I met Jedidiah Weller as a co-founder of WebJunto, a digital services agency based in Philadelphia (PA, U.S.A.). Soon after meeting him, I discovered he is also a fitness lover with a passion for Kratos, the main character of God of War.
I shadowed him during his chest and shoulders workout to find out how he gets in shape to cosplay as Kratos for New York Comic Con.
If you want to meet Jedi, acting as an app mobile developer and design thinking expert, click here to read my article on WebJunto.
The KratosChallenge
Since he was young, Jedi’s favorite video game character was Kratos from God of War. For those who don’t know what that is, I have a sad announcement: dudes, you have wasted your youth!
God of War is a third-person action-adventure video game where you impersonate Kratos, a Spartan warrior tricked into killing his wife and daughter by his former master, the God of War, Ares.
Instead of chaining his hands to two swords, Jedi chained his life to a strict diet and workout program for 3 months. This is the #KratosChallenge, a competition with himself where he will test his abilities to transform his body.
The New York Comic Con is calling and 3 months is a tight deadline to get in shape and get in character.
Lift angry
Inasmuch chest is very related to the upper region of the body, Jedi decided to work also shoulders in the same day.
The last month of the challenge had already begun and the excitement for New York Comic Con was high, so I followed Jedi at City Fitness, a pretty famous gym chain in Philadelphia, to see what he had to show to Chick’n’Mango’s community.
He started with the dumbbell incline chest press, an exercise which can be done by anyone, but, of course, results vary according to the weight lifted. This is also a good exercise to practice control and work on stabilizer muscles.
Then, he did the seated dumbbell press, a nice exercise to complete the work on the upper region. Lifting angry is always the keyword, because he only does three sets, but with heavy weights. Jedi usually wins out his muscles with a last set of maximum weight.
To finish training your chest, it’s a good practice burning the sets out with a body weight exercise which is, in this case, push-ups (50-60 reps per set).
One of the best exercises for shoulders is the front dumbbell raise which helps build up your front shoulder muscles and train in practice control.
Kratos, you know, has a 12-pack! And abs are one of the most difficult parts to get in shape. So, to pump side abs, it’s good starting with a dumbbell side bend. In the video above, Jedi bent his hips to 45°, holding a 45 pound disc plate.
The last exercise to train the front abdominals is the fit-ball crunch. It’s a body weight exercise, so you have to do as many reps as you can and the main pro of it is that you can extend your back much more than in a traditional crunch.
This is only a little part of Jedi’s typical training day. If you want to find out more about his #KratosChallenge you can read his journey on his Medium profile clicking here.
WHAT DO YOU THINK
What are your best exercises to become Kratos?
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