Fifth Draft

Every morning for the last three weeks I’ve done a simple workout routine.

I used to have access to a pretty excellent gym at our apartment complex. After living in a lot of places with “gyms,” mostly involving a few cardio machines and MAYBE some yoga mats, it was nice to live in a spot that had bench and squat bars with a full dumbbell rack. Honestly, it felt like paradise for the time there. Never got to six-pack status, but sure felt like I was making gains.

Since I spend most of my day sitting at a desk writing or sitting in a car driving from student to student, I fell more into the “gym rat” lifestyle. When you can spend more than 42 minutes on Men’s Health researching The Rock’s workout routines, then something’s definitely changed in you.

Overall, I’m not sure how it affected me physically. I gained about 20 pounds, some of it muscle, while the rest of it was fat from over-eating to compensate for the energy output. Was I eating the right stuff? Not always, and my cholesterol suffered because of it. Last weight training I did was over a month ago.

Since we moved into a house, I had to decide if I was going to join up with a gym. I opted against it, since we just bought the house and decided to cut back on everything.

So, what do we do?

The 5-BX Plan, developed by the Royal Canadian Air Force.

My grandfather, a noted football/baseball/softball coach for 30+ years, gave me this packet when I was 17. I did it on and off throughout college, making it to the second to last chart, a staggering achievement from the hill of being 32-years old.

According to the foreword:

The Five Basic Exercises (5BX) Plan presented booklet is designed to show you how to develop and hold a high level of physical fitness, regardless of where you may be located. The scheme is not dependent on elaborate facilities or equipment. The exercises require only eleven minutes a day and can be done in your bedroom or beside your bed in the barracks.

Physical fitness doesn’t have to be anything taxing. In our saturated social media life it’s hard not to see perfect bodies everywhere, but what is it reminding us of? That we’re choosing not to spend 2 hours a day in the gym 7 days a week because we had to take our kids to their after-school sports?

Working out and conditioning should only be for the improvement of your life.

That’s half of it.

Eating is the other half. Cut out sugar when you can. Drink less when you can. You’ll see. Suddenly, your pants fit just a bit better.

You can’t sit around expecting something to change, you need to act.

The plan is comprised of 5 different exercises that can be done in 11 minutes, when you hit that physical peak. Every day. 11 minutes. Every. Day. I’ve been keeping up with this routine since I started waking up at 4am a few weeks ago and already made it to the 2nd chart.

However, the plan says at my age group I should be doing each level for 4 days before moving on. The inner-athlete in me says don’t, move farther. Progress fast. The burning competitive edge in me built up years from playing baseball, soccer, and volleyball can’t allow me to move slow.

So why am I not writing like that?

Thanks for reading,

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