Welcome!

There is a lot of talk about what constitutes a “healthy” diet, but rarely do we ever define what exactly we mean by “healthy”. And when we do define “healthy”, we often get lost focusing on things that have marginal benefit and ignoring those things that have substantial benefit. In this post, I hope to demystify nutrition and offer the framework I use when thinking about food.

I frequently encounter people who tell me about their failed attempts at completing a novice strength program like Starting Strength or StrongLifts. They were expecting to make progress for 4-6 months but instead hit a plateau within 4-8 weeks of training. In this post, I will explain why that is and offer some advice on how you can adjust your programming to make more sustained progress on a novice strength program.

You’ve heard and read enough about strength training and are ready to begin your Strength Block. You want to learn the lifts, but are unsure where to go. You might be thinking of simply booking a session with a personal trainer at your local gym, but I would caution you from doing so just yet. It’s important to understand that Personal Trainers are not (usually) strength coaches, despite how impressive their physiques may be.

While a 1,000 lb. deadlift is certainly beyond the genetical potential of most of us, a 400-500 lb. deadlift is quite achievable by most young males (<50) that devote 2-3 years to intelligent and purposeful training. Similarly, most young women can aspire to a 200-300 lb. deadlift. Moreover, progress in any type of physical training is never linear, but logarithmic. This means that most of the progress you make in those 2-3 years is achieved within the first four to six months, a period of time I like to refer to as The Strength Block.

We often speak of losing weight, but what most of us really want is to lose fat while retaining or even gaining muscle. In my previous post, I explained how three things must be present to make this happen: adequate protein (1g per pound of bodyweight), sufficient training volume, and a caloric deficit. In this post, I will dive a little deeper into what it means to be in a caloric deficit and how best to achieve this.

A good strength training program will incorporate four basic movement patterns: a hinge, a squat, an upper body pull and an upper body push. Of these, priority is given to those exercises that utilize a full range of motion, admit of incremental loading, lack artificial limiters, and have the greatest carry over to daily life.

Strength is an adaptation. It is the body’s response to certain stressors that we place on it. When the stress is sufficient, the body responds and adapts. When the stress is insufficient or excessive, the desired adaptation does not occur. Programming is all about identifying the appropriate dose of stress to apply to trigger the desired adaptation.

…the stress of a one-rep max is too great to recover from. It does not constitute a good training stimulus, but a performance. In other words, it tells us how strong we are, but it does not make us stronger. The appropriate dose for strength training must be something that the body can quickly recover from and adapt to.

My trainees fall into one of three groups: Some are lean, others are overweight, and most fall somewhere in the middle. In this post, I would like to share how I go about making nutrition recommendations for each group.

The question I’m constantly asked is: how do I eat more protein without eating more calories?

In this post, I’ve put together an example of how I manage to get 150g of protein and stay under 2,000 calories:

I can’t stress the importance of learning to squat from a competent coach—if you’re unsure where to find one, start here! But if you do not have access to a coach or are still struggling with certain parts of the movement despite having met with a coach, then the following videos may help:

I can’t stress the importance of learning to overhead press from a competent coach. But if you do not have access to a coach or are still struggling with certain parts of the movement despite having met with a coach, then the following videos may help: