Repetitive...

So, I'm going to be repetitive as everyone on Facebook... it snowed! Like 3 or 4 inches! It's melting now, but hopefully it'll last until tomorrow (Christmas eve) because that's when we're celebrating Christmas.

Another repetitive thing I want to mention is being repetitive in your workout. Being repetitive can be a good thing. As in working out everyday, or every other day. Being repetitive as in doing exactly the same workout everyday, or every other day is bad. It's ok if you're just starting off though. Maybe for the first month or so you can be pretty repetitive. This way your tendons will get used to some basic workouts, such as the pushup, pull-up, running, biking, etc...

Your muscles have a good sense of memory. You can tell by looking at an athlete. A baseball player, for example, can throw a ball, hard and accurate without even thinking about it. A soccer player can kick a ball and hit you in the feet, with force, without even thinking about it. These actions become very easy after awhile, so it's almost effortless for them do one of those actions. But let's say you have been doing pull-ups and pushups everyday, with no variation in speed, grip width, reps, or sets. Your muscles will get used to it. So it might become almost effortless. Is that good? No. Effortlessness=no challenge=no gain=useless. Another thing that can happen is strained tendons. Using the same tendons over and over again can cause fatigue and strain, preventing you from working out at all.

So your workout should vary. How often? Well, everyday in a way. You shouldn't do the same workout everyday. Right now I'm not playing any sports, so I'm not really concentrating on cardio, I'm doing weight lifting. So I have split up my days at the gym into lower and upper body days. Some upper body days I use the cable machines, other days I use the free weights. With legs I mainly vary on my sets and reps. I still mainly am doing heavy weight though.

But how often you should vary your workout greatly? That depends. When you're older, your body adjusts quite quickly, so maybe every or every other month. At my age I can probably change it once every three months, and still be effective.

So pretty much vary as much as can while sticking to a plan. Like, for me, I'm doing heavy weight for a few months to bulk up, then I'm going to tone around when track starts.

Because I don't have gym days everyday, I have home days on my off days. During my home days I usually do body weight training. So that I stay fit, while bulking up at the gym... also I want to be able to do over 100 pushups and over 40 pull-ups. That requires muscular endurance, which is what most body weight workouts do.

Order

So, everyone should a goal. It could be to strength and tone your arms, get abs (or a flat stomach), or the ability yo run a 5k, 10k or even a marathon.

Anyway, what ever you want to work on most, you should do that first. Like lets say you wanted to build some bicep muscle. You'd concentrate on your biceps. So after your warmup you might start off with bicep curls, move on to something else, then do some pull-ups, do some other exercise(s) and maybe do some more bicep curls.

One of the harder muscle groups to work (in my opinion) are the pectorals. Also known as the chest. So let's say you're at a gym you want to work that first, so you'd do something like bench press. Why? Because if you did other arm parts first like triceps and biceps, then your arms would barely be able to do the bench press movement, because they're so tired. If your arms are too tired to so many bench press reps, then you wouldn't get a good chest workout, and you might strain your triceps a bit.

Another thing some people want to do is to get abs or get a flat stomach. This requires fat loss. So you should concentrate on cardio work. You should warmup, do your cardio, and then add in other exercises after your cardio. If you don't feel that tired, maybe finish with more cardio and a cool down. There are a few reasons you should do your cardio first: you'll be even more warmed up (unless you run outside in the winter). Second: if you did leg exercises before your cardio you may not be able to run or bike as far because your legs are just too tired. Third: whatever you work on first usually gets the best workout. Forth: doing ab exercise before hand can cause cramping during your run/bike. Lastly..: is that if you suddenly become busy, you can end your workout with your most important part finished.

So you can see the order of your workout can matter. For another example this morning I worked out at Planet Fitness. In the morning if I work my body physically hard, I get a stomach ache. So I need to to have my priorities down so invade I get a stomach ache, I already did the good stuff. Like my plan today was to do legs and core. Core is probably less important for me right now, so I did legs first. Guess what? I got a stomach ache near the end of my leg workout. I did some core yesterday, so I'm fine with today's workout!

A Few Goals Reached

One of my short term goals was to reach 160 pounds, yet keeping defined muscles including the abs. I've reached that goal! My long term goal is to reach 175 pounds. So I still have a while to go! But it's always nice to reach a goal, even if it's a small one.

Another short term goal I reached was to bench press 150pounds in 3 sets, each set being 8-12 reps (150x8-12x3). This goal was nice to reach, but the bench press at Planet Fitness is on a machine, so in actuality it probably would have been more like 150x6-10x3 if I had to stabilize it as well.

I did some dumbbell bench presses to try and use some stabilizers afterwards. It was a bit tricky...

I reached another small goal as well. I shoulder pressed 40x10x3. I might use lighter weights for a bit though. My shoulder has been hurting a little from the way I sleep on it. After my shoulder is repaired some, I want to do some heavy weight lifting (4-8 reps) so I can gain some mass, then I'll tone it and gain some endurance in a month or two.

Abbey is Home!

Abbey has returned from college! She will be staying here for a few weeks! I'm pretty pumped!

Also, today I'm going Christmas shopping. I haven't gone shopping yet. I only did some online shopping, so it should be interesting going now, with the Christmas rush going on! I'm not a big fan of shopping, and shopping with a big mob is worse. Oh well, at least it'll make hiding the gifts I get for siblings pretty easy!

Grand Weekend!

This past Friday I had a usual day of school, chores, then worked out that evening after the girls went off being girls. After working out went out to eat a with Mom and Dad, and ended my day with watching Pirates of the Caribbean: 4... so I thought. Shannon came home near the end of the movie with the three oldest Donahue girls. So we all hung out and talked. The girls were all overtired, I wasn't so it was pretty hilarious watch their reactions to everything. If you said some thing slightly funny, they'd laugh for about 3 minutes, and I'd laugh at them! So them being over tired, Shannon decided to invite Casey to come over. That's normal, usually... but it was almost midnight. By the time they convinced Casey to get out of bed (via text) and come over it was about 11:55pm. So we all talked and laughed for about another hour... Casey was overtired too so it's was pretty entertaining!

Around 1:20am we finally went to bed, but Jessi Donahue had to leave because she had work the next day. I reviewed my lines and went to sleep, the girls on the other hand could have stayed up making fun if one another for awhile.

Later that morning (about 7:45am), I got up and I was very hungry. So I showered and started to make pancakes and waffles. Jolie was the first girl up (besides my mom of course). She looked/sounded a little like a zombie, and then she said something along the lines about how when I get up I really get up, and walked off. When I finished breakfast, Jolie was the only girl up. So I went to wake the rest of them up. I got plenty of glares and a few growls, but they finally did get up.

That day we pretty much just hung out all day, played games and various fun(ny) thing. Jolie left for a bit because she had to do something, but I can't remember what.

That evening (Jolie was back by then) we all headed over to the Estes! Colleen being gone we could bring everybody in one car. We picked up Calvin on the way, so we rode with 8 people in our 7 person van. At the Estes we had a superb meal. Good everyone, for some of us guys all it needed was a little hot sauce and it was perfect!

After supper we talked for a bit, and then I convinced Nick, Joel and Kenan to play 4 way chess. It was a long game... even for chess. I'd say Nick and I played 'most logically', but Joel has easy access to Kenan. Kenan being the least experienced played gave Joel the chance to destroy Kenan's army. Joel then checkmated Kenan, but in this game you need to kill the king to beat someone. So Joel did. Another cool rule in 4 way chess is: if you capture someone king, you get their remaining army. That gave Joel the upper hand, so Nick and I stopped trying to kill one another. Nick almost had Joel in a checkmate, and Joel almost have Nick in a checkmate. I was the middle man. I could choose who I wanted to fight. I'd say they were about the same skill level, so it was a tough choice. I noticed that if I gave Joel Nick's army, they would lose a few queens so they would have one queen instead if three. That sounded like a good deal to me, and I had more offense on Joel then Nick anyway. So after Joel had his huge army, I attacked him. I had the upper hand in position, but he nearly tripled my size. I had his king I'm the corner and he held me off until us Clarkes, Donahues and Casey had to leave. We called it a stalemate, but I think he would have eventually over powered me with sheer numbers.

I realized on the way out from the Estes house that I could have checkmated him 4 moves earlier, but that's part of speed part of chess!

When we arrived at home that night, the Donshues and Casey left. After saying our goodbyes, I went to bed. I wasn't that tired, but I figured I needed more sleep for the up coming week!

Sunday morning we all got up (Calvin was still over), and ate breakfast and then headed off to church. We had another good Advent service, and then a church in Florida gave all the kids 16 and under gifts! I was quite surprised! So when our pastor announced it. I kind of laughed (as did a few other people around my age), and then he pointed me out and said "Yes, even you Billy!" that made the congregation laugh ending our great service!

That afternoon Calvin and Shannon watched Pirates of the Caribbean: 4. I uploaded the sermon and watched the later half of the movie with them. When we finished we had a small supper and headed over to our pastor's family open house! Calvin and I being young growing men, ate a ton. I rounded my plate a few times and then snacked until the end of open house.

At the open house were the Kidds, they were (and are) always fun to hang out with! But then the Hollens showed up! The Hollens are some old (but still great) friends of us Clarkes! So we hung out with them almost the whole time. It was pretty awesome to hang out with with for a few hours and catch up on life!

We were one of the last families to leave, so it as kind if late. We came home and talked for awhile. Mom and Dad went to bed, but Shannon, Calvin and I stayed up to about 11:30pm having a good talk.

Now to today! Today Colleen and ABBEY are coming home!!! Colleen had been gone ever since Friday, but I haven't seem Abbey since her short Thanksgiving break! I can't wait!

Tonight was going to be our last Spartan game, but just a few minutes ago we received an email notifying us that the game is cancelled due to not having enough players. On the bright side my ankles will probably heal faster!

Negatives

I'm not a huge fan of negatives, but that's probably because I've pretty much gone past them in my fitness level. So what is a negative? A negative is the reverse motion of an exercise. For example: the down motion of a pushup is a negative, so is the down motion of a pull-up.

To actually start a negative pull-up, you have to jump and catch yourself, then go down.

A negative in exercise isn't just the opposite motion of an exercise, because that would be too easy. You have to go down as slow as you can. This way you're building the muscles to do a pushup or a pull-up. In my opinion, once you can do a pull-up, you shouldn't do negatives. Maybe after you complete a pull-up you could, but if you're capable of doing a pull-up, you shouldn't just do negatives because they are easier. On the other hand if you can do a pushup, then you should do a pushup, then go on your knees or do incline pushups if you can't complete any more.

This can apply to most arm exercises. Try it out if you can't do a complete arm exercise!

Full Range of Motion

When you're working out, whether it's weights or body weight, I strongly recommend full range of motion. If you can hyperextend any joints, don't. That's bad for your joints.

Now what exactly is full range of motion? It's pretty much just using all your range of motion... like, in a Bicep curl, you want to start with your arm at 180 degrees, and then your curl it to as far as you can go: Your forearm should touch your bicep.

So what does this do? It works all the muscles in that motion. A pushup is a good example. If you didn't go all the way down, you're using so much less muscle than if you went all the way. I prefer going past 90 degrees on my pushups, because that way I get even more range of motion in there.

Now, I'm not 100% sure about this, but I think that if you don't use full range of motion, you'll probably lose some flexibility in that area. Your muscles would get used to doing work in the motion, and then it you try to use full range of motion later, it may strain your muscle.

Another benefit of full range of motion is that it's much more challenging than doing half range of motion. Challenging=muscle growth=good.

In some exercises you just can't do full range of motion. Like a wide pushup, or a wide bench press. So if you're doing some of those, make sure you're also doing some other exercises with full range of motion.

There are a few exercise you probably don't want to do full range of motion with. One is dumbbell flys. If you're on a workout bench (so your arms can go below your body), you don't want to do full range of motion if your can bend your arms much past your core. I usually stop when the weights in my hands are at or just below my core, or even with the bench. Depending how you think about it. Going much farther could strain or pull some muscles. If you're using a weight that is kind of light for you, then you could go a little farther and hold for a second if you want a good stretch. Which some people like after or before bench pressing.

So usually full range of motion is better for your joints, builds more muscle, and helps a little in flexibility! So why not do it?

I Like a Mixture...

I've noticed that pull-ups and pushups work a bunch of muscles. Which is great for getting fit, but isn't that great for isolation and building up muscle. When I do pushups, I want to build up my chest and shoulders. A problem with push-ups is that they seem to make my arms tired before my chest is really that tired. So the pushup is great workout, but has it's limitations. Another problem (kind of) is that I can do so many reps that it's more toning and building endurance than building up muscle.

I have the same issue with pull-ups. I don't mind the fact that pull-ups build shoulder strength almost more than bicep strength. Biceps aren't very good if you can't use them to their full potential if your shoulders are too weak. The problem I have with then is that I can do a lot of reps. The weighed vest helps, but sometimes the vest pinches or strains my neck muscles when I do pull-ups. A minor issue is that some times I want to isolate my shoulders or my biceps, but I can't with a pull-up.

You know what's very good for isolation? Weights. You can isolate almost any muscle at a gym. You can also use heavy weights. Instead of doing pushups (which is like pushing 50-70% of your body weight) you can use a bench press, which you can lift less than that weight, or more than that weight.

To isolate the back of your shoulders, you can do rows. These are great for pull-ups and pushups. The back of your shoulders are also the counter muscles for your chest. So mixing rows with bench press is a great shoulder and chest workout.

You can also do bicep curls which isolates your biceps, obviously. Mix all of those workouts and it should improve your pushup and pull-up capability.

Now, do NOT quit doing pushups and pull-ups! These don't only work the muscles I listed above, and they also work them all at the same time. I've seen very 'buff' guys on my track team. I was on the stronger end, but still they were much stronger than me. I could do 22 pull-ups then. Most of them couldn't do more than 12. That's probably because they lifted a lot of weights, but didn't do much body weight workouts. It was kind of the same result with pushups. Two of the guys came quite close to my amount of reps though.

So I'd say having a mixture of body weight workouts and weight lifting workouts is a good thing. You can mix them up all in one day, but if you only have a few days at the gym, you may want to do only weights then, and then body weight workouts on your home days.

I'd say over all weight lifting builds certain muscle groups faster, while body weight workouts make you more fit, while strengthening several muscle groups.

My Busy Weekend...

This past weekend was pretty darn busy for me. First off I went to the gym early Thursday, came home and did school until I had to go to SMASH which was at one. After SMASH we brought Anna home with us and had a grand meal of pizza. That night we went to Nick and Joel's Christmas concert! That was pretty amazing, and we got to hangout with the other SMASHers for a bit!

On Friday I got up early again to go to the gym, and then like the day before did school and went to SMASH at one. Corrie and us Clarke kids (Shannon, Colleen and I) stayed over at the Richards for the night. The girls went with Rebecca to do some various girly things and Rebecca had to practice for her concert she had on Saturday. Once they finished all that they headed off to a talent show that some fellow SMASHers were in.

Tucker and I one the other hand played Airsoft for a hour or two. It got dark during that time so we played a game that you had to shoot my sound, which was pretty awesome!

After Airsoft we both went over to help out at Awana. That lasted about two hours. That included a very good meal. After Awana we went off to the talent show. We missed it, but still had the chance go hang out with a bunch of SMASHers!

We came home that night and stayed up late talking and playing games. The girls stayed up even later watching a movie.

The next morning we got up ate breakfast. Pastor Sam, Corrie, Shannon, Tucker and I headed out to go find a Christmas tree for the Richards' great room and their house. We did a few errands on the way which included getting hot chocolate.

On the way into the woods to find a tree Shannon, Tucker, Corrie and I all rode in the bucket of a small bucket loader. Which was pretty awesome even though everyone expect Corrie had the back of the bucket in our backs.

After we found and cut down the trees we warmed up and then headed back to the Richards' house. When we got there we ate a little, and then Colleen, Corrie, Tucker, two of the Richards' neighbors and I played a short game or two of Airsoft.

We had to leave for Rebecca's concert. We stayed for most of that, but we then had to leave because the girls had to babysit Gabe at five.

On our way we dropped of Corrie, and the girls dropped me off at home so I could do school that I didn't finish on Thursday and Friday. That night I also did some pricing out of Christmas gifts I am planing to buy.

Sunday was a bit more relaxing. We went to church, hung out with Calvin and then went to home group until around seven.

So that's a quick some up of my weekend... I'm a bit tired still.

Stabilizers

As you already know, buildings, trees, and and almost anything else needs stability. That includes your body. If you have been working out for a short time, you don't really need to work on your stabilizer muscles. They are very important for athletes So they should work them out in their offseason.

So what are your stabilizer muscles and what do they do? Well, some major stabilizer muscles are the hip flexer (not only a stabilizer), the groin muscle, the obliques, and a bunch of smaller ones I don't know the name of!

So what do they do? Well, they stabilize. When you're making sharp turns, they keep you from falling over, and aid in the turn. Your quads' main job is to go forward, the hamstring goes backward. Now, without your hip flexers and groin muscles it would be much more difficult to turn your body. Now try turning while sprinting. Won't happen quickly. So now that I put it to the extreme, what if you do have those stabilizer muscles, but they are weak compared to your quads and your hamstring...? You pull your stabilizer. They are actually pretty easy to pull. I've pulled both. Not fun. You can walk normally (usually), but you can't run. Just going forward actually requires your stabilizers. Think about it. When you're running, you're almost never on both feet. Try standing on one foot. After a while you're probably going to have trouble standing up straight. But what muscles do you use to correct your unbalance? Your hip, your groin, your ankle, and your obliques. Your quads and hamstring may do some, but they are big enough that balancing shouldn't be a problem for them.

So that shows you need your stabilizers. So why not make them stronger and increase your agility and balance?

I've already written about how to work your obliques, so I'll just remind you with the oblique V-up: first, lie on your side. Your hand that is on the floor should be by your hips, and then your other hand should be on your temples. Now bring your legs and your shoulders off the ground, balancing on your hip. Crunch your legs and body together. Don't make them touch, but bring them closer together. There are a ton more ways to work your obliques, but I don't have a ton of time.

Now, the groin and hips are harder to work without a gym. Usually playing sports is enough, unless you weight lift your legs. Also some of the workouts in my plyometrics post work your stabilizers. They usually aren't that challenging, because they mainly work on balance. So don't skip the easy workouts because you think they are a waste of time! Usually they aren't!

Start it up again...

In case you haven't read about this, I had strep throat and some symptoms of pneumonia the week of Thanksgiving. I took antibiotics, but I haven't really fully healed yet. I still have a slight cough and stuffy nose. Last week I didn't quite feel up to working out, I still played soccer, but that was it. I realized that day that not working out for two weeks really took away your endurance. My cardio was extremely low, making it very hard to breathe while sprinting/coughing up stuff. Part of my poor cardio was probably due to the cough, but my cough is almost gone now. This weeks soccer my cardio was still down, but it was much easier to breathe.

So now that I'm feeling better, I'm starting up my winter training again! What better way to start up than going to Planet Fitness! That's what I did. Dad and I went yesterday. My plan was to work on my arms, chest and shoulders. Dad was just going to do cardio.

I didn't really have a plan yet, so I just warmed up and started trying out different weights on the machines.

Before I started, I saw a guy I knew: Ryan Goding. We said hello and then asked about when we joined and briefly what our goals were.

I don't really want to describe my entire workout because that would be boring and not the best example of what to do. I mainly was just testing out weights, because I don't really know what to use because I usually do body weight workouts, not weights!

It was pretty fun, and funny for me to try out weights. Sometimes I over estimated and I could only do a few reps, others I under estimated and could do tons of reps with ease.

Anyway, I worked my calves with light weights for a bit because I'm trying to repair my ankle. After that I did some flies, chest press, rows (variations), lat pull downs (variations), shoulder press, some triceps, biceps, and then finished with a short leg workout. I then stretched, and waited for dad to finish his shower. While I waited I did some forearm with my forearm gripper.

I was a little sore in the shoulders yesterday, but man. Today I'm sore! Everything I worked is sore! My legs are slightly sore, but my chest, arms, and shoulders are really sore! It feels great though! I missed being able to get sore!

Because I'm so sore, it'll be counterproductive to workout my arms, chest or shoulders today. So I'll just do some cardio. I would do a leg workout, but I plan to do a hardcore leg workout Friday.

I'm 'pumped' to restart my workout!

A Few More Weeks...

As some of you reading this might know, I pulled my Achilles tendon playing soccer this past fall. Me, thinking it was like any other tendon didn't stop playing until the season was over. I thought it healed by the time winter soccer started. It probably did, but was still very week. So I re-injured it. It has been bothering me after every game for a few days, then it usually would heal enough for me to walk with no limp or pain.

So that has been happening over the past month or two with winter soccer. I've been enjoying it, but I haven't been able to play to my full potential because of my ankle restriction.

Now that there are only two weeks left, I'm kind of happy. Don't get me wrong, I love playing soccer (even losing, but just not as much as winning) and I love hanging out with the guys there, but I can't wait for my ankle to heal!

On the note of soccer, I'll tell you of my game last night. Our game was against a team men in their 30 and 40s I believe, so they had the advantage of skill, while he had the advantage of fitness. I played sweeper most of the game, which was pretty nice because beforehand almost everyone had in there head that because I was fast, I played forward... but I don't. I'm a midfielder or defender. I believe I was put to much better use playing there. I was told I has 'an awesome save' by a few people: Our goalie stopped a small break away, but the ball bounced off the guy he stopped from scoring so it was heading straight for our goal, quite quickly. I was sprinting next to the guy that had the break away (trying to catch up and stop him) and when the ball did a few bounces off our goalie and the other player, it slowed down a little. So I had just enough time to slide in there and clear the ball out of there. I didn't know how close I was to the goal until my body flew into the net a second after kicking the ball. So I guess I made a pretty close call!

Our game as a whole was a much better game than we usually had, we had plenty of chances and the ball was going up and down the field the whole game. The other team was much better at finishing and we had a few flukes, thus giving them the win. The score was 4-0 I believe.

Wrights!

After SMASH on Thursday Anna slept over at our house because she didn't have a ride to SMASH. So after Friday's SMASH Shannon, Colleen, Anna and I headed over to the Wrights house! It took us a little while because Shannon didn't know the Bath or Topsham area that well and Anna was our GPS... but she got distracted by telling stories. So yeah, we missed a lot of turns.

When we arrived we met the younger Wrights, and then played Foosball and Round Robin with Josh, Ben, Maggie, and Caleb until supper was ready.

At supper we all talked, laughed, and obviously ate food! After supper we went to Dairy Queen for dessert.

Mr. Wright left in his car (we came in two) while us older kids were waiting for our ice cream. Mr. Wright and I both have goatees, we are both about the same height and we're both pretty fit. So Ben (he's 17) was looking around right next to me asking: "Where's Billy?" me, thinking he was joking just said: "I don't know...". He then looked at me turned away, and then spun around shaking his head. He then announced he thought I was his dad! After a few laughs and being served our ice cream we headed back to the Wright's house.

At the Wrights us older kids (Anna, Shannon, Ben, Josh, Maggie, Colleen, and I) stayed up playing games, talking, joking around, and getting over tired. We stayed up until about 2am. With all that time and over tiredness we made plenty of inside jokes... I could start listing them, but everyone would think I'm rather crazy and stop reading my blog. Hence why they are inside jokes!

Us guys got up around 9:30am. We were before the girls. Mr. Wright was frying bacon, so we decided to fan the smell towards where the girls were sleeping. A few minutes later they started filing up the stairs, so I guess it worked!

That morning we ate breakfast and talked about last night. We then decided to go outside and play some frisbee and soccer. Because they had a small cliff, I decided to climb it. So we ended up throwing the frisbee and kicking the soccer ball up and down the cliff, and then later from their raised porch to and from the cliff.

After some of us got a little bored (or cold) we went inside and played more Foosball until Ben had to leave for work. Sadly he left before we had pie that Corrie made for me (which was epically awesome!). So we saved a slice for him, I'm hoping he got it! After we had pie we had to leave. Anna was staying there so she could go to church with them. So after our good byes we headed home.

On our way home we stopped by the Donahues and said hi, gave then back their pie dish, and invited them and Jenna over for the later afternoon and early evening. They just got up (they stayed up later than us) so they said they would in a bit. We then gave Calvin a ride back to our house because he was near the Donahues and needed a ride.

When we got home Dad, Calvin and I went in town to buy some food, get a few plugs, get Calvin's church clothes, and buy Dad's and my Planet Fitness memberships. The Donahues and Jenna arrived at our house while we were gone. When we came home we all just talked, and then had a weird conversion about hugging. Calvin found it hilarious how long it took us to say good bye and talk about hugs. I did too!

On Sunday we went to church had a 'relaxing' afternoon with Calvin and then headed to our church's family prayer meeting.

Over all I had a grand weekend! Thank you Wrights for having us over!

Chess Stuff...

So, I've mainly been posting about my life and working out, so here's another post about my nerdy side! Because chess is probably where I'm the 'most nerdy', I'll write about chess!

This will be a post mainly about why you should develop quickly, what to and what not to develop quickly and controlling the board...

The first thing you do in a chess game is open. The opening is when you bring out your pieces and pawns. Usually white has a slight advantage because they go first, but no worries if you're black! Now, how do you do this? Some people bring out their knights first, but I don't think that's the best plan in the world. Why? Because pawns (if played right) can chase knights around until the knights forced to retreat (wastes time and leaves your opponent with open bishops, knights, and maybe their queen as well.) You on the other hand may only have a knight out, or you might have lost the knight.

So I think opening with the queen pawn or the king pawn are the best. Sometimes if you're black and the other player opens with the king pawn, then you could bring out the pawn to the right side your the queen. This way your queen can have an opening and when/if you bring out your knight on that side it won't hold back that pawn.

Before I go on to controlling, I want to tell you that even though some of your first moves should be with pawns you shouldn't over do if. You want to develop fast. Why? Because if your opponent opens faster, he has more mobility and control. So you want to be mobile control quickly, so bring out the queen! Right? Wrong. The queen is super powerful, but if you bring it out too early, your opponent's knights, bishops, and pawns could hunt down your queen and capture it, or make you retreat so may times that he has his entire army out ready to attack you, while all you have is a queen out and ready.

So, the next most power piece is the rooks! I should bring that out, right? No. Rooks are too slow to get out in the beginning. By the time you bring out one, your opponent will probably have at least three pieces out.

What's next? Bishops and knights? Yup. Bring them out. They are easy to get out and are pretty strong. Use them.

Now, why would you open in the middle? Because you want to control the middle. I heard a quote once thar went something like this: "Control the middle, and you control the game." the reason the middle is so good is because from the middle you can attack everything else, or defend everything else. From the corners you can only go so far with a knight, bishops can only attack the opposite corner, and the rooks can only attack the corners next to your corner. This doesn't mean put all you pieces in the middle because you want som well defended pieces in the corner. Another thing is that there is a difference between "controlling" and "occupying". So putting all your pieces in the middle could be a one way ticket to your devastation if you don't control it and your opponent does.

So try and control the middle and develop quickly! There is a ton more to chess, but I don't have 100 years to write about it!

So it Begins...

Today being December 1st you may think I'm going to write about December and Christmas, but honestly I haven't thought much about this Christmas. So what's beginning? SMASH is. Today is our first rehearsal. I don't have all my lines down, but I should have them down by the end of the month, or year actually. The reason I'm writing this post (beside the fact I don't want to write a long post about working out) is because SMASH takes up a huge amount of time. Our rehearsals are usually 2-4 hours long, that's a lot of time, and just practicing your lines is a lot of time too. Also I'll probably have to help out with building the set and fund raising. So I may have to shorten up on some of my posts. I said this before for soccer, but I wrote long posts anyway, so we'll see what happens!