Context

I have a goal for this year (2025) to gain 15 pounds of muscle. I’ve been quite a lean person all of my life, and about 6 years ago got into weight lifting and put on some actual muscle. I’ve flip-flopped through different fitness ‘ideologies’ (calisthenics, 2 rep heavy weights, etc) and I feel like now I’ve landed on some weird middle ground I’m calling weighted calisthenics.

Reflection

I think the most important thing about resistance training is providing your body the opportunity to adapt to a wide range of resistances. So, I’m rotating on a monthly basis between three kinds of over-arching frameworks: the 3 by 5, high-rep burnouts, and a traditional 8-12 rep 3 set exercises.

But, between and among all of these exercises, I’ve learned that I just really like body-weight exercises with a little bit of extra weight. I don’t know what it is, but doing a bunch of lunges holding a sand bag on your shoulders just makes me feel like a bad ass, and it feels like a really great. I’m interested to try more weighted dips, pull-ups, push-ups, etc.