A language learners’ forum

Been away a while, but still lifting. New 1RM for overhead press @ 110lbs. (Before summer did 120lbs.) Hope to get at least 1 rep of 135lbs by 31 Dec.

Not swimming that much. Did a marathon this year, but not in the mood to swim much anymore.

I've taken a nightmare of a shoulder injury so for the next month or so the right-side of my upper body is totally out of action gym wise -_-

Thankfully it can be treated conservatively - just very annoying given things were *really* starting to go well (bench was up to 122.5kg x 5 for multiple sets.)

Looks like I'm just going to have to build a monster lower body instead for the next six weeks...

IronMike wrote:My goals, pending me changing them as usual:

Language goals:
L1: 3/3 on Russian DLPT
L2: If L1 happens, take at least one upper level DLPT (Oy! The headache...)
L3: Take DLPT in another language this year (vague enough?)

Fitness goals:
F1: 250 miles of swimming
F2: 135lbs for 1RM of military press
F3: 350lbs for 1RM of deadlift

So, still a month to go, but I can confirm a few things:
L1 complete: success!
L2 complete: took it, but damn: hard!
L3 complete: 1+/1+ on Serbian/Croatian DLPT
So all Language goals a success.

F1: not gonna happen. Lucky if I get 200 miles
F2: Not going to happen. Just did 115lbs recently, might be able to squeak out 120 by 31 Dec.
F3: Nope. Hoping for 260-ish.
And, all Fitness goals a failure.

Next week is my 1RM for DL. Yesterday I did 4 x 1 @ 215lbs and it was quite easy. So I wonder if I can do more than 260?

Not sure what I'll pick for next year. How's everyone else doing?

IronMike wrote:How's everyone else doing?

My shoulder injury massively derailed my plans - so I switched from maximising strength to cutting bodyweight.

At the moment I'm a hair under 117kg (approx 258lbs) - If I can get under 116kg by Christmas I'll consider it a win.

I could probably load up a 140kg (308lb) or 150kg (330lb) squat and get it up, but due to shoulder bench press is very compromised.

If I can get to sub-114kg BW by mid-January while keeping those squat numbers, I'll be very happy.

For languages, I've gotten quite far into Linguaphone Dutch and am confident I'll finish it by mid-Jan; and if I can finish it, I'm fairly sure I'll be good for the B1 exam.

IronMike wrote:Next week is my 1RM for DL. Yesterday I did 4 x 1 @ 215lbs and it was quite easy. So I wonder if I can do more than 260?

Not sure what I'll pick for next year. How's everyone else doing?

I was wrong, the 1RM attempt for DL was not that next week, but the OHP was. Tried 120#. Ha, nope. So will finish the year with a 1RM in overhead/military press of 115#.

I don't have a DL 1RM sked till end of January, but I might move it up to next week, to see what I can do for the challenge. Yesterday I was programmed for 3x5 @ 200# which while heavy was easily done. Maybe 250# or so for a 1RM?

I am new to this forum and enjoying it since i joined it.

I've been thinking about what kind of goals I'd like to have this year, and concluded that what will work best for me now is the kind of goals where I can check in once a month and hopefully see some progress. So I've ended up with two language goals and two fitness goals.

For languages, my goals are to steadily improve my average pages per day for reading, and my average minutes per day for listening (for the Super Challenge).

For fitness, my first goal is to steadily increase my "tolerance" for cardio exercise. This is calculated by Polar Flow based on my activity from the last four weeks, and serves as a starting point for the recommendations for the upper of lower limits of how much exercise I need every day to keep getting in better shape. My second goal is to keep losing weight. I just passed below the upper limit of my calculated "normal" BMI range, so this can move as slowly as it wants, as long as it doesn't change direction.

Status as of February 1:
Average daily page count: 29
Average daily minutes: 26
Cardio tolerance level: 49
Weight: 76.5