Health Span and Weight Training This past week an article in the New Yorker noted that while Americans seem to be living longer, the years beyond 65 are often ones of very poor health. The health span of the US population has not increased much while people stay alive longer than 50 years ago. As I turn 84 in a few months Im constantly struck by the huge advantage that I have experienced because of my lifelong practice of weight training. Although I am an individual case, I have noted that friends who have consistently lifted weights have tended to both live a long time but stay physically via ..read more

Cutting Edge Innovations in Fitness and Health: Buyer Beware! There are a staggering number of products and programs offered for sale in the fitness and health universe. Many of these are marketed as significant innovations. Most of us have developed a reasonable sense of skepticism about products making extravagant claims. What tends to trip us up is when the marketing or promotion of some new thing does not set off our BS Alarm. In examining many current innovations I found that many sounded very appealing and even appeared to have some legitimacy. However, I also found that it was extremely ..read more

Golf and Powerlifting: Some Surprising Similarities To achieve a high level of performance in both golf and powerlifting excellent balance is required. This is an underappreciated training requirement for both sports that is rarely discussed in the literature on training and conditioning. While golf is not usually a sport where strength conditioning is seen as a key element, some commentators have noted that recreational players can benefit from building strength. As most are aware, the people holding PGA cards train regularly with weights. Powerlifters are rarely encouraged to do balance trai ..read more

Dont Get Old Before Your Time! How many people have that OMG experience when they suddenly become aware of how lousy they look and feel at an age when they should be in their prime? They feel ancient and look ten or twenty years older than they actually are. When a person does not take action to slow physical decline bad things happen. Taking action to build a strong and healthy body can make a HUGE difference in a persons health and vitality in their 40s, 50s 60s and beyond. How do I know this? I’m 83 (almost 84) and most people think I’m a fit 60. The picture below was taken during one of my ..read more

Latest Research on Weight Training: Much Less There than Meets the Eye Hardly a week goes by when I dont receive an email for a stunning new discovery in weight training. The emergence of artificial intelligence has also produced a blizzard of claims about new and improved training. Mostly this blizzard of information is an increasingly desperate attempt to get attention in a heavily saturated market. I characterize most of the things I have seen lately as following something like following format: Headline: Latest Research shows the HUGE superiority of our program. But, in tiny print at the b ..read more

A 5-second trick to help overcome physical weaknesses. As longtime lifters we gradually move into a mindset that divides the day into time when we work out, and time when we do everything else. However, during the time when we are not working out, it is possible to do a few things that are invisible to the people around us and can help a lot in overcoming specific weak spots that we may have. This technique is very useful when recovering from an injury as an additional form of physical therapy. It is also useful to work on stubborn weak points in our lifts.   Example: Weak parts in the be ..read more

The Power of Persistence: An Unbeatable Formula when Paired with Learning One of my favorite quotes that I believe applies to many things in life is: Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not: nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not: unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not: the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. – Herbert Hoover As someone who has been working out regularly since 1955, I am a poster boy for persistence. However, I believe there is another c ..read more

When Less is More: Give Yourself a Gift As a devoted practitioner of fitness there are some free gifts you can give yourself that can have a nice impact on your life. IMHO there is way too much negative energy around promoting different fitness programs, diets, and lifestyles. For this reason, a lot of us go through our training with a low-level feeling that we could do more or didnt do quite enough today. Vague dissatisfaction creeps in when we focus on our four pack or sub-400 bench press. Much promotional hype around different fitness and diet programs comes across as a cacophony of screami ..read more

Four Simple Exercises to Reduce Your Chance of Injury As all of you know the worst thing that can happen to an athlete is not losing a game, it is getting injured. When you get hurt you cant play! Winning or losing lasts about 10 minutes. getting hurt can last for weeks or (gasp!) longer. Forget the score we just want to be able play!   Some High ROI (Return on Investment) Workout Practices Over my many decades in sports I have come across a few good ideas on how to limit the likelihood of injuriesand some really bad ideas that became wildly popular. Here are a few things that I believe g ..read more

Unanticipated Layoffs: How Much Conditioning do You Lose? Unplanned layoffs can disrupt our training occasionally. How much conditioning a person will lose is always on our minds when our regular training schedule is disrupted. An ice storm hit my city this week and shut down gyms, food stores and other businesses. When the thaw finally arrived, it was nearly impossible to find a parking spot near the gym. For those of us for whom working out is part of our regular routine, a few days of unplanned layoff can seem like a big deal. But how much do we regress when life decides we will completely ..read more