Recovery
Recovery has become an industry. Ice baths in the garden, massage guns in the kit bag, compression boots, saunas, patches, powders. Almost all of it is sold on the promise that you can buy your way out of being tired. The reality: Sleep. Seven to nine hours. Nothing else is
Training
Stand with your back against a wall — heels, backside, upper back and head all touching it. Now put your arms straight overhead and try to touch the wall with your hands shoulder width apart and without your ribs flaring off it. Most adults can't. If you can'
Training
The kettlebell swing is the most misunderstood movement in the building, and the way most people do it is a squat with a bell in their hands. Watch a class and you'll see it. The knees travel forward, the chest drops, the hips go down, and the bell
Squat
If you only ever trained one movement for the rest of your life, it would be the squat, and it wouldn't be close. The squat is how you get out of a chair. Off the floor. Off a toilet, in and out of a car, up from the
Training
Mira asked about the kit — grips, belts, tape, when to start using them and how much of it is theatre. Some of it is theatre. Most of it isn't. Here it is in the order you'll need it. Grips. When you're doing volume on
Women's Health
The single most common reason women give me for not touching the heavy weights is that they're afraid of getting bulky. Big. Manly. So they stay on the light dumbbells and the cross-trainer, doing the one thing that won't get them what they actually want.
Lifestyle
Chris asked me about training on holiday. The more useful question is what happens when you get back. The holiday isn't the problem. Two weeks off does very little to you. The problem is the Monday after, and the enthusiasm that walks through the door with a tan
Training
Jas asked me how muscle is actually built. There are four things. Everything else you've read is a variation on them, sold back to you with a name. One: the set has to get hard. A set only counts when the last few reps are genuinely difficult — two
Training
Lauren asked me what she should actually be doing after a session — stretching, foam rolling, all of it — and how to catch up if she's neglected it for a couple of years. My answer surprised her, so I'll give you the same one. Stop planning the
Nutrition
Alex asked what she should be eating before a session. The two things that decide it: how long you've got, and how long the session is. How long you've got. Two to three hours out, eat a normal meal. Protein and carbohydrate, the plate method, nothing
Training
Jas asked me about Zone 2. Zone 2 is easy aerobic work. For most of us it is easier than you think — you can hold a conversation the whole way through, in full sentences, without gasping. The benefits: more capillaries feeding the muscle. Better use of fat as a fuel.
Training
Marion asked me a question last week that I suspect half the gym has been thinking. What difference does heat make to our training? Your blood has two jobs during a session: deliver oxygen to the working muscles, and carry heat out to the skin so you can shed it.