On the drive to Austin today I kept coming back to a study I had been sitting on for a while. And it is not a new study at all, but still nobody is talking about it which is exactly why it keeps nagging at me. I've spent decades, literally, reading research and looking for the largest increase in aerobic performance in trained subjects - not just untrained nooobes who wander the purple halls of PF. And for 6 years now, this study is still the single greatest VO₂ max increase I have ever seen...
about 22 hours ago • 2 min read
Sitting at Black Rifle Coffee in Moore, Oklahoma with an aggressively large black coffee and a laptop. Black Sunshine is in the parking lot pointed south. Later today I roll into Weatherford TX to spend some time with my coach Adam T Glass and his wife Ashley — one of the sharpest and most original thinkers in the strength world and someone I am lucky to call a friend and coach. But before I leave Moore, I need to tell you about something that goes away tonight. At midnight PST, the fast...
2 days ago • 1 min read
Running a bit late this AM as I am stuffing Black Sunshine full of kiteboarding gear and pointed south not looking back. Here is a question that came up just the other day - yes, once again! “Can’t I just lift weights faster? My heart rate goes up. Isn’t that cardio?” It is one of the most logical-sounding wrong answers in the history of exercise, so I thought it was worth taking another stab at this Zombie Myth as my buddy Lou Schuler calls them. Here’s what your heart is actually doing when...
3 days ago • 3 min read
As you saw earlier today, the Flexible Meathead Cardio course level 1 is open again so this is perfect timing to unpack the Zone 2 cardio debate with my friend Kristi Storoschuk, a PhD candidate in exercise physiology. We dig into what “zone 2” really means (including lactate thresholds and why common proxies like heart rate and the talk test can miss the mark), where the 80/20 endurance model came from, and why messaging around zone 2 for mitochondrial function, fat oxidation, metabolic...
4 days ago • 1 min read
There are three kinds of lifters. The first one trains like the apocalypse is personally coming for him every single session. Every session is a suffer-fest and even weight training is turned into a ritual of snorting pre-workout off the gym sink in an effort to put forth enough effort of beyond failure training to make Mike Mentzer's ghost smile down upon their heroic gym deeds. Every conditioning piece is used to its fullest degree as if it committed a war crime against his own nervous...
4 days ago • 4 min read
Hola from the frozen hellscape of Minnesota, where I’ve been rudely ejected from the warm embrace of Vegas and dropped straight into a climate that feels like it’s trying to repossess my soul. I dragged my jet-lagged carcass out of bed the other day, layered up, and hit my AM row in the 43 F Extreme Human Performance Center (aka my garage gym) anyway… because I am not a coward. haha Then I punished myself further with some rower sprints, just to remind my body who’s in charge before I head...
6 days ago • 4 min read
Wow…what a week. I tried to take 5 flights just to get to a Mastermind in Vegas—finally rolled in about a day late thanks to a Minnesota snowstorm. Then straight back into reality with a pile of deadlines waiting for me when I got in late Wednesday. Good times. Here's what went down this week. Newsletters: David Protein Bar Lawsuit: A deep dive into the David Bars lawsuit that breaks down what’s actually happening with EPG, calories, and real-world physiology, so you can understand what...
7 days ago • 2 min read
You ever have one of those nights where you tell yourself“I’m just gonna check one thing real quick” …and three hours later you’re deep in a PDF about non-absorbable triglyceride analogs wondering if vitamin K depletion is the hill you die on? That was me last night and previous days too. ..Because David Bars got sued. And once a protein bar lawsuit hits federal court, my brain does not let that go.Not because I care about internet drama.......but because I care about dose-response curves,...
9 days ago • 6 min read
In this episode of the Flex Diet Podcast, I sit down with coach Kevin Dineen to talk about where fitness and healthcare are headed and whether their merger is a net positive or negative. We dig into why people still default to asking physicians about training and nutrition, the problems created by siloed systems, and what a more client-centered model could look like with coaches, PTs, massage therapists, and physicians collaborating under one roof. We also discuss the pros, cons, and...
12 days ago • 1 min read