This past weekend, I hit a new PR on hang cleans at 225 (which, forthe internet, is probably not all that impressive).  While I’ve posted thevideo, what you can’t see is how after my reps I walked around an empty gymhigh fiving walls, fake people, and screaming the lyrics to Luke Bryan. True story.

But, it made me realize that I don’t talk about Olympiclifting on here, even though I do the lifts very often.  So why do I stayquiet about it?  Well, for the majority of adults, Olympic lifting justdoesn’t make sense (yup, I’m looking at you, Crossfit).

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.

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):

​It's the first week of April, and you know what that means: tax season.  Fortunately, I've already filed mine (with the help of my Dad), so no late, number-crunching nights are in my immediate future.

Oddly enough, tax season reminds me (as most things do) of some of the parallels to strength and conditioning - sometimes, what you want to do, is not always what you need to do.  Sure, I want to tell the IRS to keep their grubby hands off my money, but for a list of reasons, that's not a sustainable strategy.

Ok, so how does this apply to the gym?  Well, as some of you know, there are few things that I hold as close to my heart as the deadlift.  In fact, I believe the order goes: eating dead animal flesh, country music, deadlifting, and The Bachelor. All ensuing masculinity jokes aside, I recently had to put all my deadlifting on the shelf, as I realized that doing some form of hip-dominant movement every workout (like the deadlift) was what I wanted, but not necessarily what I needed.

Before I go anywhere with this post, I just want to ask one simple question:​ what is the deal with the "Harlem Shake?"

I like to think that I appreciate internet humor as much as the next person....but, where did it come from?  Why for 30 long seconds does everything get really, really weird?​  And, more importantly, is this something we have to worry about for much longer?

If you have absolutely no idea what I'm talking about, here are the members of the Miami Heat performing their own version (my favorite character being the "horse-tronaut" in the background)​: