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Work is killing you. Here is what to do about it.
Modern society, with its deadline-driven focus on working us to death, is working us to death. It’s time to rebel. Read more…

How motivation really works
If you struggle with your weight, if you want to be fitter, stronger, faster, more muscular, have less pain and more energy, then nothing is more important to achieving these goals than having the will to make it happen. Read more…

Understanding metabolism to lose weight
The question of how to lose weight is tricky, but I can clarify some aspects of metabolism that will allow you to plan your caloric balance to achieve fat loss. Read more…

The case for working out at home
When I first gave up my gym membership, I thought I might miss the spandex-clad females, but as I edge closer to the half-century mark, it seems as though I’m finally gaining some maturity. Read more…

How to make your workout more efficient
I don’t care what it is you do to work out. I’m not one of those judgmental dicks who craps on people for doing Zumba or elliptical trainers or what have you. In an age when only about 20% percent of people get any exercise at all (and only 5% get a considerable amount), simply doing anything is what matters. Read more…

The benefits of interval training
It gets cold where I live. But even when the forecast is for below-zero weather, I’d still rather go outside than run on a treadmill. Read more…

Workout tips from female fitness stars
I love my job. How many people get to have a job that entails interviewing hot women with amazing bodies? That’s what I got to do and I even got paid for it. Read more…

My 3-day workout routine
I’ve been using the same split-routine for working out for well over a decade. The horror! Read more…

Do scare tactics really get you into shape?
Some fitness programs are a challenge to your manhood just by their name. Are you insane enough to complete Insanity, or are you a pussy? The website asks the question “Are you ready to dig deep?” Well, are you, you freakin’ pansy? Read more…

How to get in James Bond shape
Daniel Craig has brought a new level of badassery to James Bond. Who can forget the parkour death match in Casino Royale, or the bell-tower swing/scaffold of doom in Quantum of Solace? Read more…

My 20 rules of being a man
It seems like everyone’s a douchebag these days.

Myriad times I’ve been referred to as a plastic container filled with a vinegar and water solution. I write things about fitness that are frequently unpopular, so am used to being called that and worse. Read more…

How I got a “Body for Wife”
On the schoolyard field of battle known as gym class, I made the geeks look good. I could neither throw nor catch, run nor jump, tackle nor save; I always came out of dodgeball with head trauma. Read more…

The logic of becoming a runner
A lot of people crap on running. They say it makes you weak. It gives you a protruding belly. It’s boring. It makes you scrawny. It sucks. Those people are pansies. Read more…

The ten fitness commandments I live by
Fitness isn’t just a means to an end for me. I’ve never been tempted to buy some body-bow-blade-ellipto-flex-ab-cruncher because such things are crap and it’s not a healthy attitude. I see exercise as not only about achieving goals, but a righteously ass-kicking attitude that needs to be embraced with vigor until the day I dirt-nap. Read more…

My definition of fit and healthy
So many magazines with glossy photos, ripped abs, bulging biceps, boobs…Yeah, sometimes I look at the women’s fitness mags, too. Because, you know, boobs. Read more…

Gym injuries and how to avoid them
After more than 18 years of being a regular gym-goer, I have some tales of pain and woe. Any men who are reading this may wish to cross their legs at this point. Read more…

People at the gym, Part 3
If you’ve ever spent time in a gym, you have noticed it’s a place where interesting characters can congregate. I’ve made past attempts to classify the various subspecies of gym-goer, but my work is not yet complete. Some of these characters can be considered annoying, others unusual or simply amusing. These are the people at the gym. Read more…

Buying guide for runners
It’s been a few millennia since the only running gear you needed was a spear and a loincloth. Oh, and lots of hunger to motivate you to run something to death so you’d be known as “provider of meat” (aka the guy who gets all the chicks) to the tribe. Read more…

Stay active forever by creating a fitness bucket list
OK, so the movie The Bucket List was a bit of a downer, but it can still teach us a thing or two about establishing goals and then setting out to achieve them. There is an adage in business that says, “What gets measured gets done,” so setting a goal that you’ll measure yourself against is a great way to prompt you to action. Read more…

How to buy a road bike
Money makes the wheels go round. Spend more money, and you’re likely to get faster wheels. I’m not talking about some over-horse-powered-midlife-crisis mobile, but rather two wheels where the power comes from your own legs. The return on investment is going to be higher. Read more…

Lessons from my first marathon
Marathoners swear by BodyGlide to prevent chafing. In preparation for my first marathon, I smeared a generous coating in places you don’t want to read about. Knowing it would never be clean again, I threw the rest of the stick in the garbage; it lay there like an apocalypse-traumatized Marlon Brando. The horror. The horror. Read more…

Peeing sitting down
Sweden, what the hell?

There is a war coming. Sweden is the aggressor. The victim is your penis. A political party in Sweden has tabled a motion to ban urinals in office restrooms and wants men to squat to pee. Read more…

Why the bacon sundae isn’t really such a travesty
Once again people have their panties in a bunch over the latest disgusting fast food concoction. Although intellectually I scoff at the ridiculousness of Burger King’s homage to grease and sugar, my emotional response to the bacon sundae is less logical. Read more…

Adam van Koeverden interview
Canadian kayaker Adam van Koeverden knows the view from all three Olympic podium positions. Not a gifted athlete as a child, he started kayaking at the age of 13 to find his athletic Zen. Nine years later, he was carrying the Canadian flag during the Closing Ceremonies in Athens, and four years after that was the flag-bearer to open the 2008 Summer Games in Beijing. He’ll be representing his country in the Olympics yet again this summer in London. Read more…

The top ten habits of Olympians
Some people regularly push themselves to the wall and then push through, whereas others haven’t worked out since the first Harry Potter movie. A lot are in-between. We’re doing all right, but we can still take it to the next level. Read more…

Top 10 ways to eat healthy out of the house
Eating out is quite likely the No. 1 cause of obesity. Since 1955, Americans went from spending 25% of their food dollars outside the home to 49%. Also consider that eating out is so much cheaper now, and the actual amount of calories ingested outside the home is way more than that. Read more…

A healthy lifestyle is simpler than you think
Recently a friend asked me what I recommend for a post-exercise recovery drink. “Recovery drink?” I said. “Who cares about that?” Read more…

My fitness motivation secrets
Time to put the “interactive” in internet. Motivation to exercise is a struggle for many, what with couches, big screen TVs, bed, work and more bed. Still, some of us find the time. Some of us kick our own asses out the door to work out. Read more…

People in the Gym, Part 2
A while back, I wrote a piece for AskMen called People in the Gym that describes some of the colorful characters we see pumping iron, riding the cardio equipment, doing silly stretches or just wandering aimlessly. Since then, with the help of friendly suggestions, I realized that I only covered about half of them. There are more. Oh, so many more. Read more…

The truth about six-pack abs
I am amazed that naturally skinny people even exist. Think about it. For most of human history, we’ve lived on the edge of starvation. The only plentiful thing was famine, especially in the winter. Our Stone Age ancestors spent all summer hunting and gathering everything they could shovel into their root and berry holes in an attempt to add enough body fat to survive the coming lean times. Read more…

The new weight-loss drug that could actually work
I’ve written before that we live in an obesogenic environment – one that seems designed to make us fat. So where is our magic pill? Read more…

Reasons to cheat on your diet
I’m a big fan of cheating, but not going hog-wild like Tiger Woods at a porn star convention. Even when you do cheat, it needs to be planned and restrained. By the way, I’m talking about dietary cheating. Read more…

10 misconceptions about diet and nutrition
There are a lot of stupid diet ideas floating around out there. We’ve got cookie diets, peanut butter diets, liquid diets, starvation diets, yoyo diets… I could go on. Read more…

Exercise and anxiety – February 6, 2012
Have you ever wanted to march down to your boss’ corner office, three-hole punch him in the junk, hurl him out a skyscraper window, and declare yourself alpha drone o’er the cube farm? Read more…

Time management for exercise – January 23, 2012
It’s time to break out the MBA again.

But I’m not going to “proactivate” you with a bunch of management buzzwords, and that’s mostly because I think the majority of hyper-detailed time-management stuff is a bunch of bullsh*t. Read more…

10 fitness facts many people get wrong – January 17, 2012
Top 10 lists are subjective. There are many common fitness facts, frauds and myths that are not on this list and some weird ones that are. This list is comprised of 10 that I’ve personally found are often misunderstood and that I want to clarify. Read more…

Setting and achieving fitness goals – January 9, 2012
I want to proactively synergize your core competencies toward an optimized fitness paradigm.

Sorry, that’s the MBA talking. Read more…

So you want to look like a fitness model – December 19, 2011
Commercials for home exercise equipment make me laugh. I recently saw one for something called the T-Core. The dude in the video has an impressive physique, and I can just imagine what he was thinking during filming: This thing is such a piece of crap. Read more…

To get in shape, focus on the 90% – December 5
There is so much “broscience” out there about fitness, and it’s all a massive endeavor in attempting to separate fly sh*t from pepper. Read more…

Why Nickelback deserves the hate – November 25, 2011
I remember when I first heard Nickelback I figured these guys would last about as long as a child molester in gen pop.

If only. Read more…

The worst machine at the gym – November 21, 2011
It’s interesting what money will make people do. I envision some inventor for a fitness equipment company sitting at his desk one day when his wife walks in to tell him what a nightmare her pap smear was. Then he starts thinking, “Hey, people go to the gym to torture themselves…”

And the hip It’s interesting what money will make people do. I envision some inventor for a fitness equipment company sitting at his desk one day when his wife walks in to tell him what a nightmare her pap smear was. Then he starts thinking, “Hey, people go to the gym to torture themselves…”

And the hip adduction machine was born. Read more…

Diet advice to a soldier in Afghanistan, Part 1 – November 10, 2011
This article is being published with permission of the United States Army.

Lt. Eric Collins is a career soldier in the United States Army, currently on his fourth combat tour, now deployed in Afghanistan. He is also a fan. He’s a fan of my writing and a fan of AskMen. Read more…

Diet Advice to a soldier in Afghanistan, Part 2 – November 11, 2011

How TV makes you fat – October 31, 2011
Have you ever noticed that movie titles with a colon in them really suck?

I’m referring to the grammatical colon, not the anatomical one, so stop thinking about Indy Anal Jones and the Temple of Poon and instead imagine Not Without My Cats: A Moment of Truth Movie. Read more…

When to fire your personal trainer – October 17, 2011
If your boat is worth more than my house, and you simply can’t motivate yourself without your trainer yelling at you, then fine, go ahead and spend a fortune if that makes you happy. Read more…

Why you need a trainer – October 3, 2011
Some personal trainers are worth their weight in gold-plated dumbbells, whereas others are incompetent scammers deserving a BOSU upside the head. Read more…

FEATURE: Three part series on metabolism myths – September 12, 2011

Part 1: Muscle doesn’t burn many calories at rest
Part 2: High-intensity interval training is not the holy grail of fat loss
Part 3: Eating six small meals a day doesn’t boost metabolism

How to lose weight after vacation – September 5, 2011
I awoke to the sound of every bird in the universe getting cattle-prodded up the poo-hole, and then I ran.

Perhaps I should elaborate. Read more…

The twelve types you meet at the gym – August 22, 2011
I’ve been working out at various gyms for about 18 years now. I’ve been to high-end health clubs and grubby little basements and everything in between, in at least 40 cities spanning five countries and two cruise ships.

I’ve seen a lot of interesting people in that time. Read more…

Gym etiquette – August 15, 2011
I smelled him before I saw him.

Actually, he smelled so bad I could almost taste the stench he was giving off. If reading this comment disgusts you, then imagine how I felt. My gym is a large and busy affair, so locating the offender was no easy task. I don’t know why I had to figure out who it was that smelled so bad he could knock a buzzard off a gut pile, but it is just part of my nature to want to put a face to someone who repulses me so. Read more…

FEATURE: The exercise-eating connection, Part 2 – August 8, 2011
Modern society seems pretty damn determined to make us fat, and for most of us, it’s succeeding in turning us all into tubs of bacon grease.

Mmmm… Bacon. Read more…

FEATURE: The exercise-eating connection, Part 1 – August 1, 2011
I once knew an Olympic rower who had to eat a pint of Haagen Dazs every day just to keep from wasting away. Mind you, she was training hard 30 hours a week and had reached her taste limit on healthy food to fuel her exercise performance. Read more…

Strategic planning for getting in shape – July 18, 2011
I have an MBA, which means I always needed help working the photocopier. It also means that, beyond getting something that looked good on a resume, I picked up a thing or two about strategic planning. And schmoozing. There was a class on that too. Read more…

Your workout is too easy – July 4, 2011
I keep doing stuff that my wife thinks is stupid. That’s because I embrace my inner MAMIL.

This morning I had an epiphany while on a training run, and by “training,” I actually mean I am training to get faster at running, and it’s friggin’ hard. Read more…

Screw golf. Go climb a mountain instead – June 27, 2011
The tagline for AskMen is “Become a better man.”

So, is that what you’re doing right now? Is that why you’re here? Or are you just killing company time in your cube, surfing the net because you hate your job? Is the only skill you’re building your peripheral vision to make sure the boss isn’t looking over your shoulder right now? Read more…

How to really have a midlife crisis – June 20, 2011
All right, fatso, do you really think blowing your kid’s college fund on that stupid Porsche is going to hide your flabby midsection and make you attractive to the opposite sex? Is it going to compensate for your sagging manhood? Is it going to do anything but annoy your wife and rack up speeding tickets while people point and laugh at how you need to compensate for something?

Pissed off yet? Good, because it’s time to go to war. Read more…

The 17-Day Diet – April 8, 2011
Dr. Mike Moreno’s new book, The 17 Day Diet, is another example of “As seen on Dr. Phil,” as if that somehow makes it legitimate. They might as well tell me “As seen on scientology.com.” Read more…

FEATURE: The ROI of getting in Shape – April 4, 2011
In the movies, the overweight couch potato rarely gets the girl. But in real life, too, he is less likely to get the girl, the job, the promotion, the raise, the better insurance rates, or even better grades in school.

Yes, adding muscle and losing fat will increase your likelihood of success with the opposite sex or make your wife or girlfriend find you more attractive, and its health benefits, such as improved strength, sexual performance and increased longevity, are undeniable. What is less known is the mounting evidence of how getting in shape can have a significant positive impact on your bottom line. Read more…

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