Do 15 Reps With Your 1-Rep Max
“Thinking outside the box” is a cliche these days. We hear it so often you’d think regular people are doing it as a matter of habit. Of course, the boxes…
A Confession + Are You Put Off By Macho Goons?
The state of strength training is, frankly, pretty dismal. It has been for decades. Nowhere is that more obvious than late night TV ads for fitness gadgets and from the…
Most H.I.T. Training is Actually Very Low Intensity
Anybody can claim his routine is a “high intensity” H.I.T. routine as long as he never takes an objective measurement of that intensity. And especially if he uses “effort” as…
A Century of Mistaken Strength Training
Ever think about what percentage of a World Record lift you can achieve right now? The current ‘raw’ Bench Press record is about 740 lbs. So if you can bench…
Proof Frequent Weightlifting is Wasted Effort
Every once in awhile it’s possible to have an interesting exchange on social media. Recently I had an exchange with a smart and well-respected trainer who questioned whether infrequent training…
Will Exercise and Fitness Consumers Believe Anything?
Today I was walking in Cologne, Germany and passed a gym with a photo posted where pedestrians could see it. The photo depicts a person with her feet on an…
Are You Building Muscle? Or Just Lifting Weights?
If you believe you can build forearms and biceps like this guy’s using that tiny dumbbell, you’re going to be very disappointed. Here’s a question I love to ask guys…
Everything Works and Everything Fails To Work
When you spend a couple of decades watching the world of fitness and strength training you see a lot of strange things. Often you see the same strange things repeatedly.…
Are You A New Man (or Woman) Today?
The logical foundation of strength training is that we build muscle by lifting heavy weights. It’s an adaptation of the body similar to developing darker skin as an adaptation to…
Why Lifting Light Weights Is Dumb
Ever ask yourself why a gym is stocked with weights? There is a very good reason for it and when you fully understand the reason your training takes on new…
Things Your Doctor Will Never Say to You
Joe, I’m worried about your . . . Today we’ll follow our fictional friend, Joe, to visit his doctor for an annual check-up. Joe is the guy we see training…
Strength Training on Facebook is Killing Me
Strength Training on Facebook is Killing Me I never spend much time on strength training blogs and forums because the comments can drive my crazy. Since I’ve been on Facebook…
Pain Has Nothing to Do With Gain!
Dude, your pain is irrelevant. How many times have you heard, ‘No pain, no gain‘? Every gym echos with the same, vague, stupid advice. As if pain was a bone…
What About Beginner, Intermediate and Advanced Training?
One of the hundred or so fallacies that populate the field of strength training is the concept that different principles apply at different times. Among other things, this fallacy leads…
Static Contraction Training and Flexibility Nonsense
Here is the second-biggest lie in strength training: “you need to use a full range of motion.” Never mind that there is not one, single clinical study to confirm this…
What About Muscle Confusion?
Here’s a strength training “principle” that gets prominent every few years. Right now there’s an infomercial touting the effectiveness of “confusing” your muscles in order to get better results, so…
What About Needing a Full Range of Motion?
“You need to lift through a full range of motion in order to build maximum muscle.” Nearly every person who has trained with Static Contraction training has heard this comment…