I know the last episode of of this new series was just a few weeks ago but my goodness with the holiday season in full swing also are the mind boggling questions.

Enjoy...

Joe Micela, the meet director www.performanceone.net, put on a great weekend at a great venue. There was some fantastic lifting and good times all around chatting with old and new friends alike. Enjoying the lifting, meeting athletes. Admiring their focus, drive, determination and discipline it has taken these men and women to get here...

I’ll be the first to admit I am more of a down in the trenches, get your hands dirty type. A get in there, get that bar on your back and fork in your hand and get er done Type of guy.

I mean that’s really where all the work gets done and most things are learned or at the least proven...but now it's time for a pop quiz on some training terminology to help keep your mind sharp. A prize package will sent to a random person who gets all the answers right!

If you had the joy of witnessing my talk at the Annual Staley Training Summit you’d have noticed that while the talk was on strongman training the largest underlying message was have “FUN,” and more so, allowing yourself to have fun.

If you take just a minute to actually look its impossible not to notice the complete lack of fun in peoples exercise (training) and nutrition programs. Somewhere along the way the word “FUN” got discarded from the exercise (training) and nutrition equation...

Questions. Answers. Helping people. Giving guidance and advice is much of what I love about this field. Relating the experiences I’ve gained from under the bar and behind fork to those in need. It can a blast what keeps me going, but at times also frustrating and or comical. Questions, and answers, that range from intelligent and sincere to down right hilarious or idiotic.

I figure I would share some of these from time to time...

Tune in for Part II of this interview with Rob "The Fortress" Fortney. You'll get plenty of great advice on how to build major strength and muscle as Rob walks you through his approach to both...

Rob’s an interesting character with plenty of stories, and knowledge from behind the scenes, under the barbell, and behind the fork. As the former editor of various bodybuilding magazines and online media, and he himself a one-time competitive bodybuilder, Rob has seen more than many of us could hope to dream...

Something that I’ve been pondering, and is seemingly jumping out to me from every corner of late is when, where, and why did the human race start to desire, and seemingly love negativity and drama.

People seem to live on putting one another down, or getting joy out of seeing others fail, or others have it worse off then them. There is a lack of bettering ones self by progressing, and instead a focus on putting others down in order to make your existence appear better...

Injury, weakness, a physical or mental short comings have been on my mind of late with various nagging small injuries that are pissing me off. Personally it’s the little nagging things that get to me and are the hardest to handle...

The human race over time has become, as a whole, less and less active. It’s human nature, we are as a whole naturally lazy, our minds and bodies want any activity we have to do on a regular basis as easy as possible. We evolve and progress over time. It’s the main reason we are the top of the food chain. . We figure out new and inventive ways to make our life easier, less physically, mentally and emotionally demanding...

The human race over time has become, as a whole, less and less active. It’s human nature, we are as a whole naturally lazy, our minds and bodies want any activity we have to do on a regular basis as easy as possible. We evolve and progress over time. It’s the main reason we are the top of the food chain. . We figure out new and inventive ways to make our life easier, less physically, mentally and emotionally demanding...

We're in the largest push ever to eat “healthy,” get “fit,” in “shape.” Quick fix here, quick fix there, take this pill, or put in just 3 minutes a day 3 times a week on this contraption. Yet obesity is an epidemic, along with the health problems that go with it, are at the highest rate ever. So what’s missing? Is it to much food? The wrong kinds of food? Maybe you got the short end of the genetic stick. Hell no, it’s the work, or lack of...

To truly tap into our maximum potential we need to identify our body structure, our natural leverages, to identify our strengths and weaknesses. Like all else in training and nutrition the cookie cutter, one size fits all approach only goes so far. There is a lot of dogma out there as far as the “correct form” for every lift, when in fact what is strong and safe for you may be horrible for another, and vice versa...

We are in world full of people that are all buns and no filler. Touting what they read, but have never experienced. They are all show, no go. Or as I touched on last week, paying all the attention to where they want to be. The end, and giving no attention to where they are starting from, the meat, the beginning.

Goals, Progress, PR’s, advancement. We all want them and strive for them in some form. The largest road block is surprisingly not a lack of focus on our goal, on the end but a lack of focus on today, the starting point.

Rock Frigging Bottom!! Enough already! It was time for a change. I had succeeded in going full circle to polar opposites. In the blink of an eye I took myself from a miserable fat slob, to on top of the world in mind and body, to withered away in body, mind, and spirit. Equally or even more so miserable as I was in my initial starting state.

What did I do to slip from the graces of the athletic mindset and awesome progress I hade made? What caused me to derail and what can YOU look to avoid? Find out in this installment...

In the previous installments I discussed the broad athletic mind set needed to truly progress to ones goals in a successful and sane way. Followed with the further installments covering my first successful trip into this empowering mind set. In this part, I will document my downfall, the mistakes I made, and hopefully allow you all to skip these, or to realize you, yourself are in the midst of such a downfall.

In part 3, I will build on the initial mental and preparatory steps needed in gaining an athletic mindset to your body comp goals, as cover in Part 1 and part 2. Now its time for some practical application to the performance based approach to losing fat, “getting RIPPED,” “Looking good Nekid”, or as athletes put it, “cutting weight", and why this positive approach is successful.

In this second installment I am going to start to cover one of my personal experiences in my own drastic, broad scope body and lifestyle transformations that will lend some clarity to how this mind set works and the initial steps to gaining the athletic mindset...

In today’s world it’s a proven fact, and evident to see we as a society are in the worst shape we’ve ever been. It’s a fact as well, which can easily be seen in any form of mass media, that despite this worldwide obesity epidemic we’re also more conscious and obsessed with our physique’s, or outward appearance then ever before. We are collectively in the worst shape body composition wise, yet like no prior time in history body composition is BIG business, and a public obsession...

The following are very simply my top dozen lesson that I've learned over the years that will skyrocket your lifting, as well as life performance. This is part 2 of the list - the final 6!

The following are very simply my top dozen lesson that I've learned over the years that will skyrocket your lifting, as well as life performance...the first 6 on the list.

I'm going to kick off this series with a man I have had the pleasure to workout with, compete with, and learn from, Eric Todd. Eric is an accomplished strength athlete in several disciplines, the creator / grandfather of arguably the best strongman society in the U.S if not the world (www.KCStrongman.com) and just an all around stand up guy...

The following is not a recommendation, its simply a documentation of my account of cutting to make weight for a power lifting meet with a 24 hour weigh in. This is simply a culmination of time I've spent studying, people I've talked to, and things I've read...

Las Vegas...bright lights, beautiful women...Oh t'was like heaven. Heaven with endless buffets, scantily dressed beauties serving you drinks, and in our case, front row seats to listen and talk to the best and brightest in the field of sports nutrition at this years ISSN conference...