9 Year Old Superhero
I loved comics as a kid, and everybody knows that superheros are usually jacked. Around the time that Tim Burton’s Batman was getting onto home video, I started to wonder a bit about strenght training. Because kids shouldn’t lift weights, I started ocassionally doing some push-ups and sit-ups. It wasn’t much, but it was a start, and it loosely started a fitness routine for me.
Somewhere along the way I saw this scene in the Garfield Christmas Movie where the grandma says “You’re gettin’ soft boy. Take me. I do 100 sit ups every morning.” That sounded like a challenge. Imagine being inspired by a cartoon grandma! To this day, 5 days per week (unless I’m sore for a workout the day before) I do 100 crunches and 20 leg raises, right after I brush my teeth. It doesn’t take much more than two minutes, it engages my core and helps to wake me up in the AM. It just became a part of my routine, and now it seems odd if I don’t do it.
Eat that, grandma!
Who wouldn’t want abs that could stop a bullet?
As A Teen I Wanted Muscles
I was slim, but I was always an athlete. I didn’t start lifting weights with any seriousness until I was 18, though. When I started to see a bit of muscle developing, I did a bunch of reading and latched onto the science at the time. My workouts consisted of what are now referred to as “Bro Splits”, and working out several days a week. I basically eating everything (healthy) I could get my hands on, from sun up to sun down in two hour intervals. I saw some decent muscular gains, too. I went from about 155lbs to 185lbs in about 18 months. I’m around 6’1”. I started feeling great about myself and my body. It was at this point that going to the gym several days a week became a habit, and in the years that followed, I felt odd if I went a long stretch without some rigorous exercise.
Freshman Fit To Ferocious Fighter
This is pretty much where I plateaued, perhaps dropping down to 175-180 while leaning out a bit in college, taking up swimming and squash. I took up MMA when I was 25. Realizing I had some talent for it a year later, I then wanted muscle to make me a better fighter, not just to make me lift heavier. I shed body fat and although I was powerful, I lost some of my brute strength and muscle mass. My walking around weight was around 165-170, and I was fighting at 155lbs.
Don’t even think about messing with the tiger claw!
When I stopped fighting, and moved to Toronto, I continued to change up my workouts, got a little bit back into the “Bro Splits”, and again began to put on muscle and strength. My weight climbed again with my strength.
But then…
Fitness For Real Life As An Adult
Kids, career, ambitions.
I wrote a post a few weeks about about my stumbling onto a workout routine where I’m going to the gym less frequently, yet was still making strength gains. My new routine is changing everything I thought I knew about building muscle – intense full body workouts are taking me past the muscular plateau I hit in my mid-20s. This got me thinking that perhaps what I thought I knew about eating could use an adjustment, as well.
I’ve now been intermittent fasting on the 16/8 (16 hours of no food, with an 8 hour eating window) routine for just over a month. I feel good. What started out as a challenge has become easy. In this past month, I’ve reached records in all of my lifts at the gym. With the exception of this moring’s workout, I’ve been performing exceptionally well at the gym – as well as strength gains, I feel like I’m cutting my workouts off because I’m running out of time, rather than energy. The crazyiset thing of all? I’m still lighter than my max weight from my early 20s, although I do seem to have gained 4 or 5 pounds of mass since I started IF. I seem to have dropped body fat, too – my abs, biceps and shoulders all seem more defined.
Still no food. Is it feeding time, yet?
Since I’m finding the routine pretty easy, I’m going to keep it up. I’m actually considering doing an extended fast (24-72 hours) in the next few weeks, because I’m interested in tapping into those health benefits, as well.
I’ve approached fitness much like a financial advisor would tell you to save for retirement: the earlier you start, the easier it becomes. If you save and invest a little bit every week, then without even noticing, you’ll have a bunch of money. That still doesn’t mean that if you haven’t invested a penny before the age of 40 that you should give up and keep spending. It’s never too late to start making better decisions for your health (or your money).
What do you think? Want to take the grandma abs challenge? Can you think of any habits you could adopt?
Let me know if you have any questions or comments!
