Resolutions, revisited

Time to score last years resolutions. As a refresher, here they are, as posted in December of 2009.

Learn another language
* Brazilian Portuguese - Probably buy some app for my phone so that I can listen in my car on the way to work.
-- I did do this, sort of. I'm not anywhere near proficient, but I know some greetings and some common words. I recently did some reading exercises, so I'm getting better about sounding out words when I see them. Thanks to me studying French for a few years in high school, I can slowly figure out the meaning of some stuff I read online in ptbr.

Learn more Kanji
* Learn 500 new kanji this year, improve my reading/writing abilities with the kanji I already know
-- Nope, not even close. I learned a couple new kanji, but I'm probably off by two orders of magnitude.

Knife throwing
* I think I should put some number of reps here, so maybe this will be my 10k for this year?
-- My reps for the year? 0.

Get legit with the Atienzas
* Make the training group official
-- Came very close to this, actually. Then my personal life fell apart and I had to put all training on the back burner for several months. I'm still not sure if I'll be able to get back to this anytime in the next 12 months.
* Find more training partners
-- Nope, nobody wants to come play with me.

Exercise
* Tacfit warrior - Start at Lite, work my way up to at least recruit.
-- Didn't do this at all.
* Intuflow - everyday
-- Nope. I had a couple runs of trying to keep up with this, but nothing consistent.
* run more - after getting to recruit level on Tacfit Warrior, start running again.
-- Nope, no running.
* parkour - make it to the open beginner classes up in The City
-- Nope.
* Lose 20lbs - if I can stick with the above, this should be cake.
-- DONE. Despite not sticking with any of the above, I did this part. In fact, I lost closer to 30. Which means I still have a ton to go, but this alone has been huge.

Ouch. Not nearly as well as I'd hoped. I think I need to put quarterly resolution reviews on my calendar to remind me to get back into some of these. I'm going to carry both of my language goals forward to this year. I've got a couple new exercise goals...Oh, this will be easier to just list.


Learn another language
* Brazilian Portuguese - Probably buy some app for my phone so that I can listen in my car on the way to work.
Learn more Kanji
* Learn 500 new kanji this year, improve my reading/writing abilities with the kanji I already know.
Martial Arts
* Continue training at least 5 times a month (yeah, it doesn't sound like much, but it's been difficult to hit in the past). Hopefully, a minimum of twice a week.
Exercise:
* Two handed kettlebell swing 50lbs for 100 reps.
* Two handed kettlebell swing 70lbs for 100 reps.
* Tacfit Kettlebell Spetznaz PreRecruit and Recruit
* RUN. Seriously this time. Complete a Couch to 5k routine.
* Lose another 20lbs.

Yeah, not particularly inspired, but I feel like I need to finish some of this stuff before I can move on to something new. I do need to figure out something I can count for my 10k reps, though. I'm open to suggestions there.

Tuesday, January 10, 2012

Quick update this morning because I'm very busy and important:

Crunch (Legs Elevated): 25

Reverse Crunch: 20

Knee Raise: 12

Crunch (Arms Extended): 20

Seated Bar Twist: 20

Total Reps: 97

Remaining: 9801

Read an interesting article on mental feedback loops while on the elliptical machine this morning. More about that later.

New Year, New Goal

In the spirit of the original concept behind 10k reps, I made one of my New Year’s resolutions to try to come up with something measurable that I could try to hit the 10k mark with this year. I’ve been hot on my fitness goals for the last few months. I have made exercise a part of my daily life and have made permanent adjustments to the way I eat and the way that I think about food. With that in mind I started looking at my progress. My weights have steadily increased with my strength training and my cardio routines are progressing as well. I am seeing greater muscle definition in key areas and I am really happy with that. The one place, however, that I am not thrilled with is my gut. It’s getting smaller, but the dreaded love handles there still give me an odd shape. I know they are difficult (and in some cases genuinely impossible) to get rid of, but this gave me the idea that I want to do whatever I can to improve this area. That being said, I’ve decided to dedicate my 10k reps attempt in 2012 to ab exercises. Here’s today’s breakdown:

Standard Crunch: 25 reps
Standing Bar Twist: 20 reps
Decline Reverse Crunch: 12 reps
Side Oblique Crunch (legs elevated): 20 reps
Crunch on stability ball: 25

Total Ab Reps: 102
Reps to go: 9898

I’ve got some more observations about the gym this morning, but that will have to wait until later. Thanks for playing along.