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The 3 Best Back Exercises (YOU CAN DO AT HOME)

The 3 Best Back Exercises (YOU CAN DO AT HOME)

by | Dec 29, 2024 | Blog, Exercises, Travel Workouts, Workouts

You can get in a killer workout without going to the gym. You can see amazing results training at home or when you travel.

So don’t try to use the fact that you can’t get to the gym as an excuse!

However, we need to recognize that there is often one muscle group overlooked and underworked in our bodyweight workouts, especially when we don’t have any equipment on hand.

And that muscle group is our BACKS.

We do push up variations for our chest, shoulders and triceps and even core.

We can lunge and squat and stair step ups and single leg deadlifts and glute bridges to work our legs, including our glutes, quads, hamstrings and even adductors.

We can do planks and crunches and sit ups to work our abs and core.

But our backs are often overlooked in our programming.

That’s why I wanted to share 3 of my favorite ways to target your back, and even your biceps, when training at home WITHOUT a pull up bar!

The first way requires your own bodyweight and a wall or floor…which thankfully all of us have on hand at any time.

So no matter what, we can all do forms of the Scapular Hold or Scapular Reps.

This move is honestly something I even include for my clients at the gym as well because of how amazing it is for back activation and scapular control.

And you can do it either as an isometric or hold to focus on what you feel working and engage as hard as possible or even for reps.

If you do it for reps, unlike traditional rows where your biceps can take over, the scapular wall or floor reps prevent your arms from assisting in that this move is actually a PRESS over a PULL for your back.

You’ll push off your elbows, pressing your chest out as you draw your shoulder blades toward your spine to row up and out.

Standing against a wall make sure you don’t walk out too far and end up shrugging.

And off the ground you can have your legs out straight or knees bent, but make sure you aren’t turning this move into a sit up.

The move needs to be powered by the back and pushing away through the elbows.

To do reps, you’ll lower back to the wall or floor each time. To do the isometric, you’ll simply hold in that pressed position.

But focus on feeling your back engage to press your chest out and open. And brace your abs as you flex your glutes and quads to keep your core engaged and that nice plank position, especially off the wall.

You will find too that the wall is a bit easier to control than the floor and the less you walk your feet away from the wall, the more modified the move is, making this easy to adapt to every fitness level!

And these aren’t the only back moves you can do with just your own bodyweight.

Plank Rows, scapular push ups and even scapular wings are all great options to really focus on that back engagement through targeting that shoulder blade movement toward your spine.

The Plank Rows and Scapular Push Ups have the added benefit of more core work too!

And if you do need to modify, they can be done off a couch edge or table and the scapular push ups can even be done single arm off the wall! This truly is an amazing move for ALL fitness levels!

The second home tool you can use to work your back is a doorway or stair rail to perform Doorway Rows, both single arm and two-arm!

With this move, your bodyweight will be your resistance. And you’ll feel not only your back and bicep but even your legs and core with this move.

It is a great way to work that full pulling movement. The key is not just pulling with your arms, but actually driving your elbows back.

You want to as feel your shoulder blades move toward your spine to engage you back to power the pull.

You can do this as both a single arm or two arm pull, but the single arm will often be more challenging.

You can also do this as an anti-rotational or rotational single arm row.

You can choose to fight any torso movement…

Or actually consciously include it, rotating toward the stair rail as you row in and opening up and toward the ground as you extend your arm out.

And to progress this move further, slow down the tempo of the pull, even pausing when you row in!

Just make sure you are truly feeling your back engage and not just pulling with your arm with this row!

The third tool I love to use when training at home is a towel.

Using a towel you can actually work your back in so many different ways – from rows to flies to even pull downs.

With using a towel, you can do self-resisted movements. This means you are creating tension through the towel to create resistance for the movement.

This can allow you to do single arm flies and rows, resisting the move by pulling with the other hand.

Or you can create tension by pulling out on the towel to do a bent over row or pulldown.

This pull out to create tension helps you better activate the muscles and you’ll feel them working as you perform the pull with a slow tempo. Just don’t let the towel lose tension!

Bonus, you can also get in that bicep isolation work, another muscle group that doesn’t get as much love at home, with a self resisted bicep curl.

And not only can towels be used to help perform a self-resisted movement, they can be used as sliders on the ground to help you work your back.

Side lying slides are great for your lats and a killer unilateral move that also hits your obliques.

Just make sure you’re really pulling the towel down to power the slide up with your lats over ONLY using your obliques.

And if slide lying slides are a bit too much to start, or you just want extra pull up type work, you can always use the towels to do lying w pulldowns too to work more on that vertical pull and scapular control and movement.

But no matter what, whether you have literally just your own bodyweight, a doorway, stair rail or hand towel, you can make sure you target this often overlooked area in your home workouts or when you travel!

There is always a way to get results training with what we have! Have fun being creative with tools you have around your home.

For amazing workouts you can do anywhere, check out my Dynamic Strength program!

5 Tricks To LOSE FAT (That Actually Work)

5 Tricks To LOSE FAT (That Actually Work)

by | Nov 17, 2024 | Blog, Diet, Workouts

Stop believing that losing weight and maintaining your results has to be a full time job.

Because it doesn’t.

And the more we act like it has to be, the more we’re ultimately sabotaging ourselves.

We’re just creating unsustainable habits that, while they may yield some fast initial results, also lead to a quick plateau and us just regaining the weight and even more.

To help you stop this extreme dieting cycle I’d found myself also caught in for years, I want to share 5 weird but extremely effective weight loss tips to help you build your leanest, strongest body ever.

And I’m going to start by telling you the oddest sounding weight loss tip ever…

Stop focusing on losing weight!

That goal weight you have in mind, that you’ve tried countless times to get back to, is actually stopping you from losing weight.

It’s causing you to try to out exercise and out diet time.

It’s causing you to eat less as you train harder, which doesn’t make you actually lose fat any faster.

Our singular focus on the scale and that number changing leads to burn out and metabolic adaptations that make each weight loss attempt harder and harder.

Instead we need to focus on multiple ways of measuring success and even step away from the scale for a bit.

Because it isn’t that number on the scale we are truly after – it’s how we FELT at that weight that we want back.

And that FEELING isn’t truly attached to the number. It’s how energized we felt. The PRs we could set.

It’s how we looked in that dress or bathing suit or in those vacation photos.

We want to look toned and leaner and feel fabulous and strong and youthful.

That number just represents that time and FEELING for us.

But focusing only on that number being our only measure of progress often leads to us giving up on habits that are working…habits that would yield the results we want if we gave them time.

Because the scale doesn’t really show us true fat loss happening, especially as we retain and even gain muscle.

And the better our body recomp results, often the slower the scale will shift.

Because there is no rushing fat loss.

The scale only changes faster because we’re losing water weight or depleting our glycogen stores or even losing as much fat as muscle.

So if you want to truly FEEL the way you felt at your goal weight, step off the scale.

Start taking progress pictures and measurements.

Use an article of clothing you felt fabulous in to track progress based on how it fits.

But stop sabotaging yourself and giving up on the habits you need because the scale isn’t changing quick enough.

Results will NEVER happen fast enough.

But we need to celebrate the other signs of success, such as improved energy, better sleep, crushing our workouts and inches being lost, that show us the habits are working so we stick with them and results can snowball!

The next weird tip, and it’s more a way of thinking about how to make diet changes is to…

Build your diet based on meals you love.

When we think about adjusting our diet, we go to all the foods we “can’t” have and then find diet meals we now need to make.

This makes us honestly often feel deprived and really not enjoy our lifestyle. It makes us dream of going back to what we were doing.

And this is why the changes don’t stick.

We’ve got to evolve our diet to match our needs and goals.

So instead of focusing on diet meals, take meals you already eat and love and find ways to adjust them to match your goals.

Love pizza?

How can you add a bit of protein to your pizza? How can you adjust the portion with maybe a side of veggies to lower calories and increase your micronutrient intake?

Love pasta?

Can you add in an extra ounce of protein? Can you swap the type of pasta to a chickpea or lentil that may boost protein?

Take the dishes you ultimately want to enjoy and find ways to tweak them so you aren’t feeling like everything you love is being cut out or that your meal prep and cooking habits all of the sudden have to shift so dramatically you’re miserable!

But stop making yourself extra miserable trying to completely overhaul your diet!

The third tip is something some of you may hate to hear and others may love…

Cut back on steady-state cardio!

So there is a lot to this tip…And first I want to address those of you who love endurance cardio sessions and want to mentally do everything you can to fight against this tip…

First, if you love running or cycling, I’m not telling you not to do it.

But if you’ve been struggling to lose weight and see the muscle definition you want, you may want to cut back on your mileage for a bit or really acknowledge the cost of doing this cardio and make massive changes to your strength workouts and diet to account for this activity.

For those of you who refuse to cut back on the cardio…

Slow down your other strength workouts and lift heavier with lower reps and longer rest periods while increasing your protein more than you want to and even de-prioritizing your endurance sports to focus on your lifting when you’re fresher.

Now for those of you who are thinking, “I don’t like cardio but it’s always helped me lose weight in the past.”

Think about that statement…you’re here because you need to lose weight AGAIN.

So as a long-term strategy, cardio didn’t work.

And part of the reason why is we’ve often used it to try to out exercise our diet instead of making dietary changes.

But also because we haven’t really built muscle and have even lost it in the process of eating less as we try to burn more. This negatively impacts our metabolic rate and how many calories we burn not only in our workouts but at rest.

And the more calories we burn at rest, the more muscle we have, the more toned we will look and the easier our results will be to maintain.

So instead of turning to cardio, focus on strength workouts. Whether you challenge yourself with bodyweight sessions or hit the gym to lift, focus on building muscle!

This next tip was one of the weirder realizations for me but also why I feel I’m able to stay leaner all year around…

Stop acting like the person always on a diet.

When we’re working to lose weight, we can feel like the friend who can never eat out. We can feel weird at parties or celebrations.

We can feel like we have to avoid the baked goods at work or office lunches.

We can feel a bit like we have to isolate ourselves and not really have fun.

No wonder most of us dread making diet changes and ultimately fall off the healthy habits we are trying to build.

But we often do this because we feel this need to be perfect. To eat clean based on what someone told us a healthy diet should look like.

We also don’t own who we are, our current lifestyle and what we want our lifestyle to look like.

We approach habit changes as being these very set things we have to do in one rigid form instead of finding ways to implement them to match what we need.

If your friend invites you out to dinner at your favorite restaurant, instead of saying no, instead of trying to deprive yourself of a meal you love, plan it in.

Maybe you go lower calorie and higher protein earlier in the day to then have flexibility at that meal.

Instead of feeling like you’ve ruined the day, just focus on that portion control and getting right back into your healthy habits the day after too.

Don’t let the dinner become multiple meals.

If you loved the baked goods someone surprised you with at work, maybe you have one.

But instead of feeling guilty for it so that you end up eating 10 or forgetting about your healthy meals the rest of the day, just enjoy it and even adjust your other meals to create a balance.

So often we try to force this perfection on ourselves over realizing that some LIFE being included in our habit changes is what allows us to actually create new healthy sustainable habits that allow progress to truly build.

And not only can we work in those things we love, but we can change how we spend time with family and friends.

Not every celebration has to revolve around food. Quality time with friends and family can be active as well.

Think about new things you want to try and explore other opportunities to spend time with loved ones that even supports the new healthy habits you want to create! You may be surprised by how much they enjoy exploring new activities too!

And the final tip I’ve found to be super key in not only achieving amazing body recomp but sustaining it over the course of the year is to take more movement snacks.

I think so often we put this emphasis on working out and working out intensely over just moving more.

But the more we are active, the more we want to be active. And the more active we want to be often the more we want to do other healthy habits to support the fact that we feel good!

The more we do, the more we do.

So throughout the day, include movement snacks.

Get up and do something if even just for a minute or two. Listen to a song or quick podcast and walk around your office.

Get up and stretch to reverse sitting hunched over.

Get up between episodes of your nightly TV shows and go roll out or even wash dishes quickly.

Do a quick post dinner walk.

But get up and move around.

The less we’re just seated, bored, lazing around doing nothing, the less likely we are to just indulge in mindless eating.

And often a big habit we have to break, on top of the benefits alone of moving more, is that mindless eating and especially the desire to eat later at night while watching TV.

But just trying to willpower our way through this desire can often lead to losing the battle when stressed because we haven’t shifted our patterns or environment.

That’s why these movement snacks can be key.

We aren’t focusing on what we shouldn’t be doing. We’re focusing on something good we want to do.

This mindset shift and focus helps as it feels positive over us feeling like we’re FIGHTING something.

Plus, moving more does mean we burn more calories at rest, helping keep our metabolic rate overall higher.

And while no, we don’t want to just focus on doing more to burn more calories, being more active does help our health and weight loss results!

But use these 5 tips to help meet yourself where you are at and make sustainable habit changes that build.

Stop trying to just force some cookie cutter plan on yourself and instead truly focus on how you can adjust your lifestyle and shift your mindsets around the habits that lead to you seeing the results you want!

And if you’re ready to build your leanest, strongest body at ANY age…yup NEVER too old!…schedule a coaching consultation call below. I’d love to help you see the results you deserve!

–> Apply To 1:1 Coaching And Schedule Your Call TODAY

How To Build Muscle Faster (One Underrated Technique)

How To Build Muscle Faster (One Underrated Technique)

by | Nov 11, 2024 | Blog, Exercises, Workouts

You’ve got to embrace being uncomfortable and really challenging yourself with exercises if you want to build muscle, especially the longer you’ve been working out.

And this doesn’t mean just feeling like you worked hard and that the reps and sets you did felt challenging.

It means even sometimes FAILING to do the variation or weight you selected for the reps or sets assigned.

Because too often we just stop when it feels hard enough instead of truly PROVING it was hard enough with having to stop.

That’s why I want to share this simple, but oh so effective workout tip to accelerate your muscle and strength gains and truly push that progression and challenge in movements safely!

And that tip is….

Use Rest-Pause Training Technique!

Rest-Pause Training Technique is an amazing way to lift heavier and use harder variations of moves to really challenge yourself and build muscle, especially if you feel like its gotten harder with age or even menopause!

And this technique can be used no matter your fitness level.

To help you implement this amazing workout tips, I want to break down what the Rest-Pause Training Technique is, why it works and 3 main ways you can use it to build muscle faster with your current workout routines even.

First, what is Rest-Pause Training Technique and why does it work?

With this workout approach, you are going to use mini breaks to get out the total reps you want.

Because the rest is only 15-30 seconds, you’re basically not allowing your body to near recover BUT also allowing yourself to recover just enough you can do a few more reps with the same variation or load.

This helps you ultimately do more reps with a weight or exercise variation you really can’t do that many reps straight with had you tried.

This is what allows you to do a more challenging variation of a move but also create more training volume.

This push and challenge to really work muscles is what drives growth!

It works because you are basically helping yourself do 10 reps with a weight you couldn’t truly do 10 straight reps with.

The magic is in that very short rest you’re using between reps to get out more quality movement but in less time than if you took a full rest between rounds.

You can almost think of it as using the short rest to work past failure.

Where you normally would stop to rest for the next round or have to lower weights, instead your taking a short rest your body doesn’t fully register as rest, to do reps you can’t normally do!

And you can use this short break and bonus reps in a 3 different ways to see amazing results and really challenge yourself with your strength training…

First, is the Basic Rest-Pause Technique.

To use this approach in the most basic way, even with almost any exercise you have currently in your workout, you’ll want to consider the rep range you want to hit.

So if your sumo squat in your workout is for 8-12 reps, you’re going to pick a weight for those squats you will probably want to, or have to, stop at 6-7 reps with.

You’ll then perform those 6-7 reps and rest 15-30 seconds before seeing how many more you can get to get in that 8-12 rep range.

If you find you’re doing 6-7 reps in your first little mini set and then able to get 12 total reps after the short rest, you may consider shorting the rest further or even going heavier until you can just hit 8 reps or the bottom of that rep range.

Both of these can allow you to advance the exercise as you slowly can get out more reps in a row.

Once you can use that weight, or exercise variation, to get the 8-12 reps straight, you may decide it is time again to increase weight and use rest-pause technique to progress further.

This basic rest-pause technique is great to use with any lifts in your workout where you’re even stuck between weights and can’t yet fully go heavier or as a way to correct imbalances, especially using even the rest to get out all the reps on your weaker side!

The second way to use this technique is as Cluster Sets.

With the Cluster Set approach, you’ll set a total number of reps you want to do and then select an exercise variation or resistance you know you can only do no more than a third of the reps straight with.

So if you want to do 10 reps, you’ll select an exercise or weight that you can do about 2-3 reps with.

You’ll perform these 2-3 rep mini sets, with 10-30 seconds of rest between them until all 10 reps are complete. Then you’ll fully rest between the next round.

But unlike the basic rest-pause design, where you will only pause ONCE, with Cluster Sets, you have a specific number of total reps, not a range, and you’ll often use multiple pauses and mini sets to hit your total.

Once you can do more than the top reps in your mini set, you’ll want to progress the move.

Cluster sets are a great tool to use for a big heavy compound lift, or exercise like the pull up or push up, you want to progress strength in to build muscle.

They allow you to go very heavy but still get in more volume or total reps!

The third use of this training technique is in the Ladder Rest-Pause set up.

This is a very strategically designed rep layout using mini rests to really boost the total work you can do with an exercise and weight.

With this design you will use descending reps so reps that go from higher to lower with mini rest between these rounds before a longer rest and repeat.

The rest can ALSO decrease in length as the reps go down.

An example of this may be the 10-7-3-1 workout design.

With this design, you’ll pick a weight you can basically do the full 10 reps with and maybe even 11 or 12 with, especially to start.

You’ll then do your 10 reps, rest 10 seconds. And then perform 7 reps.

You’ll then rest 7 seconds.

And then do 3 reps, rest 3 seconds and finally a single rep before a longer break to then repeat the series.
You’re going to end up being able to do 21 reps with a weight or exercise you could usually only do for about 10-12 reps.

And the very short rest and dropping down in reps with each round is what helps you get out that quality of work for more volume.

You don’t have to use those specific reps or rest, but you do want reps to decrease over the rounds and dramatically at the end, while including no more than 15-20 seconds of rest.

You also want to do only 3-5 drops down in reps for the ladder.

But using any of these 3 variations of Rest-Pause Technique, you can really challenge yourself in your workouts to accelerate those muscle gains!

Want more amazing workouts to help you build your leanest, strongest body ever?

–> Check Out My Dynamic Strength Program

7 Tips To Start Back in the Gym After a Layoff

7 Tips To Start Back in the Gym After a Layoff

by | Sep 29, 2024 | Blog, Exercises, Functional Fitness, Pain Relief, Workouts

Starting back to working out is HARD.

It’s easy to do too much too fast and prevent ourselves from getting into a routine or even end up injured.

It’s hard to regress to progress and even check our egos to do less than we were doing before.

But meeting ourselves where we are at to rebuild is key.

That’s why I want to share 7 tips to help you avoid the common training mistakes I see people making when starting back so you can rebuild even stronger and get that momentum going so results snowball!

And I will warn you…as you build back, it can be hard at times to not compare to where you were at before.

But this comparison can kill our gains.

Which is why tip number 1 is to remember every move is EARNED!

It’s tempting to try to go back to what you once did before you took time off.

But that is a recipe for injury or at least soreness that may sideline you for weeks, holding you back from getting consistent.

You have to build back. You have to earn those moves again.

And often it isn’t enough to just think “do less.”

You truly need to focus on modifying to match where you are at now.

It may mean taking more than one or two steps back to focus on fully re-establishing those movement patterns and that mind-body connection.

So when you first start back, go back to those basics. 

Focus on what you feel working with fundamental moves you can then build off of.

Even film your movements to check form.

Take pride in earning those exercises and weights back with slow progression.

But enjoy re-learning to move well first.

And note…I said SLOW progression with earning those moves.

A common mistake we make when building back is not only not having earned the moves we include and simply doing what we’d done before…

But also doing too much too fast.

We go 0-60. 

We jump off the couch and expect to be back to running half marathons right away.

Instead we need to take the approach of doing just enough that we CRAVE more and feel we could have done more.

This will help us ultimately not make ourselves so sore we can’t be consistent or compensate due to fatigue so we end up with injury.

We have to remember that everything is sort of NEW again.

And that new again can make us sore.

Being too sore can stop us from doing our weekly workouts as they are laid out, which can make it hard to build that routine and momentum.

Not to mention, being sore can change our recruitment patterns, impacting how muscles engage in other moves.

This can lead to us not getting the most out of our workouts or ending up injured so we’re starting over again.

So remember less is more starting back. Do just enough that you’re craving doing more but DON’T until you have a few weeks under your belt!

And make those progressions in moves incremental, tracking them over the weeks!

Which leads me to tip #3…Don’t jump to adding weights first.

Adding weights or using a form of resistance is the easiest way to progress a move often.

So our first thought as we build back is to simply load moves down.

And if we can do a weight, we add more!

But just because you can lift a weight doesn’t mean your body is truly ready to.

While you may be strong enough, we have to remember that our connective tissues aren’t as fast to heal and build.

So not only do you want to take your time and slowly add loads to give your body fully time to catch back up, but you may want to start with other forms of progression first.

Progression or advancement in moves can be achieved through the same but different!

Consider first increasing your range of motion for a movement. This can help you build mobility and stability as you progress.

Or work up toward the top of your rep range over hitting the bottom to create that strength but also muscular endurance.

Even consider adjusting the tempo of the move, speeding moves up to work on your mind-body connection and fast recruitment patterns and even power or slowing moves down to focus more on strength and control.

But don’t just jump to adding weights.

Too often we do this and then ego even starts to get in the way pushing us to do more than we’ve earned!

Then tip #4: Focus on what you feel working! Don’t just rush through!

Establishing that mind-body conenction to make sure we’re moving WELL is key.

We’re laying that foundation off of which we will build our future training.

This is an opportunity to make sure this foundation is extra strong.

Not to mention, the better we are able to activate muscles, the stronger and more powerful we will be.

This focus on muscle activation will also help us ultimately see better muscle gains more quickly!

So as you start back, stay intentional with the moves. Ask yourself, “What do I feel working?” doing each exercise.

Don’t just go through the motions. Just don’t rush through.

And if you don’t feel the correct muscles working, modify the movement. Swap in a different variation. Regress to progress.

Even assess if other mobility work, especially in your warm up is key to help you get the correct muscles working, especially ones that may be underactive from previous injuries or your desk job posture.

Which is why tip #5 is to prioritize your warm up.

Too often we want to skip our warm ups  to get to the “good stuff.”

We focus just on the calorie burn and muscle building benefits.

But our training sessions are a time to learn to move well and even address postural distortions we have from previous injuries and our desk job postures.

Especially when we’re just starting back, we want to build that strong foundation.

We don’t want to ignore cracks that will only add up more and more as we progress.

So especially as you’re starting back, prioritize that mobility work and get in the habit of a warm up that focuses on foam rolling, stretching and activation.

You want to foam roll to relax tight muscles and start to mobilize your joints. Foam rolling can even help you disrupt that mind-body connection to muscles that tend to want to take over when they shouldn’t, like your hamstrings for your glutes in bridges.

You then want to include dynamic stretching to further mobilize your joints and improve your muscle flexibility, stretching out tight muscles.

This dynamic stretching also begins to activate underactive muscles before you finish your warm up with activation exercises.

These activation moves isolate muscles to help you really feel them working.

This mind-body connection then allows you to better activate these muscles in the compound exercises you use in your workout. 

Like say for instance doing a fire hydrant in your warm up to activate your glutes before then having reverse lunges in your workout. You’ll be surprised by how much more you really feel your glutes working and see better muscle and strength gains faster because of it!

But your mobility work doesn’t stop at your warm up.

Not only do you want to then include moves to strengthen through a full range of motion, but you also want to make sure your workouts include exercises that move you in every direction!

Often when we start back we include those fundamental movement patterns which are key, but we also get stuck moving in really only one plan of motion.

This ultimately can fight against us truly improving our mobility and stability but also hold us back from becoming functionally more fit and building muscle as quickly as possible.

The more directions we press and lunge and pull in, the more we are hitting every aspect of a muscle group and really using a joint through a full range of motion.

And sometimes these simple tweaks in posture and direction can make a basic move harder.

You may find by including a side lunge, you feel your glutes and adductors more while improving your hip stability…all while even using lighter loads than maybe you could for something like a reverse lunge.

With a focus on moving in different directions we will also improve our core strength, including rotational and anti-rotational moves.

All of this is key to building back more quickly while creating that solid foundation from the get go!

It can also allow us to challenge ourselves with less volume and loads to truly address any weak links we may have!

And with all of this…tip #7…Stay consistent!

It is tempting when starting back to get distracted by all of the options out there and to want to try all of the different moves and tools.

Don’t.

Stay focused on your goals. Have a clear plan in place.

Avoid jumping around too much as this can lead to injury and results not building…not to mention you constantly feeling sore and like you aren’t progressing!

While you don’t want to repeat the same moves every single day, you do want to have a weekly schedule you repeat for even 3-8 weeks straight.

This will help you slowly progress moves week over week and be able to track your progress.

You will also find your body adapts more quickly so you can ultimately see changes faster.

We have to remember that we get good at what we consistently do…and this applies to our training and movements too!

So if you’re starting back to training, focus on meeting yourself where you are at, progressing moves with intention and purpose while following a clear plan that keeps you consistent and earning every move you do!

For more workouts designed to help you rock those results no matter your fitness level, check out my Dynamic Strength program…

–> Learn More

15 Years Of NO BS Fitness Advice (In Under 15 Minutes)

15 Years Of NO BS Fitness Advice (In Under 15 Minutes)

by | Sep 22, 2024 | Blog, Diet, Exercises, Pain Relief, Workouts

I’m going to give it to you straight. 15 tips from about 15 years in the industry in under 15 minutes. Good thing I talk fast.

Tips that not only worked for me but I’ve seen work for people around the world to help YOU rock those results no matter your age.

So to not waste any time, Tip #1 and one of the most important keys to results…

Don’t Quit.

We most often don’t see results build because we never stick with anything long enough.

We give up at the first FEELING that something isn’t working…

That results aren’t happening fast enough.

And we jump to something new.

This constant jumping from thing to thing never lets us get GOOD at anything or be consistent enough with it for true changes to snowball.

Results are built off of those basic, boring habits repeated daily over not only weeks, but months and years.

But not quitting and trusting the process is hard, which is why Tip #2 is…

What gets measured gets managed.

If you want to bake a cookie and make sure it turns out, you follow a recipe.

This clear plan with everything tracked and measured, helps you guarantee a result.

If you randomly just throw things in a bowl, you won’t know why the cookies didn’t turn out or why they were the best gooey deliciousness ever.

Same principle applies to our health and fitness goals.

If we have that clear recipe and measure out everything, we can help ourselves make sure we’re working toward a focused outcome and more easily ADJUST if something goes wrong.

When we have that clear picture of what we’re doing, we don’t have to feel frustrated or like we are guessing at what works.

We also give ourselves true DATA off of which to make changes so we can trust the process more and not let feelings that sabotage us make us want to quit.

But even embracing tracking, whether it is your food or workouts or ideally both, is a hard thing at times for us to accept.

Which is why Tip #3 isn’t just to track but to jump into the changes you least want to make as soon as you can!

Yup. The changes you least want to make are the ones you probably need to make the most.

One of the most important things I harp on is increasing protein.

Guess what change most of us don’t want to make, researching even reasons why we shouldn’t increase it?

But also guess what changewe most often INSTANTLY see progress from and wonder why we didn’t make it sooner?

You guessed it…increasing protein.

Change requires change.

And the changes we least want to make are the ones that are often the hardest, most uncomfortable or furthest from our comfort zone.

But they are also often what is needed to reach a goal we haven’t achieved before and bust us out of the yo-yo dieting cycle.

So if you’ve been fighting a change, pause, ask yourself why, and then embrace an experiment where you track and see the true outcome!

It may surprise you!

And while embracing discomfort is part of achieving results, we can also sabotage ourselves with the “No pain, no gain” mindset!

Which is why Tip #4 is to ditch the all or nothing, work harder, no pain, no gain attitude.

This attitude keeps us stuck expecting perfection of ourselves, doing more and more until…well…

We ultimately run out of willpower, get injured and fall back into old habits.

We’re human and flawesome.

And when we make changes too hard on ourselves, we’re often just making our excuses grow too.

It’s Newton’s Third Law of Motion that says, “For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.”

Keep trying to do more, and you’re going to get a push back against the changes equally as strong.

And the harder we work, the more we do, the more we EXPECT an outcome…when in reality we can’t out exercise or out diet time.

So ultimately we just make ourselves give up in frustration.

Instead we need to focus on small changes that build and that make change seem DOABLE.

Which is actually why Tip #5 is to stop the eat clean pressure.

There is no official definition of clean eating and trust me, no one agrees.

Vegans and Carnivores have vastly different opinions.

And trying to hit someone else’s arbitrary standards of clean can make you feel like you can’t even eat air.

It can make us feel guilty for enjoying food and even make us feel like it’s impossible to even make a change that will pay off.

But we can and should include foods we simply LOVE.

We just need to strike an 80/20 balance.

80% of the time focus on those whole natural foods. 20% include just foods you love with NO guilt.

This will allow you to create a sustainable lifestyle and truly build consistent habit changes that do snowball over leaving you feeling restricted and deprived so you ultimately fall off any plan you start.

And with embracing your balance, don’t just include foods you love, truly PLAN around them, even planning them in first.

Tip #6 is the secret that led to me ultimately finally achieving the body recomp I wanted.

Planning in the foods I wanted first and focusing on nutrition by addition.

Often the things we love most are the things we cut out first. They are the things that don’t make that “eat clean” list.

They are also the things we add back in as soon as we can, which lead to us ending up back where we started.

Basically we’re repeating a cycle of restriction we can never maintain.

And you can’t do one thing to reach your goal then go back to what you were doing before and expect to maintain your results.

Plus the second you tell yourself you can’t have something, you want it even more!

Instead, plan in the dessert you want, that snack you love, FIRST to your day and work your other meals around it.

Start by making small changes to your diet, adding in more veggies or protein or something you know is beneficial.

This focus on small changes that feel easy often is just what we need to lower our defenses against more changes and see the momentum build.

However, in including foods you love, this doesn’t mean you can eat whatever you want, whenever you want in any quantity you want.

Which is why Tip #7 is to recognize your trigger foods.

No foods have to be off limits. But there are foods we will CHOOSE to include or not include.

We need to recognize those foods we can’t consume in moderation that only lead to us falling back into old patterns.

I know I can have just one peanut butter protein ball, but I know I can’t have just one Reese’s peanut butter cup.

I own this fact and include the protein ball on a regular basis but the peanut butter cup only when I’m ok with having more than 1..or like 10.

And if I do have peanut butter cups around and don’t want to eat them, I put them in the freezer.

For me, this shifts my mindset to be ok with waiting to have more.

While this is odd because technically they taste even more delicious frozen, this freezing of them helps me feel like they’ll be there when I want them in the future.

It’s the shift in environment and mindset.

For you this shift may come from not having the food in the house, or putting it into single serving bags so you can only easily eat one serving or even hiding it on a higher shelf.

The key is I recognize the foods I can work in and those I can’t to then determine a balance and even environment right for me and my goals at this time.

So CHOOSE to include foods you love but also understand the foods that may not fit your goals right now and find ways to address that!

The more we own who we are and what has and hasn’t worked for us in the past with our diet and workouts, the more we can meet ourselves where we are at and create the perfect plan for ourselves right now to rock those results.

That’s why Tip #8 is to assess and address your schedule shifts.

I most often talk about assessing your schedule when it comes to designing your workout, but you want to also assess your schedule to make dietary changes as well.

Not only in terms of determining how you meal prep and the meal timing best for you but also in how you handle WEEKEND EATING!

Too often we don’t see results and think, “But I was good all week!”

It’s that weekend eating that gets us. It changes our macros for the week and can easily throw us out of our deficit.

Some of us even recognize how hard it is to eat well over the weekend, but then we never really address that fact.

We force weekday habits on weekends that just aren’t the same.

Instead we need to own that often habits and schedules DO change over Friday, Saturday and Sunday and we need to PLAN for that.

That we do enjoy happy hour or are at home more lazing on the couch!

So instead of a strict macro ratio, maybe we just set a calorie cap and protein minimum.

Maybe we plan in restaurant dishes or cocktails to hold ourselves accountable but have a bit more food freedom on the weekend with boundaries.

The key is assessing why the same habits don’t work over the weekend and finding ways to address the changes in schedule and even routines to work with them instead of trying to willpower your way against them!

So many of these tips are about shifting the mindsets controlling our actions.

And Tip #9 addresses a hard mindset to often change but one that is so key for us seeing better results from our training….

We need to stop seeking to be sore.

Soreness is not an indicator you worked hard enough or you’re going to see better muscle gains.

I know it can feel satisfying and some of us sickly like it….

But honestly, it is really often a sign we don’t have a clear program in place that we’re strategically progressing or that our recovery and fueling isn’t ideal.

And constantly seeking to be sore may be why we feel like we’re working really hard yet not seeing progress.

Instead everything we include in our workouts should be designed with a purpose and repeated to progress.

But just because a clear progression or weekly schedule we repeat is key, doesn’t mean we shouldn’t include diversity.

Actually diversity of movement is ESSENTIAL and that’s why it is Tip #10….

Exercise diversity helps us see better results faster.

Diversity of movements done over the weekly schedule can help us create progression through the same but different and target different aspects of muscles to different extents.

We can diversify the moves we use through different types of resistances…

Through adding instability, whether an unstable surface or even by making a move more unilateral, such as an 80/20 deadlift or single leg deadlift over a bilateral one.

Or even through slightly different postures, positions or ranges of motion.

We also have to remember that different muscles in a muscle group may have different joints they impact and control movement of and therefore will be worked by different joint actions.

For example, if you want to make sure you hit your entire hamstring muscle group, you can’t just include a deadlift, which is a hip hinge.

You also need to include a knee flexion movement like a lying leg curl.

So over the weekly schedule you create, don’t just reuse the same moves. Think about including a diversity to target the same muscles in different ways!

And guess what? Some of these moves you may not like and they may feel awkward. GOOD!

Tip #11 is to do awkward moves you don’t like.

Those moves we don’t like, that feel awkward, are often also moves that address our weak links.

They often improve our balance, stability and our mind-body connection so we ultimately get stronger, can run faster and see better muscle gains.

They are the moves that test our coordination. That make us check our egos with loads.

They keep us young and able to react quickly in every day life while recruiting the correct muscles efficiently in the right order to perform those lifts we may want to beast mode out.

So stop skipping them! They truly are the key to being functionally stronger and often even lifting more with our big heavy lifts.

And not only should you stop skipping these awkward moves, you need to stop skipping your warm up.

Yup Tip #12 is the oh so unsexy tip of – Don’t skip your warm up.

Feel like you’re getting older and just have to accept aches and pains?

You don’t. You just have to stop trying to get away with skipping your prehab work and warm up.

Honestly, this is something we shouldn’t have tried to get away with skipping in the first place and the fact that we did is why more aches and pains add up as we get older.

But we can change that by including a proper warm up now.

A proper warm up makes sure our muscles and joints are ready to work through a full range of motion from the first rep we do with weights.

Our warm up isn’t us wasting time before we get to the good stuff. It is what helps us get results from all the hard work we put in.

If you want to lift more, run faster, cycle further, a proper warm up with foam rolling, stretching and activation is what will help you do just that.

And I know this sucks to hear…I know a lot of what I’ve mentioned goes against some of what you’ve done in the past, but…

You can’t expect to see a new and better result doing what you’ve always done.

That’s why Tip #13 is to embrace being uncomfortable.

Stop fearing something different.

That different thing you’re resisting is probably what you need to get to a new goal.

Because if what you’ve always done worked, you’d have achieved results already.

But we have to step outside our comfort zone and risk being bad at something to learn and grow.

Don’t hold yourself back sticking with what you just feel comfortable with. Build off of that.

Now that being said, you also have to recognize that the more changes you make at once, the more of a cost you’ll feel before the reward.

That’s why I like clients to embrace being uncomfortable but also avoid the all or nothing attitude.

It’s why Tip #14 is to evolve YOUR lifestyle.

Meet yourself where you’re at to build small changes off of that and slowly push your comfort zone.

Because one size doesn’t fit all and there is no perfect plan.

Even what used to work for us will change as WE are constantly changing.

Your lifestyle, body and needs are not the same now as they were years ago.

Not to mention even our schedule shifts over the year as well as our priorities, impacting the habits that are actually realistic for us now.

That’s why we always need to assess where we are currently first to move forward.

When you set that GPS to get you to a new location, you don’t just enter your destination…

You enter your current location. We need that same starting point to map out our roadmap to results.

Which brings me to the boring but essential 15th tip…Plan ahead.

We wouldn’t just get in a car and drive around aimlessly hoping to get to our destination, yet that’s what we so often do with our fitness goals.

We say what we want then just start doing random moves and diets.

Without a plan, we have no direction.

We have no process we can trust.

And we don’t know what is and isn’t working.

So ultimately we get no where.

Failing to plan is planning to fail…cliche and oh so true.

Don’t repeat the same mistakes. Use these tips and plan our your program to achieve your goals. Which 1 tip will you focus on first?

Ready to build your leanest, strongest body EVER no matter your age?

Learn more about my 1:1 Online Coaching!

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Build Muscle and Lose Fat With Density Intervals

Build Muscle and Lose Fat With Density Intervals

by | Aug 25, 2024 | Blog, Exercises, Workouts

Too often we only use one very specific rep and set range in our workouts because we’ve heard it’s ideal for strength or muscle hypertrophy or strength endurance…

And we stay within this SINGLE rep range because it is supposedly best for our goal.

But this narrow view of how we SHOULD train holds us back.

It even prevents us from truly pushing ourselves or that progression to create results.

It prevents us from building endurance which could enhance our recovery to see better muscle growth.

It prevents us from increasing our maximal strength to see better muscle gains.

And when we don’t use DIVERSITY IN DESIGN to our advantage, which is even more key the more experienced we are, we often see our results plateau.

We find we aren’t gaining muscle while still putting in hours at the gym. And even our fat loss results seem to go backward.

But by embracing other training techniques, not only can we improve our results, but we can be more efficient in our training, which is good if you’ve ever thought, “I don’t have enough time!”

That’s why I want to share one of my favorite efficient training techniques so you can see better fat loss and muscle gains from your workouts.

And that training technique is Density Intervals!

When we hear INTERVALS, many of us instantly think about cardio workouts.

We think HIIT and our blood pumping and fat crying…

Not muscle being built.

But intervals are a great way to help ourselves increase our training density, or the amount of work or weight lifted in a set timeframe, to see better muscle and strength gains with shorter workout sessions.

That’s why I want to break down why interval strength workouts can be so amazing and how to use Density Intervals specifically to your advantage.

So first…why can intervals be better than just set rep ranges for building strength and muscle?

Using timed intervals in our strength workouts can help us push past the point we usually want to quit.

Think about your workouts…Have you ever just stopped at the top of a rep range because you hit the top number you “should” be doing?

Have you ever thought, “I could have done more but MEH it’s hard enough and I want to just get the workout done?”

Intervals can help us push past that point because we have to keep going until the timer beeps.

It can make us do an extra few reps we normally wouldn’t have and push a bit harder than we would have otherwise.

Even if we have to PAUSE during the interval to keep going, it helps us get more work done in a shorter amount of time.

And it can even help us lift a greater overall load for the session than we would have just counting reps.

Especially if we are a bit pressed for time, intervals stop us from losing mental focus and just rushing through.

We can’t just stop when it feels hard with reps, think “Good enough” and go on to the next thing.

We have to work the entire interval.

And often this keeps us more intentional and focused on the movement. We aren’t worried as much about counting reps.

We can’t be done faster.

So we stay focused on what we feel working.

And when you use the same intervals of work week over week, you can focus on progressing the moves you use or the weights you lifted or even try to get out an extra rep or two with the weight or variation you used the week before in that same time frame.

This can drive progression without increasing your workout time.

You can even time your workout exactly to fit your schedule because you know how long each set will take!

And if you’ve ever felt like you just can’t do another rep or add more weight to a move, this is also where intervals can help you out.

Often if we fail with a weight we just stop there and move on.

But with intervals, you may drop the weight to keep going. Or you may pause then pick back up to finish out the interval.

And Density Intervals even add another layer to this…

While you can use intervals in so many different ways, with Density Intervals you will want to do back to back intervals of work for the same muscle group but using two different forms of progression or movement variations.

Like if you’re working your legs, you may do an interval of front lunges then an interval of split squat pulses.

This helps you take a muscle closer to fatigue in a fast and efficient way.

It can also help you use all 3 drivers of muscle growth and create progression when you can’t do another rep or add more weight with your traditional workout designs.

With Density Intervals, you’ll set two intervals of work for the same area back to back.

In one, you may perform a hold or isometric to pre fatigue the muscle before you then go into reps.

Because you are already tired, you may find the same loads or movement variations you can usually do become exponentially harder. You max yourself out and push past failure with even lighter loads!

Or you may do Density Intervals, where you do that heavy compound lift first, followed by more of an isolation move after to fully fatigue the big muscle worked in your lift.

And you aren’t just limited to these change ups.

You can use two different tempos back to back.

Or even ranges of motion.

And the options go on on and on.

This is also why this workout design can be especially useful when training at home with only bodyweight or limited loads if you’re struggling to see the muscle strength and gains you want from your training.

All of this allows you to use diversity to your advantage while getting in more work for an area without your workouts getting longer and longer.

It helps you fatigue a muscle using different techniques combined. And this is what drives better results.

It can help you truly push yourself to challenge your body while staying focused and intentional.

Because too often we waste time in our workouts just going through the motions.

We want to be able to ask ourselves…

“Have I pushed myself forward and challenged myself today? Have I felt uncomfortable a bit in my training using the time I have to get in quality work?”

And have the answer be YES.

Because that is what leads to results and what Density Intervals can truly help us achieve.

So if you’ve felt like your results have plateaued and your training sessions just aren’t pushing you any more, consider mixing up your traditional reps and sets for timed intervals of strength work.

You’ll be surprised by how the same but different really drives you forward and challenges your body in new ways!

Want killer workouts you can do anywhere to help you build strength and muscle while losing fat?

Check out my Dynamic Strength Program!