When and why “cheating” can be a good thing — A reliable way to assess your progress in the gym, especially on a week-to-week basis, is to standardize your reps. Make the last rep look like the first — just moving more slowly. If you did 5 reps on Week 1 and 6 reps on Week 2, all with near-perfect…

Technique comes first — A good way to get an accurate gauge of whether you’re progressing in the gym is to standardize your reps. That means that the last rep should look like the first — just moving more slowly if you’re training close enough to failure. Let’s look at two very simplified examples…

The true car costs of a delivery driver. — Recently, I came across a post on a forum from someone who took up food delivery — Doordash, to be exact — as a side hustle back in 2020. This sparked a heated debate between the creator of the thread and another user who was massively critical of the whole…

More isn’t always better. — Eating enough protein is a prerequisite to building muscle. But how much is “enough” in the first place? The research pretty conclusively advises that somewhere in the ballpark of one gram of protein per pound of lean body mass is probably enough to maximize protein’s muscle-building benefits. To find your…

Building muscle and burning fat at the same time is known in the fitness space as “body recomposition”, and you might be surprised how fiercely debated of a topic it is. Some swear that it works like a charm. Others think it’s no more real than Santa. Well, it is…

Clear up the confusion. — There are three main keys to fat loss: nutrition, sleep, and exercise. When it comes to the “exercise” part of the equation, strength training specifically — i.e. lifting weights — has been shown to accelerate fat loss more so than other forms of exercise. It’s not the calories burned during…

Do what you can, when you can — 1. Start your day off with water “Drink water” is on every one of these types of lists for a reason: everyone needs to be doing it. Overnight, your body loses fluid. So rehydrate first thing in the morning. Drinking 16–32 ounces of water as soon as you wake up is the easiest thing you can do…

No approach works if you don’t. — We’ve all been wrong before and I’m sure I’ll be wrong again. The best thing you can do is try to learn from your mistakes and do better. With that said, if you want to at least minimize the possibility of wasting your time on some bad advice you were…

Train without pain — I am a meathead. I love the barbell bench press. Like many meatheads before me, it’s my first love of the weight room. Barbells in general are great for building muscle and strength, but as I’ve gotten older and wiser, I’ve come to accept that they’re not always the best…