:dragon: Introduction

100 Days. Wow. That’s 100 days where I made it a priority to work on a goal- to follow up on a technique I set out on. Everyday to make one step to bettering myself and improving my mental health. Although I didn’t expect it at the time, it changed my relationship with exercise and dramatically improved my overall mental health and happiness. By committing to doing one thing to improve myself everyday without fail, I was more prompted to do other things during my downtime during the day like meditate, journal, reach out to a love one etc.

I went from thinking, “I HAVE to go to the gym today” to “I GET to go to the gym today.” Ask yourself, which do you say to yourself?

Now before I dive in, let me discuss WHY I did this. Lets wind things all the way back to the lockdown. Over the pandemic when we were on campus but all classes were remote and the campus rec center was closed, I had to resort to creative measures to continue to train. Around this time, Cody over at swoleateveryheight.blogspot.com had an excellent guest write-up where one of his clients wrote an article about his journey in daily training, taking a page out of Cody’s book. The write-up really spoke to me because, like me, Ben worked with very limited equipment, just a couple of kettlebells, pullup bar, a bench and a few more things. Ben advocated for conditioning training and how there is a lot to gain from incorporating it into your training. The post really spoke to me and I tried a couple conditioning sessions while I ran deload weeks but was never consistent with the sessions. I always thought it was difficult to fit it into my current routine which prioritized either strength or size goals.

Fast forward two years and I’m coming into the second half of my fourth year of training. Either I couldn’t admit it to myself at the time or just didn’t notice it but I was getting burnt out from the same style of training. Just to give to some context (not complaining in any sort of way), As a college student with the degree I was perusing, finding time to workout was difficult to fit into my schedule if I also wanted to make time to spend with friends and socializing. In addition, the smaller school gym I workout at has weird and limited hours with only two areas to perform the big three and if the only time I had to workout that day was limited and that equipment was not available, I was screwed. Additionally, I was always bouncing between places, whether it was at home or at school or on vacation etc, I never had the consistent access to a barbell and appropriate weights to pursue the powerlifting ventures I would set out on. I would get stressed about not hitting my weights for the spreadsheet and it was all hard to manage on a time crunch. I was a little tired of training that way and I guess it was hard to admit to myself that it didn’t get me excited to train that way.

So when I was returning back to school, I thought of adopting a new strategy to training like I did the previous year to account for my bust schedule (last year having only 1 hour workouts was a big deal to me). I was also coming off of a big mental health growth spurt and I felt a lot more confident in myself and my body, and using exercise as a boost to my overall quality of health was also a leading factor. I experimented with quick workouts before school started because at the time, that was all that motivated me to train, just some simple kettlebell stuff was all that was interesting to me. During one of these sessions, I was listening to mind pump and they just came out with an episode discussing a blueprint for exercising 6 days a week for 20 minutes. I don’t know why it sounded so simple but what they were saying really clicked with me and I remembered the posts from Cody and Ben and I thought if I were to shoot for 6, why not make it 7. And thus, my adventure begun.

:school_satchel: The Set-Up

TRAIN everyday!

This may be weird and I recommend reading Cody’s post on this but I removed goals for this training style. There was no weight goal for the bar or my body, instead the goal was training itself. Enjoying moving was the goal. Challenging myself and pushing myself was the goal. Doing what would make me excited to go to the gym everyday. The ultimate goal was to train in different fashions which got me excited and pushed me to improve in an effort to reap those mental health benefits.

Although the following were styles I used, ultimately anything that got my body moving with the intent to better myself or push myself counts as training to me. This means that somedays I just went to they gym and worked on my Jefferson Deadlift. One day I played Pickleball for an hour, another I did 500 calf raises. These weren’t the norm but I literally could do anything I wanted, which REALLY got me excited to train.

:battery: Conditioning

Mat Fraser's story really makes you want to get some conditioning work in

After reading posts I previously discussed, I thought conditioning would be an excellent style to serves as a new way to challenge myself and the sessions are short! Who really doesn’t have 5-15 minutes a day to exercise? When I was having a super busy day and I knew a longer weights session wasn’t feasible, I could hit a conditioning session and feel amazing after- I could even do it at home if needed. There was definitely times where it was late in the evening and I didn’t get a chance to train yet and I hit a conditioning session in my room before the night came to an end.

I often borrowed sessions from the following resources

Resources:

  • Mythical’s book of bad ideas
  • WODwell App
  • Brian Alsruhe shredded for summer
  • GZCL Write-up

The beauty of conditioning sessions is that it breeds creativity. Only have a dumbbell, jump rope and your bodyweight? You can get a crazy session in. Only have 2 minutes and a kettlebell? Your ass is going to get whooped.

:runner: Running

Mmm yes, stock image of running

You won’t hear much of this from Cody and others. Actually, Cody and Ben cited running as something that didn’t count as a training session for them. I really disagree with this. How does 10 minutes of high intensity training count as a session but 25 minutes of medium intensity not?

Has this happened to you? You are walking briskly up the stairs and at the top when someone starts a conversation with you, you are slightly out of breathe? Well that was me. It was kind of weird because as someone who has been consistently lifting weights for a few years, you think I would be fit enough for a few flights of stairs. But the reality of the situation is that lifting weights doesn’t make you fit. You get really good at couple movements if you powerlift or you look good aesthetically if you body build but in reality you are super unhealthy and couldn’t do anything outside of leg press 4 sets of 15. I used to run in high school and the high after a run is absolutely insane. I knew that if I brought that back into my life, it would help me out immensely. Additionally, it was exciting to push myself, to try and train in ways that are uncomfortable. In order to run, all you need is a pair of running shoes- I could do that from anywhere, continuing to reduce the margin for excuses. If I wasn’t feeling an intense conditioning session or if I was sore from the weights or if I was excited to listen to a certain podcast, I’d throw on an episode and hit the road. There is just something so special about exercising outside in the fresh air. I loved it so much that whenever I get the opportunity to, I will move my sessions outside.

:crown: Knees Over Toes

Ben Patrick is changing athletes and everyday people

Now I only started incorporating this style into my training about half way through. I got sucked into Ben Patrick’s videos and his book and it really got me motivated to train in a style which strengthens my joints to ensure that I could become more injury resilient and improve my health down the line. My long term goals is to still be exercising in my 50s, I don’t want my time training now to leave me broken and unhealthy at that time. Additionally, I have had an interest in learning to play basketball or join a Sunday soccer league after graduation and becoming a good athlete would feel like so much fun. I got Ben Patrick’s Knee Ability Zero and it game me yet another tool to use if I had to train in my room or with limited equipment. Not going to lie, the training was not easy, and it has been cool to be new and not good at something. After KA0, Ben said that the KOT training is once per week but I would do anything to push around a sled if I could outside of that day.

:bomb: Resistance Training

Of course... the Bugez

I know a lot of readers will hate this but I have to admit it, I freestyled all of my weightlifting sessions. I know, I know, the keyboard warriors are throwing a fit right now, telling me about how suboptimal I’ve been and more. But like I mentioned before, I was pretty unexcited to train following a spreadsheet and consistent barbell training wasn’t a choice for me. Most people would be super frustrated about that, but I’ve had experience with training with limited equipment and I honestly prefer it.

As previously and extensively griped about on this blog, I hate my campus’s training facilities. They are poorly set up and tiny compared to the amount of students at the university. There are barely any barbell or squat racks which forced me to wait 20 minutes for something to come available. Before this session, I decided that in order to train everyday, I couldn’t be waiting for equipment because I may not have time that day and I would be wasting my own time. Hence, I made the decision to ‘freestyle’ my workouts with whatever equipment was available. This meant I had the opportunity to work with equipment I may not have specialized in like kettlebell training and ring work. Again, I was making the most of what I had available.

Most of my sessions at the gym followed two types of formats:

Format A:

  • Warm-up on a big lift
  • 3-4 sets of a Big Lift
  • 3 sets Dumbbell variation of big lift - superset with a pull movement
  • Accessories if I have time

Example:

  • Warm up on Squats
  • 3-4 sets of heavy Squats
  • 3 sets of DB Bench Superset with Franco Pull-ups

Format B:

  • 2-3 sets of all the main 4 movements (Push-Pull-Squat-Hinge)
  • Lots of Supersets
  • 2-3 sets of accessories if time

Example:

  • 2 sets of Kettlebell Lunges superset with Ring Dips
  • 2 sets of Kettlebell Swings superset with Suspension Trainer Rows
  • 2 sets of Kettlebell Presses superset with Calf Raises
  • 2 sets of EZ Bar Curls superset with EZ Bar Overhead Tri Extension

But a lot of the time, I wasn’t able to train in they gym. Luckily, I have a sandbag, resistance bands, NordStick, DIY suspension trainer and ab wheel at home so I could always string things together at home. These workouts took format B (obviously using variations of movements with equipment I had) but I when I started to incorporate KOT training into my routine, I would have 2 superset combinations and then the KOT routine. Although I didn’t train according to a set program, nearly all my movements were the same from week to week. I needed it to be this way because when I stepped in the gym, the available equipment I could use would vary daily. This mostly included Split Squats and Lunges, Dips, Push-ups, Suspension trainer press or fly and Dumbbell Bench, Swings, Nordic Curls, Snatches, Cleans and RDLs, Press, Push Press, Arnold Press, Lu Raise, Lateral Raise and Front Raise, Pullovers, Pull-up variations, pull-downs and row variations. Accessories were arms, core, traps and calf raises.

The reason I trained this way was to get as high of a frequency as possible. Even on a lot of my run days, I would hit a superset to get some extra frequency in, it’s really the style I love the most. You don’t need me to tell you how critical high frequency training is.

Don’t get me wrong, I did not train lightly. The true challenge was not pushing myself too much at first because then it would be much harder to train the next day. I LOVE training hard but getting to a level that won’t hinder my performance the next days was a new challenge.

This was the first time I trained single leg squat movements in a long time. It was also the first time I trained seriously with kettlebells and I instantly fell in love. Its so hard to describe the feeling of training intensely with kettlebells.

Another thing worth mentioning was that I had the chance to have some sessions with the heavy sandbag and oh my, what a treat.

:bento: Fueling

Iykyk

By training this way, I became VERY hungry. So, I simply just ate to support that. I like to keep eating simple and unrestrictive. I focused on having 3-4 meals where there was a protein source, carb source and a veggie source. Beyond that, I would always have calorie dense snacks throughout the day like peanut butter sandwiches, dates, bagels, trail mix, fig bars etc.

:book: Results

It was a challenge, there were definitely days where I barely had any time during the day to train but I still made it happen. On those days, just getting some bodyweight conditioning or convict style training in got the thing done. But it was also super rewarding. I made a commitment to myself and held up that for 100 days in a row. I felt happier, getting those endorphins flowing and sense of accomplishment everyday really can improve your overall quality of life. I also made time to train in new ways which was also great to push myself in different verticals but it was also a different feeling of accomplishment afterword.

:bar_chart: Takeaways

You can train everyday and it is probably better for the busier person. Trying to find 60+ minutes a couple times a week is harder than at least 5 minutes everyday.