Here in the US you can look around and probably find a gym in every town, and sometimes multiple ones within miles of each other. Rows and rows of machines/treadmills, body pump classes all day and enough free weights to go around. But is it working? Are all these gyms helping or hurting? Do you really need the gym or does it need you? I’ll share with you my own journey with gyms and you can see if you can relate to it.

I worked long hours in them

Before I was ever a personal trainer, I belonged to gyms consistently since I was 16 (I remember my first gym, the Jack LaLanne club). I would go 3-5x/wk to workout in some fashion using weights/machines. I also had a set of barbell weights in my basement at home that I used off and on as a teenager, but nothing overly consistent.

Later on in life when I was working as a full time trainer at the gym, that meant pretty much living there almost every day. Early AM clients, clients at noon, more clients at night. Back and forth all …

March 16, 2010 | 17 Comments

I have a lot of backlogged news stories to share, so today, I’m going to throw a few at you with a few comments (any bolding in quotes is mine). Some of these are pretty old, but no less pertinent. Feel free to leave your thoughts in the comments!

I’ve mainly provided links that deal with fast foods or fake foods, along with a little dig at soy because we can never take too many shots at that food.

More Fake Soy Foods

Raise your hand if this scares you: It looks, feels and tastes like chicken, but it’s made of soy *raises hand* The fact that anyone could think a food product made like this could confer any health benefits is laughable.
Hsieh has developed a process that makes the soy product simulate the fibrous qualities of a chicken breast.
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To create the soy chicken, Hsieh starts with a soy protein extracted from soy flour. The soy then goes through an extrusion cooking process that uses water, heat and pressure while pushing the mixture through a cylinder with two augers.
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Along with pleasing the senses, Hsieh’s …

March 11, 2010 | 16 Comments

A few weeks ago in my overview post on sprint training, I promised an overview of some training periodization theory. There seemed to be a good deal of interest in the topic, so here we go. Lucky for those of you that couldn’t give a hoot about sprinting, the same theories apply to any other real sport.

Training Periodization

So what is periodization? Basically, it’s just setting up a progressive cycle to improve specific skills and hit peak performance at the right time. Every athlete knows that you can’t be at your best every day.

Contrary to what some people and fitness programs would have you believe, you cannot set new PRs every workout or competition. Perhaps initially, when you’re still not very good at what you’re doing, but eventually you’re going to hit a point where you can’t peak on a daily basis. To try will lead to inevitable overtraining and burnout.

So you have to break the year down into segments and pick a few events each year that you want to be at your best.

Structuring The Year (Macrocycle)

The macrocycle is typically a one-year …

March 8, 2010 | 11 Comments

Editor’s Note: This article was originally published in 2008. Part of our “Best of the past” series time to time will include reviewing and updating some of our top old posts for everyone to re-read (or read for the first time in many cases). Enjoy!

I was riding my mountain bike yesterday and all of the sudden it just came to me. I just started thinking about how many things I’ve learned through my own personal working out (since I was a kid and playing competitive sports) as well as being a trainer (since 1998). So today I just wanted to share some of the things this 36yr old has personally learned about all things health and fitness….in no certain order….

Pushups are the best upper body workout designed….no machine can replace that…you don’t need any equipment and you can do them anywhere.
It’s easy to become a certified trainer (as I have seen overweight people become certified)….it’s not easy to work as one full time (hence a high turnover rate in many clubs)
Diet is 85% of where results come from…..for muscle and fat loss. Many don’t focus here enough.
Working out too much doesn’t lead to good results….hence most people are still struggling …

March 1, 2010 | 95 Comments