Two weeks ago I finished Alexander JA Cortes’ ‘Wolverine Program’. Here was me before:
And a comparison shot immediately after finishing:
And a better angle two weeks later:
Whilst it’s not been some crazy transformation like we regularly see online, I’ve gained a lot of muscle and definition. I’m naturally skinny and I don’t look like some sculpted Greek God now, but you can see clear and obvious improvements in my shoulders and arms in particular. Whilst my abs aren’t that obvious, they are hard and tight and my back has size and width which was lacking before. My fiancée tells me my butt is swole as fuck (not her words) too.
Even though this program worked great for an absolute beginner, someone with more experience than me would have greater success at dialling it in and getting YOKED. Unfortunately, as I’m a newbie (and/or idiot) I didn’t get the most out of it. But it still kicked my ass.
So I’m gonna give an open, warts and all, account of my experience with the Wolverine Program – and weight training in general.
Program
The program is 5 months long, but despite this it took me a little over 6 months to complete. I’ll explain why later. Now, even though it took me 6 months I didn’t miss a single work out, but I had periods where I could not commit to intense training 5 days a week.
Excuses?
Perhaps.
Honesty?
Definitely.
But even with this haphazard approach to training, you can see the difference in my physique.
So what I’m gonna do is go through what I learnt, what I did wrong (a lot) and what I did right (a little) during this course of time.
My reasoning for this is to show you I’m a normal person, perfectly flawed and fundamentally fucked up. I’m not fake, and I won’t present a picture of my life that is not in line with reality. Not only this, I want to show that you don’t need to get things down perfectly to progress. You just need to DO IT.
Live by the mantra of progress over perfection, and your life WILL improve.
The Spark
First things first: before starting I’d never been to a gym before. I mean, obviously I’d been inside them – on occasion – and I have done exercise of some form throughout my life. I played football (soccer to my American readers) for most of my childhood up until I was 16 – stopping after my team dissolved instead of joining a new one is a great regret of mine – and I have always cycled regularly. Since I was 20 I’ve done home workouts consisting of press-up variations and a few other bits and bobs, body weight squats and the like, but I didn’t have any consistent plan or real idea of what I was doing; I just knew exercise was good for you and therefore doing some was better than doing none.
So I wasn’t a complete slob.
But a skinny fuck?
Yes.
Strong and fit?
No.
Since joining Twitter I’d had my eyes opened to the benefits of weight lifting. Previous to this, I’d always considered it a pursuit of vanity. A position birthed from insecurity, luckily I developed past this mental block. But I had no idea how to start. It seemed daunting – and I’ll readily admit I was nervous about how skinny I was compared to my perception of other gym goers.
But I wanted to begin.
All I needed was a spark.
And, as if by serendipitous magic, an email dropped into my inbox from AJAC giving the first 3 weeks of (what was) his soon to be released ‘Thanos’ program. (PS if you’re not signed up to his email list, get the fuck on it. It’s hugely valuable).
I no longer had the excuse of “I wouldn’t know what to do.” I had a 3 week prescription to follow. I’m not a total fucktard and I was pretty sure I knew how to use YouTube, so with the names of the exercises to follow I could easily find out how to do them, right?
Right!
So I jumped in and started working out, checking form videos as I went.
And I’m pleased to say I enjoyed it. There’s something primal and immensely satisfying about lifting up heavy things. And even after three weeks, I was already seeing improvement. When the mini-course was finished I was kinda sad it was over.
Well, I guess AJAC’s marketing strategy was effective, because I decided to buy one of his programs.
Reasoning
I can’t remember exactly what prompted me to specifically buy the ‘Wolverine Program’. I think it was probably its length. Being 5 months long, I felt I was getting bang for my buck. I live and work in Asia and whilst I have a very high standard of living here, it doesn’t translate that well to dollars and pounds.
So, being a tight-fisted fucker 5 months sounded like a goddamn steal.
Bargain mate.
I also saw it as a greater test of discipline. I mean, 5 months is nearly half a year. If I could finish it, I’d be proud. Following this line of thinking, I knew that it would engender greater change as a result.
So I bought it and got straight on to working out. I continued watching videos in an attempt to get my form right, but I was the typical newbie trainer. After a couple of weeks I thought I was strong [I definitely wasn’t]; I thought I had perfect form [obviously I hadn’t]; I thought my weight was too light [it was too heavy].
Yes, I made all the rookie mistakes – and I’m still making them. But once again, the principle of progress over perfection stands me in good stead.
Alongside these general blunders, I did plenty wrong in relation to following the program. So let’s get at my fucktardery.
Strength
The first section is strength building. It’s 8 weeks training 4 days a week, slowly building up reps and then weight as you go. The program also mandates steady-state cardio for 120 minutes a week.
Looking at my training diary I started with lifting 5×5 15kg on my deadlift, and by the end of this stage I was doing 5×5 50kg. That’s quite an improvement. I couldn’t tell you if I was lifting correctly or if that’s even remotely impressive, but I can tell you I looked and felt stronger by that point.
Now, 5 weeks in to stage 1 I got a cold as the seasons changed. I tried training through it but that prevented my recovery. Because of this I took the decision to stop until I was 100% better. This led to ~2 weeks of training missed.
When I was better I picked up where I left off.
A few weeks later section one was finished. Looking in the mirror, I was already happy with my purchase.
Hypertrophy
Stage 2 is a hypertrophy section. Here the training kicks up to 5 days a week and is much more intense. The cardio also changed from steady state, to HIIT. But I once again rang into a snag; during this period heavy pollution hit (see this article if you want to see just how polluted it was where I lived for 3 months…). As a result, I took the decision to stop all cardio. My lungs were getting blasted enough just by living, let alone exercising hard (550 ppm were being measured on a daily basis).
You can call this excuse making. I call it adapting to your environment.
Despite this, I kept up 5 days a week training. I have 6 weeks holiday a year and happily it coincided with this stage. Perfect. I could easily maintain the intensity required, working out in the morning every day with plenty of time for recovery. But there were two major things I got wrong in this period:
- Nutrition
- Complacency
What do I mean by this?
Mistakes
Well, this is the ‘bulking’ stage of the program and simply put, I did not eat enough for the first 5 weeks. I was getting enough protein throughout (~130-160g a day, I’m 68kg) but I eat low-carb. As a result I think I was under eating for my requirements. After 5 weeks I adapted, adding white rice to my diet and regularly eating desserts (fruit, coconut milk and white rice combinations mainly, so no processed sugar hits and 0 vegetable oils).
The second mistake I made was not concentrating hard enough on my form. Complacency (arrogance?) had crept in. I thought I already knew how to lift (what a fucking idiot, huh?) and during week 7 I realised my joints were clicking a lot. I put 2 and 2 together and dropped the weight, and re-emphasised trying to get my form perfect. It wasn’t, of course, but with increased focus it improved tremendously.
Since then, the clicking has decreased A LOT and has stopped in most joints. I still get it in my shoulders, but I think that’s as much due to them being rounded as anything.
Another ‘problem’ in this section was at the 4 week mark my parents flew 6000 miles to visit me and my partner for 2 weeks. We went on holiday together and, as I hadn’t seen them for 18 months, I decided hitting the gym for 10 out of those 14 days wasn’t the best use of my time. Instead, I paused the program.
But this didn’t mean I wasn’t working out. Our resort had a (shit) gym and 3 times a week I did a pretty basic full body work out for around an hour, as well as a lot of swimming.
Call it a happy medium.
When I got back from this, I resumed the program. But, holidays over, it was time to start back at work. Here is when I realised that 5 days training a week on top of my energy intensive job was TOUGH. I did it, but fuck me it was hard. I was struggling to find enough time to meet my sleep requirements as well as keep on top of household duties, cooking and downtime.
As I wasn’t getting enough recovery, I got sick again. Just another cold, but I didn’t work out for a week and a half. Again, you can call this excuse making, but fuck working out 5 days a week when you can barely breathe.
So when I got to the final section of the program, designed to develop explosivity, I decided I would work out 4 days a week instead of 5. This didn’t mean I cut work outs. I added on an extra week, making it 5 weeks long instead of 4.
So two bouts of sickness and a 2 week holiday is why a 5 month long program took me 6.5 months.
Am I ashamed by this?
Well, I look in the mirror and my answer is a resounding NO.
Life Balance
Life gets in the way. When it does, I enjoy it; for me an optimal life is one that is sub-optimal in various areas.
In reality I was pretty damn disciplined with this program, but I’m not gonna damage aspects of my life by over focusing on one section of it. That would lead to snapping: internally, in my relationships or at work. At the end of the day, I have commitments that must be maintained.
We have to adapt to our lives, we all live differently and knowing yourself, your circumstances and what you’re capable of is part of becoming self-actualised.
I like the analogy of a willow tree; we must move with the winds of life, but never be blown away from our roots.
Weight-Lifting and Me
So what’s next?
Well I feel as if weight-lifting is part of my life now. Six months is enough time for a habit to become adopted, and this is one I’ve certainly taken in. My goal is to continue building lean muscle mass and become as healthy as possible.
One thing I realised whilst completing this program is my posture needs work. Consequently I’ve started a self-made program consisting of 8 weeks ‘basic’ lifting (just the basic, compound lifts 4 day a week split based on AJAC’s ‘Free Foundations’ program) with posture work every session. Exercises such as facepulls, rear-delt raises and a few other things I’ve picked up from YT videos and articles I’ve read in the hope this will continue to improve my rounded shoulders and anterior pelvic tilt.
When it’s finished I will do another intense program. I’ve not decided what yet; I may even run this one again.
What Can You Learn?
I want you to take a few things from my experience. The most important thing is to not put things off, and just start.
Do not let perceptions of perfectionism cause you to procrastinate. With social media you will always be exposed to someone who is more capable, more disciplined or more naturally gifted. But don’t let this deter you. By moving in the right direction, the compound interest of your improvements will pay off.
Incremental changes breed transformation.
Progress, not perfection friends.
Don’t sleep on this, find the Wolverine Program HERE.
If you don’t already, I’d highly recommend giving Alexander JA Cortes a follow @AJA_Cortes and you can see all of his programs HERE.
Thanks for reading.