pull-ups! I don't care how much weight right now, because I can barely do one or two bodyweight chin-ups, but how much more awesome can you get than weighted pull-ups?

Alright I'll stop there on the goals. Now for my plans to achieve them... I don't really have that many. But I'll be working on that. I do know I want to get back to basics and do body-weight exercises for a while. In fact tonight I decided to try and create my own body-weight circuit. It goes something like this:

1 chin-up

10 push-ups

1 chin-up

15 box jumps(20in platform)

1 chin-up

3:30 rest

Perform circuit 3 times total

I think this will be a good start for me to get back into exercising. Gotta start somewhere, eh?

Alright, I'll stop talking now. Congrats if you read this far.

[Hiraedd]

Welcome, Tomodachi Nice to have you in the rebellion! Those are some serious parkour/tricking/etc goals you have there -- good luck! It will be awesome to watch you progress from one chin up to weighted pull ups, flips, and the whole nine yards. And don't worry -- your introduction thread is much shorter than some of ours have been! It's actually nice to get enough info from it to feel like you "know" someone a little, so thanks for that. See you around the forums!

[Tomodachi]

Thanks for the encouragement, Hiraedd!

And yes I have read that article, Athena. I've read almost too much on pull-ups and tried all kinds of stuff, but I couldn't find anything that helped me. I would exercise 3 times a week on just pull-ups and get no results.

Then I got fed up and decided I'd do something I picked up from reading on some parkour sites(I think it may have come from crossfit). They call it grease-the-groove. If anyone isn't familiar with that it's a sort of routine where you take a particular exercise and perform it in low-rep sets multiple times a day(example: every time you go into your bedroom you do 5 push-ups). That way you get a lot more reps in throughout the day instead of doing so many sets of so many reps all at once, which just burns out your muscles. I tried that with chin-ups and after just a couple weeks, not even doing chin-ups more than three days a week most times, I was cranking out a chin-up easily and I'm almost at 2. It wasn't a miraculous difference, but it works for me, so I'll go with that. I can't wait to do muscle-ups, either.