Roger Rock Lockridge Completes His Train Like Arnold Challenge
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If you don’t follow Muscle Insider’s Senior Writer, Roger “Rock” Lockridge on Instagram, then you missed out on witnessing a very unique challenge that he recently completed. Lockridge has been a writer in the fitness space for almost 15 years, but he is no stranger to a weight room, and he put that experience to the ultimate test by following the training program of seven-time Mr. Olympia Arnold Schwarzenegger for four weeks.
For those that may not know, Schwarzenegger created what he called a “double split” routine, where he performed two workouts a day – each for two hours. He trained six days a week as well, performing very high-volume workouts for all the major bodyparts that included supersets and trisets.
Lockridge had said that the original intent was to try one of Schwarzenegger’s chest and back workouts that he had shared in a recent e-book, but conversations with members of Schwarzenegger’s team and Lockridge’s wife evolved that suggestion into Lockridge taking on the full program for a month. The program he used was in one of Schwarzenegger’s books. Schwarzenegger himself even followed Lockridge on Twitter and Instagram and offered his own support in a Tweet when the challenge was announced.
“Be safe. Keep pumping,”
the Austrian Oak wrote. Some of Lockridge’s posts also have comments from Schwarzenegger offering a flexed bicep emoji, indicating that he was paying attention.
Outside of the difficulty of the training schedule itself, Lockridge also performed the workouts without a training partner and in his home gym, which was a barn in his home state of West Virginia.
“The other factors such as training in the barn during cold days and keeping up with my family commitments made the process even more challenging,” Lockridge told Muscle Insider. “But this was such a rare opportunity that was created organically, so I felt like I had to take advantage of it.”
Lockridge shared before and after pics as well as training highlights on his Instagram, maintained logs that he sent to Schwarzenegger’s team, and he wrote a series of articles about the experience that were published on Muscle & Fitness’ website.
Lockridge is a freelance contributor, and he writes for several online publications.
He called the four-week program
“the toughest challenge of my life.”
He started the challenge on January 16th and it concluded on Saturday, February 11th. He reported that he lost 16 pounds on the scale and saw strength levels improve on some of his lifts.
“I wanted to be as transparent about the process as I could be,” said Lockridge. “If people were following this, I wanted them to know that everything was on the up and up. I even grew my beard out, so they knew the before and after photos were real.”
Lockridge also shared that the process didn’t go perfectly. Not all workouts were the same and he did deal with a lot of soreness throughout the time he followed this routine.
However, he wasn’t seriously injured at any time. He credited using a cautious warm-up approach and paying strict attention to his recovery.
“There’s no way I could’ve finished this without my percussive gun, foam rolling, and taking naps. Stretching helped a lot as well.”
Lockridge and Schwarzenegger haven’t spoken to each other directly yet, but Lockridge said that a conversation is a possibility. Schwarzenegger did acknowledge Lockridge finishing the program by referencing him in another tweet while promoting his newsletter.
“@RockLockridge did my old routine of 2 two-hour training sessions a day. We have something for everyone in the daily email, whether you’re just starting out or already hardcore.”
Just as important for him, he hopes that this journey will inspire others to push themselves to pursue their own fitness challenges.
“I had always been known as the writer, but I think this helped introduce a different side of me, and it shows the athletes and champions that I talk to that I can appreciate what they go through. Hopefully, it earned me some respect within the fitness community,” he shared. “I also hope that others can see this and realize that they can do much more than they may believe now. It just takes finding that goal and giving it all you got.”
