To put it simply, weight machines are a waste of time.  ​

Now, before you start breathing fire on your keyboard and pledging your allegiance to the United States of Nautilus, I urge you to hear me out.  Many of the reasons machines are praised by the larger population are the exact reasons why you should not be using them, and in fact, they are hurting your own physical development.

As it's Valentine's Day and love is in the air, I wanted to focus on something that hasn't received much love over the past few years....carbohydrates.

While I think it started with the Atkins diet, as well as the discovery that the entire "low fat" diet actually caused more disease than it prevented (yes, it's true), it's now pretty trendy to say that you are "low carb" or have gone "Paleo."

Don't get me wrong, people that switch to the Paleo diet do lose weight.  But is the war on carbs even necessary?  Nope.  And crediting weight loss to a lack of grains or carbs is actually setting us back in our own nutrition.

I really hatehearing about new year “resolutions.”  In fact, I find this term to beabout as annoying as “irregardless.”

Oddly enough, I have a favorable view when people tellme about “goals” for the new year.  Before you start telling me that thedifference is merely semantics, let’s take a closer look at each one.

For many people, resolutions might be some form of thefollowing (note: the items listed below were once my own resolutions, so I’m asguilty as the next person):

I'm going to venture out on a limb and say that you've had lower back pain.

No, I'm not an oracle.  Nor am I one of those fortune telling gypsies in my new favorite Netflix show, "Peaky Blinders."  Great show, horrible name.  

It's just an honest fact - 80% of Americans will experience lower back pain at some point in their lives.  Like most of you, I'm not the exception, as I've dealt with my own share of lower back pain....and I'm just now getting to the point where I'm not constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop.

I'd like to think I'm a classic case of Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde.  Or rather, Dr. Deadlift and Mr. HydeThatBenchPress.

While I'm well on my way to deadlifting 3x my bodyweight, I really struggle on the bench press.  I know, I know, #meatheadproblems right?

But when it comes to my bench numbers, the struggle is real.  Between May and December of last year, I failed to improve my bench press and if anything, it occasionally seemed like my numbers were going backwards.  While my best bench ever was a measly 275 pounds (it's all perspective, right?), in late December I missed a rep at 265.  I was frustrated, and frankly, was thinking about benching wayyyy too much for my own good.

(And I'm sorry, but any guys reading this, I don't believe that you benched over 300 in high school.  Because you didn't. It's that simple.)