The "build a better body" side of the fitness industry has always tip-toed the delicate line between inspiring people and preying upon insecurity. And while women are expressing frustration at the exploitative nature (and rightfully so), just remember "they" came after the men decades ago -- when Charles Atlas and the "chest expander" was hawked to teenagers to help you A) look like Atlas...

School shootings affect me greatly, privately. Even more so since becoming a father. I’m not alone. My social media feed in the hours (minutes?) following these horrific events is a visceral stream of anguish and demands for change. But while offering sympathy (and thoughts & prayers) is easy, affecting change has proven to be much trickier. Because even before the victims families could be...

Distracted driving is a problem. So is distracted eating, distracted working, even distracted communicating. I'd add distracted exercising to the growing list of focus issues. Research on distracted driving suggests there's more to it than just the phone or the driver's vision being diverted -- its mental focus being shifted to areas not related to the road. Lifting weights to build your body is...

Here’s the scene. I’m on a FaceTime call with a long-term client. We’re supposed to be reviewing his progress -- how training is going, can he squat a Brooklyn-bound L train yet, has he been able to establish a diet rhythm, etc. Instead we’re picking my program apart. His elbow is a mess. All pull-up variations are out except for using a close, neutral grip. His left knee pops whenever he steps...

Few things are as divorced from reality as your typical “over 40” fitness article. It shouldn’t come as a surprise, as their respective authors are typically 25 year-olds with social media profiles filled with self-serving selfies yet very few actual mid-life clients. What really irks me though is the whole “one size fits all” approach. Certainly there are a few universal truths that apply to...

A popular analogy is to see your body's ability to recover as a bank account. In other words, recovery is finite, so every stressor you're subjected to (both exercise and lifestyle) is like writing a check -- you only have so much cash before you're overdrawn and go bankrupt (or forced to borrow heavily from a shady Russian oligarch named Testosteronovich). But you have another valuable currency...

Wanna know the secret to effective program design? It’s always fitting the program to the person, not the other way around. Sure there are best practices (and best arm training programs; disagree with that and I’ll fight you after school) but for the most part, a really good program is like a suit that’s been expertly tailored to your dimensions by someone named Rocco. It just feels and performs...