asshole=me

I’m an asshole.

That used to be all it said in the “about me” section on my myspace/facebook pages before I managed to develop a little bit of a following on FB & this blog. (still weird to me BTW) So even though it’s not on there anymore I still have my asshole tendencies. I was reminded of this a few weeks ago when a coworker at my gym described my facebook page as ‘confrontational’. It made me think “oh crap, I DON’T want to be that guy!”

Then I had an asshole slip and posted something today on facebook, which I have since deleted.

I had quoted a business description from a women’s focused fitness studio that discussed how they stretch in between exercises in order to improve strength, and then followed the quote with:

“From actual research:Groups that included stretching either before or during resistance training experienced reduced gains in strength compared to a non-stretching control group. from: Chronic effect of static stretching on strength performance and basal serum IGF-1 levels, by Bastos, Miranda, Vale, portal, Gomes, Novaes and Winchester, in Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research Publish Ahead of Print”

reminds me of this: https://cliftonharski.com/2012/12/12/marketing-words-and-half-truths/

If you read the above link, you’ll see this twice: I think anything you like to do is good-but you should still actually strength train.

At all of the 80+ workshops I have led, I have said that “the best form of exercise/activity you can do is the type you enjoy”. And that is because if you don’t enjoy it, you won’t do it. Unfortunately, I was pulling a cliche “do as I say not as I do” act! #fail #differentstrokes

So OF COURSE I have my bias of what I think is the best and what I enjoy…but I need to do better at not being an asshole about it.  I’m in the fitness and health industry, which should be more important than the assbackwards medical establishment, and I need to do my best to support all of us in the industry who are trying our best, be it through different methods, to improve the health and life enjoyment for all those we can reach.

On this blog I have criticized crossfit (I am a crossfit certified trainer), yoga (I do yoga 1x a week), pilates/barre/ladies (I’ve tried it and tend to agree with Mark Fisher about them, seriously read that link! Mark is a unicorn riding magician of training genius), criticized bodybuilding practices, and proclaimed the best thing about my career in fitness is that I didn’t work in fitness for 8 years. Instead I tried a lot of shit, and learned that everything CAN work for a certain time, especially if done consistently and with other health and diet changes. This is akin to saying that 1 is more than zero. NO SHIT! You know what else is more than zero?… 2, 3, 4, 5, etc and that’s how I feel about options in training…some are better than others, based on the scientificals.

Relying on the scientificals though sometimes pushes me right back to the asshole mode…as I see claims that are either weird half truth exaggerations or just plain false.  And I try my best to be as honest as possible…I turn down people who don’t want to train with the ways I want to train them, and suggest they go train with someone who will feed them the promises and easy answers they want to hear instead. Maybe not a good business method…but I know that if they at least go somewhere they believe in, and enjoy it, and have success then I have helped them more than if I unsuccessfully tried to jam my training down their throat/up their ass.

I want to walk the fine line where I become a sellout based on this awesome quote by Josh Henkin.

A “sellout” is someone that sacrifices the quality of their message to appeal to more people. Learning how to communicate your message more effectively and therefore being able to appeal to more people is anything but a “sellout”.

As always, this is a bit of a ramble because this is an unpaid blog and I don’t make anything off of it, so thanks for letting me ramble a bit more. And I know I’m a man so I must not know anything about training women and you ladies are special creatures and some of you are gonna get bulky and turn into Ronnie Coleman if you lift weights, but maybe not…

In summary…I have and will keep being confrontational and criticizing of things that I think should be critiqued. And I encourage you to do the same to me and my methods, and others. If you aren’t looking around and thinking about how things are working, then you suck. If you think you have all the answers in one tool or system, then you suck. These are the reasons I use pieces of yoga, pilates, Animal Flow, kettlebells, barbells, bodyweight moves, and any and every thing else I possible can to help someone…but I’m not going to tell blatant lies!

There are awesome trainers and facilities in my hometown that don’t offer bootycamp, and don’t employ me, and I’m happy to send people to them if my services don’t fit the bill or if you are looking for something that I don’t offer and am not an expert in.

Here is a list of some of those places in my home town of the whale’s vagina. San Diego!

CrossFit Invictus. The owner, CJ, is super smart, and has put together a very intelligent and awesome spot in Little Italy.

Barre Body in Pacific Beach. The two co-creators of this studio are passionate, ex gymnasts, and have amazing reviews on yelp.

All the Core Power Yoga studios are radical.

Revolution Fitness in La Jolla. Ok, so this is basically what I do but damn Franz is awesome!

If you still are ok with me after learning that I’m an asshole, here are you opportunities to train with me

Vegas on Feb 9th

San Diego on March 2nd

Durham, NC on March 10th

and also teaching a Kettlebell Athletics Level 1 cert in Durham, NC on March 9/10

And I leave you with a video, as I haven’t done that in a long time! 

HIT THE DAMN SHARE BUTTON BELOW!