𝐅𝐎𝐑𝐓 𝐄𝐑𝐈𝐄 𝐌𝐔𝐒𝐂𝐋𝐄

Hello and Happy New Year! How have the first 31 days of 2023 been treating you? Have you been sticking to your healthy habits and righteous resolutions? Building upon the promises made to oneself at the beginning of another twelve months isn't always easy to do, especially when less than convenient winter weather makes getting to the gym sound and feel scarcely appealing. After all, pulling on the boots, and the gloves, and the hat, along with zipping up the eight year old jacket, are all irksome extra steps towards eventually making it to your vehicle... where you then need to treat the freezing jalopy to a warm-up while brushing it off. But wait , you're not finished yet. Now you're entitled to the pulse-pounding privilege of shovelling the driveway. Geez, are we tired yet? Nothing about exercise is truly convenient, and that rings doubly true when the outdoors are bleak and brisk, but hang in there, summer's on its way. All of the annoyance you feel while prepari

Salutations and Happy Holidays! The Christmas, Kwanzaa, and Hanukkah seasons have officially arrived, and your workout routine is in potential peril. After all, who wants to go to the gym when you can scarf down a dozen cookies while watching Charlie Brown organize a Christmas play? Personally, I'm a big proponent of enjoying seasonal food and programming, but I've found that getting the most out of both activities comes by way of completing my daily workout. I know, I know . This sounds pretty predictable coming from a guy like me, but hear me out. Sticking to your healthy endeavours while partaking in festivities with friends and family can not only offset some of the negative effects of overindulging, but also gift one with a renewed sense of appreciation for all of the eating, drinking and relaxing to come. For nearly a decade, I've always insisted that the foremost time to accomplish a robust, Yuletide workout is within the earliest hours of the morning, long before an

What limitations do you place on yourself? Is every day a free-for-all regarding food and drink? Or do you choose to curb what you ingest on a daily, weekly or monthly basis? Often times, restriction equals reward, and the results of one's dedication can manifest into a sharper mind and physique. The bevy of advantages gained from temporarily or completely abstaining from life's more seductive enticements are some of the most unique and exclusive within North American culture, seldom seen or heard about. The mental clarity accrued from not smoking or drinking substances that can and will dilute one's mind is priceless, and tends to give the astute individual a sense of prowess and superiority over his peers that continuously fall victim to the trappings of drugs and alcohol. That said, the occasional cold one, earned following a day's work, can serve as a necessary downer to set the weary at ease. Sometimes there's nothing better than a beer after the battle, but t

There really is nothing else quite like grasping a barbell in your hands and giving it a healthy hoist. The satisfaction gained from heaving and hauling hundreds of pounds over the course of an hour will accompany you for every task that follows your workout, gifting you a physical edge over just about any commission that requires completing. Daily exercise neatly places everything else into perspective. When it comes to work and chores, what about any of them is truly difficult? In comparison to a few strenuous sets of squats, the mowing of a lawn or discarding of some garbage becomes minuscule by juxtaposition. Just as you're about to loose a barrage of complaints about how busy and sapped you are, you take a thoughtful look back to the morning's appointment with the metal. You visualize yourself feeling the bar in your hands as you duck underneath it, perceiving the coolness of the steel as it sits upon your trapezius muscles. Carefully walking the bar backward, you then ap

Over the lengthy course of engaging in particular exercise programs, whether they entail cardiovascular exertion such as daily running, training with ponderous weights attached to the ends of a barbell, or both, the average human being can, and most likely will, come face to face with a mentally taxing and physically testing wall . Upon contact, this grim, nearly unapproachable and seemingly insurmountable barrier will evaluate the best of intentions by grasping the finest of laid plans and twisting them through a cerebral grinder, all the while ensuring that you are absolutely qualified for the challenges that you have previously overcome and have yet to confront. In short, rekindling your motivation when reaching the dreaded plateau  in your workout regime is not an easy task to trounce. That all being said, I've found that a curious circumvention can occur when something, or worse yet, someone , is lost from another's life. The piercing realization that a loved one is no lon

One of the most peculiar seasons of the year with regards to exercise is summer time. Praise the sun! Exemplary weather has finally arrived. Long gone are the brumal jackets, burdensome boots, blocked-in driveways and frosty commutes to the gym. Pull up a pair of shorts and toss on a tank top, we're hitting the road and the destination is health and strength with a side of increased confidence. Committing to a date with Brother Iron and Sister Steel has never been easier. So why is it that some people seem to shake, rattle and roll with the righteous metal less than ever when the climate is better? Mystifying. Bewildering. Perplexing, even! Walking into a gym and curling a barbell in June is certainly more convenient than it is in February, yet the number of dumbbell devotees seems to plummet while the heat gets hotter. Convincing one to ditch the pool in favour of performing some walking lunges is a tough sell for most, but what's often forgotten is that sticking to one's

Monday, Monday, Monday. 'Tis the day to either make or break your healthy exercise and eating routines. For some, the very idea of a new work week sparks feelings of tension and drums up whispers of provocation. It can be challenging to go from relaxation to stimulation but with thoughtful conviction, Monday can be muscled through. To quote one of my favourite authors: "caution is coolish... fear is foolish." Thanks, Draper. You're no sluggard. Sundays are meant to be enjoyed in the most relaxing ways possible, but when Monday hits... well, as the saying goes: "once again it's on." If you, like many others, have a tough time turning the dial from tranquil to tough, consider the first of your supposed five day drudgery as a sandbox to dust the tools off within. Tie those laces, get behind the wheel, make your way to the gym and assess the selection of sizeable toys before you. Each and every one of them possesses a different outcome for not only today, bu

Pumping, pressing, pulling. The transparent holy trinity of exercise. Where would we be without the three? The pressing happens when you're underneath an abominable amount of mass, most likely loaded onto your favourite barbell or leg press. The pulling ensues when you're cranking out rugged sets of chins or overly burdensome deadlifts. And the pumping? That takes place with clenched teeth and dumbbells in hand while powering through set after set of thumbs-up curls, though most refer to 'em as "hammer curls" nowadays, similar to how back-extensions in some way became "hyperextensions". Maybe I'll tweet about it. I'm hip... none of the time. I digress. Perform enough high quality, concentrated repetitions, and any one of the aforementioned trinity verbs synergistically evolves into a most rewarding burn . Over the past few weeks, I've been experimenting with high repetition sit-ups. This is exciting stuff. Hold my water. I'm placing my fe

Welcome, dear reader, to the first edition of what is sure to be an ongoing love letter dedicated to the journey I have thus far taken with my lionized Brother Iron and Sister Steel , an exceedingly formidable duo that has scratched, clawed and gnarled its way into being the most prominent constant of my life. At times, it feels as if I can vaguely remember the days prior to my falling in love with the lifting and tossing of all things metal, massive, heavy, and burdensome. Okay, okay, I can recollect a few of the months and years of not dutifully loading up my gym bag and venturing some 20-60 minutes away from home, solely for the sake of experimenting with some snazzy new barbell, dumbbell or colossal apparatus, but those days just didn't hold the same fulfillment that rooms full of heavy, hefty and weighty toys seemed to provide. I'm going to postulate that my meek beginnings with gyms in general began between 2009 and 2010, when wandering into the college gym, flanked by