When I first saw these little plastic sliding discs I couldn’t help but think how easy and stupid they were. However, like a 135lb professional fighter, looks can be deceiving.    The original Valsides plastic discs pads are about ten inches in length and five inches across. They were created by celebrity trainer Valerie Waters [...]

“As to methods there may be a million and then some, but principles are few. The man who grasps principles can successfully select his own methods. The man who tries methods, ignoring principles, is sure to have trouble.” Ralph Waldo Emerson – an American essayist, lecturer, and poet, who led the Transcendentalist movement of the [...]

When people want to work the abs usually sit-up, side bends and crunches come to mind. However based largely on the works of Dr. Stuart McGill, one the leading expects of low back pain, these exercises may place undue stress on the low back because of the excessive bending of the low back.  In fact [...]

These four exercises are some of my favorites to burn fat fast. Maybe because they don’t look that sexy, or maybe because they don’t have a celebrity sponsor, or maybe because these exercise are extremely physically and mentally demanding; but whatever the reason, they are not common, but effective. Try adding some of these exercise [...]

Some traditions never fade. College football rivalries, hiding Easters eggs, the one absurdly drunk guy at any wedding. Traditionally lifting weights involved completing one exercise then moving on to the next, and if you wanted to burn fat you had to complete endless hours of cardio. To examine if there was a better way to [...]

If you only had 20 minutes to work out what would you do? Run on the treadmill? Stretch for 10 minutes then hit the leg press? Wonder around aimlessly then try that weird looking YouTube exercise you saw at work? The following exercises hit all the major muscle groups and provide a great bang for [...]

Despite the known benefits of exercise, less than 60% of adults participate in regular physical activity.  The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that in the United States, at least 365,000 “preventable” deaths per year, second only to deaths caused by smoking, are the result of poor diet and lack of physical activity. [...]

My alma mater, Cal State Chico , has a lot of great things -warm weather, clean campus, nice people – but it had a horrible gym. It was small, with old equipment, crowded and smelled like a sewage plant (they now have a state-of-the-art gym facility). One day a couple of amateur MMA friends asked [...]

Suspension training is a different take on strength training that uses a system of ropes and webbing, called a suspension trainer, to allow the trainee to work against their own body weight. The most popular trainer, the TRX was born out of necessity in the Navy SEALs. Randy Hetrick, founder of TRX, spent 14 years [...]

Supersets A superset is two different exercises performed back to back with little or no rest in between alternating opposing muscle groups. Examples could include bicep curls followed by triceps extensions, bench presses followed by barbell rows, or leg extensions followed by hamstring curls. This saves on time and allows you to pick up the [...]