Polyglot Fitness Challenge 2021

Ongoing language-learning challenges, and team challenge logs (but not individual logs)
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coldrainwater
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Re: Polyglot Fitness Challenge 2021

Postby coldrainwater » Wed Feb 17, 2021 6:26 am

A few years ago, a friend of mine recounted that several people asked him how he got in shape. He answered curt, "I ran 1000 miles and ate sensibly." It worked for him and the keep it simple message wasn't missed.

Today, I made my February fitness goal after completing [my first] 1000 burpees. It is a good choice and has been a good metric. With respect to results, I feel the habit has kicked-in decently and note the urge to do them multiple times per day. I quite literally feel less resistance. Upper body strength trends have been positive, even to the point that I can recommend it for low-limit strength recovery. Tactically, I did them in sets of no less than 10 at a time and no more than 45. I varied hand width, doing more tricep pushups toward the end, using an improved form and slightly improved range of motion. Functionally it brings something to the table, or at least up off the floor since the movement has you getting up from a prone position many times consecutively. It may be my imagination but, something akin to a Turkish getup is now easier for me to do than before, even over and above the prior and positive impacts of hiking and stair climbing.

What did not work out for me is my corporate step challenge where I said I was planning to do something like 15k steps per day. Didn't happen. Though I am still in the challenge, I am glad I did not link up with a competitive team. Instead, I focused on result producing movements and incorporated farmer's walks once per week and deadlifting once weekly with sporadic jogging and stair climbing (2-4x per week). I am also unclear if the burpees have really helped to integrated desk language study with fitness, outside of just reducing the need to leave the apt and thus lowering my risk of becoming a 2021 statistic. The decision to go with Amazon Fresh for all groceries and thus to almost never leave the apt has been really beneficial and might be my all-around best decisions for health, language learning and perhaps even fitness (weight has been stable and simply isn't up). I hope all are doing well so far this month and keep up the good work!
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Re: Polyglot Fitness Challenge 2021

Postby IronMike » Thu Feb 25, 2021 2:10 pm

I've got a couple days left here on deployment and just this morning did mile 149 in the pool. One more and I get the next (free) t-shirt for logging miles. Even nicer, yesterday I had my 100m retimed and beat the guy who beat me by 1 second months ago, so now I am once again in 3rd place for old guys (51+) for the 100m with my 1:24.51. w00t!
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Re: Polyglot Fitness Challenge 2021

Postby jeff_lindqvist » Thu Feb 25, 2021 5:13 pm

I'm following this topic with great interest, but I've promised myself not to take part in any official challenges. This being said, I'm doing daily walks, my Lazy Fist version of the Prisoner Workout, plus some top secret martial arts. 8-)
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Re: Polyglot Fitness Challenge 2021

Postby DaveAgain » Fri Feb 26, 2021 10:52 am

jeff_lindqvist wrote:..my Lazy Fist version of the Prisoner Workout, plus some top secret martial arts. 8-)
I got a long lasting shoulder injury doing 'hindu push-ups', so I recommend avoid those!
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Re: Polyglot Fitness Challenge 2021

Postby Cavesa » Fri Feb 26, 2021 11:16 am

Quick update: My language goals are going really badly, but I've managed to mostly stick to the new eating habits and only very partially to the sports ones. But I've lost 4-5 kg so far, so that's nice. "Only" 8-10 kg to go!
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Re: Polyglot Fitness Challenge 2021

Postby jeff_lindqvist » Fri Feb 26, 2021 5:55 pm

DaveAgain wrote:I got a long lasting shoulder injury doing 'hindu push-ups', so I recommend avoid those!


Thanks for the warning! No problems so far except sore triceps, but that was in September. The one-sided shoulder pain I had a few years ago came from nowhere. Perhaps a delayed (mild) frozen shoulder. After another half year of martial arts, all of a sudden it was gone.
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Re: Polyglot Fitness Challenge 2021

Postby clara » Mon Mar 01, 2021 4:58 pm

I just managed to hit my goals for February and have set some new goals for March.

February Goals completed

: 1014 / 1000 1014/1000 Pages Read
: 3520 / 3000 3520/3000 Minutes Watched
: 1012 / 1000 1012/1000 Pushups

Two of the three books I read were native language, one more than I aimed for. I did a similar number of pushups as in January, but I did bigger sets and threw in some harder variations.

March Goals

  • Complete the reading portion of the Super Challenge (743 pages to go)
  • Hit 10k words in Anki (217 words to go)
  • 4 workouts per week
  • Improve my one arm pushup. I can currently do one shaky rep and would like to do multiple shaky reps or a more solid rep, either will do.

How's everybody else doing? I love reading all the updates here!
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Re: Polyglot Fitness Challenge 2021

Postby coldrainwater » Tue Mar 02, 2021 8:03 am

Great job clara and very impressive making all numbers. Of your March goals, I can see that one arm pushup being the toughest to improve on. Best of training to you as I think you can hit them all!

Fitness

I ended the month well, completing 1700 total burpees, each done with a pushup, but without olympic leaps into the air. For pressing strength, excellent test results: 185x3 February 1 => 185x8, 205x3 March 1, 195 lbs bw at 6'2", steady strength gains. One month is nowhere near enough for a long-term habit, so I am going to commit again in March to doing daily burpees, but without direct counting. If time and volition permit, I will intersperse bodyweight squatting and regular pushups. While a one-arm pushup is too far away for me to consider now, a one-legged squat is within kicking distance. My years of training also tell me to combine a vertical push with a complementary horizontal push, so I have a keen interest in overhead pressing (and am relatively better at it), but will not add that this coming month to prevent overload. Likewise with anything like barbell rowing or chin-ups (same horizontal/vertical idea and I am normally naturally strong on both those lifts so I feel I can defer them indefinitely). As planned, I did stairs training a few times per week to maintain a high level of cardio for mountain hiking.

Language

I had an interesting month of observation when considering language and fitness in the same space. More than my arms have been stationed in parallel it seems. What I noticed in both worlds was that it is quite challenging to add something like grammar study and film viewing (SC) to an existing language routine of reading, podcast listening and srs without letting one of the elements fall out of balance. Nevertheless, I managed to get a slow start towards a long-term grammar study habit and have now viewed more than 100 hours of SC film content.

The price I paid for the new grammar habit and film viewing involved fewer pages read. I consider it a victory overall, mainly since I did not give up reading, which would have been a mistake. Likewise, with fitness, I consider the burpees a success not only because of the number hit but also because I did not quit stairs and thus did not lose track of cardio.

On the language side of things, I found myself more willing to alternate days between grammar study and reading for example, so that I had some of both and could see the impact of one on the other and vice-versa, from one day to the next. Techniques and the results of applying them are likely more interesting to me at the moment than specific numeric goals, but if I come up with something compelling I will add it for March.

Best of luck to all!
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Re: Polyglot Fitness Challenge 2021

Postby IronMike » Tue Mar 02, 2021 2:21 pm

I'm back in the U.S. of A., and even got a swim in this morning. Not at my local YMCA. That pool is only 4 lanes, 1 per lane, 40-min reservation, but apparently, according to what my wife overhears in the weight room (which doesn't require reservations), the pool reservations are taken up by the "old people mafia" who stand by the app and the minute the lane comes open jumps on it. :lol:

But where I went today, about a 15min drive, is 8 lanes and for the 3 morning shifts allows 2 per lane! It was so nice. I got 2400 yards in in the 45 min reservation, and when I got back home, I managed to get a reservation Wed and Thur morning, too! Hate having to drive, but at least I'm getting swims in.

Language-wise, all I've done since getting home Sunday afternoon is peruse some Esperanto books I bought before deploying, which arrived after I deployed. Been waiting to look at these for 7 months! Oh, and got the email about my German course coming up in two weeks, and there's a pre-lesson I have to do, which I'll try to knock out today. Can't wait!
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You're not a C1 (or B1 or whatever) if you haven't tested.
CEFR --> ILR/DLPT equivalencies
My swimming life.
My reading life.

Ug_Caveman
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Re: Polyglot Fitness Challenge 2021

Postby Ug_Caveman » Tue Mar 02, 2021 4:23 pm

IronMike wrote:I'm back in the U.S. of A., and even got a swim in this morning. Not at my local YMCA. That pool is only 4 lanes, 1 per lane, 40-min reservation, but apparently, according to what my wife overhears in the weight room (which doesn't require reservations), the pool reservations are taken up by the "old people mafia" who stand by the app and the minute the lane comes open jumps on it. :lol:

But where I went today, about a 15min drive, is 8 lanes and for the 3 morning shifts allows 2 per lane! It was so nice. I got 2400 yards in in the 45 min reservation, and when I got back home, I managed to get a reservation Wed and Thur morning, too! Hate having to drive, but at least I'm getting swims in.


My envy of your access to a weights room and pool knows no bounds at present. Although investing in a small amount of home gym equipment appears to help keep my sanity in check for now ;)

On the plus side weather is starting to turn here, so I can do a bit more outdoor exercise :mrgreen: I've got fingers crossed athletics tracks will open soon (restrictions or not, it would be a huge boost)
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