Think about your childhood. I mean the really early stuff before six years old. 

You moved a lot. It was your only way of learning about the world around you, as you hadn't developed the ability to read yet. You began lying on your back before figuring out how to use various muscles to roll onto your belly. Eventually, you developed the ability to push your upper body up and developed some hip stability and began to explore further by crawling. Soon enough that became standing and walking and by about age five, you'd developed the ability to run a bit. 

And around then, you were sent to school to "learn" and your body pretty much went to sleep as it was crammed into a seated position and given limited opportunities to continue exploring how to move. 

Fast forward to adulthood and what you've effectively got in most people's case is an adult body that is really being driven by a sleepy six-year old. Is it any wonder why when you start to exercise that you find it...

The Value of Proper Caloric Intake for Muscle Gain

Putting the Numbers of Muscle Gain in Context

Consider a hypothetical lifter who begins at 140 lbs in order to comprehend the muscle gain numbers in a real-world setting. They can anticipate a rate of muscle increase in the first year of 1–1.5% of their body weight each month, or 16.8lb - 25.2lb for the first year. While theoretically possible, this rate of muscle gain would be extremely fast in an over 40 trainee, even if everything were optimised with their lifestyle. A far more realistic number would be half that, with females half again. In other words, a beginner male trainee over 40, working hard to a smart system, with their diet and lifestyle set up to enhance muscle growth, will gain about 10lb/ 5kg, with females about 5lb/ 2.5kg. 

The longer you've been training for, the slower this rate of gain becomes. Most people will reach their genetic limit for muscle gain 3-5 years into their journey despite...

What exactly makes endurance possible is a question that must be answered because it is such an important part of athletic performance.  The answer is in understanding the intricate interactions that take place between the many physiological and biochemical components.

Most internet strength based coaches don't understand these, and so it is no surprise that most of the fitness information consumers do not either. In this article, we will explore the science behind endurance and provide you with some actionable recommendations on how to improve your own personal endurance.

Acquiring Knowledge about Endurance Physiology

Endurance is defined as the capacity to participate in physically taxing activities for extended periods of time without experiencing exhaustion from such activities. This is made possible by the coordination of a number of different physiological systems, including the neurological, muscular, respiratory, and circulatory systems.

While the respiratory...

Strength and conditioning is an ever-evolving field, with new techniques, technologies, and research emerging every year. Despite this, certain principles remain timeless and fundamental to the success of any athlete or fitness enthusiast. In this guide, we take a deep dive into the training lifecycle, exploring the key stages and critical considerations for anyone looking to achieve their strength and conditioning goals based on my nearly 40 years of training myself and 30 years of working with clients. 

Understanding the Training Lifecycle

The training lifecycle refers to the sequential stages of development that an athlete must progress through in order to achieve their desired performance outcomes. This cycle is divided into four key stages: preparation, competition, transition, and regeneration. While many reading this won't be interested in competition, the same strategies should be used for recreational athletes - what I like to call practical athletes. That is, the...

Loaded carries are much touted as a fantastic way to train the core musculature while simultaneously improving grip strength and work capacity.

 But are they the best way to perform carries?

Firstly, we need to distinguish between physical capacity and core competency. What most people chase when they use farmer walks is to grab the heaviest thing they can hold onto and then walk as far as they can. That is not necessarily the same thing as training for core control – don’t ever confuse quality and quantity.

To begin we need to define some terms.

Functional training – to improve ability in an upright bipedal stance. If gait or posture is negatively affected, then the training has actually reduced function as one or both have been negatively impacted.

Core control - The core’s real function is to protect the spine, especially from flexion and rotation at the same time. Sahrmann wrote, “The keys to preventing and alleviating spinal dysfunction are...

I've written many times about what are the most essential components of health and fitness for those over 40. You can even read in depth my thoughts about it in my Fat Loss at 40 book. 

One of the bigger issues with this is due to my personality. You see, I don't like wasting time or words. I want to cut to the point, get the message across and move on. 

That can be problematic because people then think I have somehow missed something. They confuse word count with effectiveness. Back when I wrote for various magazines I would sometimes be forced to write more than I really wanted because the articles had to be a certain size for optimal SEO. 

So when I write about things like 8-7-4-3-2 people think that what I have laid out is something ineffective. They mistake my seemingly simple answers and assume that there wasn't mountains of study that went into those answers. That I chose to not bore the reader by placing endless scientific studies to back up my ideas is more...

One of the natural progressions for many as they get older is a change from road running to trail running. The constant change in surface as well as gait is far less harsh on the body than running on hard surfaces. 

Cycling is no different. Many get into road cycling initially as their body can no longer tolerate running in the first place. Over time they develop a love for all things two wheels but as we get older still there is often a subtle shift towards trail riding/ mountain biking. Unlike road running this has little to do with the trauma of cycling on a hard surface, and far more to do with local traffic. More and more I hear from guys in my age group that they no longer want to ride on the road anymore because of concerns over traffic. And next thing you know they’ve ditched the lycra for baggies and are looking at mountain biking. In fact, one of Australia’s best ever cyclists – Ryan Bailey who was a double gold medallist in track cycling at the 2004...

Let’s be honest about most training advice online. It’s awful.

It’s awful in general, but doubly so if you’re in the forty-plus crowd. And it’s awful for one very simple reason…

…it’s not designed for us.  

The fitness industry as a whole is largely based on two things: Making young guys muscular and lean, or making females skinny and hot. Because of the market that all the training is aimed at no one gives a thought to how that training might work in forty or fifty years time. Because at forty-plus we have to ask ourselves some very serious questions about our training time, the rewards we get from it, how it’s impacting our life, and whether that impact is positive or negative.

Every week I speak on the phone with men and women in their forties and beyond all wanting to be in the best shape possible. While many have some experience with fitness they all feel lost and unable to make progress any further because of the...

When it comes to diet everyone wants to make things more complicated, as if the reason they’ve failed is lack of complexity.

Let’s be honest, the reason people fail is lack of discipline.

And when it comes to lack of discipline the biggest downfall for most is snacking after dinner. People can happily go without for breakfast. They can even eat light for lunch. But once the sun starts to go down, and the focus from work starts to disappear they suddenly find themselves famished. At that point they become a victim to whatever is in their cupboards. Boredom and stress are the two biggest drivers of late night snacking.

Diets all work in only one way – they restrict the number of calories you eat over an extended period of time so you lose body fat. Vegan diets restrict calories by eliminating animal protein. Ketogenic diets by eliminating carbohydrate. Fasting eliminates time that you can eat during, and thereby restricts your total intake. But they all work by...

We live in the age of information. At our fingertips lies the collected wisdom of all of civilisation. And a lot of cat videos. There’s so much information it’s easy to get lost and overwhelmed.

So where is the best place to start?  

I speak to a lot of middle aged men and women every single week and hear all their thoughts on where they are versus where they would like to be. When I speak to them I even make two headings on a piece of paper – Results and Reality. Results is where they would like to get to, and Reality is where they are right now. I then add a third heading to that piece of paper after we’ve spoken about both of these – Roadblocks. Most of the people I speak to are not beginners when it comes to exercise. In fact, many times they have worked with at least one other trainer, and many times with multiple trainers over a period of years. In their heads they know what they’re meant to be doing.

And yet, that end Result still...