Plague of Strength

I haven’t been writing about my training over the last six weeks because 1) I despise writing about myself, and 2) there is no fucking point in writing about bodyweight shit. You just do it. Lots of it. Then you do more. I’m not going to spend the day walking around with a notepad so I can record if I did 300 rather than 400 pullups in a day, because who fucking cares anyway? I certainly don’t give a fuck- if I feel like I should have done more, I likely should have. That’s been the motto for the last six weeks, and it’s paid off.

Yesterday I joined an underground gym, as they extended our shutdown indefinitely and I’m not about that life. I genuinely don’t care what your opinion is on this, because experience has proven that it’s probably stupid, selfish, and generally horrible- my logic boiled down to the fact that a month shutdown was an impressive gesture from healthy people to the infirm. Six weeks was fucking heroic. Ten weeks is stupid, insulting to the people who’ve already put their lives on hold for the feeble, and unnecessary, hence my return to the gym.

Yesterday was my first day, and as the gym was small and packed, I did what was free- I pulled a ton of singles on the Pit-Shark with a fat bar, which was essentially a fat bar deadlift. I’ve no idea how that weight relates to actual bar weight, but as I haven’t deadlifted once since 2014, I had no great expectations. I ended up pulling a lot of singles with somewhere in excess of 900 pounds of plate weights, which was a nice ego boost, if nothing else. Thereafter, I slowly worked up to 365 on flat bench singles for a few, then repped out with 315 and 225 for a couple of sets each. With 45 mins of each exercise under my belt, I left- easy peasy.

I’m hardly suggesting I set the world on fire with the weights I moved, but I haven’t flat benched since last fall (I abandoned it for a 405 incline that barely escaped my clutches due to shoulder knotting) and haven’t touched a barbell in nigh on seven weeks, so I would say that was a stellar day at the gym. And the way I did it?

Free squats– done randomly in sets of 30-50 for a total of 300-500, then during whatever breaks I have in video games that evening. If I die in COD WW2, I do five to ten squats before I respawn- that sort of thing. I did them roughly every other day after waiting a couple of weeks for the gym to reopen.

Dips– 500-1000 every other day in sets of 25-50. I built a dipping station in the backyard for that reason using scrap lumber and some tent post anchors. At least, that’s what they looked like- I’m not a handy man by any stretch of the imagination.

Pullups– 100-500 every day or so. Mostly neutral (pals-facing) grip, but occasionally three finger overhand pullups with a close grip. The doorframe in which my pullup bar is set doesn’t allow for wide grip pullups.

TRX rows and chest flies– super high rep on the rows, less so on the flies, done whenever I felt like it.

Band Overhead Press– I did a fuckload of them every couple of days.

Band Curls– did these pretty much daily, throughout the day. My arms reflect that- they’re filling out my 2XL sleeves now.

And there you have it- training at home without weights will maintain an appreciable amount of your strength, if not all of it. As to size, Tara insists I am actually bigger, though that might just be due to the fact that we at pizza three times a week for the last two months, haha. That said, I didn’t gain much, if any, fat. I’d take pics but I’m not an Insta superstar, hate seeing photos of myself, and generally have zero incentive to be bothered with photography.

Fear not- the weights will bow before you when you return to their cold, steely bosom.

Liked it? Take a second to support Jamie Chaos on Patreon!