My #Workout My #Goals and My Current Levels #polymath

Went to the gym, stretched and warmed up and then made vague attempts at each fitness goal just to give myself a place to start. I think I’m actually a little better than these numbers, except for in pull-ups where I’m an absolute nothing. It’s been a few weeks since I’ve been in the gym so it doesn’t surprise me that I’m behind a bit. Here are the benchmarks with a few extra notes:

Benchmark: 1000 Sit-ups
Current Level: 25
Percentage of the Way There: 2.5 percent
Current Rating: Poor
Notes: Ab strength is what will disappear first. I’ve rated myself poor here, but withing a few weeks I should be well on my way to a thousand.

Benchmark: 100 Push-ups
Current Level: 19
Percentage of the way there: 18 percent
Current Rating: Poor
Notes: Push-ups are very difficult if you do them correctly, which is going to be focus here at the beginning, so 18 may not sound too bad after not having worked out for awhile, but in reality it’s much lower and the number rise much slower than other areas.

Benchmark: Bench 225lbs
Current Level: 155lbs
Percentage of the way there: 69 percent
Current Rating: Promising
Notes: I’m not too afraid of being able to reach this goal, except that I’ll be dropping some weight while exercising so 225lbs will be much higher than my body weight once I get to that level.

Benchmark: 20 Pull-ups
Current Level: Not even 1
Percentage of the way there: 0 percent
Current Rating: Absolutely Embarrassing
Notes: I’ll really have to do something about this. I need to focus on form of course, but I can do zero pull-ups right now under my current body weight of about 220lbs. Losing a bit of weight will be helpful but I’m 6’2 and 220lbs the lowest I want to go is 210lbs.

Benchmark: Run 2 miles at a pace of 8mph
Current Level: Unknown
Percentage of the way there: I’d say about half way
Current Rating: Promising
Notes: I ran for a bit at 8mph, but did not want to tire myself at that point in my workout. I then ran another mile at about 5mph. I’m still well below my goal, but at the same time I’m not afraid of not meeting it either.

Benchmark: Squat 250lbs
Current Level: Unknown
Percentage of the way there: Probably around 50
Current Rating: Higher than Poor, Lower than Promising
Notes: I don’t squat very much, and I’m thinking about doing a different kind of squat anyway that is done in my Crossfit classes. So for this one we’ll leave it be for the moment and I’ll just continue to work on leg strength.

Christopher Sarda

 

GREAT NEWS BOYS AND GIRLS!! I’VE GROWN UP!!

To a big boy website… go to
www.polymathisthegoal.com to catch all my silly exploits

 

Set Up a Plan To Reach Your Fitness and Athletic Goals

It’s time now to rewrite/refocus, expand/explain “Goal Number 6 The Physical.” My physical goals not only involve things like weightlifting but will also focus on a few athletic goals. Awhile ago during a boring moment at work I wrote out a “bucket list” of things I want to have done before I die and there were goals on it that involved basketball and football. I’ll write about those eventually too, but today I’m going to focus on fitness and combat athletic goals. First though my fitness goals, the goal posted over to the right says at the time of this writing:

“To have a consistently strong body…. To have muscle definition showing.”

Here I’ll list the goals of particular exercises and once I reach those I’ll take a second look at my conditioning and make any necessary adjustments to my scheme. The gym that I train Jiu-Jitsu at has their own fitness program called Crossfit that may drastically change what I’m going to write here should I decide to pursue Crossfit’s program. For now though let’s setup some basic benchmarks on individual exercises:

• 20 Pull-ups with perfect form
• Bench Press 225lbs (four 45lbs plates and the bar 102 kilos)
• 100 Push ups
• 1000 Sit ups
• Squat 250lbs (about 115 kilos)
• Run 2 miles at 8 mph (3.3 km at about 13 kph)

I also need to add benchmarks for exercises involving my back, biceps and triceps but those are things I’ll worry about later. All these benchmarks are for a single workout, which means that I want to be at a level where I can do the whole scheme in a one day period. If I still do not have “muscle definition showing” once I reach the above level I’d probably adjust my diet and nutrition before I changed the workout. I feel the above gives me both something to work toward (since I’m most definitely not there yet) and helps clear up in my mind what was a very vague goal.

I want to also touch on a few athletic goals in this post. I have unsettled goals setup up for Boxing, Muay Thai and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. I’m currently only attending BJJ classes at the moment. The goal for BJJ is to become a brown belt (belt levels go: white, blue, purple, brown, black) and to be a purple belt before we move back to Europe. Boxing and Muay Thai don’t have a belt system to gauge your level, but my goals with them are to be at an equal or near equal level as with BJJ.

With my athletic goals it’s no problem to give my current levels: I have very little Boxing experience, I have zero Muay Thai experience and I’m a white belt beginner in BJJ. With my fitness goals I’ll go to the gym tomorrow and write up a (what I already know will be) a brutal assessment of my current levels.

I also plan to write small posts involving the form and style of each individual workout in order to help me focus on doing them correctly.

Christopher Sarda Written 03/26/11

 

Sometimes I Miss the Places I’ve Lived

This is the city of Krakow in Poland. It was a wonderful place to live.

 

The Word Collector

I figure I should let it be known that I have another blog called THE WORD COLLECTOR It’s about language. Have lots of lots of fun.

 

Breaking Down My Financial Advisor Goal

It’s time to make a few adjustments on my long term goal sheet that appears to the right of the blog posts over here (I suppose it’s possible that later I may redesign the blog, in which case my list of goals will not appear to the right, so if that’s the case you’ll just have to find them somewhere).

At the time of this posting one of the goals states: “To be financially successful in the field of Finance and Investments.” Okay that’s going to be a bit to vague and I’m going to have to change it up a little and then break it down.

So I’m going to change it to: “Become a Chartered Financial Analyst.” This then covers being successful and all the other minute things I’ll have to do.

So how can I break this goal down into manageable parts? Let’s try, okay before I can be a Chartered Financial Analyst through the CFA Institute I will have to finish my finance degree, at least have my Series 7, I’ll obviously have to have worked in a finance job. So let’s start there:

1) Pass Series 7 Exam (there’s a little catch 22 for this)
2) Find a Job (or Internship) in the Finance Industry
3) Finish Finance Degree
4) Pass CFA Institute Test to be a Chartered Financial Analyst

Now quite obviously these are still not manageable parts. Each one will need to be broken down into manageable parts with their own goals and thresholds to meet. There are also other exams I’ll need to pass beside the series 7, which I will go into detail about later. I suppose I’ll be working on the first three simultaneously, especially since number three will take years to accomplish. It is no matter though, I shall start to break down part one of that list now and write a post about it very soon.

 

The First Draft of the Letter I Will Use to Become Rich and Revolutionize Music

Yeah that title is pretty conceited isn’t it? I’m dreaming big, it’s come time to start acting big though. I’ve had an idea for some time of a way to deal with the “how do artists get paid in the new and coming digital landscape” problem. While it’s still too early to go into details on the idea and what I’m doing about it, I do plan to solicit a few musicians and bands who are currently in record deal limbo. Each letter/email will be personalized and will talk about a particular artists situation concerning the world of the mp3, but basically it will go like this:

Dear Person Who This Is Being Sent To,

Many artists are experiencing where the wind has begun to blow, record companies are either fighting it or ignoring it. The digital revolution is in full force and your band isn’t the first to notice it. There are still problems and everyone can feel the winds of change, but no one can figure out how artists can make money with intellectual property in this new digital landscape.

My brother and I have been working on a solution to this problem. It involves using the art as a marketing tool and selling the idea of what it means to be your band. We’re excited about this new frontier that’s developing and what its potential is to the music community.

We’re buttoning up a few technical issues at the moment and trying to anticipate the future marketplace to best serve both artists and consumers. A great help to the idea would be to be able to launch with a few musicians who are already disgruntled with the industry and have some sort of fan base already built, and are interested in using the capability of this future website to continue both: creating art and being able to put food on the table.

Please email me at: ________ or give me a call at: ______ if you’re at all interested in what we are trying to accomplish.

Christopher Sarda
Jeremy Sarda
The Fist on Chin Network
fistonchin.com