So it starts, painfully.  After eight years of not doing much physically due to school and work, I finally found something that should keep me going to get back into shape and stay there. 

Current Stats:  5'9"|180 lbs

You know, your body reminds you that eight years of nothing is significant. 

After hearing about parkour and watching some vids on youtube, I realized this is what I did as a kid in the form of extreme tag on large playground equipment at the school near my home.  Remembering how much fun I had doing this, I know have motivation to start getting fit.

Sept. 18th 2008.  I remembered one thing I enjoyed in high school PE, the gymnastics unit.  So this day is the first day of my gymnastics training.  I almost messed up my back doing a basic handstand to forward-roll.  That brought something to my attention that had never been and issue to me in the past.  My scoliosis.  I think that my back has lost the strength to help hold my spine in its incorrect position painlessly.  If that wasn't bad enough, the muscle soreness from that one day of training lingered for about a week.  Chiropractor visit took care of the immediate pain.

Dug out my weight-lifting book that has been collecting dust for about 2 years from my last 'get fit' goal and put together a basic weight-lifting routine.  Went to gym about 2 days after gymnastics incident while still sore and did some light weights, nothing fancy.  Woke up the next morning with legs, back, arms, chest and some places that apparently have muscles, hurting(as in getting the rust out hurting). 

Sept.  25th 2008.  Current stats  5'9"| 175 lbs

Second day of gymnastics training.  Avoided rolling for now though my back feels great and doesn't hurt doing jumps or anything else.  Worked mostly on cart-wheel, round-off and front hand-spring technique.  Used a barrel shaped pad to practice hand-spring.  Did some jumping on the trampoline with some back-flips.  Back started to hurt again.  Landed my first front hand-spring ever on the tumbletrack perfectly.  All that arm work has given me tennis elbow in both arms (left worst than right)  and my abs are sore.

Oct. 2nd 2008.  Good news and bad news for me today.  Good news is with the help of a co-worker, I found a way to do pull ups at work.  Bad news is this is not going well.  Both elbows are really acting up, now a week with pain since the handspring exercises.  I am leaning towards it being tendonitis.  It doesn't take long for them flare up.  I did some pull ups today when they felt good, got about 4 in before they reminded me they don't like working.  Slapped some ice on them and bandaged the area of pain.  I will skip my gymnastics class on thursday to let my elbows rest. 

My back seems to be doing great since starting to workout.  Did some rolls in the office area (nice hard carpeted area) with no pain to the back, just where the crest of my pelvis hits.  Not sure if that is preventable yet.  Hopefully my elbows will stop this soon so I can get back to exercising.

Oct. 9th

Arms feeling good.  Went to my gymnastics class.  We warmed up doing vaults over balance beams.  Did some dive rolls and other arm and jumping work.  No problem after the work out.

Oct. 10th

Did one round of the APK Warm-Up except for the pull-ups, did only 2.  Arms seem to not be hurting that bad so far.

Also, I would recommend stopping this right now and reading Steve's Article. Figure out what you're doing and why you want to go to the gym. What goals do you have?

Then we can get you on the right track!