Journey to Fight Club shape
After gaining significant weight over the Covid-19 quarantine/shutdown, I’ve decided at what is probably the biggest weight gain season of the year to get in shape.
I started last Sunday, November 24th, having received the equipment I plan to use for the journey. Since gyms are closed I’ve been looking for home workout equipment. If you’ve looked you would have notice workout equipment is one of the rarest of products this year as well as highly marked up if you can find any.
Luckily, I already don’t like to keep a lot of workout equipment at the house and really only keep minimalistic alternative workout type equipment. So for this process, I’ve decided on the X3 band system. To be honest, it seems like any other $50 band system at 10x the price, but for reasons I won’t get into here, I went with it anyway. If you decide to use bands, go with what feels right. Not what I do.
Unfortunately, I’m almost one week in and haven’t tracked my reps and bands so I’m starting from scratch for the second set. No biggie. I’ll start from where I’m at.
My methodology: I’m the kind of person who goes back to the gym after a long hiatus and starts using weights that are way too heavy, fairly quickly hurting myself, and then it’s all over. Again. So my method these days is to start everything as light as possible and move up until I get to my proper weight class. The zero ego method.
The X3 comes with four levels of bands. From lightest to hardest they’re colored white, light grey, dark grey, & black. I’m starting with white and will work my way up slowly.
I do recall maxing out the white bands on day one for everything but the Overhead Press (only 15 of those). Day two is a blur. Day three was a rest day, so I did my 60 second cardio workout (I’ll explain that at another time). Day four I maxed out the light grey band on three exercises and upped my Overhead Press to 20 on the white band. Day 5 was Thanksgiving so I gave myself a rest day slash treat day (I had a piece of pie and various cracker dip combinations). Oh, and that reminds me…
There’s a nutrition plan involved as well. It’s basically a Keto Carnivore variation. For me I know what works and am going to be mostly Keto, which (for me) means lots of healthy fats and proteins, tons of veggies, and as close to zero non veggie carbs as I can stand. I’m not super strict about it, I like to be happy, but I’m also very driven so I can trust myself to stay on track even with a few flubs here and there for happiness sake :)
And here we go… week one, day 6...
Deadlifts — 40 on white band
Bicep Curls — 40 on white band
Bent Row — 40 on white band
Calf Raises — 40 on light grey band
So why do I keep hitting/stopping at 40? Good question. The idea with the different levels of bands is that you want to be able to do at least 15 reps and a max of 40 before moving up to a more difficult band. So as I mentioned, I’m starting at white and when I max out I’ll move up a band.
Nutrition-wise, I’ve been spot on no problem with the exception of the planned treat day on Thanksgiving and what will be some light treats today which happens to be my birthday! So happy birthday to me, bring on the pancakes!
