Personal Trainer in Boonton NJ, Eric Moss Fitness

When people find out that I’m a personal trainer, they’re often surprised to find that I don’t really watch sports. When the Super Bowl is on, I’m typically joking around with all the other stragglers at the party since I usually don’t even know who’s playing until the week of the game.

This past weekend though, I knew it would be momentous, and my wife’s favorite team is the Knicks so we watched it. While it was on in the earlier quarter though I was scrolling through my phone on YouTube and caught this bit of, well an opinion from a fitness influencer.

“Stop deadlifting, it is an absolute wasted effort”

His reasoning is when trying to build muscle it’s not a good exercise because it’s dangerous when you are training close to failure.

Well yeah, but that’s if you are training close to failure, which is actually NOT a great way to train.

Here’s why. Though training close to failure has been studied heavily and shown to produce a growth stimulus, it’s not absolutely necessary and can even be counter productive. Trying to force yourself through limits invites injury and that’s true for just about every exercise, not just the deadlift. It also signals to your body after a few weeks to put the breaks on in fear of hurting itself.

A better way to train is to progressively overload the muscles with some of the things that are associated with building muscle (ie mechanical tension, and the pump) without training close to failure. Think of it this way, progressive overload is the mother of strength training and muscle building. Progressive overload in it’s simplest term means adding more than before.

Is it easier to add to something that you can barely do?

OR…

… is it easier to add to something you can do without issue?

And if you can add to it without issue, you can moonwalk past your previous capabilities casually and as that happens your body grants you the gains and does it safer.

As an example, I have a woman who started with me 7 weeks ago.

In that time, with the bench press she did 56 reps in 10mins with a weight that was 5lbs heavier than what she could originally do for just 1 rep (I’d guess she could now do somewhere between 8 and 15 reps in a row if asked, that’s the rep range associated with muscle development).

She wouldn’t have been able to put up those numbers without having gained muscle. With Romanian deadlifts she did 6 sets of 6 with a weight heavier than her starting max and she is set to take her squat and do 2 sets of 15 reps with a weight heavier than her starting 1 rep max. Just to put it into perspective the calculated max on her squat (which is considered the top exercise for building muscle) is 50lbs heavier than it was 7 weeks ago when she started. Her deadlift is 20 something pounds heaver.

Those gains wouldn’t have been possible if we tried to force her through her limits. We did it by deliberately avoiding failure though a carefully restrained method that works quickly and sustainably across multiple exercises simultaneously that has her casually stroll past her previous limits without her even realizing it till I told her.

And just in time for her trip to Aruba. Boom!

Deadlifting isn’t a wasted effort, trying to force the limits is.

Now if you want fast and sustainable results, don’t force the limit. Stay within the limit in order to expand the limit. It’s a bit more strategic than go hard or go home bro but the good news is you don’t have to figure this out for yourself. I do it for you and I offer a free trial so you can see if its right for you. Just send me a text at 973 476 5328 and introduce yourself. Easy right?

Eric Moss is a personal trainer in Boonton and moonlights as a world-record-holding modern-day professional performing strongman, author, and motivational speaker. In the tradition of the strength performers more common during the turn of the century, he performs feats of strength such as bending steel and breaking chains as part of a live show and travels across the country doing presentations on goal achievement for conferences, corporations, associations, nonprofits, and government entities as well as for schools and universities. His personal training studio is located on Main Street in Boonton New Jersey and is close to Mountain Lakes, Denville, Montville, Kinnelon, Pine Brook, Butler, and Parsippany New Jersey.

Assuming its not too hot or too cold, I like to leave the door to my personal training studio open.  I get fresh air, visits from dogs and is a bit more inviting to people who may be interested in my personal training program.  Occasionally it prompts conversation where I can drop knowledge bombs and gives me ideas for articles, just like this one you are reading.

Yesterday was just such a day.

Yesterday, someone who was unfamiliar with the unique way I do things started telling me about his training program that he does for himself.  Doesn’t go in with a plan and just kind of works the muscles in various ways.

I told him, I don’t do it that way at all.  My personal training program has structure, in fact that is my key to systematically producing similar results over a wide variety of people and I can keep people on the same exercises and continue to progress them year round without having to change them.

Change is not a bad thing, if its the right change that is.  Goals change and our bodies change, but exercises don’t unless they are no longer appropriate.   If the best exercises for the goal are an option, why change to second best if you don’t need to?

So what should change?  The primary programmatic variables.

There are 3 main things when it comes to progression and program design.  That would be…

• Volume
• Density
• Intensity (ie load/weight)

Volume refers to the total amount of reps.  As an example if you do 3 sets of 10 that would be a total volume of 30.  If you do 10 sets of 3, that’s also a total volume of 30.  If you do 3 sets of 8 that’s a total volume of 24.  If you do 11 sets of 3 that’s a total volume of 33.

Density is kind of the same thing but using a metric of time.  As an example you could do 30 total reps.  If it takes you all day to do it that’s a different story than if you had done it in a 10 minute period.  It would essentially be 30reps/10mins.  I like tracking the density because it lets me be more precise, and gives me an idea of how long something will take which helps make it systematic.

Intensity is the one that a lot of training programs mislabel.  They often use it as a measure of how hard a training session is, which rate of perceived exertion is the more appropriate term.  I like to use it to define the loads.  As an example 10 sets of 3 @ 50% 1rm.  In that example if a person can bench press 100lbs for 1 all out rep, barely getting it up.  100lbs would be 100% intensity.  50lbs would be 50% intensity.  Much more doable which is key.

There are others too like range of motion, changing the way a weight is held, rep cadence and rep speed etc. but those are the main ones.  Generally speaking I like progress volume before load, at least when it comes to the longer term more sustainable programs.  

With every increase in load, there is a calculated risk, but I know if you had gotten 3 sets of 10 with 60lbs, you’ll probably be ok with 3 sets of 5 with 65lbs (a little bit heavier, but half the volume).  And if you can do 3 sets of 5 with 65lbs you’ll probably be ok with 3 sets of 6 with the same load.  The goal is to get to heavy weights, but not without earning the right to lift them.  You earn the right by lifting light with volume before you get to heavy. 

One of my guys was doing 1 arm rows with 125lbs for a total volume of 16 sets of 5 (total volume of 80 reps with 125lbs per arm).  It was a Frankenstein looking thing that had my biggest kettlebell with another kettlebell chained to it as well as some barbell plates.

He could have kept climbing too, but we changed it.  Why?  Because as important as it is to stick to the basics, it’s also equally as important to have enthusiasm for training.

The only time I change an exercise is if its’ obviously not suited to the individual (not all exercises are appropriate for everybody) or if a persons goal changes as in they either achieve the goal or lose interest in it (train for the goal) or if a person is just so sick of doing the exercise that if they do it one more time they won’t be thankful they chose Eric Moss Fitness for all their health and fitness needs.  Just make sure you gave it time to get the benefit.  People who change exercises constantly never make progress.

At one time the pistol squat was a pet lift for me.  I had done it with 106 lbs of additional load and had done 50 consecutive unloaded reps.  After that I was sick of doing them.

If the goal is to get to the top of the mountain as fast as possible then you need to stick with the basics ie the best exercises.  But if you want to take the scenic route, you might not get to the top as fast or at all but maybe you’ll enjoy the journey a bit more.  They are both options.

You know what’s also an option?  Choosing Eric Moss Fitness for all your health and fitness needs for which I’ll be thankful.  But if you want to check it out first I offer a free trial so you can see if you like it first.  Just send me a text at 973 476 5328 and introduce yourself to get started.

Eric Moss is a personal trainer in Boonton and moonlights as a world-record-holding modern-day professional performing strongman, author, and motivational speaker. In the tradition of the strength performers more common during the turn of the century, he performs feats of strength such as bending steel and breaking chains as part of a live show and travels across the country doing presentations on goal achievement for conferences, corporations, associations, nonprofits, and government entities as well as for schools and universities. His personal training studio is located on Main Street in Boonton New Jersey and is close to Mountain Lakes, Denville, Montville, Kinnelon, Pine Brook, Butler, and Parsippany New Jersey.

Yesterday (May 31st 2026) I went to the local pond with my kids.  It’s actually quite a beautiful spot located in Rockaway where I live and hopefully the first of many beach trips.  Not quite the ocean, but hey as much as I love watching the waves crash onto the shoreline, I also love seeing the green of trees…and not having to drive an hour to get there which means we can usually squeeze something in.

Picture from yesterday, my kids are the ones shown

Now that the weather is getting warmer, people will wear less clothing and it seems bathing suits are starting to reveal more and more.  If you feel comfortable like that, more power to you.  If you feel like you want to look better…well keep reading.  I’ll explain how to do it.

When people come to me for training, I will ask them about their goals and what they’d like to achieve.  Most of the time outside of specific performance based things the people who come to me don’t know exactly how to explain it.  They have a vague idea in their head of what they’d like to achieve (like being in shape) and I have to help them unpack it.  Round is a shape too, but I don’t think that’s what they want.

They’ll say they don’t want to look like a drugged to the gills bodybuilder, they just want to be toned. For many the visual of being in shape is probably something along the lines of a fitness model.  I’m including a general stock photo of fitness models below so you see what I’m talking about.

generic picture of fitness models

Great!  Now we have something to aim at.  Now that we have something to aim at, I like to use the ideas I picked up from Marty Gallagher,  a highly respected strength coach.

Create a realistic goal.

Establish a realistic timeframe.

Reverse engineer: work backwards with a calendar or computer.

Place realistic goals within a specified timeframe.

Work backwards to establish weekly poundage benchmarks.

Start off well below capacity, build momentum, and end well above capacity.

Copied and pasted from Harnessing Pure Strength: The Power of Knowing Your Strengths and Limitations by Marty Gallagher on IronCompany.com

Over the years I’ve come to question what’s actually a realistic goal and a realistic time frame.  I mean, would you have looked at a guy like me and expected me to be able to hold back a high performance motorcycle?

Then I pick exercises appropriate for the person and appropriate for the goal and reverse engineer what it would take to get there.  As an example, many of the fitness models are also bikini competitors.  Kind of like bodybuilding but more of an aim towards a lean, toned and balanced hour glass figure (lean and toned comes up a lot in the goal assessment interview).

Now to get there, I used ideas I learned from reverse engineering some of the bikini competitors out there.  Through the studies of a competition team called “The Glute Squad” I discovered that the average bikini competitor in that group weighed 142lbs and totaled 1,480lbs across 6 lifts which gives an approximate strength to body weight ratio of 10 to 1.  (The total means if you add up the 1 rep max of all 6 lifts and this was with powerlifting style rules)

Those lifts would be:

• Bench press
• Squat
• Deadlift
• Pull up
• Military press
• Hip Thrust

Their coach claims that as long as you are getting stronger in all of those lifts or their equivalents (maybe even their superior), your physique will always improve.  So I adapted and improved upon some of the ideas I got from that.

First, is I don’t want my clients to go for a 1 rep max, since you don’t actually improve strength by maxing out and I don’t want to waste my clients time with a peaking cycle that doesn’t actually improve anything.  Instead I like to improve the “proposed max” from their training numbers.  As long as that’s improving its easy to see we are making progress.  You can either use this equation (weight x reps x .0333 + weight = 1rep max) or just download an app that calculates it for you…that what I use.

So we have those exercises or safe and effective equivalents, now we have a goal.  Get as close to a 10 to 1 as we can as quick as we can while remaining safe and without compromising the long term sustainability of it.  I’m including some case studies below.  First is a woman in her 50’s who wanted to look better in a bikini for a beach vacation she had coming up 12 weeks from when she signed up with me.

client results from first 12 weeks before vacation

The second was a woman in her 40’s who essentially wanted the same thing but didn’t have that vacation coming up.

first 12 weeks from one of my personal training clients

Notice that their body weight didn’t change, but their strength to body weight ratio improved dramatically.  Long story short both loved the changes they saw in their physique and both were happy they chose Eric Moss Fitness for all their health and fitness needs.

For guys that want a similar thing, the same principles apply.  One of my influences is Dan John, a highly respected strength coach who’s students range from high school athletes, to people with Super Bowl rings to some members of the SEAL team that got Osama Bin Ladin.

His game changer strength standards for adult males is

• Bench Press: Bodyweight for 15 reps
• Pull Ups: 15 reps
• Squat: Body weight for 15 reps
• Deadlift: Double bodyweight for 1
• Loaded Carry: ie farmer walks bodyweight each hand
• Turkish getup with half filled glass of water balanced on the fist

If you can reach those numbers or just get close, if you aren’t happy with the way you look or how you perform, your problem isn’t a lack of strength.  And if you can do that, you’ll have a decent amount of muscle and a significant strength to body weight ratio.

Greg Plitt, regarded as the top fitness model, the standards come close to what the calculated max off of his lifts

No I don’t use those exact things, but I do use most of them just as something to aim at and something to keep you focused on the most effective exercises.

Of course if you don’t now how or where to get started, well if you’ve read my stuff before you probably already know I offer a free trial so you can see whether or not its for you.  Just send me a text at 973 476 5328 and introduce yourself to get started.  Don’t wait too long though because even though we can get fast results, the sooner you start the sooner you can enjoy the fruits of your labor.  Peaches for the beaches.

Eric Moss is a personal trainer in Boonton and moonlights as a world-record-holding modern-day professional performing strongman, author, and motivational speaker. In the tradition of the strength performers more common during the turn of the century, he performs feats of strength such as bending steel and breaking chains as part of a live show and travels across the country doing presentations on goal achievement for conferences, corporations, associations, nonprofits, and government entities as well as for schools and universities. His personal training studio is located on Main Street in Boonton New Jersey and is close to Mountain Lakes, Denville, Montville, Kinnelon, Pine Brook, Butler, and Parsippany New Jersey.