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Shaky man keeps on kicking Parkinson’s disease in the nards.

Some time ago I received an email titled, “Shaky man Down Under.” It was from Neil, an Australian man with Parkinson’s disease who had taken up weight training as part of his therapy. Since I suffer from the delusion that everyone who can move should do resistance training, and since I was also working with a client suffering from a related disorder, I encouraged him to keep it up. He leaped into his training with renewed enthusiasm. Every now and again, Neil sends me progress reports.

“I was unfit my entire life and avoided the gym for years, convinced that it was going to be just like High School gym. In my late 20s, I went through a rough patch and got seriously depressed. My weight ballooned to the point that when I turned 30 things were at their worst and I weighed 315 lbs. A few years ago I finally decided that I had to stop ‘waiting’, and get to it…”

I started out like so many other kids we hear about who turned to weights, as a girl who was completely uncoordinated, had no idea what was going on in organized sports, and was always the last one picked for the teams at school. I did have one shining season in 7th grade volleyball, but [...]

Maryse Turcotte was the first woman in the Americas to clean and jerk double her bodyweight. I first interviewed her in 1999, and since then she’s had a distinguished lifting career.

From fitness competitor to fit and fecund — an example of staying active throughout life’s changes (and familial additions).

Linda “The Phantom” Schaefer is a competitive powerlifter whose claim to fame is a truly impressive deadlift. I asked her about her achievements and advice for other women lifters.

Nearly 10 years ago I got an email from another Krista. She was a police officer and powerlifter, and we hit it off pretty much right away. I asked her for some pics to put up on my site, and as it turned out, she had penned a few strength training articles of her own.

When I saw her compete at her first powerlifting competition, I noticed that her opening lifts were higher than many of the women who were heavier than her. In other words, she wasn’t just strong for her weight, she was strong compared to women who were much bigger than her. So, I figured she knew what she was talking about.

Writer, bodybuilder, and Renaissance woman Kat Ricker (a.k.a. The Mighty Kat) has been training since 1990. Here, she shares some of her writing.

The shocking true story!

Football player Christine shares her story. And if you don’t like it, she will happily beat your ass down.

First off I want to thank you for creating this site.  You have no idea how much it has changed me and my life (actually you probably do have some idea since I am sure I am not the first person to tell you this).
I guess my story starts out like a lot of women’s [...]

“I feel compelled to write you and tell you how fantastic your site is! Here is my life story. I am a 30 year old woman who is classed as medically disabled. I have many many medical illnesses working against me, and I have since I was 13 years old. This includes Parkinson’s, Crohn’s, migraines, and heart disease… my highest weight was 270 pounds…”

“My story isn’t unique. I was the heavy girl never picked for teams, yada yada, until lack of a car in college/”the real world” forced me to walk everywhere in rural Maine, then I took to biking, then hiking, and then the gym. I weighed in at 157 lbs here, but I am a size 6/8 on a frame 5′11″ tall!

Right before this meet, my best friend of 7 years told me that I was getting too muscular. That hurt, but I ditched the friendship and went to your site for some female support. I love the sensation of getting stronger, I love the calluses I’m getting at the base of my fingers, I love outlifting a few men even… now my strength is ‘cute’ but I can’t wait till I’m pulling some serious weight around the gym.”

“Now I’m in fire school. In the United States today only 2% of all paid firefighters are female. This kicks my ass. BTW, that cursed hose (and I’m cursing it in this picture believe me) gets pulled for 100 feet and it gets progressively heavier until the last ten feet it’s 220 lbs. The water is pressurized inside and its horribly stiff and unforgiving. All my gear, helmet and air tank, weigh about 50 lbs. This kicks the ass of 18 year old boys! But I’m doing it and in fact just two days before Christmas landed a job as a firemedic in a suburb of Orlando. I still have a lot of pulling and sweating to do before graduation but I’m going to do it. It would not have been possible without a lot of inspiration, so I say thank you again.”

“That first day when I was reading through all of your info, I didn’t think I could actually do it. I was so out of shape I was sure that I would hurt myself if I tried to lift, but I got hooked when reading your section on squats. I was sure that if I tried to do one, even with just body weight, my knee caps would go flying across the room! But I wanted to try, so I stood up in front of my computer, and carefully following the instructions, went all the way down and came all the way back up! Then I did it again, and about ten more times”…

“In 1996 I broke my back in a construction accident. I had to do something in order to show the male dominated world that I could still pull my weight! In order to do this I had to start to lift weights. And so my training started…”

These are real women who wrote me, prompted by reading the site, to tell their story and share their ideas. Who needs superheroes when you have such inspiration!?

Are we all doomed by our genes? Are doctors secretly plotting against us? Find out!

Some people start fitness programs hoping to look like “perfection”. Some people quit fitness programs because they don’t achieve “perfection”. What is this so-called ideal, and how relevant should it be to our goals?

Fitness is a quality that is context-dependent. Our notion of fitness (thanks to the work of Kenneth Cooper, father of the modern aerobic movement) is the marathon runner, the endurance athlete who is ultra lean, purged of any mass which is not directly responsible for propelling the body forward.

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“Fitness models” proliferate in the popular press, [...]

Can you be fat and fit? Let’s start by understanding why “fat” might be used as a proxy for “unfit” in the first place.

Lighten up and have some fun with your fitness!

Recently archaeologists made an amazing discovery. Buried amongst stone figurines of women with beauteous thighs was a sacred document. This document contained cosmic truths and wisdom which were intended to show the True Way to the worshipers of the Goddess of Sq’waht. I have faithfully reprinted those writings here.

“Oh my god, Becky, look at her butt. It is soooo big. She looks like one of those rap guys’ girlfriends… They only talk to her because she looks like a total prostitute, OK? I mean her butt — It’s just so big. I can’t believe it’s so round. It’s just out there. I mean, it’s gross.” –Sir Mix-A-Lot, Baby Got Back

When a woman attacks another woman, all she really proves is that she hates herself. –Erica Jong

I often get emails or see trainees who are frustrated and pissed off. They aren’t achieving their goals and they tell me they have “tried everything”. They’re about ready to throw in the towel on exercise and nutrition. They feel that nothing is working. They start to buy into the idea that “diets don’t work so there’s no point in trying”. I was that person… once. Like everyone else I had a gift for massive self delusion.

In over a decade of experience as a trainer and someone on the journey of physical culture what I have discovered is that human perception has only a loose connection to reality. We do not see ourselves — or others — as we really are.

Butch up. (verb) To develop a backbone or stiff upper lip; to quit whining and get on with life.

Allright possums, it’s tough love time. If you don’t like being nagged by a complete stranger, quit reading now. If you are comfortable still complaining about your body and making excuses for your life, then step away from the computer, and go sit in your own filth somewhere. I’m waiting.