Fitness Contrarian

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 (…)

Bodybuilders have been using pre-exhaustion successfully for over 40 years. If you’ve been going to the gym and training your back with chin-ups, lat-pull downs or seated rows but feel that your arms are getting tired before you fully exhaust your back than you might want to try pre-exhaustion (….)

When you start an exercise program at the gym it’s a good idea to vary the tempo (speed) of the different exercises you’re performing. If you want to build a healthy body and your goal is to improve your overall fitness level, it will be to your advantage to vary the tempo of movement to better achieve your goal. A typical gym workout (…)

My two favorite types of workouts have always been short and hard, or long and easy. The type of workout I don’t like are those that are in-between or what I like to call “hybrid style”. Hybrid training is when you exercise moderately hard for a long period of time trying to accomplish everything in one workout (…)

You should always be careful in the gym and respect the amount of weight you lift. It’s real amazing the amount of weight I used to be able to lift in the gym when I was younger. Watching an average size 170 lb. man squatting 405 lbs or seeing a 120 lb women leg pressing [...]