One of the biggest knocks against Strength Coaches and Personal Trainers is that we continually need our clients to come back in order to make money.  My answer?  Well, duh....it's called capitalism, folks.

But, the argument goes, in order to keep our client coming back, we teach exercises where people come to depend on us.  Then, with Bosu and Stability balls abound, we'll constantly change the movements ensuring that no one truly masters our "functional" exercises.

If you've ever met me, you know nothing could be further from the truth.

Instead, the biggest compliment I can receive is when someone believes they are strong enough - and knows enough about training - that they feel confident to go it alone.  One of my favorite proverbs is, "Teach a man to deadlift, and he'll get strong for a lifetime."

........or something like that.

There are a few pearls of wisdom from Yogi Berra that I absolutely love.  For example:

"When you come to a fork in the road, take it."

"You better cut the pizza in four slices because I'm not hungry enough to eat six"

AND

"You can observe a lot just by watching."

But, there's one quote that comes to mind when the calendar is reset, and gyms are flooded with New Years resolutions: "If you don't know where you're going, you'll end up someplace else." 

To start things off, I have to take a second and talk about one of my favorite shows: House of Cards.  

For those that watch, you're probably aware that the second season came out on Friday (a Valentine's Day miracle!), and Lindsay and I have been trying to practice some self-restraint by only watching the first 3 episodes over this past weekend.

I won't give any spoilers, but ZOMG, I can't believe what happened in that first episode!  It's like the writers decided, "we're just going to show that we're one of the most bad ass shows that's ever been created and do something insane."  Well, it worked.

Thanksgiving is next week, and if you're like me, it's pretty much a second (but earlier) Christmas.  I love to eat, and when I sit down to my Thanksgiving dinner, I'll be acting like I've just opened the greatest present of all time.

That's right....a NINTENDO SIXTY FOUURRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!

If you've read my blog for any period of time, or know me well enough, you know that I'm not a Crossfit fan.  To its credit, Crossfit has excelled in making people excited about working out and lifting weights - which I obviously love.  Plus, anything that gets rid of pink dumbbells and machines, in favor of barbells, dumbbells, and trap bars is always going to get a thumbs up from me.

I've always maintained, however, that the devil with Crossfit is in the details.  Should you perform 30 reps of an Olympic lift in a row, and then run a quarter mile, as many times as you can in 15 minutes?  Probably not (the answer is, of course, never, ever do that). But, often times, people really dig Crossfit style workouts saying that they love the variety of all the exercises they do: overhead squats, box jumps, olympic lifts, double unders, kettlebell swings, rowing machines, etc.

Well, when it comes to actually seeing results, variety is completely overrated.  In fact, it contributes to what I call "exercise ADD."