June 2023

If you’re looking to improve your balance, try walking both frontward and backward regularly.

Towards the tail end of my baseball career, I’d take swings in the cage left handed. I had no aspirations of becoming Victor Martinez (fine, of course I did) in my thirties, but I recognized the danger of creating more muscular and biomechanical imbalances. I wanted to train my body from both sides. In our sport, we throw from one side and run in an arc one way. The least I could do was try to rationally offset some of the unavoidable damage done by being so one side dominant.

Reversing our direction has similar applications as my concept of swinging from my unnatural side. From mahotamagazine.com:

Backward locomotion improves the functions of our cerebellum which coordinates and balances our bodily movements as well as flexibility.

We walk endlessly forward and subsequently train the muscles associated with the movement. From livestrong.com on walking normally:

As your feet hit the floor, normally with a heel-to-toe movement, your calves interact with your ankles to allow each foot to be pulled back on forth. This part of your walk will engage your gastrocnemius, soleus, plantaris, and tibialis posterior and anterior muscles.

When we change direction and walk backward, we recruit the muscles of the front (tibialis anterior) and back (gastro/achilles) of the shin and ankle. As a boy, I always dreamed of having huge shins. Who doesn’t?

Walking backward contributes to our overall balance as well as our muscular balance. From the University of Oregon:

Given these performance differences and other observations, we can identify potential benefits from backward locomotion. From a training perspective, benefits of backward running may include:

• Facilitation of balance and proprioception
• Improvement of muscle balance (agonist / antagonist relationships)
• Development of a stronger foundation upon which to improve performance (due to improved muscle balance
• Facilitation of neuro-muscular function
• Assistance in prevention of injuries

Lest you think we wouldn’t talk about calorie expenditure for those of y’all looking to trim down, I’ve got you covered. From mercola.com:

Interestingly, when you walk backwards, your heart rate tends to rise higher than it does when walking forward at the same pace, which suggests you can get greater cardiovascular and calorie-burning benefits in a shorter period of time. In one study, women who underwent a six-week backward run/walk training program had a significant decrease in body fat as well as improvements in cardiorespiratory fitness at the end of the study.

Being more efficient with our exercises means we need to spend less time on them. I’m sold. The rate of walking accidents on Ocean Avenue in Santa Monica are about to increase exponentially. We’ll just have to practice making eye contact some other way.

Looking forward (see (see?)?) to looking foolish,

Kap

I remember the time in my life I was most obsessed with exercise. At 20 years old, home in Los Angeles for the baseball off season, I was at the peak of my training. It was January, and I always started to feel like I wasn’t prepared for the upcoming season at precisely this time. I lifted weights in the morning, then headed to the field to throw, take swings and run in the afternoon. I pushed myself to the point of exhaustion, usually crashing in the early evening.

My brain hadn’t developed as much as my body; I wanted more. Specifically, I wanted abs. I set my alarm for late in the evening, woke up, did a traditional sit-up video routine, ate and went back to sleep.

America has a love affair with a flat stomach or six-pack abs, and it’s one I fully understand. Everyone has a different trick for that elusive ideal. Five minutes on the internet will return suggestions for leg lifts and sit ups, and late night television is filled with infomercials for core machines and diet pills promising instant success.

The formula is actually pretty simple. First, the body fat we carry has to be low enough to see the abdominal definition. This is absolutely a challenge. Second, throw out all of those isolated ab exercises that claim to blast away fat and replace them with one – basic, traditional squats.

I have not done a sit up or leg lift in many moons. I squat regularly and have more abdominal definition than I did at 23 years old.

Think about it logically. What causes the abdominal muscles to contract more, lying on your back and lifting your legs or placing 200 pounds on your shoulders and dropping deeply into a squat, recruiting every muscle in your body (especially in your core) to handle the load to thrust that weight back up?

The squat is the perfect exercise. Moreover, it is extraordinarily beneficial beyond just toning the abs. Squats promote mobility and balance and generally help folks become more adept at performing day-to-day activity.

I suggest starting with body weight and building up to as much weight as you can safely handle over time.

Proper form here: http://www.builtlean.com/2010/07/20/how-to-do-proper-squat-technique/

A great video for demonstration purposes here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dbxxs1PErLQ

I do squats, Monday, Wednesday and Friday. 5 sets, 5 reps with as much weight as I can handle.

For beginners doing body weight squats, I recommend 5 sets of 25 reps the first time out, gradually adding weight as it becomes safe through experience.

Unless you’re an extreme outlier without a trace of an addictive personality, do not play the “just one bite” game. It doesn’t work.

You know how this works. Your fantasy football draft is this weekend. You want to have a good time, but you don’t want to ruin all your hard work. You’re prepared to make a strong decision, and I’m not talking about player selection. You’re planning on staying your nutrition course.

Draft day rolls around, and everyone is cracking open a cold one. Having a beer is no biggie. You’re being social, sipping slowly while debating why Andrew Luck will never be as good as Manning (zzzzz). Just as you finish the last gulp, you see the giant bowl of chips next to the crock pot filled with baked pimiento cheese dip.

Slow cookers are just cruel. They fill the house with their tempting aromas. Those salt crystals glisten on the chips, beckoning you over. “Just one plate,” you think. “A small one.” You stick to your guns. Four chips and a small tablespoon of cheesy goodness. Oh, and one more beer, because it will pair gloriously.

Round 12 comes around. Your beer is done; your chips were finished by the time Matt Ryan went off the board. Out comes the host with a hot apple pie and homemade vanilla bean ice cream in pre-chilled tasting decisions. Game over. “I’ll get back on track tomorrow.”

How many times has this happened to you while on a mission to reach your fitness goals? I’ve mused before that sugar is an addictive drug. With each hit, we become more ravenous until we’ve binged. Can you fathom a nicotine addict taking a single rip of a cigarette or a cocaine addict stopping at a quarter line of blow? It doesn’t happen, yet we casually assume it will with liquor, sugar and processed foods. From authoritynutrition.com:

The brain knows that when we eat, we’re doing something “right,” and releases a bunch of feel-good chemicals in the reward system, such as the neurotransmitter dopamine – interpreted by our brains as pleasure.

High Times magazine fills their pages with glossy high-res photos of pot plants and giant blunts. Now go scroll through Instagram or Pinterest and check out all the photos of scrumptious grub. The visual stimulation is persuasive, and your brain releases happy chemicals to encourage you to continue to indulge.

The brain is hardwired to seek out behaviors that release dopamine in the reward system. The problem with modern junk foods is that they can cause a reward that is way more powerful than anything we were ever exposed to in nature.

Whereas eating an apple or a piece of steak might cause a moderate release of dopamine, eating a Ben & Jerry’s ice cream is so incredibly rewarding that it releases a massive amount.

That wiring in your brain forms a fairly simple machine. If some is good, more is better, and if it feels good, do it. Our systems didn’t evolve to handle the amounts of processed junk we feed it. The overload makes us crave bigger and better highs, crowding out natural foods and leading us to make poor decisions. You may want to eat healthier, but, in the moment, you choose short-term gratification over long-term well-being.

A single bite of Cherry Garcia? Good luck with that. You’re no match for natural selection. This principle holds true for even “healthy” processed foods. If I’m pressed for time and grab a bar because it’s easy, I find myself wanting one the next day and the day after. One isn’t satisfying any more, I want two or three. It’s a hideous cycle.

Here’s a better approach for success at your fantasy football draft:

1. Chow down on a few eggs, an apple and carrot prior to your arrival.
2. Drink two glasses of water immediately before your entrance.
3. Make a pact with yourself to keep your distance from the crap.
4. Throw a handful of almonds in your pocket. Eat them immediately upon any cravings and then pause. I promise the craving will subside.
5. After the draft, grab your calendar and write the words “Chunky Monkey” for a day in October. When that date arrives, have a little party in your honor. You earned it.

You’ll feel powerful and confident after controlling the whole process. Planning leads to fitness success. You’ve got this.

Kap

Long periods of active rest are optimal for recovery after long periods of intense training.

The season is now over for the Tigers and the Angels. The majority of MLB teams ended their grind a few days prior, with the close of the regular season. In my playing days, I started my offseason training programs the day I packed up my locker. In fact, as the days of the season dwindled, I clamored more and more to return to the weight pile. If I could press rewind, I would have taken substantial time off to allow my tissues to repair themselves. From the Huffington Post:

The “getting fitter” part -– the body’s response to that stimulus -– comes afterward. While you eat and rest, the body gets to work repairing tissue damage, strengthening the heart and other muscles, restoring depleted fuel reserves and getting better at transporting oxygen throughout the body, making itself a little more efficient and stronger than before. Then we go out and do it again.

By training carefully and modestly -– stressing the body to stimulate change, and then letting it recover and adapt -– we stack up these little adaptations one on top of the other until, lo and behold, we find ourselves fit enough to run a marathon, lift a heavier weight, or play the best basketball of our adult lives. The problem is that we usually don’t completely recover between workouts. Some of the fatigue stays with us, gradually accumulating during long periods of intense training dedicated to our favorite sport. Even as we get fitter and fitter, the mechanisms of recovery and adaptation begin faltering, putting us at risk for chronic exhaustion, difficulty sleeping and loss of motivation, evidenced in part by declining testosterone levels and increases in creatine kinase and urea.

This is more of a general overview of the benefits of recovery. It doesn’t speak directly to how beneficial multiple days or even weeks can be for our tissue repair. We recently discussed the benefits of a mental vacation, but how about a physical one for us workout enthusiasts? From bodybuilding.com:

The bottom line is that your body physically needs time off approximately every 8-10 weeks. Some individuals may need a recovery week more often than this and some less often, but 8-10 weeks is a good general guideline. I would rather err on the side of taking a recovery week too soon rather than waiting until I am completely overtrained. In this case, a week off may not be enough to let your body recover.

I’ve never been the best at this, and I know I’m not alone. There are men and women who are dying for time off from training and those who can’t stand it. I’m the latter. If you’re like me, it’s likely that you could use a longer rest than you think, particularly if your training has you a bit banged up.

One of our trainers from my Red Sox days, Mike Reinold, has a philosophy for pitchers that applies equally to us gym rats:

While strength and conditioning has been popularized over the last decade, manual therapy and arm care programs to get your body in shape PRIOR to beginning strength and condition may be even more important.  This of it this way, take care of your body, work on your imbalances, clean up any lingering issues of tightness or soreness, and then get your body strong and ready to throw.

If we put it all together, it’s still fairly simple. We train, break our body down, rest, get healthy, start lifting again and become stronger than ever.

Take a vacation with me?

Kap

I’ve had extraordinary success with my current weight lifting routine because it is one I can maintain with regularity. There is no substitute for consistency as it relates to workouts. A few sit-ups, pushups and pull-ups done several times a week invariably beat the most intricate, elaborate exercise program done on and off. A slow and steady climb like the one you take to the top of a roller coaster is the aim. If you start and stop with your programs, the big scary drop is inevitable.

I’ve always loved the feeling of having weights in my hands. Something about the way the metal starts cold and warms up as you train just does it for me. From my teenage years on, more days of lifting was merrier.  I split up my routines and broke them into muscle groups in an effort to spend more days in the gym.

During this time, my routine would be broken down to one muscle group a day. Chest on Mondays, back on Tuesdays, legs on Wednesdays, etc.; you feel me, the classic bodybuilder workout. The theory here is that you break each muscle down individually through isolation.

I certainly had my share of success with this routine, but it was due to my consistency, not my efficiency. I was spending 11 hours in the gym a week, but I was working harder, not necessarily smarter.

Now, I spend 4 hours a week getting after it (a little over an hour, three times a week.) Instead of isolating specific muscle groups, I focus on compound lifts that work several muscle groups at a time. I fill those extra hours reading a good book or sharing a meal with my loved ones instead.

Here’s my routine. The moves are completed with as much weight as I can handle safely. Each exercise is linked to a video to help you learn proper form. If you’re just starting, try these with just the weight of the bar and slowly increase the weight over time.

Monday

• Warm up
• Squats 
• Overhead presses
• Deadlifts

Wednesday

• Warm up
• Squats
• Bench presses
• Bent over rows

Friday

• Warm up
• Squats
• Overhead presses
• Deadlifts

I love weighted pull-ups as an alternative to the bent over rows. They give me a nice change of pace from time to time while still involving multiple muscle groups with one exercise.

I alternate from week to week performing these lifts, so the following week will see me doing one day of deadlifts and two days of bench presses and bent over rows.

Research has suggested that 4-6 repetitions of 4-6 sets, increasing weight on each successive set, resulted in the largest gains as the weeks and months pass. I do five sets of five repetitions each, building up to my working weight.

Here’s a great link to discover more detail about the virtues of implementing the 5×5 workout.

Strength often, though not always, correlates with muscle. In order to handle a larger, heavier load, our bodies develop more solid mass.

For me, a side benefit was getting leaner as I executed this training regimen. Whether or not this will be your end result will be highly dependent on the work you put into your nutrition program. I’m a big believer that changing body composition is more dependent on the food we ingest than our workouts.

I’ll hold back from guarantees but dare you to try this workout for a month and not come out on the other side stronger and with a significantly higher level of confidence. You know where to find me – let me know how you’re progressing.

I’ve never understood it. Men and women reach middle age and it hits them. They tell their friends and family, “I’m running a marathon!” Whether it is the need to get in shape or an attempt to prove viability, running 42.195 kilometers (26 miles and 385 yards) has become the standard benchmark. Train for and run a marathon if you wish, just be aware that you’re not necessarily doing your body any favors.

We know two things about running a marathon. A) The ability to participate in a marathon means you’re in shape to jog or walk really far, and b) you are breaking your body down. From mcmilllanrunning.com:

Research indicates that the muscle damage from running a marathon can last up to two weeks. The research also indicates that soreness (or the lack thereof) is not a good indicator of muscular healing. In other words, just because you aren’t sore anymore doesn’t mean that you are fully healed. This is the danger for marathon runners: Post-marathon muscular soreness fades after a few days but submicroscopic damage within the muscle cells remains. If you return to full training too soon–running more and faster than the tissues are ready for–you risk delaying full recovery and the chance to get ready for your next goal.

Ughh. Seeing that it will take two weeks to recover from a marathon should give you pause. It inherently tells us that we’ve done significant damage. What’s the reward? To say, “I did it”? If that is gratifying, by all means, make it happen. There will be a mental cost, however. From the New York Times:

How can you judge recovery except by measuring performance in another exercise bout similar to the one that initiated the fatigue?” Dr. Noakes said. “Since we can’t ask people to run a marathon again, we never really know when full recovery has happened.”

So Dr. Noakes relies on the experience of great runners, who tell him that there is a large psychological component to recovery. Many elite marathoners run only one or two races a year. After a marathon, he said, it “probably takes at least six months for the mind to recover fully.

My dad ran a marathon in his fifties. I don’t recall the race as much as the photograph of him crossing the finish line, knees wrapped in flexible ace bandages. He has always been quite fit, but if I were advising him now, I’d still ask him to look at this logically.

“Dad,” I’d say, “Why not take that 26 miles and spread it out over a few weeks, every other day? You can build in recovery and implement a regular running routine that won’t be nearly as hard on you.  Perhaps when you’re done, you decide to knock out ten miles a week on a going forward basis. You can derive the true lifestyle benefits without the damage.”

Look, I’m not saying don’t do it. I’m just suggesting a deep examination of your personal motivating factors. If sustainable invigoration is your net result, go for it. If it is to get in shape, I recommend a more efficient method like consistent exercise of any kind in moderation over time. Marathon training isn’t it. From runnersworld.com:

after the marathon–as most of us run it–we’re essentially injured, often sick, and require a month before we return to the level we were at before we started the training program. Add to that the two-to three-week taper, and we’ve taken a big step back on any long-term progression goals. Given this, many frequent marathoners never progress, simply ramping up to finish their next 26.2, then returning to the same base.

In fact, if you’re looking to reap the numerous benefits of exercise and better fitness, you might be better off searching in a different direction. From Mike Gleeson, professor of exercise biochemistry:

In periods following prolonged strenuous exercise, the likelihood of an individual becoming ill actually increases. In the weeks following a marathon, studies have reported a 2-6 fold increase in the risk of developing an upper respiratory infection

I’d prefer to spend those months under the weight bar instead of sick under the covers. As always, you should make the decision that is best for you. Don’t be bound by some arbitrary number.

I’ll see you at the finish line,

Kap

I’ve had extraordinary success with my current weight lifting routine because it is one I can maintain with regularity. There is no substitute for consistency as it relates to workouts. A few sit-ups, pushups and pull-ups done several times a week invariably beat the most intricate, elaborate exercise program done on and off. A slow and steady climb like the one you take to the top of a roller coaster is the aim. If you start and stop with your programs, the big scary drop is inevitable.

I’ve always loved the feeling of having weights in my hands. Something about the way the metal starts cold and warms up as you train just does it for me. From my teenage years on, more days of lifting was merrier.  I split up my routines and broke them into muscle groups in an effort to spend more days in the gym.

During this time, my routine would be broken down to one muscle group a day. Chest on Mondays, back on Tuesdays, legs on Wednesdays, etc.; you feel me, the classic bodybuilder workout. The theory here is that you break each muscle down individually through isolation.

I certainly had my share of success with this routine, but it was due to my consistency, not my efficiency. I was spending 11 hours in the gym a week, but I was working harder, not necessarily smarter.

Now, I spend 4 hours a week getting after it (a little over an hour, three times a week.) Instead of isolating specific muscle groups, I focus on compound lifts that work several muscle groups at a time. I fill those extra hours reading a good book or sharing a meal with my loved ones instead.

Here’s my routine. The moves are completed with as much weight as I can handle safely. Each exercise is linked to a video to help you learn proper form. If you’re just starting, try these with just the weight of the bar and slowly increase the weight over time.

Monday

• Warm up
• Squats 
• Overhead presses
• Deadlifts

Wednesday

• Warm up
• Squats
• Bench presses
• Bent over rows

Friday

• Warm up
• Squats
• Overhead presses
• Deadlifts

I love weighted pull-ups as an alternative to the bent over rows. They give me a nice change of pace from time to time while still involving multiple muscle groups with one exercise.

I alternate from week to week performing these lifts, so the following week will see me doing one day of deadlifts and two days of bench presses and bent over rows.

Research has suggested that 4-6 repetitions of 4-6 sets, increasing weight on each successive set, resulted in the largest gains as the weeks and months pass. I do five sets of five repetitions each, building up to my working weight.

Here’s a great link to discover more detail about the virtues of implementing the 5×5 workout.

Strength often, though not always, correlates with muscle. In order to handle a larger, heavier load, our bodies develop more solid mass.

For me, a side benefit was getting leaner as I executed this training regimen. Whether or not this will be your end result will be highly dependent on the work you put into your nutrition program. I’m a big believer that changing body composition is more dependent on the food we ingest than our workouts.

I’ll hold back from guarantees but dare you to try this workout for a month and not come out on the other side stronger and with a significantly higher level of confidence. You know where to find me – let me know how you’re progressing.

Balance in everything we do is the optimal choice for a strong, healthy lifestyle. Chasing extreme trends inevitably leads to worse outcomes for us – physically, mentally, emotionally.

Walk into any major supermarket and scan the magazines at the checkout counter. They’re pure comedy, trumpeting the latest beach body diet, guaranteed to have you dropping 20 lbs in just 2 weeks. If not, they’re bullshitting us with the siren call of the shortcut workout that will have you huge and shredded in just 15 minutes a day.

Don’t fall for the banana in the tailpipe. As a society, we’ve equated “healthy” with losing weight. The two are not necessarily correlated. From NBCNews.com:

Experts have long known that fat, active people can be healthier than their skinny, inactive counterparts. “Normal-weight persons who are sedentary and unfit are at much higher risk for mortality than obese persons who are active and fit,” said Dr. Steven Blair, an obesity expert at the University of South Carolina.

For example, despite their ripples of fat, super-sized Sumo wrestlers probably have a better metabolic profile than some of their slim, sedentary spectators, Bell said. That’s because the wrestlers’ fat is primarily stored under the skin, not streaking throughout their vital organs and muscles.

Experiencing life (including indulgences) in a healthy body is a goal we all strive for. Skipping from one fad diet and training program to the next is a taxing journey. Remember the standing desk fad? (Full disclosure, I prefer standing desks, personally.) From NPR:

Too much sitting increases heart failure risk and disability risk, and shortens life expectancy, studies have found. But according to an analysis published Wednesday of 20 of the best studies done so far, there’s little evidence that workplace interventions like the sit-stand desk or even the flashier pedaling or treadmill desks will help you burn lots more calories, or prevent or reverse the harm of sitting for hours on end.
“What we actually found is that most of it is, very much, just fashionable and not proven good for your health,” says Dr. Jos Verbeek, a health researcher at the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health.

We enjoy quick fixes, and our brains are primed to appreciate extremes. In part, it makes us feel like we’re doing something – replace all sitting with standing – and it doesn’t require careful consideration of our overall lifestyle. But, as with most things, moving from one extreme to the other has its own consequences.

In fact, there isn’t really any evidence that standing is better than sitting, Verbeek adds. The extra calories you burn from standing over sitting for a day are barely enough to cover a couple of banana chips.

“The idea you should be standing four hours a day? There’s no real evidence for that,” he says. “I would say that there’s evidence that standing can be bad for your health.” A 2005 study in Denmark showed prolonged standing at work led to a higher hospitalization risk for enlarged veins.

As with most of our discussions, this post isn’t about standing desks. It’s truly about marketing. Digest the buzzwords –fat free, sugar free, gluten free, carb free. The 3 simple tricks to lose belly fat. Replace this one thing with something else, and you’re straight. Ughh.

The single biggest leap we can take towards a balanced, strong lifestyle is being well-researched and decisive. We can snatch back control over our own systems instead of being led by the masses (read: lead, don’t follow). Instead of letting the latest marketing ploy manipulate us, let’s pay attention. By being in tune with how we feel and asking ourselves if we’re moving around appropriately and able to perform our day to day tasks with strength and confidence, we’ll be better equipped mentally and emotionally and healthier. The confidence we derive from not putting our self-image in the hands of people who only see us as dollar signs is undeniable.

Steer your ship,

Kap

Ever see greatness in someone, almost so much that it doesn’t seem fair? Sometimes others can see it in you before you see it yourself. I watch the way Cassidy Watton approaches her work, and I know she can assist us in becoming stronger, more physically confident, less anxious, fitter and bolder. She’s finding her way at her pace. I know she’ll get there, but I’m a bit impatient. Hurry up, Cass. The world is waiting.

“Two more baskets, Cass!”

I can hear my mom shouting from the bleachers. I steal the ball and score at will. At six years old, I dominated on the basketball court.

My early childhood was turbulent. I grew up in an avid church-going family and distinctly remember the day in Sunday school when I learned the story of Job. God was so confident in Job’s faithfulness that he and the Devil made an agreement. The Devil was allowed to put Job through whatever trials he wanted for years on end in order to prove this. He killed his wife, children, cattle, gave him horrible illnesses, etc.

I was sure as a kid that my mom was being put through the same test. She raised four kids on her own, escaped my abusive alcoholic father, moved to a new state, fought tooth and nail to get us back when our father kidnapped us, finally earned enough money to buy a house which ended up burning down…the list goes on.

My mom taught me incredible strength, selflessness, work ethic and integrity. However, she never sat me down to explain these concepts; there was no time for that. As the youngest of four, no one explained why everyone was fighting or crying or laughing or jumping up to do the dishes; I had to figure it out. It was like a game of double dutch. I’d watch the ropes intently for a few beats then hop in with everyone else lest I get left behind. Despite the Biblically reminiscent trials and less than ideal parenting conditions, my mom still managed to pump out four pretty damn cool kids and make sure we had the opportunity and support needed do anything or go anywhere by the time we were 18. We all adopted her adventurous spirit and moved really far away. Sorry, Mom.

My siblings mostly topped out at t-ball. I was good at nearly every athletic pursuit I tried, whether kick ball, arm wrestling or riding a unicycle. I felt confident in myself and my abilities. Like most girls, as I got older, the confidence began to fade. On the drive home after a high school basketball game, when I didn’t score in the double digits, my mom would say:

“What happened? Remember when you were little and I would just tell you to score ten more baskets and you would just do it?”

“IT’S NOT LIKE THAT ANYMORE MOM,” I would snap back in the sassiest teenage tone available.

“Why not?”

“ITS JUST NOT”

Praise was not handed out much in my busy household. Don’t get me wrong, my mother has always been my biggest fan and very proud of me but we were also taught humility…to a fault. Occasionally it can be useful to hear that I’m a badass and that I need to just run bitches over. Or more likely, in Blair language, “Cassidy you already have the talent and discipline to be the best, you just need to believe in yourself.”

I went from captaining four sports and winning Athlete of the Year my senior year of high school to a junior in college participating in none. I felt as though no matter how good I was, there would always be someone better. This thought held me back for years. Then I discovered Crossfit.

I’m not here to discuss the controversies around Crossfit. For me, it was my introduction to the world of physical fitness and lifting weights. I dove headlong into identifying as an athlete. The addiction to bettering my physical prowess was strong – I wanted to be bigger, faster, fitter and more capable than those around me. I was slowly regaining my confidence, but it took years (and $200,000 on a Bachelor’s in Spanish) to decide I could do this professionally.

I am a personal trainer and group fitness instructor. This is really just a fundraiser to support my own over-exercise habits and competitive hobby in Crossfit and Spartan Racing. It is only in the last couple of years I have finally dispelled that first defeated thought I had in high school.  I cannot even tell you how groundbreaking it was for me to realize that I am actually an exceptional athlete, I have an extremely valuable skill set and knowledge of fitness, and no one can deliver these things to people quite like I can. I feel like on a day to day basis I can do pretty much anything physical that I want. Carry this thing, climb that thing, go to this place as fast as you can on foot, kill that threatening man in the dark alley…I feel pretty damn good.

Finding the thing that you’re good at and being able to share it with the world is an amazing feeling. Defeating personal demons is incredibly liberating. Unfortunately, it can also be somewhat limiting. I’ve been forced to confront this question because of a nagging back injury and some recent musings with one Gabe Kapler.

Gabe and I work out at the same gym. He is always asking me really obnoxious questions I don’t want to answer. “Why do you lift?” and “Do you sometimes workout as an escape?”

“How dare you, Gabe, I’m tryna’ lift over here.”

I lift because I love it, I am good at it and it is something I can share with other people, whether it is working out with a friend, training a client or teaching someone how to do a squat in the grocery store. That miserable second workout of the day, the one I do by myself in the scorching sun even when I’m not feeling it…I do that for me.

However, my identity can’t solely be tied into my physical fitness. I have begun to think about why I do this. What if an injury keeps me from ever being an elite athlete, how will I cope with that? Where will I place my self-worth and what will I have to offer the world? Heavy.

Let’s not be dramatic, unless I have some horrible accident that completely disables me, I will always be an (overly) active person, including in my work. However, I think it is important for me right now to put confidence and investment in Cassidy as a whole, not just fitness Cassidy. I am an athlete, but I also speak Spanish. I like nutrition. I’m passionate about the outdoors. I like to teach. I like to write. I enjoy helping people achieve their goals. I love to travel. I’m addicted to trashy electronic music and I enjoy a good cup of coffee. Sharpening the skills that may be secondary to fitness right now and simply pondering life outside the gym is becoming increasingly important to me. I’m not sure what pursuing these things will look like day to day, but today, it looks like writing a blog post.

Fashion and fitness magazines perpetuate the myth that weight lifting isn’t for women. Females are steered away from the weights and toward Pilates, Yoga or Cross-fit classes. This is absurd – using barbells and dumbbells won’t make a woman look manly or less feminine.

The women splashed across covers of bodybuilding magazines with skin stretched tight over bulging muscles protruding from every inch seek that look. They train for years and often take male hormones specifically to acquire that appearance. Not for you? I don’t blame you.

A woman who trains with weights won’t get bulky unless she is consuming an excess number of calories. If a female is ingesting more food than she is using for fuel, she’ll bulk up regardless of whether or not she is picking up heavy objects.

Weight lifting for women makes sense for the same reasons as for men – it is the best way to be stronger and firmer. From Courtney Green, athlete and fitness consultant:

Lifting heavy weight, for both women and men, will cause a flurry of positive systemic changes throughout your body. Your muscles respond by growing (which will also increase metabolism), bones become denser, hormonal regulation improves (that means a much more manageable menstrual period for women, among many other positive benefits), your central nervous system responds by learning how to recruit more muscle fibers to contract on demand and it becomes more resilient to physical stress. Not to mention the real-life benefits of just being stronger. And these are just a few of the reasons why you should lift heavy.

Strength training is the best way to slim down and tone up. Building strength and muscle allows human beings to burn calories more efficiently. If women operate at a calorie deficit and train with heavier loads, they can transform a portion of their body fat into muscle the same way men can.

Which of those fits better into a pair of jeans?

Christopher Wharton, PhD, a certified personal trainer and researcher with the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale University:

10 pounds of muscle would burn 50 calories in a day spent at rest, while 10 pounds of fat would burn 20 calories.

Men and women may hail from different pockets of our universe, but we share many similarities when it comes to training for sport and our fitness goals. We are family.

So bypass the hand weights and balance boards and build up to heavier weights. Don’t let archaic arguments scare you away from becoming leaner, firmer and healthier.