You Probably Care Too Much About Exercise Form
“Proper” form is not the end-all be-all when it comes to injury prevention nor being able to lift more weight. There are many high level strength athletes who have unique forms when lifting and are healthy and injury free.
Women In The Weightroom
Assumptions about the differences between men and women, as well as the emphasis for women’s exercise being focused on being attractive to men, have been used as excuses to exclude and alienate women from the weight room. Although weight lifting and strength training has become more popular among women, there is still room to be more inclusive and welcoming.
The Death of ‘Functional’ Fitness
The trend of ‘functional’ fitness aims to train exercisers with movements that are supposedly more likely to carry over to practical everyday uses. However, in doing so, many ‘functional’ recommendations contradict long-standing, well-researched and evidence-based practices in fitness, to the detriment of their followers. Unfortunately, there is something that functional fitness is uniquely good at - gathering attention on social media via highly viral, unusual movements likely to attract attention because of their novelty.
Simplicity Is King, and Muscle Confusion Is Garbage
In general, you’ll get better results from following a simpler routine more consistently, rather than constantly varying and changing your routine. Fad workout routines based around “muscle confusion” can work, but will generally provide you inferior results to simpler and more consistent routines. Serious lifting athletes rely on ideal the routines and strategies which have been developed over the years, and focus on practicing a small number of movements repeatedly, rather than constantly varying movements.
Celebrating 300 Articles on Gains - and Where We Go From Here
I’ve written (about) 300 articles on health, fitness, self-improvement, language learning, and finance. What’s next?