Self-Experiment: A Healthy Body

One of my favorite pastimes is sports. I work out every day when life permits it.

But working out wasn’t always so important to me. Not at all.

I was overweight growing up. This ranged from mildly chubby to looking like I would suffer a heart attack in the next five minutes.

I was at my lowest mentally when my weight peaked in 2018: I had ballooned up to more than 120 kilograms. With a height of about 170 centimeters I made it into the “obese” camp. Yeah!

Then came the slow way out of the slump.

From spring of 2018 to spring of 2019 I lost about 20 kilograms. But I was still way too heavy.

Then 2020 rolled around.

I was already on another weight loss trip when then unthinkable happened: Covid.

Everything went into lockdown.

A horrible time for the world, but it gave me the necessary downtime to make weight loss my main goal. I focused hard. Worked out every day. Cleaned up my diet.

That led to me losing 25 kilograms in about five months.

For the first time ever since I was a child, I was lean.

From then on, daily workout routines became the norm. I kept up my routine: lifting three times a week and running almost daily.

But then biology gave me a reality check.

I had to catch a train, but I was already late. I worked out much more often than the average person, so running up the stairs to the platform shouldn’t have been a problem. It also wasn’t a cardiovascular bottleneck, but a structural one: when I started sprinting up the stairs, it felt like somebody rammed an icicle into my right knee. It was the knee I had to have ACL surgery four years prior.

Ever since the surgery, my knee felt weaker than before. Not only that, it felt swollen as well.

That’s why I went to see a physical therapist. I religiously followed the exercise plan she gave me to alleviate my knee pain.

Didn’t work.

To be honest, it made it worse in some cases.

That isn’t to say one should never go to a physical therapist. Not at all. It’s one of the professions that helped me on my fitness journey the most. But sometimes the methods they were taught are out of date.

But I love science, so I believed it blindly (which turns it into another form of religion, but that’s a topic for another day). I’d just lift and sometimes go running.

Before I realized it, I had become a typical gym bro.

I started panting walking up a flight of stairs even though I worked out five times a week.

For every kilogram of muscle I gained, I lost half of my flexibility.

Watch out, Tommy the tin man coming through.

A Tale of Training

There’s no way I wanted to stay the rest of my life in such a miserable-feeling body. Yet the workout plans I got from my physical therapist nor my gym trainer worked. When it comes down to it, you have to save yourself. So I started conducting research into other training methods. Desperation had set in, so even though the training methods might have been considered a little out there, it didn’t matter. I was sick of feeling like a pile of rusty extremities.

Then I found Ben Patrick, the Kneesovertoesguy.

I started doing his workouts. After about two weeks, I felt a significant improvement in my knee pain. His exercises didn’t just train the muscles around my knee, but something neglected by gym bros around the world: flexibility.

But there’s one guy that I admire even more than Ben Patrick, and that’s the Bioneer:

He also looks at the mental side of training. What I love most, though, is that he’s also a huge geek like myself:

Yes, he trained like Batman for five years. What a legend.

(An honorable mention also has to go to Nsima Inyang. I wouldn’t mind being so awesome at BJJ)

Armed with this knowledge, I’m the most athletic I’ve ever been, right?

Absolutely not, because I forgot it again.

Instead, I started chasing arbitrary numbers again. Nobody knows why – and it surely doesn’t have anything to do with vanity.

I started going to the gym again purely for building muscle. My stiffness returned in an instant.

Which brings us to today.

That’s why I’m going to switch up my workout plan again, this time with the right goals in mind. The goals that will allow me to move in advanced age as if I were a young man. Your body is your vehicle getting you through this wondrous adventure called life, so we better take care of it.

And this is what my new training plan aims to achieve.

The Workout

Upper body

• Pull ups: One of the best feelings I’ve ever had was doing my first pull up. After not being able to do half a pull up for most of my life, it’s now become one of my favorite exercises.
• Push ups: Enough said. Great workout for building your chest, frontal shoulders, and triceps. When you do it with proper form, you also get core activation.
• Pike push ups: Awesome for shoulder strength and a great way to progress into a handstand. Also gives me a stretch in my hamstrings and calves.
• Hanging leg raises: Even when I lost all that weight and was about 10% body fat, my abs weren’t really visible. That changed when I started doing hanging leg raises. A strong core is only one benefit. It also improves grip strength. Phenomenal exercise.
• Hollow body holds: I hate planks. Hollow body holds are the big bad brother of planks. But they will get your core going like nothing else.
• Rock climbing / bouldering: If I can squeeze it in there, I love to go bouldering. Because I have a fear of heights, I also want to incorporate rock climbing to overcome it. It’s also a fun way to get exercise in. Win-win.

Lower body

• Tibialis raise: Go until you feel a burn. It doesn’t look glorious, but it’s effective.
• ATG split squats: I hold the record for the tightest hip flexors on the planet. This exercise doesn’t just get my legs going, it also gives me a loaded stretch in my hip flexors, quad on the opposite leg, as well as my calf.
• Deep knee bend: I don’t know what this exercise does, but it makes me feel cool.
• Cossack squats: I put a kettlebell up to my chest, then lower myself from side to side. The first time I did this exercise, the soreness was insane. Very cool!
• Jefferson curl: Great for hamstring flexibility and the lower back.
• Kettlebell swings: A fun way to get in cardio while getting stronger.
• Hanging leg raises: Rips your abs apart. Not fun while you’re doing them, but you’ll thank yourself when you have a monster of a core…and in summer for other reasons.
• Hollow body holds: Here we go again.

Cardio

• Running: One of the most innately human movements there is. Great for overall health. Also, since offline dating apps running clubs are sprouting like crazy, it might even enlarge your social circle.
• Sprinting: Extremely fun. Sprinting up and down whichever surface makes me feel like a kid again.
• Jump rope: It’s fun, improves your coordination, and helps you get a fighter physique. Also, there are studies showing it improves your bone density.

Brazilian Jiu Jitsu

I’ve never participated in an activity that humbled me while improving my confidence until I started with BJJ. It’s high-stakes problem-solving without having to suffer any of the consequences. You’re getting choked, but you can just tap. A high-intensity exercise that teaches you how to defend yourself (to some degree) while improving your problem-solving skills? Sign me up – and that’s what you should do, too.

Stretching

I don’t like stretching. This is the main reason I put flexibility-enhancing exercises in my workout routine. But static stretching is still essential for having a smooth, flexible body. I could try out Yoga at some point. But for the time being, this is the stretching routine I can muster:

• Couch stretch
• Elephant walk
• Calf stretch
• Downward facing dog

Working it out along the way

I’m going to check back after some weeks – hopefully with some great results. It’ll change me somehow, that’s for sure.

Don’t put too much pressure on it, though. Always treat what you’re doing as an experiment. An experiment cannot fail by nature because it will give you what you’re looking for anyway: new and better information.

You’re never too old to start taking care of your body. I started in my mid-twenties, and my life improved hundredfold. Start doing it now, your future self will thank you for it.