Attacking areas where you’re most vulnerable to failure and rejection is an exercise in confidence building. Who gives a damn if you lose a few battles en route to winning the war?Fear of embarrassment can be debilitating. It causes folks to live a passive, risk free life with little upside of richness and diversity of experience. At it’s extreme and in scientific circles, … [Read more…]

A light cardio warmup can improve your weight training experience.For a long time, I’ve believed that best way to get loose for swings in the cage is to take those same swings at a lower level of intensity and build up to your desired effort level. I’ve implemented this theory into my weight training and, specifically, my squats. Rather than going through a progressive … [Read more…]

Whether you’re building a business, a house or raising chickens, there are advantages to planning and upside to simply taking action.Plenty of decisions require thorough analysis and evaluation. Too much of this, however, and we face “analysis paralysis,” that state of being where we’re locked in our own heads and no longer able to make a rational decision. The benefits … [Read more…]

I’m no stranger to pain. You can’t participate in athletic events and train vigorously with weights your entire life without battle scars. However, mine were almost all self-inflicted. At any time, I was (and am) able to (though I never did and won’t) stop my activities and be in less or no pain. Stephanie, our know it all editor and my partner at Kaplifestyle, has a different … [Read more…]

I told you a while back that the king of all weight training exercises is unequivocally the squat. I won’t pedal backwards on that declaration.That said, if you aim to build power, speed, strength and athleticism, you’ll want to incorporate dead lifts. As an ancillary benefit, if you go hard enough, your back will look like a cobra’s.Most folks think the dead lift is a … [Read more…]