I work with a lot of dancers.  I also work with people that spend a lot of time around dancers.  Actors, singers, move-wellers, etc.I feel that I have a unique advantage working these folks because I used to be a part of that culture.  I may not have a been a great dancer, but I immersed myself in it pretty intensively in college and studied very hard to maximize my modest talents.  I’ve also spent (and continue to spend) most of my social time with folks who live in that world, so it’s fair to say… I know them pretty well.  We hang out, we go out, we make out. Kidding!  (no I’m not.)

From Stu McRobert’s Beyond Brawn: “This gym is all appearance and no substance. It is only because we have a lot of fancy-looking equipment that we impress everyone who knows little or nothing about training. Because we have spent a lot of money on marginal, useless and sometimes dangerous equipment we must encourage our members to use it. We never encourage the old-fashioned basic exercises. In fact, to save you from being tempted to use the latter, you will never find a power rack or lifting platform here, and the squat racks we have are flimsy and unused. Who on earth wants to squat? Too much like hard work. Our instructors are as useless as we are, though some of them have very good physiques due to excellence genetics and/or use of steroids. To deter you from using the time-proven most productive (but most uncomfortable) exercises, we have joined ranks with other gyms to perpetuate the hokum that basic barbell exercises are dangerous and, at best, only useful for beginners who are not fortunate enough to train in a modern well-equipped gym like ours. This is convenient for us though, because we barely know the first thing of instructing safe and productive technique in the biggest and best barbell exercises. We promote the idea that you need a wide variety of isolation and machine exercises in every workout. We make exercise fun. You can watch yourself in the many mirrors we have, listen to music we entertain you with, talk while you train, and ogle the skimpily clad bodies of the genetically blessed, sensual female instructors we employ to keep you interested in renewing your membership. Training here is fun, and fun means lots of members, though few of them stay long term. We depend on a constant influx of new members to make a profit. Welcome to this gym. We promise we will not push you hard, and we hope you will enjoy your time here. That is, you will enjoy it until you realize that the methods we promote will not help make you big and strong unless you have fantastic genetics or are pumped up on gear. Or like our regulars you will decide to forget about getting big and strong, and come here only for social contacts and visual kicks. Welcome to our gym!”

One of the most controversial topics in the fitness industry these days is the good old crunch. More specifically, rounding the low back, something we call spinal flexion when we speak in our secret club language of Pretentious Asshole.

It’s time.  You’re ready to do this.  You want to lose those five pounds that are making you uncomfortable during beach time.  You dust off the gym card and hit the gym.  You start doing cardio for 60 minutes 5 days a week.  BOOM.

I’ve been an active, gym-going type for many years.  I have, at times, eaten extremely well.  I like to think myself as having an advanced (albeit not expert) knowledge of fitness and proper nutrition.  I’ve never done of this with any amount of regularity.  Mark Fisher has absolutely revolutionized the way I approach exercise and eating.  He does this with a tireless wealth of knowledge, support, joy, humor and humility.  Many trainers can behave as if they know everything about every human body.  The wonderful thing about Mark is he probably knows more than most “professionals” out there but when he doesn’t, he is unafraid to say “I don’t know but I will find out.”