Fitness Contrarian

I’ve never been a fan of the Biggest Loser. In general, I always felt that the show is sending a negative message to America about exercise and fitness. I can almost go as far as saying that the show has single-handily set back the fitness industry decades (….)

I want to provide everyone with a summary of my 10 fitness principles. If you follow these health and fitness concepts you’ll be on your way to living a more active healthy lifestyle. When reading these principles, it is more important to understand the overall philosophy of them as opposed to following them to the letter. You can read the full article about each principle by(….)

Muscle hypertrophy (muscle cell enlargement) is an area of great debate in the fitness industry. Everyone has their opinion on how to overload the muscular system to produce growth and there are new studies coming out every week proving one method is better then another. But how do you resistance train if your goal is to get stronger and leaner while avoiding that overly developed bodybuilding look? Most of my personal training clients want more of that ripped athletic look but also want to be as strong as possible(….)

What has helped my joints and whole body feel so much better over the past year is incorporating joint mobility movements into my workout program. I personally think that joint mobility or mobility movements are going to be the next buzzword in the fitness industry just like core training or functional training was 10 years ago.

Joint mobility drills are simple movements that bring lubrication to the joints, which can help heal and rejuvenate them. You almost have to look at your joints as separate from your muscular system even though they are all connected. When you are doing these movements you’re not trying to stretch your muscles(…)

One of the hardest things for me to get across to my new personal training clients is that too much exercise can be toxic to your body. For example, I just had a new client come to my gym last week that was in her 30’s with low body fat and apparently in good shape. I asked her how she keeps herself looking so fit and she said “I like to workout a lot so I can eat whatever I want”.

My 25 years of experience as a personal trainer has showed me that trying to control your weight with long hard daily workouts is an approach that will one day get you into a lot of trouble physiologically. I know it is hard to convince a 35 year old that too much hard exercise is not good for them especially when they have been controlling their weight so well with long hard spinning classes, long runs and body scripting classes on a daily basis. However,(…)