Everyday Systems

Hi everyone,

I just started Shovelgloving this past week after having read about it several months ago. Although just finding a hammer was quite the challenge (I live in China and had no idea where to go, but eventually managed). I quite like this system because of its simplicity - I have always wanted to work my upper body a bit, but been too lazy to ever do anything about it, but this seems to be easy enough for even my lazy self to do every day.

Anyway, the main reason I wanted to write was because I read a good tip today about doing something (such as working out) every day. Basically it's just a visual reminder - a way to keep a sort of chain going which is meant to become a motivator in itself after a while. . You can read about it here
Thought that maybe someone might find it helpful.

I'll try to check in after I've been doing this a bit longer (hopefully with some results), but so far it all seems to be going better than expected...

Welcome, lowkey! I figured there should be sledgehammers all over the place in china, since that's where most of them seem to be made.

The chain idea isn't bad -- except it's fragile (see the 21 day club in the No S Diet Daily Check in Forum).

Have you seen the HabitCal on this site? It gives you the same benefits of keeping track of a mere string of successes with some tolerance for the inevitable slip up.

Reinhard

Now that I see the HabitCal, that is pretty much exactly the same thing. I haven't really looked too closely at any of the other programs here... I already keep in pretty good shape by running and am not interested in any diets. Just wanted to find some way that I could improve my rather pathetic upper body strength without having to go to the gym (which I know that I would never be able to keep up in the long run). I should've known that you would be ahead of the ballgame with regard to something like keeping track of successes for motivation. Sorry about my slightly ignorant post - I should have checked the rest of the site a bit more closely first.

As for sledgehammers in China, sure it's possible to get anything you want here, but the trick is being able to find out where - which is not always so easy (and I didn't really fancy asking around as the inevitable conversation about why I would need a sledgehammer in my apartment on campus where I teach didn't sound too appealing). Although now I got myself a pretty nice sledgehammer which has a more or less untreated sawed off (small) tree as the handle and only cost about $5.

Anyway, thanks for all the hard work you put into managing and updating this site. I think that I have finally found a good workout for my upper body that I will actually do and I can see that you motivate and help so many other people out there as well.