My Fitness Journey
Hi Everyone,
So today I wanted to talk about my fitness journey and it’s different from most of the journey’s your read about online since in my case, rather than being a weight loss journey, it’s a weight gain journey.
Whilst most people struggle to lose weight I’m on of those people who has always struggled to keep weight on and build muscle. I know a lot of you are probably screaming at the computer right now saying how you’d love to be in my shoes and how amazing it must be to not have to worry about gaining weight after a holiday or Christmas and you have a fair point.
But I know there are other people like me out there who are eternally skinny and would love to be able to put on a few pounds. Those of us who are just sick of being so small and skinny and that no matter how much chicken and rice we eat and how many pints of milk we drink we just can’t build serious muscle.
And to be fair, my diet is solid and I’ve never just tried to let go and eat a ton of ice cream, crisps, chocolate, doughnuts and other snacks so maybe if I ate like that I’d see a significant weight change. But that’s not the kind of change I’m looking for and I’m not willing to give up my health to try.
I’d say my fitness journey started sometime around when I was 15. I’d always been bullied in primary school (as is the case with a lot of people who now religiously go to the gym) and whilst I managed to get in with the ‘cool kids’ in secondary school, I wasn’t going to be picked for the rugby team (not that they have rugby in Luxembourg where I was living at the time). I was seriously skinny. I didn’t really like eating too much food and going to the gym and bulking up wasn’t something that 15 year olds did where I was.
But I had this yearning to get bigger and stronger. To be able to hold my own in a fight (not that I ever fought) but at least look like I’d not be easy pickings and also of course to have that 6-pack and big arms to impress the ladies. We all go through that stage.
The internet was still fairly young back then and I don’t think they sold the US bodybuilding magazines near me. I managed to find some rudimental exercises and practiced on ‘working out’ in my room with some of lightweights my mum had and other fitness gimmicks that I can only image are sold on TV like some strange band system that attaches to a door.
I eventually got a pair of those dumbbells where you can change the weight and managed to get two that go up to 17.5kg and got a big swiss ball that I could use as a makeshift bench as well as all the ab workouts you can do with a swiss ball cause it’s all about them abs (or at least it was back then).
Where it all really started to pick up was when I got to boarding school in Ireland. There was a gym in the school that we could use everyday and I was fed 3–4 meals a day with multiple courses. I remember at 17 being at my current height so 5’10 or 1.78m and weighing only 58kg or 127lbs.
I got a little workout book with two workouts in, a push and pull (both upper body) and everyday after study group, I got the key to the gym off the boarding house director and hit the gym with a few mates. I did this for the remainder of my time at school and even started playing around with protein powder.
The regular gym sessions and the regular Irish food did wonders and by the time I left school for University I was weighing in around 67–68kgs or 150lbs. (I wish I’d found squatting in that time since I’m sure I’d doubled the gain). Not huge but also no longer super skinny. And I could bench what I thought at the time was a respectable weight. (Probably about 70kg)
The University Years
This is where the fun started. I joined the Army Reserves in my gap year which I credit with giving me a lot more grit and resilience to physical pain and exertion. Strength training and muscle building was put on the back burner whilst I had to get comfortable tabbing (military walking/marching) long distances with 45lbs on my back and a rifle in my hands of rough terrain. Running up hills on Salisbury Plain with tons of heavy ammunition and then retreating back down the hill with you mate on your back as a casualty gave my lungs and legs a run for their money.
It was when I got to Royal Holloway University that my fitness journey really started to accelerate. I joined the gym and the Thai Boxing club in my first week and finally started to do some real training in the gym. I also finally started squatting. I started to live and breathe fitness with regular 7am gym sessions, 7pm Thai Boxing sessions and weekend runs with the Thai boxing team or out with the army. I also started dropping a lot of cash on all the supplements under the sun. Pre-workout, intra-workout, post workout. Bedtime protein. You name it, I had it.
I discovered programmes such as Madcow or Bill Starr’s 5x5, Stonglifts 5x5, GVT as well as techniques like hypertrophy, negatives and having different meso cycles. I also dipped my foot into crossfit and started getting into barbell work and strength and conditioning. We’d do gym sessions for strength and then run conditioning sessions in our garden with kettlebells, tyre slams, med balls and power bags.
At university I managed to bulk up to 84kg/185lbs and was finally no longer seen as the small skinny guy. It did not help my speed in thai boxing I must say as thai boxers are very lean and fast so it made competing very difficult (and painful). I tried out diet protocols such as GOMAD which stands for gallon of milk a day (I only did half a gallon since student budget) and started roasting a chicken with sweet potatoes, spinach and peas for lunch and dinner every day with a few snacks of peanut butter and bananas in between.
Post-University
Fast forward to post university and I decided to challenge myself with a new sport. I started playing rugby for a local club to put the bulk and muscle I’d been working on for the last few years to the test.
In terms of gym work I started cycling through different training cycles to work on different facets of my health and fitness and also move towards a more functional strength approach rather than just pure 1RM powerlifting strength. This involved doing more conditioning work alongside the conditioning from rugby training and adding in protocols such as EMOMs or Every minute on the minute with the barbell.
After picking up an injury playing rugby I decided to try my hand at getting better at the olympic lifts and started a programme focused on the snatch and clean and jerk. This was also great at getting my shoulder back to full strength after a dislocation and improved my mobility.
I continued to follow my diet plan of lots of chicken and veg and as I got older my need to eat lots started to decrease which was great on my wallet and food budget. It was also at this stage where I discovered intermittent fasting and started doing the 16/8 version of this which I kept to for a few years. The 16/8 fasting protocol is where you fast for 16 hours followd by an 8 hour eating window. In practice for me this meant that my first meal of the day was at 1pm and my I’d have a few afternoon snacks. I’d then hit the gym after work at about 6pm and then have a large dinner as my final meal of the day post gym before starting the fast until 1pm the next day.
It’s actually very easy to do this since half of the fast you’re asleep and I could happily get through the morning with some coffee.
The fasting was great at changing my body composition and torching off any bodyfat I’d gained whilst trying to put on a lot of weight. I leaned out nicely without losing any weight. I stopped following this religiously after a couple of years and now loosely do some kind of fasting but but also just let me body dictate when I eat. After quite a few years I’ve gotten dialed in to what I need to eat and when and don’t follow a very strict diet anymore.
It was around 2016 where I discovered the Squat Every Day programme. If you’ve read any of my previous posts you’ll be aware that I’m a big fan of this and got great results on it. I followed this for about a year and was at my strongest and fittest in all the lifts during this period. The only reason I stopped it was because I was missing my gym buddy having moved house and decided to join a new crossfit gym to try it out and get a sense of community. I was a member of a crossfit gym for a couple of years before moving house again and going back to a ‘globo gym’.
The last few years i’ve been programming my workouts on the go depending on my goals and current state. I’ve had some time focused on building up my strength again. Spent some time focused on the olympic lifts. Spend some time focusing on general preparedness and functional fitness and also like to try out new protocols or systems to see what results I’m getting.
I’ve also spend a lot of time focusing on health and mindset. This means I’ve completely cleaned up the quality of food I eat. I mostly eat what I want but this looks very different after years of being diet aware. I eat good quality grass fed beef and chickens that are free of any chemicals. I eat organic free range eggs. I eat a lot of bread but only eat bread that’s been homemade and contains only the 4 ingredients that are meant to be in bread. The same with pasta, all pasta I eat is homemade. I eat fruit and veg that is local and in season and 99% of my food is home cooked.
I’ve focused on my quality of sleep extensively too over the years and now use an oura ring to track it. A good diet and good sleep as well as plenty of water is key to seeing great results in the gym and having the energy needed to get a good day of quality work in too. It’s also great for overall health and limiting illness.
Most recently when gyms closed during lockdown I got certified in steel mace training which is a great tool for building functional fitness and having fun as well as being creative with different flows. A side effect of doing just kettlebell, bodyweight and mace work for a few months and not lifting heavy meant that I leaned out even more and am now weighing in around 78kgs. My current programming is to get back to full strength with gyms open again and will look to compete in some local powerlifting competitions next year.
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This article was written by Stuart Munnich. If you’d like to know more or receive notifications for future articles, please head over to the Agoge Project Website or subscribe to updates right here!
