04-05-2024, 03:57 PM
The sixth thing that has worked for me, and still works, is what I call the “Truth Seeker’s way”. And yeah, It’s heavily influenced by Truth Seeker and this whole website. It’s still very basic calisthenics stuff but more straightforward.
In the summer of 2022, I injured myself while I was camping. From the campsite there was only a short distance to a great beach and the weather was fine. I did some sprinting on the beach with my dog. I didn’t notice any problems, but after the trip I realized that I couldn’t really workout properly because I had a strange pain that felt like it was in the lower abs region. I couldn’t really do none of the stuff I normally did. Pull-ups hurt, push ups hurt, everything was hurting. I tried not to train for a few weeks and ease back into it, but the pain was there.
I was once again too lazy and sad to do anything about the injury, but I finally went to a great physiotherapist. The physio found out that I had hurt my hip flexor, psoas muscle. I ended up going to the physio seven times all together during the following 7-8 moths. I did the rehab exercises every other day religiously. But the pain was there all the time. At some point I was able to carefully do pull-ups. Push ups still hurt like hell, but then I started doing dips. For legs I was able to do Bulgarian split squats, which was something I recalled from Truth Seeker’s writings. And of course, TS had and has written a lot about pull-ups and dips also.
I remembered a lot of good stuff from NattyOrNot articles, books (especially The End. Natty Maximization) and from this forum. One of the things that TS and members of this site had written in the past was about the strength standards. For example, the following:
“Squat - 1.5BW
Deadlift - 2.5BW
Bench press - 1.2 BW
Press - 0.8BW
15 pull-ups in a row
20 dips in a row”
I couldn’t hit the gym and reach for all those numbers, so I thought what would happen if I only did dips and pull-ups for the upper body. So, then I began doing them with the following program:
Monday: Pull-ups, 2 warm-up sets, 2-3 hard work sets
Tuesday: Dips, 2 warm-up sets, 2-3 hard work sets
Wednesday: Bulgarian split squats, 2 warm-ups sets, 2 work sets per both legs
Thursday: Pull-ups, 2 warm-up sets, 2-3 hard work sets
Friday: Dips, 2 warm-up sets, 2-3 hard work sets
Saturday: Bulgarian split squats, 2 warm-ups sets, 2 work sets per both legs
My work sets were tough, but only to form failure. For some time, I even quit doing warm-up sets altogether, I just did 2 hard sets with all the movements.
Because there wasn’t much else to do, I also started to pay attention to my diet more. By the end of 2022 I had become so frustrated with my gut that I decided to start cutting my weight off at the beginning of 2023. One reason for this was also the fact that I was going to go for a three-week vacation in March, and I didn’t want to feel like shit while there. So pretty much from the first day of 2023 I started my diet.
The first thing I did was a rough estimate of the calories I was consuming at the time. I put my meals in an online calorie calculator and got the results. I was eating well actually, but there was too much fat in my diet, although they were the healthy kinds. I had started to add nuts and virgin olive oil to a lot of things at some point to make me feel fuller, but it had backfired. So, I adjusted the amounts, I also reduced a bit from the carbs, but I was still eating mostly carbs. I had to add a bit of protein which wasn’t a surprise because I have always been bad with the proteins. I also had started to eat mostly plant-based stuff earlier, and because of that I had to be aware of the proteins.
In about eight weeks I lost a lot of weight. I didn’t really weigh myself until I was already a lot thinner, probably at six weeks. I think I lost about 10 kilograms in total in 2 months. It felt good when I realized that most of the clothes I used when COVID started were too big for me. Oh yeah, one more thing I did was I had started to walk a lot. I walked three times daily with the dog, and then I tried to add as much as possible during the day wherever I was, shopping etc. All in all, I was doing pull-ups, dips, Bulgarian split squats, and walking. And on top of that I was eating less.
This is me at the tender age of 40 in a vacation on March of 2023. Nothing much to show really.
This picture was taken about a month after the vacation. Sorry about the bad editing, I don’t really have the know how and energy ? Once again, nothing to show. I’m a bit leaner than during the vacation. In the picture the atrophy in my right arm and shoulder can be seen very well compared to the left arm. This is because of an old shoulder injury.
The following three pictures are taken on May 2023 and in these pictures I’m leaner than in the earlier pictures:
I was going after the Christmas tree look with my back but didn’t really get there ? This picture is taken after a short session during lunch so there is a small pump.
This picture was taken without a pump. I tried to flex the back once again but with poor results.
This is taken after a short session. I’m not flexing muscles, I’m a bit out of breath probably and so sucking the stomach in, so this looks a lot better than reality. The only thing I can say that my pecs stand out a bit. Which is the only thing that ever stand out in my physique. Unfortunately, the rest oft the body isn’t quite there.
In all the pictures I look like shit. But then again, I’m over forty-year-old father and before those pictures I had been doing only three exercises per week for about 6-8 months. Again, I think that the return of investment Is and has been ok.
Positives:
- I was able to do this program even with the injury
- The program was very simple to do and follow
- Dips and pullups cover the upper body pretty well
- Training didn’t take too much time
Negatives:
- Legs didn’t get that much work
- Imbalance compared to what I was used to do
- If you don’t use it, you’ll lose it, so I’ve been experiencing some pains in neck and lower back which both I did train in the past
- Boredom, doing the same stuff day in day out
Overall, I liked and still like the program because I’m still doing it. A good question is what if I had always done this little? I think I would look pretty much the same. This hasn’t of course been an option because I still feel like I need to exercise pretty much daily for my mental health. But during the last couple of years, I have many times wondered how little I could do to keep my shitty physique at the level where it’s now.
First, I thought that 2 sets of pull-ups and dips twice a week and 2 x 15-20 minutes runs would be enough. Then later I started to believe that even one session a week would be enough. Then I felt that one tough set a week would be enough. Now I feel that doing slow and controlled set of 5 reps of pull-ups and dips would really be enough.
I'm not sure where my training is going now. I’m starting to feel that I’m kind of losing my interest in it, but I’m afraid to cut the volume even more, because I don’t know what it does to my mental health. For years I’ve felt that training is like a light for me every time things get too dark to see. I saw myself training until the later stages of my life. Now that I’m starting to lose it, it feels very strange. Like losing an old friend.
In the summer of 2022, I injured myself while I was camping. From the campsite there was only a short distance to a great beach and the weather was fine. I did some sprinting on the beach with my dog. I didn’t notice any problems, but after the trip I realized that I couldn’t really workout properly because I had a strange pain that felt like it was in the lower abs region. I couldn’t really do none of the stuff I normally did. Pull-ups hurt, push ups hurt, everything was hurting. I tried not to train for a few weeks and ease back into it, but the pain was there.
I was once again too lazy and sad to do anything about the injury, but I finally went to a great physiotherapist. The physio found out that I had hurt my hip flexor, psoas muscle. I ended up going to the physio seven times all together during the following 7-8 moths. I did the rehab exercises every other day religiously. But the pain was there all the time. At some point I was able to carefully do pull-ups. Push ups still hurt like hell, but then I started doing dips. For legs I was able to do Bulgarian split squats, which was something I recalled from Truth Seeker’s writings. And of course, TS had and has written a lot about pull-ups and dips also.
I remembered a lot of good stuff from NattyOrNot articles, books (especially The End. Natty Maximization) and from this forum. One of the things that TS and members of this site had written in the past was about the strength standards. For example, the following:
“Squat - 1.5BW
Deadlift - 2.5BW
Bench press - 1.2 BW
Press - 0.8BW
15 pull-ups in a row
20 dips in a row”
I couldn’t hit the gym and reach for all those numbers, so I thought what would happen if I only did dips and pull-ups for the upper body. So, then I began doing them with the following program:
Monday: Pull-ups, 2 warm-up sets, 2-3 hard work sets
Tuesday: Dips, 2 warm-up sets, 2-3 hard work sets
Wednesday: Bulgarian split squats, 2 warm-ups sets, 2 work sets per both legs
Thursday: Pull-ups, 2 warm-up sets, 2-3 hard work sets
Friday: Dips, 2 warm-up sets, 2-3 hard work sets
Saturday: Bulgarian split squats, 2 warm-ups sets, 2 work sets per both legs
My work sets were tough, but only to form failure. For some time, I even quit doing warm-up sets altogether, I just did 2 hard sets with all the movements.
Because there wasn’t much else to do, I also started to pay attention to my diet more. By the end of 2022 I had become so frustrated with my gut that I decided to start cutting my weight off at the beginning of 2023. One reason for this was also the fact that I was going to go for a three-week vacation in March, and I didn’t want to feel like shit while there. So pretty much from the first day of 2023 I started my diet.
The first thing I did was a rough estimate of the calories I was consuming at the time. I put my meals in an online calorie calculator and got the results. I was eating well actually, but there was too much fat in my diet, although they were the healthy kinds. I had started to add nuts and virgin olive oil to a lot of things at some point to make me feel fuller, but it had backfired. So, I adjusted the amounts, I also reduced a bit from the carbs, but I was still eating mostly carbs. I had to add a bit of protein which wasn’t a surprise because I have always been bad with the proteins. I also had started to eat mostly plant-based stuff earlier, and because of that I had to be aware of the proteins.
In about eight weeks I lost a lot of weight. I didn’t really weigh myself until I was already a lot thinner, probably at six weeks. I think I lost about 10 kilograms in total in 2 months. It felt good when I realized that most of the clothes I used when COVID started were too big for me. Oh yeah, one more thing I did was I had started to walk a lot. I walked three times daily with the dog, and then I tried to add as much as possible during the day wherever I was, shopping etc. All in all, I was doing pull-ups, dips, Bulgarian split squats, and walking. And on top of that I was eating less.
This is me at the tender age of 40 in a vacation on March of 2023. Nothing much to show really.
This picture was taken about a month after the vacation. Sorry about the bad editing, I don’t really have the know how and energy ? Once again, nothing to show. I’m a bit leaner than during the vacation. In the picture the atrophy in my right arm and shoulder can be seen very well compared to the left arm. This is because of an old shoulder injury.
The following three pictures are taken on May 2023 and in these pictures I’m leaner than in the earlier pictures:
I was going after the Christmas tree look with my back but didn’t really get there ? This picture is taken after a short session during lunch so there is a small pump.
This picture was taken without a pump. I tried to flex the back once again but with poor results.
This is taken after a short session. I’m not flexing muscles, I’m a bit out of breath probably and so sucking the stomach in, so this looks a lot better than reality. The only thing I can say that my pecs stand out a bit. Which is the only thing that ever stand out in my physique. Unfortunately, the rest oft the body isn’t quite there.
In all the pictures I look like shit. But then again, I’m over forty-year-old father and before those pictures I had been doing only three exercises per week for about 6-8 months. Again, I think that the return of investment Is and has been ok.
Positives:
- I was able to do this program even with the injury
- The program was very simple to do and follow
- Dips and pullups cover the upper body pretty well
- Training didn’t take too much time
Negatives:
- Legs didn’t get that much work
- Imbalance compared to what I was used to do
- If you don’t use it, you’ll lose it, so I’ve been experiencing some pains in neck and lower back which both I did train in the past
- Boredom, doing the same stuff day in day out
Overall, I liked and still like the program because I’m still doing it. A good question is what if I had always done this little? I think I would look pretty much the same. This hasn’t of course been an option because I still feel like I need to exercise pretty much daily for my mental health. But during the last couple of years, I have many times wondered how little I could do to keep my shitty physique at the level where it’s now.
First, I thought that 2 sets of pull-ups and dips twice a week and 2 x 15-20 minutes runs would be enough. Then later I started to believe that even one session a week would be enough. Then I felt that one tough set a week would be enough. Now I feel that doing slow and controlled set of 5 reps of pull-ups and dips would really be enough.
I'm not sure where my training is going now. I’m starting to feel that I’m kind of losing my interest in it, but I’m afraid to cut the volume even more, because I don’t know what it does to my mental health. For years I’ve felt that training is like a light for me every time things get too dark to see. I saw myself training until the later stages of my life. Now that I’m starting to lose it, it feels very strange. Like losing an old friend.