Month: January 2015

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A Guide to Beginning Weight Training: Part 2

Continuing from Beginning Weight Training Part 1, I want to now look at what the specific goals of beginning weight training are (or should be).  That is, the specific adaptations that are being sought during this beginner phase to ensure not only optimal results at this stage but prepare the lifter for more advanced training down the road.

The Overall Goal of Beginning Weight Training

As I stated in Part 1, I believe that, to a first approximation, beginner weight training routines will look more similar than not.  And that this will be the case almost irrespective of the individual’s long-term goals.  Whether it’s physique/bodybuilding or just body composition changes, powerlifting/strength sports or just general health, most beginners will train similarly.  Again, the big exception to this is Olympic lifter who will always be doing a lot of work specific to the OL’s.

In the most general conceptual sense, then, the overarching goal of beginning weight room training is to build a proper “base” or “foundation” upon which to perform more specialized training down the road. … Keep Reading

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A Guide to Beginning Weight Training

While it’s always fun to focus on advanced training techniques and the minutiae of training the simple fact is that the basics are equally important.  Every day more people enter the weight room and that makes the topic of beginning weight training critically important.  Because how someone gets started in the weight room can have a huge impact on both their short-term and long-term lifting.

Beginning Weight Training Isn’t Sexy

For the most part, articles about beginner’s training aren’t terribly popular.  This is because, with literally no exception I have ever run into in nearly 20 years of doing this, everybody thinks that they are more advanced than they are.   And they always want to do more rather than less.

It’s simply human nature, nobody wants to think of themselves as a beginner or noob.  In the world of training and dieting the consequence of this is that folks tend to jump into advanced training or diet interpretations long before they are either needed or useful or they have developed the necessary fundamentals.… Keep Reading

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An Open Apology to the Internet

I’m not even sure where to start this as I sit here contemplating what was (I hope) the single worst choice of my adult life (semi-jokingly, I can only hope to find no way to top it). One that will have an impact on my life, my future, my career, my reputation for years to come, if not forever.  And I’m trying to figure out how I got here.

Actually, there’s a fairly short answer to what got me here: I suffer from some form of bipolar (aka manic depression) disease (probably Bipolar II).

Yes, I said it (well wrote it) and no it wasn’t easy.  I know I’ve talked about my depression before, usually because that has, historically, had a worse impact on my life but I also have the other “half” of the condition as well: mania.  Well, hypomania anyhow.

I haven’t talked about that so much and there are a number of reasons for that not the least of which being that hypomania is, frankly, kind of awesome. … Keep Reading