I want to wish you all a happy holiday season. It’s been a year of turmoil and we’re not done yet, but looking into the future, we will get out of this. This will be my final post for 2020, so I felt it was appropriate to end on a common theme for this time of year: goals. In a normal world, Christmas week is a time of celebration, which tends to include a few extra cocktails and cookies. This gets excused because we tend to look at the upcoming week, New Year’s Day, as the official re-boot on our hard drive. Looking past the keto-friendly cookies and glasses of cabernet sauvignon, what are your goals for 2021? Read More

It’s December 1st and I like to take this last month of the year to reflect on the past year, goals (achieved or missed), and to give thought to goals for the upcoming year. 2020 has been a tough year for all of us. My emotions went from a high, experiencing one of my best months in January at the studio, to worrying about this virus and how it will affect me, to temporarily closing my place, and wondering how am I going to survive and provide for my family. That was in the first 3 months! We are closing out the year and as of today, Moderna and Pfizer have both applied for emergency F.D.A. approval for their vaccines. Read More

I’ve spent the last year reflecting on lifestyle changes which I can do that will pay health dividends in the long term. Having spent the last thirty years of my life teaching and coaching people how to commit to the hard work of strength training now, so they can reap the future benefits of being physically fit, and having a better quality of life, has been my life’s work. Earlier this year, I addressed my sleep patterns and the value of sleep. During the summer, I assessed my daily hydration. Of recent, I’ve looked at the environment I train in, specifically my feet and footwear. On average, I spend 10-14 hours on my feet, six days a week. It has become common place for me to experience aches in my back, hamstrings, and/or knees after a few long days on the training floor. Read More

As a coach, I’ve experienced that the better you learn a specific topic, the more simplified you learn how to explain it. This has led me to become weary of anyone who tries to overcomplicate a subject matter when explaining. I think my disconnect is that many people confuse memorization for understanding a concept. I blame that on the way most of us were taught in school. We learned to memorize what would be on the test. I know I fell into that trap. When providing cues while coaching, I try to keep it as simple as possible. “Sniff air”, “Squeeze your glutes”, “Shoulders in your back pocket”, to mention a few. I find myself always referencing three things- glutes, core, and lats. Yes, the lats, or latissimus dorsi, are important. I will briefly share with you, why. Read More

As we all deal with the global pandemic of COVID-19, a common statement from those in epidemiology, the branch of medicine which deals with the incidence, spread, and control of the disease, is that we have to trust the science. This idea of how we approach and accept science inspired me to think about how we deal with science in the fitness world. I’ve taken a research and scientific approach to the programs we offer at the studio. It made me reflect on how we apply science to our progressions in exercise. Read More

When mapping out an exercise program for someone, there are multiple variables involved. You need to consider the goal- improve mobility, strength, fat loss. You need to factor in their age, any past injuries, and current fitness level. Finally, you assess their current motivation to implement change. You mix that all up, and the outcome should be a well-designed program. I used to have two things that I recommend everyone adopted, no matter what, and have recently increased it to three. Drink more water, three- five liters daily, at a minimum. Eat more vegetables. Using the size of your fist as a portion size, consume four to five fists daily. Read More

Time stands still for no one. We all age. As we age, there should be an adjustment to how you train. This adjustment should take into consideration an improved skill level as you become more skilled in the exercises you can do. I thought this subject would interest people because I find myself having to adjust my personal workouts to maintain good health as I age. At times, I can be my worst pupil. In this post, I’ll break up the age categories into training in your twenties, training in your forties, and training in your sixties. Read More

I recently had a member ask me why I don’t use barbells in our small group training. My response was broken down into two parts. First, the studio is 2,400 square feet. Our small group training can have a maximum of six people. Logistically, it is not safe for us to have six people with loaded barbells in that space. The next part of my answer was from a training and program design perspective. If I take the movement patterns of the body- squat, hip-hinge, push, pull and carry, I would only use a barbell for one. That single pattern would be pulling. Read More

One of the biggest fears with working out is getting hurt. We want the results. We’re willing to put in the work. But what’s the right dosage? It’s similar to cooking. There are some grey issues and everything isn’t just black and white. Like cooking though, too much of an ingredient or too long in the oven can ruin your dish, or in the case of working out, you. When recommending an exercise, there is an order that if you follow it, will provide you solid results. The challenge you run into is that people like to skip some of the necessary steps. It’s my belief that people have to earn the right to proceed. Read More

The rate of infection and deaths from COVID-19 has been dropping in Nevada. This has enabled me to increase our semi-private group size from four people to a maximum of six. As gyms and training facilities began to re-open in the Las Vegas area, we experienced an increase in studio interest as some people did not want to return to the larger facilities. One of the restrictions we created was to shrink our group size down to four people as we navigated the waters of re-opening. It’s been 3 months and we’ve had a good response from the cleaning and sanitizing protocols we installed. Regardless of COVID-19, I would never allow my groups to get too large. The larger the group, the less motivated people become. There’s an actual term for it, “social loafing”. Read More