Everyday Systems

First off, I want to say thanks for sharing your ideas with everyone Reinhard. I've been thinking about how much weight I've gained slowly over the last 1-2 years and feeling pretty bad about it. That's when I hit the Internet and somehow wound up at shovelglove.com and nosdiet.com. I found that I was agreeing with just about everything you said regarding habits and having to overcome your own mind. Everything just made sense and clicked with me and that's when I figured this could work for me.

I bought a 10lb sledge yesterday and decided that today I would start the nosdiet as well as start shugging. I still have dinner to go but I have no worries that I'll make it through the day without slipping up the diet.

I just got done with my first shugging session and it was pretty cool. I feel like I probably should have gone slower, but the movements felt so natural that I just kinda got carried away with it. About halfway through the 14 minutes I really started feeling it and about 3/4 the way through I was sweating pretty good. The routine I worked out went something like this:

7 shovel
7 churn butter
7 ab killer
7 scratch back
7 switch lever

REPEAT once

9 shovel
9 churn butter
9 ab killer
9 scratch back
9 switch lever
9 fireman

REPEAT last section once

More???

I played around a bit in the middle and at the end so I really don't remember everything I did. I will say I had concerns because I had some lower back issues last week but I had no problems doing the above routine. I'm hoping It stays that way. I think shugging might actually help the situation if I can build some muscles back there without hurting anything first.

I noticed the time went by very fast and it WAS pretty fun imagining the things I was doing, although I think I spent a little more time making sure not to hurt myself then imagining scenarios.

I think I'll stick with the above routine for this first week, although I may change the number of reps I do depending on how I feel the coming days. I also might drop the ab killer. I don't think I was doing it right because I really wasn't feeling any burn in my abs at all, and for something called the ab killer I figured it would be pretty brutal. I guess I'll just have to watch the video again and play with it a bit more.

I just thought I'd let everyone know that another shugger was born today and again I want to say thanks for taking the time to share your ideas and help others.

Welcome, Ravioli!

This sounds like a great initial routine -- and don't worry too much about upping the reps. Worry about the opposite -- about throttling your enthusiasm to stretch it out, and so that it doesn't lead you to overdo it and injure yourself. I still do at least two days a week of very low reps sets.

I don't personally do "ab killer" so I can't comment on that.

Drive fence posts is good for the abs. As is chop the tree. (most of the moves are, to some degree, but these stand out -- they're fun, too). They're among the twistier (and therefore riskier) motions, so waiting to introduce them till you've build up a little more strength and hammer-feel with the other moves isn't a bad idea.

Reinhard