I thought it was essential for me to stay fit during the second lockdown. It was a great way for my body and mind to escape from online learning and the stress that it came with. While exercising I was able to put my mind back on reset. It feels good exercising as I was able to put some time and effort into my health and keep me steady during these tough times. Keeping myself occupied with something that I can pour my effort into was beneficial for me, especially when you tend to lose track of what you are doing in this pandemic. Time truly flies when you’re stuck in one place doing the same systematic cycle day and night. While exercising I was able to sort of break free from this and to truly focus on myself.

My weight training workouts are actually pretty simple. I find that from a cognitive fatigue standpoint and my hefty amounts of work. I do three such workouts per week, typically with 48 hours between, and my workouts take somewhere in the range of 45-60 minutes.

There’s actually some evidence that hitting a muscle over and over again with similar exercise, movements, sets, and reps can actually be very good for muscle hypertrophy. If my goal were purely metabolic stimuli, I’d use quite a few additional workouts, but I keep things relatively simple for hypertrophy. 

Muscle Building Workout: Basic Full Body Protocol

First, I perform a warm-up for about 5 minutes such as skipping or shadow boxing or anything else that dynamically prepares the body for movement and elevates the heart rate. I usually finish my warm-up with a quick set of 100 jumping jacks or 30 burpees.

Next, I choose one exercise of my own choice, following the order below:

• Upper Body Push (1)
• Lower Body Push (1)
• Upper Body Pull (1)
• Lower Body Pull (1)
• Full Body Move (1)

Then I pair each of the exercises above with one exercise from the “Core/Mobility” which is in the list below:

Gradually adding weight and decreasing repetitions or maintaining repetitions with each strength set (if do-able with good form), I complete 6-10 repetitions of the first Strength exercise (e.g. Upper Body Push) in a slow, controlled fashion. Next, I complete 10-20 repetitions of a Core/Mobility movement of choice (for active recovery), preferably choosing a Core/Mobility movement that does not exhaust or work the same muscles that I used during my strength set.

Then I go straight back to the Strength set, do another set and follow it up with the same Core/Mobility exercise for active recovery. I continue this scenario until I have completed 3-5 sets for both the Strength move and the Core/Mobility move and then move on to the next movement category (e.g. Upper Body Pull). I then continue until I have finished all movement categories (one Upper Body Push, one Lower Body Push, one Upper Body Pull, one Lower Body Pull, and one Full Body Move).

After this workout, I usually continue with some light shadowboxing to get my muscles to work in full motion.