This has to be the most asked question a trainer gets. If you've lifted consistently for a few years, trying to lose fat and build muscle at the same time usually means doing both of them slowly. People want both at the same time, but that's not necessarily feasible for everybody. Losing fat needs you eating a bit less than you burn. Building muscle goes best when there's enough food to recover from your training and your lifts keep going up. Early on your body can do both of

If you can't do a pull up yet, there's an order to getting one. Grabbing the bar every week and pulling as hard as you can usually gets you a few inches and not much more, because you never get high enough to practice the rest of the pull. Every session ends in the same spot and it starts to feel like you're not getting anywhere. In order, it's hanging from the bar, then rows, then lowering yourself down slowly, then a band, and then the real one. The timing is different for

Checking Calories Your calorie target might already have your workouts built into it, and if it does, eating back what your watch says means you're counting the same workout twice. Most calorie calculators ask how active you are, and a lot of them describe the options by how many days a week you work out. The moment you pick anything above sitting at a desk all day, your training goes into the number it hands you. Then you finish a session, your watch shows a big burn, and yo

Taking a Knee I make every one of my clients get up off the ground without using their hands, regardless of age. You'd be surprised how many people in their 20s struggle with it. Most of them are in decent shape too, it's just they never practice it. Most common workouts don't have you get all the way down to the floor and back up multiple times. Whenever I have a client get up after a floor exercise and they use their hands, I say "Back down". After a few weeks they caught t

Holiday Season There's a reoccurring problem I see every year. Halloween, Thanksgiving December are all approaching rapidly. Most workout plans ignore them and nobody really plans around them. Most people try to figure it out when the holidays get here. Here are 6 things a plan needs to get you from now to January. Use October properly October is the last normal month of the quarter. For the most part your schedule doesn't change much. So this is the month to lock in 3 days

I can't work out past 1pm effectively. I'm naturally an early bird and I always have been. If I push a session to the evening it gets done, but it's not the same session. That's just how my schedule works for me, not advice. But it's why I stopped telling people there's a right answer here. I had to find mine by trying both and getting it wrong for a while. Training in the morning You've been lying still all night and you haven't really moved your joints since yesterday. So y

You've been training consistently 3x a week for the past 6 weeks without fail and you're proud of yourself. There's a big problem though, you look exactly the same! Before you decide the program is broken, count the sessions, 3 workouts a week for 6 weeks is only 18 workouts. You're expecting a whole body transformation by doing something less than 20 times. Sessions 1 through 6 What actually changes in that first stretch is your body getting better at using what it already h

When you squat your focus is pushing the weight back up, but what about on the way down? Squatting doesn't start when its time to stand up, on the way down is just as important. Your legs learned how to push, but never how to lower. So don't be so surprised when you walk down a staircase and your knee has something to say about it. A knee that only speaks up on the way down is usually one you can build a training plan around rather than wait out. Every leg exercise you progra

There are 2 problem areas that come up the most, knees and shoulders. In my 10+ years of personal training if I take a tally, I will have to say shoulder pain edges knees in the complaint department. You would be surprised on how many potential clients would meet with me that couldn’t lift their arms up in the air without pain or hitch. I’m not talking about 50 or 60 year olds either. Clients in their 20s and 30s who you wouldn’t even think that would be an issue. People who

One of the most asked questions I get is why one body part hurts when the other sides doest’t when there wasn’t a direct injury to the area. Clients can’t understand why one knee hurts when they have been training both legs the same amount for years. A weak side is usually what a body builds while working around a joint that hurts. Most people assume both sides of your body are doing the same amount of work with every exercise. Nothing could be further from the truth. One sid

This isn’t another blog to get you to quit alcohol. Ideally it’s not a bad idea but let’s get practical. The question most people want to know is how much is drinking is costing your goals. (Some people would rather know at all for obvious reasons) The answer is out does cost you something. What you can do is lessen the effects by focusing on quality and when you consume alcohol. The sleeping issue After you drink your sleep suffers. You usually fall asleep easy and fast beca

Every summer around this time the same question shows up. Someone's leaving for 9 days, the bags are half packed, and they want to know how much damage a week away is going to do. Usually it isn't really a question. It's already been decided. The trip is going to undo something, and the only thing left to figure out is how bad it'll be. That's the part worth pushing back on, because the math isn't close to what most people assume. 7 to 10 days off is not what you think it is

You've done the planks. You've done the dead bugs. Maybe you read the core posts and cleaned up your routine, and your back still complains when you pick up something heavy. Here's the piece almost everyone skips. It's not which core exercises you do. It's what you're doing with your breath while you do everything else. Most people lifting with back pain fall into one of 2 patterns. They either hold their breath the entire set until their face goes red, or they breathe shallo

Your doctor says lose weight. Your knees say you cannot exercise. You are stuck in the most frustrating loop in fitness: the thing that would help your knees is the thing your knees will not let you do. Here is the truth. You do not need to run, jump, or squat heavy to lose weight. You need a plan built around what your body can actually handle right now. This is one piece of training around a joint that hurts, which covers what to change and what to keep when a joint starts

Fibermaxxing is everywhere right now. Over 150 million views on TikTok. Endorsed by Mayo Clinic and Harvard. Named a top food trend for 2026 by Whole Foods. But most of the content about it stops at “eat more fiber” without telling you what that actually looks like on a plate. Here is the practical version. Bowl of oatmeal The Gap You Probably Do Not Know About The recommended daily fiber intake is 38 grams for men and 25 grams for women. The average American eats about 16 gr

Protein Pop Tarts. Protein Doritos. Protein vodka water. If it feels like every product in the grocery store suddenly has “high protein” on the label, you are not imagining it. The food industry calls this a trend, while nutritionists are starting to call it something else: protein washing. Protein bars What Protein Washing Actually Means Protein washing is when a company adds protein to an otherwise unhealthy product and markets it as a better choice. The word “protein” on t

Physical therapy got you out of pain. But it probably did not get you back to working out the way you want. That gap between your last PT session and your first real training program is where most people either stall out or get hurt again. Leaving the clinic is the moment training around a joint that hurts stops being someone else's job and becomes programming. Why the Post-PT Gap Exists Physical therapy focuses on restoring basic function. Range of motion, isolated muscle ac

You have tried training your core before. It made your back feel worse, not better. That outcome is more common than you think, and it rarely has anything to do with effort or consistency. If your back is the joint deciding what you can do, start with how to keep training around a joint that hurts. Why Most Core Exercises Aggravate Your Back The ab exercises that dominate most routines rely on spinal flexion. That means bending your torso forward under load, over and over. Cr

Understanding the Cycle of Program Hopping Three Weeks Is Not Enough Time Your body needs consistent exposure to a training plan before it adapts. Strength does not develop in three weeks. Movement patterns do not become efficient in three weeks. When you abandon a program before it has time to produce results, you are not moving forward. You are just constantly completing the first phase of every program you try without ever getting to the part where real change happens. T

You Gravitate Toward What You Are Already Good At Everyone who works out has exercises they prefer. These exercises feel smooth. The weight moves easily, and your form looks flawless. Naturally, you do more of them. You add sets and increase frequency. You convince yourself these exercises are all you need. Then, there are exercises that feel awkward. The movement doesn’t click. You struggle with weights that should be manageable. Your body feels unstable. So, you cut them fr