“Don’t celebrate special occasions with food”

Approaching what's usually a sunny long weekend filled with food and family, I wanna take aim at some “health advice” I truly hate: “Don’t celebrate special occasions with food. You’ll just build unhealthy associations between the day and eating too many calories.” Yeah, cause that’s such a horrible thing. Nothing worse than occasionally relaxing and having fun and enjoying simple pleasures like...

Against Diet Challenges

I'm not a fan of the zillions of diet challenges you see all over social media. I get the reasoning behind them from a marketing perspective, but I'm more a case-by-case, individualization-is-numero-uno kinda guy. Mr. Olympia Dorian Yates wouldn't keep junk food in the house when dieting. So the most focused, driven bodybuilder of all time didn't want to unnecessarily test his willpower when...

Pain, “Strength,” and Father’s Day

Happy Father's Day. But I'll get to that later. First, a lot of people in the fitness space are in pain. Not just physical but emotional and psychological. Some hide it well, under a steely facade of ego and a bit of bluster, to make it through the day. Others are more transparent and almost wear their pain like a uniform, perhaps to attract people in a similar situation for companionship or to...

Maverick

Last weekend I went for a walk with Maverick and Goose on a gorgeous spring morning. I wore my prized green Turbo J’s so I grabbed a photo. This is now the last picture I have of Maverick alive:  He suffered a heart attack around 15 mins into the walk. I noticed he wasn’t keeping up and was breathing heavily. I quickly took him off-leash and he collapsed. I asked a lady watering her lawn for...

Bringing up weak body parts with the 10-second rule

There are many programming tweaks and tricks you can try to address a weak bodypart. However, since genetic structure is such a key factor, much of the voodoo you read will achieve — for you — sub-par results at best. As for things that DO appear to work? It can be hard to pinpoint what really happened: maybe you followed a really neat specialization routine but you also increased calories...

Getting Ripped by Getting Through the Suck Stage

Big guys often HATE getting lean because they have to go through the Suck Stage—those months where the scale is dropping yet they just feel smaller and weaker. But they’re losing fake “mass” — it doesn't feel like it, but it really is all unhealthy, unwanted bodyfat — and on the other side of the suck their real physique awaits. So why the hesitation? Not surprisingly, it's mental. Big guys can...

“I get fat when I bulk” (and an honest gut check)

Here’s a dandy for the 160-pound "I get fat when I bulk" types: UFC star Jon Bones Jones has spent the past year eating and training to reach Heavyweight, under the watchful eye of one of the best in bodybuilding, Stan Efferding. He's currently 250 pounds (holy shit!) and learning to own the new weight, getting comfortable moving, training, striking, and recovering at that size. Now, the pic...