Your fitness is not the gym you join or the site you follow. It’s not the shoes you wear, the weights you lift, or the nutrition book you read. Fitness is not your yoga mat. It’s not the Workout of the Day. An individual’s fitness is View Full Article

Get comfortable with it. If you’re not failing, you’re not getting better. And if you’re not getting better, you’re getting worse. View Full Article

Coping with the knowledge that mastery over a vast array of disciplines, skills, and challenges is beyond our capacity is not a discovery that many are comfortable with making. More encouraging is View Full Article

Typically, I think of fitness as a way to achieve ability in different facets of life. I want to be strong so the loads life asks me to bear seem lighter. I want endurance so that I can enjoy activity longer without tiring. I want to be agile so I feel balanced and coordinated in any situation, be it going up stairs or climbing a wall. View Full Article

When we talk about building functional strength while improving lean body mass, the conversation inevitably turns toward metabolic training, i.e. exercise circuits that successively tax the entire body. These types of exercises are THE way to train if you want to improve strength and stamina in a single workout. By simultaneously working lower body, upper body, and core musculature, an individual is required to pump and oxygenate so much more blood than he/she would be through more isolated exercise. This means massive calorie expenditure and burning fat. View Full Article

Training your core has been at the heart of countless fitness programs lately, so chances are you’ve read or heard something on the subject. Therefore, I won’t pound you over the head with regurgitated arguments about spinal stability, length/tension relationships, or the importance of muscle connectivity in the pelvic floor. Suffice it to say, IT’S IMPORTANT. View Full Article

If I asked you to close your eyes and imagine what “fitness” looks like, chances are you’ll think of someone closer to Lance Armstrong or Marion Jones than Arnold Schwarzenegger. Maybe it’s Brad Pitt or Kelly Ripa; but it’s almost certainly not Ronnie Coleman. The point? View Full Article

First, a disclaimer: this is NOT an endorsement for fast food. Whenever possible, you should prepare and cook your own food, avoiding the processed, homogenized, and steroid-injected items that frequent the aisles of our supermarkets. This is, instead, a user’s guide for those busy days when the local drive-thru is your only viable option. View Full Article

It’s an exercise universally hated by athletes and clients; universally adored by coaches and trainers. For those of you who are unfamiliar, the burpee consists of a squat thrust, a pushup, and a vertical jump. When done in succession, it rapidly accelerates the heart rate, taps the chest, shoulders and core, and burns out the quad and gluteal muscles. It may be the most complete bodyweight exercise out there. If you don’t believe me, do 3 sets of 10 with 60 seconds rest, the way you might a standard round of bench press. Once you catch your breath, the burpee and I will accept your endorsement. (To enhance this circuit, add a set of 5 pullups and 20 situps after each set of burpees, then take the 60 second rest period) View Full Article

A client of mine called me one Saturday to report on an amazing workout he had just finished. This workout, he told me, had completely exhausted his upper and lower body, taxed his core, and left him utterly out of breath. Knowing that this guy was pretty fit and that I had put him through a lot in the past, my curiosity was understandably piqued at this point. What exercises could he have been doing to get him so depleted? View Full Article