In the 80’s Van Halen was the biggest rock band in the world. Their live performances were legendary, as was their artist rider, a part of the performance contract that specifies everything the artist requires to perform that day. Van Halen’s long rider had "a large bowl of M&Ms, all brown ones removed.” Seriously. This was dismissed as typical rock star diva behaviour. But it turns out it...

The Big Rocks of a diet & exercise plan are surprisingly flexible. You don’t have to follow specific workout splits or work in certain rep ranges or include a bunch of "must—do” exercises. Calories don’t have to be the same every day and you can even work off a 7-day average. The weekly average approach also applies to daily step count, a simple indicator of how much you move but a BIG...

Priority #1 in my coaching is Minimize Injury Risk. And if you never train with a barbell you'll never suffer a weight training injury. Sure there are exceptions. But the larger point below stands. If you’ve injured yourself working out (especially an acute injury, like something going pop) the odds are it involved big barbell exercises like deadlifts, bench presses, overhead presses, barbell...

One of my favourite sayings concerning exercise programming is: YOU CAN'T KEEP ADDING. Meaning exercises, workouts, cardio & conditioning workouts, or even just stuff to do (or try to remember to do) -- there's a limit to how much you can add! Everything has a cost in terms of time, energy, and focus versus overwhelm. Another way of looking at it is everything you do or make time for writes...

Welcome to The Dead Zone. I've written this to clients so many times over the years I figured I'd make it into a post. You know the expression “it’s not how you eat between Xmas and New Years that matters, it’s how you eat between New Years and Xmas?” There's a lot of truth to it. One week isn’t a lot of time, no matter how badly you eat. Especially if there’s another 51 weeks to treat your body...