MUSCLE CHURCH: Our Father, the Iron

--> Some thoughts on setting yourself up for success and avoiding some major markers for failure. There are much more complex and complicated things at play these days compared to the dingy weight room of my rural high school in 1997. Social media is awesome, but so many people, myself included, don’t seem to figure out the negative effects of it until it’s too late. Aside from the constant desire to remain connected and the endless battles with trolls, we get exposed to so many messages and that alone can skew our perception of what we want and who we are. Instagram is the de facto social network for fitness and training, but it’s easy to forget that most of the major players in that realm do that for work, because their job is to be models and spokespersons for products. I’m sure that many of them would love for you to achieve your goals, but at the end of the day they need followers and engagement in order to make a buck. These perfect bodies performing incred

Hey everyone! This was written about a week or two after last year's Mr. Olympia and I was wanting to do some more analysis of IFBB contests but it never really took off for me. However, I'm going to incorporate that into the blog this year. So I present some thoughts on the contest last September, specifically about Big Ramy. I'd love to know what you think so leave a comment on the bottom! Spoiler alert, there's a new Mr. Olympia in town and rarer still he beat the reigning champ. By now everyone knows that Shawn Rhoden beat Phil Heath in Sin City last weekend, but almost as interesting is the question of what happened to Big Ramy AKA The Next Big Thing. In 2017 the Kuwaiti bodybuilder was runner-up to Phil Heath in the Mr. Olympia and received much of the same criticism that has followed him throughout his IFBB career. Not many argued that as Heath came in like a wrecking ball and though he had put on some size, he was not spilling over and his symmetry and condi

--> “Now that’s what I call posing!” Most people have heard Arnold Schwarzenegger’s classic line from the 1977 film Pumping Iron when a thick and mustachioed Ed Corney is posing while the Oak looks on, whispering to the camera. Corney’s pro bodybuilding career wouldn’t reach the heights of either Schwarzenegger or Lou Ferigno, the film’s primaries, but his role in the film would put his classic image in the public consciousness and his physique and posing would place him in the upper echelon of bodybuilding elite. Corney passed away on New Year’s Day 2019 and with him we lost one of the rarest of all relics in the annals of competitive bodybuilding, a man whose career spanned three decades. He first competed in 1968 in the Mr. California and last took the stage in 1998 at the Arnold Classic in the Master’s Division. Though not a frequent winner or even a perennial favorite, Corney was revered for being one of, if not the, best poser of all time, on any level. The

There I was, out on the road with the new job, in a nice rental car with two people I barely knew, and no one wants to go eat dinner but the restaurant at the hotel is closed. What is a goodbrother to do??? Well we stopped at the grocery store. One of my compatriots grabbed a six pack for dinner and the other grabbed a bag of chips and a candy bar. I headed to the deli and got myself some lean ham and provolone cheese. At the checkout I was met with the scrunchy face and the "you're eating THAT?" Yes, I'm gonna get my protein in, not too many carbs and it's gluten-free, that's what I need in my diet. And I do have a weakness for lunchmeat... My normal was not beer or chips at night, their's wasn't a nice, easily-digestible snack. We all have different goals and we all have our own normal!

Turn the Page...what a track, Bob Seger or Metallica???? Well, that's not what the blog is about today. Today I'm talking a bit about New Year's Resolutions and how it can crowd up our gyms, but that's not a bad thing! Enjoy and drop a comment below. This week and every week in January, February and at least the first two in March will see our precious gyms overrun with dreaded newcomers! How dare they come to MY gym and take over the squat racks for their barbell curls and use the good flat bench to do planks on, don’t they know I was here first??? Seriously, how many times have you heard that every…single…year? How many times have you been guilty of feeling that way yourself? I was for years until I realized that the only difference between me and these misguided souls was that I was in the gym in December, toiling away, frying my system and stressing myself out while they were eating cake and psyching themselves up to hit the weights after the holidays. Really,