The first thing to know about Intermittent Fasting, or any nutrition protocol, is that it is a tool.  It is not a magic bullet that will fix all your physical and dietary needs.  You need to know why you are applying the tool, and what the tool does.  Our over-saturated, social media fitness culture does not explain this.  There are no miracle workers in health and fitness, if someone tells you otherwise they are trying to sell you a bullshit product.

Intermittent Fasting has many benefits.  It helps your body control cortisol production, increases HGH and Testosterone production.  It helps control daily caloric intake, and it makes your mornings much easier.

Your back pain is just a symptom.  The tightness in your hips and inactivity in your glutes are forcing your lower back muscles to work much harder than they should, and they are fatigued and prone to injury.

It’s 2017 and there are some daily behaviors that are new to us as a species.  Tweeting at the President and pretending you’re making a difference, spinning things in our fingers that were made to specifically to be spun (use a pen like we used to, you stupid kids), and most infamously sitting on our asses all day.

Bodyweight workouts have many benefits.  They build the base strength, body awareness and mobility needed to accelerate muscle gain. They naturally increase your range of motion in tricky joints.  

They can be done nearly anywhere, whether you are on vacation or short on time and only have access to your laundry room.  
 

This is a guest post by my friend Samantha Faulhaber. 

She is a FRCms, FRAs, FR Lower, FR Spine, Kinstretch instructor – all of which means she's a mobility specialist trainer pretty far down the rabbit hole of Functional Range Conditioning and functionalanatomyseminars.com. That’s a teaching group that wants you to ask all the questions and find scientifically sound answers to everything going on with your body’s tissue management, which includes exercise.

She also has excellent taste in music. 

You should follow her on Instagram.

Want to dominate the pitch? 

You need to incorporate smart strength training.  When done properly you can become faster, more agile and injury free.

These are 5 exercises that will make anyone a stronger soccer player.

A lot of the things we were taught about health were wrong.  With many recent studies it seems the health and fitness landscape is always being turned on its head.  Here are 4 weird things you can do to become healthier.  They range from simple things you can do without thinking, to a life changing strategy.

Eric Cressey has a saying that I really like- “Most people could show up to the gym and bang their head against a wall and lose weight.”  You don’t need to know how to squat, deadlift or do a double under on a jump rope.  All you need to know is how to show up and work hard.  If you want to learn how to do those things you can hire me, and I’ll yell at you for a couple hours a week.

Most people work at a desk, and most people develop problems that arise from that.  Sitting down hunched over a computer all day causes the hip flexors and pec minors to tighten and shorten.  It also causes the shoulder blades to “wing” out, and the upper spine (thoracic) to form a Quasimodo style mini hump.  Not only are these traits not attractive, they can hinder your progress in the gym.

The fact of the matter is that the bench press is not the best exercise for developing a strong chest.  That would be the pushup followed by various dumbbell presses. 

Both the pushup and the dumbbell presses incorporate more muscle fibers in both your pecs and shoulders than the bench press. 

Your ab training routine does not have to last for 6 hours.  You can accomplish a lot in six minutes if you choose the right exercises and remember to add resistance.  Give this a try in your next program and let me know how much you hate it!