Fitmd, Atlanta, GA Videos

MOTIVATION VS. DISCIPLINEMost online fitness culture revolves around MOTIVATION — using hits of energy to get through your workout. Now, the ability to “hype yourself up” to get to the gym IS a useful skill, and can help you get past the friction of taking that initial step. However, motivation is also a limited resource — to be used sparingly. If you overuse it, you deplete your reserve, and over time you’ll find yourself less and less motivated. If you want to be consistent, it’s the systems and habits you put in place that sustain you over the long run. A lot of life involves doing stuff you don’t always feel like doing, and lot of success is attributable to your ability to stick with life-promoting behaviors day-after-day, even when you don’t want to. Look, if you need some caffeine and a motivational quote or video to get you to the gym, that’s fine. I often use caffeine and will occasionally listen to aggressive music when I really need a hit of motivation. Caffeine has been well-studied and is known to be performance aid. The same goes for listening to music you enjoy. The problem with relying on these things too much is that they stop working after a while. The body builds up tolerance to caffeine, and even the most hardcore album won’t feel the same after a while.This is why I think many people would benefit from doing some of their workouts in complete silence, and simply contend with their own thoughts. It is the ability to show up and stick with the general plan that ends up being the most transformative, not how you feel on any particular day. Hope that helps.

CHANGE THE NARRATIVEFor decades, women have been told to be as skinny as possible, with little regard to muscularity, and while this is now changing based on emerging science, this age-old narrative still lingers in minds of many women. It has been a huge disservice to women looking to improve both their physical appearance and well-being. I dare you to find a single female who actually believes they looked better BEFORE they started lifting. Almost invariably, your physical appearance, metabolic health, joint and bone health, and overall well-being improves when you start lifting with the intention of building muscle. This is the fountain of youth that many people are looking for, but the female fitness space has been saturated with cardio heavy group classes focused on burning calories or moving very light weights for lots of reps based on the idea that this will “tone” your muscles without making you bulky, which is just complete nonsense. When it comes down to it, the aesthetic changes many female clients seek come from doing a lot of the same exercises I would prescribe for pretty much anyone. Squatting, bench pressing, deadlifting, rowing. Big, multi-joint movements. Doing this stuff changes body composition dramatically, which is what people are actually looking fo

I once received an inquiry from someone who claimed that their current workout routine consisted of 300 push-ups done 6 days a week. Not surprisingly, they were having trouble building muscle. Now —- this may have been a typo, but what if it wasn’t? Why would this not work? What’s wrong with this approach? A LOT. When it comes to building muscle, MORE isn’t BETTER. In fact, at a certain point, MORE is antithetical to BETTER. If you ARE able to do 300 push-ups a day without completely f**king up your shoulders and developing rhabdo, you are likely doing very poor quality push-ups, meaning your range-of-motion sucks, you’re doing all sorts of weird compensations just to push out a few more reps, or you’re just flailing about like a CrossFitter on PCP. This isn’t how you build muscle. The scientific literature states that you can build muscle doing anywhere from 5-35 reps per set. Anything beyond that means that the exercise isn’t actually providing sufficient stimulus to the Type I fibers. Those are the fibers that grow bigger when you train them.Instead, it becomes an endurance exercise. You are training like a marathon runner, and we all know how jacked marathon runners get, right? Right, not at all, because that’s not how this works. Instead, focus on moving heavy loads, sticking with sets of anywhere from 5-12 reps. And for God’s sake, don’t just hammer the f**k out of one muscle group every day. You don’t grow muscle DURING your workouts. You grow muscle BETWEEN workouts. This is where getting enough protein, getting enough sleep, and just chilling the f**k out between training bouts will get you the most bang-for-your buck. Hitting any one muscle group 2-3 times a week is MORE THAN ENOUGH to see changes, and what most people should be doing. And if really CAN do more than 35 consecutive push-ups with perfect technique, then pushups aren’t going to help you build size, regardless of how many you do. You need to progre

4 ESSENTIAL MOVEMENTS:The fitness industry is notorious for selling overly-complicated nonsense. This gives the illusion that the program has something special to offer, when they are mainly just wasting your time. The fact of the matter is, most of your results are going to come from focusing on a few basic movement patterns, and sprinkling in some isolation exercises to cover the areas that those movements don’t quite hit.These movements include:1. SQUAT (ex: barbell squats, goblet squats)2. PUSH (ex: bench press, overhead press)3. HIP HINGE (ex: deadlift, RDL)4. PULL (ex: lat pulldown, dumbbell rows)Throw in some trunk flexion for extra ab development, some bicep curls, some rear delt isolation exercises, and you’ve got everything covered. These 4 movement patterns: SQUATTING, PUSHING (both horizontal and vertical) , HIP HINGING, and PULLING (both horizontal and vertical) — done consistently with programmed progression, will give you 90% of the results you are looking for. These so-called COMPOUND exercises already hit a lot of the smaller muscles that people waste a lot of time trying to isolate, including glutes, abs, biceps, and triceps. Most of your efforts should be devoted to these basic movement patterns, since they give you the most “bang-for-your-buck.”All this group class, boot camp B.S. that’s got you jumping from station-to-station is doing is making you tired without changing your body. Keep it short, simple, and intense. That’s the key.

Unlike a lot of fitness influencers, I wasn’t blessed with athletic prowess or a six-pack. I had to work my butt off for every bit of muscle and athletic ability I acquired. I had to think about things logically and train systematically. This, I think, makes me relatable. I had to learn things the hard way, since nothing was ever given to me. That gives me the actual life experience and knowledge base to help my fellow nerds. Trust me, I understand. You got this 💪🏽

Collagen is a protein found throughout the body. It consists of the amino acids glycine, proline, and hydroxyproline. It is advertised to promote bone, joint, skin, hair, and nail health since these tissues are rich in collagen. This is based on the assumption that consuming collagen will actually result in its deposition in these tissues, which is not how it works. Any protein you consume, including collagen, is first broken down into its constituent amino acids. While some of these amino acids will be used for collagen, they will go where they are needed, regardless of the protein source. While collagen has higher concentrations of glycine, proline, and hydroxyproline, that doesn’t mean it’s better. While there is some limited evidence that collagen protein may help in tendinopathies, you are probably better off sticking to a complete protein source like whey. Thinking that consuming collagen will help you make more of it is like saying eating raw bull testicles will increase fertility, eating eyeballs will improve your vision, or eating chicken breast will make your pecs bigger.

CLICKBAIT EXERCISESI KNOW you’ve seen this type of stuff on social media. It’s unavoidable. It’s either an oiled-up meathead like myself or some fashionista in a bikini pointing to their abs followed by a bunch of stupid sh*t that doesn’t actually work. This type of content is mainly intended to get clicks. It has NOTHING to do with actually getting you to look like the person peddling this crap. The comments under these types of videos generally applaud the “creativity” of the influencer, but when it comes to exercise, “creative” and “effective” are usually opposites.That influencer doing circus acts for the camera did NOT obtain that body by doing those exercises. They usually have exceptional genetics, are on performance-enhancing drugs, or some combination of both. Don’t be fooled. The way you build a strong, lean, aesthetic physique is, well…kinda boring, but you acquire a taste for it. It involves doing most of the same exercises and making them progressively harder by adding weight, doing more reps, or doing a more difficult variation, doing one movement at a time. That other stuff is a distraction from you actually achieving your goals, and why most people who fall for these clickbait exercises will never look like the influencer demonstrating them. Thanks for watching.

I'M ON OZEMPIC. CAN I STOP WORKING OUT? Obviously not. The benefits of exercise go far beyond mere weight maintenance. If you don't get regular cardiovascular exercise, your risk of dying prematurely is significantly higher. In general, the more cardio you do, the longer you are likely to live, but that's just part of the picture. There is a growing segment of the population with a normal BMI that are carrying too little muscle and too much fat. This is termed "sarcopenic obesity". Despite having a normal BMI, these patients remain at risk for diabetes, hypertension, and cardiovascular disease. Apparently, simply being skinny isn't enough to keep you healthy. You HAVE to train for strength, especially as you age. Fast-twitch muscle fibers are responsible for most of your strength, and are what keep you up and running as you age. They are the first to go as you get older, so it is especially important to commit to a strength training program if you want to age well. Frailty is a common killer in older populations, where a hip fracture can be a death sentence. No one wants to go out like that if they can help it, and you CAN help it. Finally, I've seen many people lose tons of weight on the newer weight loss medications like semaglutide and terzepitide. For many, this gives them license to completely ignore their health. I've actually seen people on these drugs who started out obese, and end up looking way worse after losing weight, despite the improvements in their metabolic health. That's because, while they don't feel like eating anymore, when they do consume food, it's in the form of snacks and alcohol. Sad, but true. Instead of achieving their "dream body", they end up malnourished, weak, and a bit depressed. But hey, look at how skinny they are!Look, I'm all for these new weight loss drugs. I think they are miracles. However, remember that someone who requires them usually has a long history of maladaptive behaviors that continue to persis

Mine is a story of trauma: I grew up being misunderstood, ostracized, bullied, shamed, and rejected for just being me. I wasn’t jacked (or even remotely athletic) as a child. I was a chubby autistic kid with a penchant for video games, cartoons, and an active fantasy life. Inside, I am still that person. Growing up in the 80s as an autistic brown person, I fit in precisely nowhere. My family was broke at the time. I had no real friends. No sense of community. No nothing. All I had was anger and grit — in spades. Despite having nothing to prove to anyone anymore at 45 years old, the trauma follows me around like a shadow to this day. It affects all my interactions like a nagging pest that just won’t die. Yeah, those eyes are haunted, but when I see my creation I can still say to myself: “Goddamn. At least I have THIS. This sculpture that I created with my own volition. No one can ever take that away from me.”Why am I saying all this? Despite the perfectly valid medical reasons for being in peak physical condition, I built my body for entirely different purposes. It was so I could walk into the room, look people in the eye, and not feel like a worthless P.O.S. Is this a good long-term strategy? Hell no. Was it still worth it? Double-plus hell yes.

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