Fitness Contrarian

If you have never run three miles before but have always wanted to, follow my program outlined below. The goal of this program is to get you running three miles at about a 10-minute pace after six weeks.

This is a beginner program so I’m assuming you have not been running and may be out of shape. If you are in shape you can skip the first couple of weeks and jump in at Week Three or Week Four, or wherever you feel comfortable (…)

I‘m back at Sag Harbor, NY for a two-week beach vacation with the family. I love the ocean and it’s so easy staying active at the beach. I don’t have to go to the gym or have to do any type of structured workouts to stay fit. My kids and I just got into skimboarding this summer. What an incredible interval workout.

Skimboards are the size of a boogie board but thinner. They are like little surf boards that you throw on the sand when there is just a little bit of water and skim along the top of the sand or ride them into a breaking wave (…)

I just got back from a week long vacation at the beach with my family in Sag Harbor, NY . We had a great time. The weather was very hot, humid and sunny. I don’t remember being so hot at the beach. You had to be in the water all day just to be comfortable. I left the beach around 1:00 PM one day to get lunch for my wife and kids and was surprised to see so many people running and biking in 100 degree heat with high humidity in the middle of the day (…)

I’ve been telling my clients for years not to control their weight with too much exercise. Most people think they have to exercise for numerous hours per week to burn the extra calories and lose weight. The popular belief for weight loss is the longer and harder the better. But my 25 years of experience has shown me a contrarian view to weight loss (…)

When I’m teaching a new client how to lift a weight and perform proper repetitions (reps) within a set, I like to break it down into three parts. Most new trainees don’t think too much about lowering the weight or slowing it down before changing direction and raising the weight. Most of their efforts are spent trying to raise the weight. Afterwards they just let the (…)

When I was in my twenties, I loved to train long and hard. I would train hard every day. Spending 60 minutes just training my chest and back was normal for me followed by a five mile hard run. I felt that the only way I could look how I wanted to look and be in top physical shape was to go all out on every workout every day. Recovering from a workout was not (…)

To a large extent muscle tightness comes from muscle weakness. Muscles become tight to protect the body from injury. When the body identifies a weakness or instability in and around a joint the body will tighten up to prevent injury. This raises the following question. Should you stretch went you’re tight or should you strengthen the body? Most people think you (…)

A few weeks ago I came across a web site that I really like. It’s called Mark’s Daily Apple. I wrote an article about Primal Fitness a few weeks ago and Mark’s site is loaded with great information on living the primal lifestyle. He just wrote a book called Primal Blueprint and is offering some specials [...]