I'm not a nutritionist, physical therapist, or any other kind of -ist when it comes to physical well-being. Everything presented here is anecdotal and should be considered for entertainment purposes only. All calculations made against a 182 centimeter/6 foot tall, 46-year-old male body with full mobility. I'd never claim that the following could cure depression, but it sure has helped with mine.
| Time | Activity | Details |
|---|---|---|
| Per Hour | Hydration | Coupled with recommended hourly "stand up and stop looking at monitors", daily total 2.6 liters/88 fluid ounces. |
| 0600 | Sleep | Wake up. |
| 0600 | Nutrition | Protein powder with glucosamine, nattÅ (fermented soy bean), 1 tbsp salsa, multivitamin and iron supplements. |
| 0600 | Exercise | 1.65 kilometer/1 mile walk to gym, ~18 minutes, ~120 active calorie burn. |
| 0620 | Exercise | Cardiovascular ramp-up, weight training, complete stretch. ? calorie burn. |
| 0720 | Exercise | 1.65 kilometer/1 mile walk from gym, ~18 minutes, ~120 active calorie burn. |
| 0900 | Nutrition | Five pre-cooked meatballs. |
| 1200 | Nutrition | One large raw carrot and half an air-fried skinless chicken breast. |
| 1500 | Nutrition | Half an air-fried skinless chicken breast. |
| 1800 | Nutrition | Calorie deficit make-up meal, variable until normalized. |
| 2200 | Sleep | Go to bed. |
To formulate this plan, I first divided the body up by muscle groups: core (abdominals, external obliques, erector spinae), back (trapezius and latissimus dorsi), chest (pectoral), arms (deltoids, triceps, biceps, forearms), and legs (gluteus, quadriceps, hamstrings, and calves). Since I have 24-7 access to a gym, I decided on a rolling ten-day series with rest days every five days. The first four training days are "dual" exercises, working both sides of the body under a single weight (where possible). The second four are "split" exercises, using seperated weights or exercising each side in isolation.
| DUAL | SPLIT | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Back | Chest | Arms | Legs | REST | Back | Chest | Arms | Legs | REST |
| lat pulldown | pushups | lateral raise | squat | lying pullup | dumbbell flyes | arnold press | deadlift | ||
| barbell row | barbell bench press | cable rope triceps pulldown | leg extension | dumbbell row | dumbbell bench press | french press | single leg extension | ||
| barbell shrug | pec deck | ez-bar preacher curl | leg curl | dumbbell shrug | dumbbell incline bench press | hammer curls | single leg curl | ||
| barbell upright row | dips | dumbbell forearm curls | seated calf raise | dumbbell upright row | dumbbell decline bench press | dumbbell forearm extensions | seated calf raise | ||
Each session starts with five minutes running pace on the treadmill, and ends with a series of core exercises (crunches, side bends, and back extensions). See below for further explanation.
The previous iteration of this program was posted in January of 2021, and only carried me so far. I think that by March, I was zero sum or greater (meaning worse off) than I'd been. Then in late March I dove headfirst into a more protein-rich diet alongside full days of doing nothing but sitting at a computer or lying on the floor. That brought me down to under 100kg/220lbs. I'd been waiting, like the responsible prick that I am, to get my full COVID-19 vaccination. This happened on July 6th. A week after I start the gym training.
The program was devised in a very straighforward manner: divide the body into major muscle groups, choose two exercises for each (one that uses both sides of the body at once, like barbell bench press, and one that uses them independently, like dumbbell flyes). Then compose two series of four days that use the conjunctive exercises in one and the independent exercise in the other.
Weight-to-lift is determined on a rolling cycle of experimentation. For the base-building, three sets of ten repetitions whereby the first two sets can be comfortably achieved with failure coming in the eighth to tenth rep of the third. Once that weight is determined, sets continue until the third set can be completed, at which point the smallest increment of weight available is added. Rinse and repeat.
The goal of this program is not mass-building. I'm going for "wiry farmer's strength" and as lean a physique as I can achieve. I want efficiency, something that's strong yet doesn't cost a fortune to feed. I want to be able to leap out of bed and attack the day, and I don't need a Herculean body to do that.
I'll update this after a month of consistent work.