Kettlebell Korner.

Men Over 40 Fitness Dos & Donts/Stops!

(this might be the last one, we shall see).

DO - More unilateral work (so one sided work). Think lunges, split squats, single arm rows, single arm presses etc. Some of the reason you should be doing more single sided work is to allow your achey joints to move in a position they want to, and the use of dumbbells and KBs allow for that (this will be expanded on more below). But the main reason you should be doing more unilateral work is because you have a lot of imbalances...I know you do. And those imbalances are only getting worse as you get older. You need to work on them. When you only do bilateral work like squats or deadlifts, you let the stronger side take over and the weaker side doesn't work as much. Making the strength gap between sides even bigger, which WILL cause problems down the road. You should be doing more unilateral exercises to work on your strength imbalances so you can reduce the risk of injury down the road.

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DON'T - Use Barbells for everything. I'm only half kidding on this one. Barbells are fantastic and many, many people use them without any issues. However, many people DO have issues using them (depending on the exercise) and ignore the issues that come up, making their problems worse. If barbell benching doesn't feel great on your shoulder, use dumbbells instead. If having a barbell on your back for back squats hurts, do goblet squats, or lunges, or split squats etc. A barbell is not very forgiving, meaning it doesn't allow your body and joints to move freely. In many scenarios it locks your joints in a specific spot while doing an exercises, and that might not be comfortable for them. It also puts more stress on the body due to the amount of weight you can put on them. This can be a double edged sword. We want that stress for growth and adaptation, but sometimes this allows us to overdo the stress...again, this is a very person and exercise specific scenario. But the point of this is that you don't need barbells, so if you are using them and they don't feel comfortable...please use something else. It'll be ok.

Pushing Progress.

Lately I have been doing a lot of Instagram "Ask Me Anything" question boxes on my IG story.

One question that pops up every time without fail is "How do I know when to go up in weight?".

If I am being honest, I usually don't really know how to answer this question...the quick answer is that if you're asking, then it usually means it is time to go up in weight.

But in reality, and something I haven't been able to articulate in a "non-assholey" kind of way is that this is NOT a question people should need my help with.

This is a straightforward scenario that your body tells you the answer to.

If you're aiming for a set of 10, and think you could've gotten 30 reps...the weight is too light...

End of story.

Pretty black and white scenario here if you ask me.

Is the weight challenging you? No? Ok, then you know what to do.

I think people sometimes look TOO much for outside assistance or advice on things that they can (and in reality, should) be handling themselves.

Because at the end of the day it is YOU making the decisions about how to better yourself and you are in charge.

Business Nugget.

My business coach and mentor Mike Bledsoe is a pretty smart and badass dude.

He's helped me in more ways than I can express, and not just in business...but mentally too.

Long story short, I have a bad mindset around money, a scarcity mindset to be specific (don't worry, I'm not some greedy money hungry pig lol).

We've been doing some mental work on it and we're getting there (very slowly).

Well because of the work we have been doing it sparked the idea for him to write a pretty good article on the relationship with money for people.

It's a quick read and you should check it out!

​Your Relationship With Money Is Screwing With You (or setting you free).​