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The mental state of fitness is a disgrace. Here's why.

As I get closer and closer to biting the bullet and creating an Instagram account for my own business, I still have reservations when I look around at some of the stuff that goes on around me.

You're not fooling anyone. Okay, maybe a few dingbats.

In an industry where one weekend of effort can grant you licensure to do this job, lots of stuff can fly. I try to chalk most of it up as nature of the business, but any well-intended coach will agree that it’s hard to let every anger-inducing thing pass without dying a little on the inside.

...And when did we all become so caught up in the details ?

I’ll be the first to say it: It’s great to set your expectations nice and high, especially when you’re getting into training for the first time, or if you still have youth on your side when it comes to your thresholds, your recovery time, and your gains in general. But the longer I do this job, and the more exposure I get in my field, the more I’ve noticed a pretty significant trend that no one seems to want to address.

It's hardly about neglecting certain lifts. It's really about neglecting to train.

The strength and conditioning world has dropped the ball.

In resistance to the revolution circa 2004 which saw every commercial gym under the sun operate on unstable surfaces, smart coaches decided to do more research. Not surprisingly, they noticed that the instability trend was something that had much less to do with “core” and “strength” than many thought. The rise of the importance of ol’school basics began to rear its head, and it made the BOSU-everything programs lose their traction in the training community.

One year after the biggest injury of my life, there's a whole lot to talk about.

Injuries can be a real hindrance to gains, especially when they’re serious in nature. Not only can they affect your physical capabilities – they can take a huge toll on your mental state also.  If you’ve been following my work for some time, you may remember that a year ago, I suffered a nearly unheard of injury myself during a game of basketball.

I'm not calling out the individual. I'm calling out the culture.

Somewhere, someone popular broke the news to women that lifting weights wasn’t the “instant bulk” formula that they should be afraid of.

For that, I can speak on behalf of strength coaches worldwide when I express eternal gratefulness.  Introducing the idea of traditional weight training has forever been an area of difficulty, since, until recently, most of its spokespeople were male.