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Looking for goals, mostly fitness but other are cool too
Hello,
I seem to be in a write it down phase and have gotten to the physical health part.
I'm looking for fun, absurd, dumb, exaggerated, vanity goals related to fitness.
What I have now is:
- standing front/back flip
- cartwheels as a mode of transportation
- being able to touch my chins with my forehead with straight legs
- doing 10 handstand push ups
- running on all fours
- being a human flag
- holding my breath under water for 10min
- walking with a total weight of 150kg for 4hrs in mixed terrain with an average speed of 5km/h
- jumping up 1m from standing
- doing the splits (both ways)
- gripping my forearms with the opposing arm behind my back from top/bottom
- going down into the bridge from standing and then get up to a handstand
The idea is to have these feats as goals so that I have something to strive for... I have well over 40years to reach them.
Think of something that you would cringe at when shown or talked about, but secretly you think it's kind of cool.
Like that uncle that always has to show off...
My list is mostly gymnastics, but I sure welcome pure strength, endurance or other things too.
For straight strength I think 2x bodyweight deadlift is a valuable functional goal, and is mostly going to be achievable by anybody actively pursuing it.
For men.
Edit. Women can compete on leg strength.
I dunno Ive seen some women healthcare workers lift 2-3x their weight and not get hurt
What do you mean? I'm far from an expert, but categorizing using a function of body weight, while men are still generally stronger, evens out the playing field pretty significantly.
Beyond that...in my experience, women strongly outclass men in lower body lifts as a function of body weight. My wife squats nearly the same actual weight that I do, maybe 85-90%, but only weighs about 65% of me. And I'm not a super beginner, and she's absolutely athletic but not exactly a weight lifting enthusiast, so I feel confident that isn't a massive outlier.
Can you say more about why that feels like an inappropriate suggestion?
Deadlifting is a full body movement that is limited by grip unless you use straps. For men, 2x bodyweight is generally considered an intermediate goal. For women, 2x bodyweight is considered elite. So while it's absolutely possible, it takes a lot of training and really isn't equivalent. I made state powerlifting records a while back deadlifting about 1.5 times my bodyweight.
This isn't a sexism thing, there have been many discussions by folks transitioning with hormones who saw their weightlifting numbers plummet when their testosterone dropped.
Anyway, in the spirit of the original question, 1.25-1.5 bodyweight is a reasonable goal for anyone low on testosterone.
Thanks!
This is both important information in the specific case and as a general PSA: state your assumptions! You are not everyone!
Do you mind if I get back to you about form, training regime, etc in 6-7yes when this looks reasonable to work on?
Of course!
I stand corrected! I generally mentally categorize deadlift as a mostly lower body lift, because for me, that's where I feel it most, but you're definitely right that 2x bodyweight is more of a reasonable male target than female.
I didn't bother to look up the term, because I thought I knew what it stood for. I was wrong.
A little training many years ago and unreliable memories led to this category error.
@patience_limited
Between hand arthritis and hip replacements, I can't do free-weight deadlifts anymore, but I'm still regularly doing 5 - 6 super-slow reps of 2+ x bodyweight leg presses on a machine.
2x bodyweight deadlift is an attainable training goal for most people regardless of gender or age, and as /u/F13 and /u/snake_case noted, it's functional for maintaining health and capability.
Excellent, thanks <3, noted!
Do you have other similar measurable strength goals?
Not as ambitious as a 2x bodyweight deadlift but Ive found being strong enough to change my own car tire has been really valuable. I think thats only like 30-40 lbs but you need to be able to fully control that weight, plus the size. I couldn’t do it when I was younger.
Nice five part goal:
That's adorable hahahaha
Anything can be a goal, so at some point it becomes arbitrary. I just recently hit 200lb bench press (as a calculated 1RM), which is a cool milestone, but there's no reason to choose it over any other number in a vacuum.
For my money, deadlift and maybe pull-ups have the best combination of actual functional value and normie impressiveness quotient. I see 2x bodyweight deadlift as a common suggestion in the 1-3 year goal space, obviously depending heavily on where you're starting from. For me personally, something like 12-15 pull-ups, or maybe like a 45lb weighted pull-up (I've never tried weighted pull-ups so that's a major guess) is about the same level of commitment to achieve, but that could be dramatically different for someone else.
I also think something like a 25 minute 5k is in that realm of "seems really far away for people that don't do it, but if you train somewhat consistently you'll get there in a year or three". Again depending heavily on your starting point and background. I know plenty of people who can just go and run a 30 minute 5k without running for months.
Stupendous!
Pullups are fantastic for you, especially if you spend a lot of time at a desk. If you can't do one now, I highly recommend adding that to the list.
Tangential. Can people recommend YouTube fitness channels or videos where there is a little smaller window that tells you the next motion preview? I saw a Japanese Pilates one and didn't bookmark it, but I'm sure there's a bunch that do that?
Modest goal to doing some exercise next year
There are quite a few that do that but a good, free beginner series that does this is growwithjo
My wife very recently started a beginner routine from Caroline Girvan on youtube. From that I saw, there's a little preview video of the next motion, at least the first time it is done (I can't remember if it's done every time the same motion comes up again after that).
Look into parkour tricks of various levels of complexity. Double Kong Vault is one of the more advanced ones that comes to mind and has a clear progression to it (monkey vault -> kong vault -> double kong vault)
Nice, yeah, parkour is definitely one of those activities that fit the bill, thanks for the reminder and the specific words to look for when trying to find cool moves!
The first half of this list suggest that you should enroll in a Capoeira class. You'll learn great cartwheels in the first month and backflips in the first year. Dooo it!
Thanks, solid recommendation <3
I will look and see what's available, but I'll probably wait to sign up for more classes for now. I'm starting my swimming class in a couple weeks to learn proper freestyle swimming, looking forward to that!
One thing at a time! I did capoeira for years and would happily talk about it should you ever wish to try.
Once you've got handstand push ups down, the next step is one armed handstands, so you could add that as a second step to that goal. I say once you've got that down because some of the skills are transferrable, but its an entirely different learning curve so could be its own goal.
Edit: you could also make the "shin touch with forehead" more difficult by standing with your back to the wall and removing the counterbalance element and focus solely on the flexibility and core strength aspect, if you're looking for something after that too!
Fantastic!
These sound like excellent stretch-goals, as they call them in the kick-starter community, pun very much intended :)
Climbing a rope with arms only - ideally a nice long rope for extra show off points.
Showing grip strength by squeezing a bathroom scale with both hands and getting a suitably high readout - for example more than your body weight.
The rope climbing thing has the added bonus of allowing me to install a climbing rope in my home again!
Great suggestion <3
Cold-related challenge perhaps - three minutes in the winter river (if available) or submerged in cold water in the bathtub.
Johanna Norddahl is a big inspiration for me.
Currently I'm not confident enough to spend more than a couple minutes at a time in cold water when I'm alone so I don't get to practice that much.
But I do "swim" in 2-6°C fairly regularly.
1-2 times a month during the "winter" I manage to get a friend to join me at a sauna and cold water swim.
I will continue practising and one day I hope to be able to do what Johanna does.
100 burpees with a pushup added to the movement. Also ideally continuous and not done in sets.
Good goal, but I'm also confused... I thought all burpees had a push up???
So did I haha but I think a regular burpee doesnt't include that or at least at the boxing gym I joined recently they don't include it. I got massively into burpees during covid so I added multiple extra movements to them to make it more difficult.
So I guess do 100 navy seal burpees. here is a link to how to do it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BqWQkblauo8