When you think of a professional gamer, we’re willing to bet the first thing that comes to mind isn’t muscles. In fact, it may just be the opposite. But the long-standing stereotypes associated with serious gaming definitely don’t apply to Josh Lujan, who goes by Xaryu on Twitch.
Lujan, whose claim to gaming fame is his World of Warcraft prowess, became the first WoW streamer to join pro esports organization TSM in February. He has more than 240,000 followers on Twitch who flock to watch him play, but he’s made it a point over the years to infuse his platform with a healthy dose of fitness.
His motivation to break the norm stems from the fact that, despite always having been competitive and interested in health and wellness, he let his own fitness level take a back seat to gaming for nearly a decade. He got his first taste of WoW at age 12, and it became his top priority from then on. He trained sporadically until he realized he needed to make some changes for his own good.
“At 20, I was around 100 pounds [at 5’8”]. I looked at myself in the mirror and I just…I was getting sick all the time,” Lujan told M&F. “I wasn’t feeling right. I was like, ‘Wait a minute. Who am I, what am I doing here? [Being active] has always been a part of me. I can’t just put this on the back burner.’”
In the years since, Lujan, now 26, has put on close to 50 pounds of muscle, all thanks to doing his own research on diet and nutrition and figuring it out through trial and error.
It’s become his mission to “make gaming a healthier space,” and he’s pushed the message even more during Covid-19 quarantine. Typically a gym rat, Lujan would stream one workout a week on Twitch before the coronavirus pandemic made going to the gym impossible. Ever since gyms first closed, he and his girlfriend have been streaming daily workouts that can be done at home.
“If the gym is closed and I can’t do overhead press, I ask ‘What can I replace in my current routine?’ And I can do a handstand pushup,” he explains. “So I created a whole program that’s only using your body weight, and the inspiration is how I was already training in the gym. But each exercise translated to the body-weight equivalent.”
Lujan has put his years of trial and error into a trio of e-books, including a workout plan and a nutrition guide, that anyone can use to work toward their goals.
We tapped the pro gamer for his workout and diet tips, and how he inspires followers to find balance in their own lives. Plus, get a sample workout from his Xaryu Bodyweight Program.
These days, one of his main focus points is movement.
“I started off with more of a bodybuilding-style approach back when I was like 20 or 21. And as a smaller guy, I really gravitated toward bodyweight moves—those are my favorite exercises,” Lujan says. “So as my training progressed, my core fundamental exercises are things like weighted dips, weighted chinups, and weighted pushups.
In the past year or so, he got even more into training balance, handstands, and the like. Those styles of exercise definitely came in handy as most of the U.S. ended up in quarantine in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic.
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There’s been lots of trial and error.
Lujan dug into the research himself to figure out how best to train for his goals. From rep ranges to rest periods, he’s made it a point to stay well-informed. The same goes for diet—he bases things like how much protein he eats on whatever current literature shows.
“I’ll just start diving into this stuff, and I am aware it’s changing all the time with new studies,” he says. “And I’m just kind of a nerd about it.” He also takes inspiration from a Bruce Lee quote: “Absorb what is useful, reject what is useless, add what is essentially your own.”
When it comes to nutrition, Lujan has tried eating as strictly as a bodybuilder and has been more taken a relaxed approach, but found that at least allowing some leeway in a mostly healthy diet is the strategy that works best for him. His nutrition e-book, The Xaryu Cookbook, outlines his entire diet.
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His mindset around fitness and gaming has changed.
At first, fitness was a passion project, especially since Lujan built his career on gaming. But he felt that finding a balance between gaming and health was something many could use a hand with.
“I was the hundred-pound frail guy that wasn’t taking care of his health, and I’ve realized how transformative it could be, even for gaming to feel alert and aware,” he says. “And I’m like, I need to share this and say gamers, you can be healthy too.”
Of course, he gets some pushback for infusing his gaming sphere with fitness from time to time, because many see gaming as an escape from reality. It’s a situation he knows all too well, but he hopes to help others see that balance is key.
“What I’m trying to do is shed light into the darkness of just using gaming as an escape and stress the fact that you can game for fun and be healthy,” he says.
The simplest way to make sure you’re finding balance? Daily tasks.
Lujan has plenty of followers who wonder how he manages to balance gaming as a full-time gig and dedicating time to his fitness regimen. The answer is simple: a schedule—that he actually sticks to. If you have a consistent schedule with time blocked out to dedicate to your well-being, others will learn not to interrupt you during that time frame.
“Scheduling time in your day for fitness doesn’t mean ‘just try to work out on top of gaming.’ It means to find a sliver of your day and your schedule that fits with your lifestyle,” Lujan explains. “It should be, ‘Okay, I have a 45-minute gap here. I’m going to hit a 45-minute workout, and that’s going to be my time that I can dedicate to this four or five days a week—that’s transformative.”
As a starting place for those new to fitness, especially in his community of followers, Lujan created a list of “dailies.” It’s a reference to World of Warcraft, where players have a list of daily chores—dailies—to complete that help them get more powerful in the game. His real-life list of dailies includes sunlight, movement, water, healthy food, sleep, and socialization—all things that would make anyone feel stronger by the day.
Once Lujan decided to start sharing his workout and nutrition know-how with followers, he went all-in and became a positive role model that many younger gamers are looking to for inspiration.
“I almost a duty to do this. All this information that took me so long to figure out right, by going through the hard way first, figuring out what didn’t work,” he explains. “So I have all of this in my head, and I need to get this out there. So that was the motivation behind it.”
[h3]The 432 Mobility Circuit[/h3]
Here’s a sample workout that Lujan streamed recently. You can watch it here for demonstrations of the moves.
Directions: Do three rounds of each of the following two-move circuits.
