Gigantor doesn't know everything about training.

Every time you step into a gym you see guys like my buddy Gigantor (pictured above) working out. You know, the bloated dude with the clown pants who spits at the mirror while he heaves ungodly amounts of weights with reckless abandonment then he sends them crashing down with a loud primeval scream that can curl milk, that guy. Anyway, the average gym goer usually stares at this mammoth of a human from afar afraid of approaching the larger than life cartoon. Occasionally, a brave soul will approach Gigantor for training advice thinking since he's full of muscle he's got to know what he doing right?

WRONG! The fact of the matter is this, just because someone has huge muscles and can produce veins from areas of the body which you never thought veins existed doesn't mean that he knows what he is doing. How can this be, the dude is huuuuge? Let me tell you something Sparky if you took a truck load of steroids and did Richard Simmons sweating to the oldies videos you'll put on muscle too. Now in defense of Gigantor these guys train hard but the methodology used to achieve such proportions is ancient technology. A body builder trains to make his muscle big and not necessarily functional.

When I was in the body building world (yes,I took steroids) I had a saying that I learned from my mentor "Big Mike" "Size is the answer". Size was more important than flexibility, agility, cardio vascular endurance and even strength! Believe it or not a lot of body builders are not that strong. If your focus is to build a physic like a shaved down low land silver back then following Gigantors advice might get you there. Just because someone "looks" fit doesn't mean that he or she is fit.

I try to change my clients focus from looking fit to truly being fit. My approach to fitness is functionality over cosmetic appearance. Everyone wants to be lean and sport a six pack I get it but you must be physically fit in all areas of fitness not just one or two and believe me you'll look better and the six pack will come but only through the proper diet and hard work. In my gym my clients get stronger, faster, improve their agility, accuracy, balance, coordination, cardio vascular endurance, speed, power, build muscle, lose fat, and enjoy better health.

Fitness has to cross over to real world applications. What good is it to sport a six pack and not be able to walk a few yards carrying grocery bags and having to stop several times to catch your breath. What good will your new lean body do for you if you can't lunge forward and grab your child before he/she falls down because you have range of motion limitations? What good does all that muscle do for you if you can't pick your child up because your rotator cuffs are injured from too much heavy weight training?

What ever limits you today will only be worse tomorrow. In my gym I see 25 year old women that can't perform a full squat, 30 year old men with no previous history of injury suffer from lower back pain. I have a client who suffered a hip injury that's a common occurrence among elderly people at age 40! Training can't be approached as a today thing, you have to look beyond today and prepare to be fit for the rest of your life. Body building and training with the likes of Gigantor (unless you want to compete in a body building competition) can lead to injuries because this method of training focuses on the big showy muscle instead of working on the smaller support muscles of the hips, torso, shoulders, and back.

They say that a build is only as strong as it's foundation. Without a strong foundation buildings will crumble to the ground at the first sign of a hurricane or earth quake. We know that too well here in Florida after hurricane Andrew demolished thousands of homes. What do you think will happen to you if you don't build a strong foundation? Body building is ancient technology with a limited life span as you can see in this picture Arnold doesn't look to good now a days.

Now compare Arnold to Mark Sisson age 55(pictured below) author of the Primal Blue Print and the highly respected blog Mark's Daily Apple. Mark stays fit by following a functional training routine and eating a high protein, high fat, low carb diet. Don't know about you guys but I'd rather look like Mark.


In closing, the moral of the story is huge muscle can and will fade away with time but functionally fit bodies will last a life time. We're only here once we should make the best out of it don't you think?

That's all I have to say about that...
see you at the gym