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Dr Mike T Nelson

Creator of the Flex Diet Cert & Phys Flex Cert, CSCS, CISSN, Assoc Professor, kiteboarder, lifter of odd objects, metal music lover. >>>>Sign up to my daily FREE Fitness Insider newsletter below

Featured Post

The Truth About PCOS, GLP-1s, and Peptides

In this episode of the Flex Diet Podcast, I sit down with Dr. Ashley Dwyer, a PharmD-turned nutrition and fitness coach, to cover a wide range of topics, with a strong focus on PCOS (polycystic ovarian syndrome), a metabolic condition that affects fertility, cycles, and systemic health. We dig into practical lifestyle strategies for insulin-resistant PCOS, including balanced meals, protein and fiber, blood sugar management, movement, and stress reduction, plus why long-term keto often isn’t a...

Every once in a while something I’ve been preaching in the iron dungeon and to all my M3 online 1-1 clients for years escapes into the wild. Recently Muscle & Fitness featured one of my favorite upper-back tweaks—the heavy face pull—a simple adjustment that lets you load the movement harder without turning your shoulder joints into shredded beef jerky. Kudos to Fitness Newsletter Insider Shane for including me in the full article. Here’s the excerpt from it ‘HEAVY’ FACE PULLS The heavy face...

Yesterday I watched a guy spend twenty straight minutes doing preacher curls. Same weight.Same mirror.Same sour puss face that looked like he was trying to remember his Wi-Fi password. Meanwhile… The deadlift platform sat empty. A loaded barbell resting there like a cannon nobody had the courage to fire. Do deadlifts actually build muscle? This question was prompted by my buddy and fitness insider Shane over at Muscle and Fitness. Short answer: yes. Long answer: absolutely yes... ...but the...

Quick heads up. I go live at 3pm CST today Wed March 4 at the Future of Coaching Virtual Summit and you can still jump in and watch it for free. My talk is called: “Data-Driven or Delusional: An Evidence and Experience-Based Guide to Wearable Technology.” Because right now a lot of coaches are staring at dashboards like they’re sacred scripture. HRV drops 6 points and suddenly the entire training program gets rewritten. Relax. Here’s what I’m breaking down in the session: • What wearable...

The coaching industry is splitting into two camps. And the dividing line is coming fast. On one side… You have Optimizer Otto. Otto owns every wearable known to mankind. HRV tracker.Sleep tracker.Readiness score.Respiratory rate.Stress index.Recovery score. He wakes up. HRV slightly down.Sleep score mediocre.Respiratory rate up a hair. Otto panics. Changes the program.Cuts volume.Writes a dissertation on parasympathetic tone by red light. All based on one snapshot of data. Here’s the...

In this episode of the Flex Diet Podcast, I sit down with my good friend John Gorman to unpack the current “wild west” of peptides, TRT, GLP medications, and performance-driven bloodwork. We dig into how John’s telemedicine clinic approaches comprehensive lab testing — and why running a full panel (including markers like reverse T3) matters far more than cherry-picking a few numbers. If you’ve been dieting hard, training consistently, and still feeling stuck, we break down how chronic stress,...

It is Sunday story time so let me tell you about two athletes. Same training. Same total carbs. Same 24-hour glycogen levels. One of them performs 30% worse the next day. Can you guess why? This is where the ultra hardcore science only crowd -who rarely ever train a single person = break out the pubmed studies and declare from the mountain" “Total daily intake of carbs is all that matters.” ...but is that still true today? Grab your propeller head and hold your glute max with both hands as we...

Yesterday we talked about the VO₂ max overreaction, if you missed it go HERE. Because several of you asked smart questions via email, I wanted to do a follow up FAQ as a bonus for you. “Do I use Morpheus for MET training?” No. I like it. Joel’s a great dude and long-time friend. But I write my own cardio programming. Always have. For grip?Adam Glass coaches me. Yes, coaches should have coaches. “How has training changed as you’ve aged?” Less drama. More precision. When I was younger, I...

The Overreaction to VO₂ Max Is Coming. Here’s What Coaches Need to Know. You can feel it, can’t you? The swing of the pendulum. First it was: 10,000 steps. Then HRV. Then cold plunges. Then everyone discovered VO₂ max and suddenly your aerobic capacity became your moral worth. And now the backlash is here. Eric Topol — in a widely circulated post on his Ground Truths Substack wrote an article entitled The Flawed VO2 Max Craze — steps into the arena the premise: “Hold on. Most of the mortality...

In this episode of the Flex Diet Podcast, I sit down with Denmark-based coach and hybrid athlete Andreas Stobberup to talk about bridging serious strength training with high-level endurance performance. Andreas shares his journey from peaking around 250 lbs with a 405 bench and 600+ squat to dropping to 205 and completing a full Ironman in 9:52—while continuing to coach athletes across disciplines. We discuss the reality gap between amateur and elite performance, how influencer culture often...