Here’s a post not concerning music or hifi equipment. If you only care about those topics, you’re done now. Physical health should concern everyone though, and while this is just me rambling about my own experiences, I hope some of you might find it interesting.

Like a lot of people I have a rich history of shamefully neglected gym memberships and broken new years resolutions. I’ve never been properly fat — the worst shape I’ve ever been in was when I got to 95 kg (209 lbs) in 2005 — but before then I was never properly fit either. Deciding I didn’t want to get to a three digit weight I took up running and enjoyed it enough to get myself down to 77 kg (170 lbs) in a little over a year. I hadn’t been very smart about it though, and got myself runner’s knee in both legs. Motivation slipped and I eventually stopped going to the gym entirely. I’m very thankful I made that effort to lose the weight since it taught me a lot about what I can accomplish if I put my mind to it and that I could learn to love a new form of exercise (I had never done any long distance running before that). The problem was that now I just kept excusing my laziness with the comforting thought that I could get back into shape any time I wanted. That is of course utterly pointless if I never do it though.

I was pretty much entirely untrained when a colleague dragged me to the gym in November of last year. I was probably about 87 kg, which in terms of physical appearance wasn’t horrible at all, but it wasn’t a body to be proud of either. In terms of strength and conditioning it was even worse: I couldn’t do a single pullup (regardless of hand position or grip width) and while hanging from the bar I couldn’t pull my knees up higher than the hip joint even once. Running for 10 minutes on the treadmill at 10 km/h (6.2 mph) was almost exhausting. That I’d ran 20 km in less than 100 minutes a few years before felt surreal. No 31 year old should ever be in that shape, so I bought a 6 month membership and started training.

In my previous episodes of gym traning I’ve done the usual machine exercises, thrown dumbbells around, tried all manners of split schedules where you try to get the whole body covered each week. I’ve mostly trained for vanity, but without any real goal or determination. So I’ve kept trying new things and never really stuck to a program. Sure I got marginally stronger and it was probably way better than not training at all, but nothing really happened. I’ve always trained mainly to get rid of some flab, so I also kept my diet pretty strict. Since everyone says you have to eat to gain muscle, I decided that while a bit flabby, this time I’d eat like mad to see if it helps. After all, I know I can shed weight if I need to. Apart from 10-15 minutes on the treadmill as warmup I just did the standard 3 sets of 10 reps with the usual machines and dumbbells, and ate huge amounts at every meal.

Apart from the dreaded runner’s knee, big reasons I’d stopped training was that work took more of my time, I had moved to a new apartment with my girlfriend and I didn’t want to be away so much. So this time around I decided to train in the morning, before work. I am not in any way a morning person, but after 30 I find myself needing slightly less sleep than 10 years ago, so I figured it was worth a try. The gym was only open early Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, so apart from some occasional lunch session on a Tuesday or Thursday, I trained 3 days a week. I quickly found a problem with this: It’s much easier to get up early if you’re consistent with it. I decided to hang in there, and since I’d just bought a 6 month membership I figured I’d switch to another gym with more generous opening hours later on.

In April, after 6 months of consistent traning and a few bazillion extra calories, I weighed 91 kg (200 lbs). Not exactly lean, but some of the gains were definitely muscle. I decided that this was heavy enough, and switched to a gym that let me train 5 mornings per week. I also got the bicycle out for the summer season and started biking to/from work. So my daily routine was bike 12-15 minutes (and I go hard, I ride like I have a goddamn homing rocket chasing me), then treadmill for 15-20 (up slightly from before) and then about 40 minutes of weight traning. After work, bike home again. This worked really well and in late june I was down to 85 kg, while it felt like I actually kept gaining muscle. I’m saying felt like, because it might just be that I looked more defined thanks to less body fat, and I felt stronger because I was lighter.

As the sun set sooner and sooner, I decided to stopp biking in October. Inner city riding in the dark is a bit risky and chilly mornings could mean lethal ice patches that aren’t very welcome when you’re treating your job commute like the final stretch of Tour de France. Instead I switched to a gym in the same franchise that’s just 100 meters from my home, and increased the cardio to 20-30 minutes of treadmill running. The knees have had zero problems so far, thankfully.

I’ve read up on crossfit a lot which lead me to more barbell training and I can finally squat to proper depth with OK-ish form. I have a lot left to do in terms of flexibility, but I’m getting there. I’ve also incorporated more circuit training to improve my workrate. Watching the crossfit elite athletes on Youtube I’m in utter awe of their stamina and physical versatility, but at the same time very concerned about the risk of injury and not willing to give up my heavy lifts for speed training. That said, I’ve done 100 burpees for time 5 weeks in a row now, and while I’m embarasingly slow it’s at least getting better. Now that I have some sort of basic fitness established, I can actually enjoy stuff like that, but I would never ever recommend it to myself a year ago. I also tried the crossfit workout called Fight Gone Bad, and scored a very shitty 207. It was my first try though and I will have another go very soon. Over 300 would be great but it’s probably up to a year away.

The point of all this is I’ve tried a lot of things, and also learned a lot of things. I’ve done pure cardio (running), I’ve done the machines, I’ve done dumbbells, I’ve done barbells, I’ve done bodyweight exercises, I’ve done circuit training. The one thing that remains is consistency. Changing the routine is fun and helps with motivation since I enjoy trying new things, but over 200 gym visits later I still don’t know what really works. I’ve had results that I’m pretty happy with, still at 85 kg but more muscular than I’ve ever been and with pretty good endurance, but surely this wasn’t the optimal way to train. As I try to figure out what was redundant, it strikes me that I don’t even know what my goal is! It’s not really vanity any more—I care how I look but I’m not at all in the bodybuilder category. A functional and multidiciplinary body is the most attractive in both inside and outside: I want to be able to run 10 km with ease, to sprint 100 meters really fast, to be strong relative to my body weight, to be have flexibility and balance and coordination, and to be strong in absolute terms so that I’m able to lift heavy things. I can probably keep training all these things and slowly get a little bit better at them until eventually age stumps my progression, or I can be a bit more scientific about it.

After reading what feels like every single training program and theory in existence, I feel that there is very solid evidence that basic barbell training combined with some gymnastics and running is the basics for everything unless you want to be very specialised. So starting next year I will try Mark Rippetoe’s Starting Strength program which consists of squat, deadlift, bench press, power clean, overhead press, dips and pullups (the last two are actually optional). This program dictates 3 non-consecutive days of traning per week, so I will be back to mon-wed-fri for a while. Right now it’s tempting to think I’ll do some running tue-thu but seeing as I will be squatting 3 days a week it’s not likely to happen. Since the program emphasises that if you mess with the program you’re not going to get the results it promises, I will really try to be strict and not add a bunch of stuff. I know I will long for running, pure arm exercises, lunges and all that but I will try not to deviate. If you can truly increase your weight every week with this method, as hundreds (if not thousands) of people swear you do, it will be worth it. If that doesn’t work, I get to try new things again! And if it does work, I can try adding gymnastics type stuff and maybe a bit of running to see if that stifles progress or it can be combined. With proper strength to start from, I can try to maintain that and add speed, endurance and all the other cool stuff. Doing it all at once can’t really be optimal, can it?

This time around I don’t think I’ll slip out of training again, I’m in it for the long haul. I’m in the shape of my life but that doesn’t say much — noone would mistake me for an elite athlete, and I’m not about to get offers for modelling underwear any time soon. That’s all OK though, because I don’t keep any type of diet and love beer way too much. But I’m having fun, I keep getting stronger and faster and leaner and meaner and I just feel more relaxed and pleased with my life than I have in a very, very long time. I’m super excited to see if 3 months of this program will give me the something even remotely close to the gains it promises. A 200 kg deadlift would be pretty awesome…