A friend hates my blog. “It’s boring,” he says. “I’ve read enough about training and building a bigger ass. Write something different. “Write about manhood.” What the hell do I know about manhood? Apart from being married and sitting on the wrong side of 40, I’m pretty much clueless on the subject. Tell you what, ask me in 40 years. Maybe by then I’ll have something meaningful to contribute. Yet...

You’re a bodybuilder. Yeah, I get it. You don’t compete in bodybuilding competitions or a have a drawer full of posing trunks and 16th place ribbons. But you exercise primarily to look better. So you, my friend, are a bodybuilder. And the sooner you get your head out of your ass and embrace it, the better your physique will be. Bodybuilder. Although it has four syllables, you’d think it was a...

I want to look like that guy. No real man would ever say that. It’s superficial. What mature male builds their body just to look pretty? It’s weak. Girly. Non-functional. You should workout to be strong enough to deadlift a car. Or snatch double your bodyweight. Or throw a football across two time zones. Lifting weights to look good naked? What a waste of time. I read crap like that all the...

Maybe you just suck? There’s nothing “wrong” with you. You’re not genetically inferior or “metabolically damaged.” You can’t even claim ignorance or old school stupidity. Perhaps you’re not getting results because you have no standards? But I think you’re better than that. ----- My friend Barry is one of those Awaken the Giant Within types. He’s always in the middle of the latest personal...

I read my email right away. I know it would be smarter to set a block of time and read it all in batches, but I’m just not that disciplined. Perhaps I’m still a big, impulsive kid at heart, secretly hoping that this is email is finally the one from Nick Fury and the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D and not yet another $300 cable bill. Yesterday, while at the gym, I received an email from a prospective...

Most guys train like zombies. Mindless, soulless, and seemingly clueless members of the growing fraternity of weight training undead. On the one hand they’re “there.” As in present. In the gym, in expensive shorts and trendy minimalist shoes. They’ve foam rolled (oh yes, they’ve foam rolled), done 20 minutes of “activation work,” and their Master Blaster play list has been cued up on the iPhone....

Muscle is a mind-game. Put another way, the most impressive physique you see at the gym is rarely the largest or the leanest. Or even the largest AND the leanest. Instead, it’s typically the one with the best proportions. No muscle group too big or too small, and nothing “out of place.” Most physique-minded guys eventually figure this out. As such, they’ll switch from just training what they see...