It almost feels like every 3rd day there is another mass shooting. And lately there has been a lot of talk about guns, and our right to have them.  One of the arguments that people that are anti gun control say is “I need guns to protect myself and my family.”

Well statistically speaking you are more likely to kill your family than some intruder is…but that’s beside the point, and I don’t want to get into a pro gun, anti gun debate.  I won’t even tell you wear I stand on the issue.

If I told you, someone was going to creep through your window at night, and murder you while you weren’t expecting it…you would likely verify the threat, call the police, get security systems and the whole nine yards to safeguard you against a threat.

Here’s the thing, the highest cause of death in the US (at least from 2016, but I doubt it’s changed much) is heart disease…not homicide, not even close actually and that’s for all races.

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hus/hus16.pdf#019

And the kicker is it’s to a large extent preventable.  So whether or not you are for arming yourself to the teeth or not, you should take care of your health first.  And beyond that, being healthy is always a good thing and isn’t even close to being a polarizing issue like gun control is.

“Strong people are harder to kill and more useful in general.” Mark Rippetoe

Eric Moss is a world record holding professional strongman.  His personal training studio is in Boonton Township New Jersey with Lewandowski Chiropractic and is close to Mountain Lakes, Denville and Parsippany New Jersey.

One of the things that my personal training clients have access to is me as a support system to give guidance, even when they aren’t in my studio. Knowing this and using me as a trusted resource one of my people asked if I recommend a treadmill for home use for his wife.

no treadmills here.

I don’t for a couple different reasons.  For one thing people buy them with the best of intentions, but it often becomes something that people later label as “an expensive coatrack”.  You see, standard gyms have a drop out rate of around 70% within 6 months the reasoning behind which is usually one of a handful of reasons.

Either people don’t know what to do (lack of guidance though I don’t think this applies to treadmill use since it’s pretty straightforward) are frustrated with a lack of progress (your body adapts to what you are doing, and in the case of a treadmill, the only real progression is to do it faster or if you have a fancy pants one increase the incline).

Another is the potential for injury. When I applied for insurance in my last facility, they had asked me if I had any treadmills and for good reason, they seem safe but there is inherent risk. Just check out this montage of treadmill fails.

And there are dozens more on youtube where that came from. And yeah, you can connect a safety strap to turn it off if you lose your footing, but let’s get real, nobody does that.

Another is a lack of consistency from a lack of accountability.  Here’s how it happens, you start out on a program filled with vim and vigor, but life gets in the way and you start to fall off track.  One skipped session becomes two, two becomes four and the next thing you know months and months have gone by and the only thing on your treadmills are your coats and shoes (hence the expensive coat-hanger bit.)  In fact one of the biggest reasons people hire personal trainers in the first place is to simply have someone there waiting for them to keep them consistent on track.  The treadmill doesn’t care if you use it or not, hence no social pressure keeping you consistent.  Consistency is critical to success.

So what do I recommend instead?  Well, for one thing and here’s my pitch, if you are looking for a personal trainer in Boonton Township or Mountain Lakes come take my trial membership.

If you aren’t and want to get healthy, then pick up a set of kettlebells and get a Strongfirst, RKC or FMS instructor to assess you and teach you the basics.  There are so many things you can do with them, they take up very little space, train things that running can’t, don’t cost much and never break.

The swing is king. It trains cardiovascular conditioning, strength and is joint friendly when performed correctly.

Now let’s say you are the type that is self motivated and wants to specifically be a runner.  That’s great, but running on a treadmill, and actual running though they seem the same in actuality aren’t.  It has to do with you moving across a surface rather than the surface moving beneath you.  That and it locks you into both a predetermined pace and predetermined stride length, neither of which are right for your body.

Solution for that is to simply get outside and run.  What happens next is up to you.

This past weekend was Superbowl Sunday. It was the Eagles vs. the Patriots and truth be told, I couldn’t really care less.  I mainly go to the Superbowl party because it’s a gathering of souls that I enjoy spending time eating food and tossing back a beer or two.

At this party two of my friends had announced that they were expecting a child this coming summer.  Wonderful news!  And along with the excitement comes the nervousness about the amazing life changing journey that lay before them.

Aurora Grace, my daughter

Now my wife and I had a baby 8 months ago and we sat down with the mommy to be to share our collective wisdom. (by the way, here’s a baby hack, when changing a diaper give them an unused wipe to play with so they don’t stick their hands in their poop)

Anyway, a bunch of things came up during the conversation that I think can apply to your strength, health and fitness.

For one, while she was talking about how nervous she was (they’ll make wonderful parents btw), I had said “Don’t worry, humans have been doing this since the dawn of time and modern medicine has come a long way since then”.  There are so many things that have us set up to successfully raise a healthy child.  As I look to my right, I have a barebones basic baby monitor…basic in that it only includes night vision, a 2 way microphone and music built into it, but that’s all.

When I was a kid, I remember the monitor that my parents had for my sister.  It was like a one way walkie talkie, nothing more…and she survived.

Anyhow, people got strong, fit, lean and healthy long before complicated gadgets, gizmos, marketing concepts and supplements flooded the market place.  They didn’t burden themselves down with complicated words like “transverse abdominus” or even have supplements like branch chain amino acids or creatine.

Me holding up a steel bar I just bent. Picture taken by Lynda Renee Photography during one of my strongman performances.

The oldtime strongmen intuitively knew that if you practiced doing things that required strength, you got good at being strong.  Strength is a mindset, and part of that mindset is understanding that it is a skill to be practiced, cultivated and perfected much like a musician learning an instrument.

One of the other things that came up is that crackheads have kids, and if they can do it anyone can. Same thing can also apply here, there are people that were in worse situations than you that despite the odds were able to get into phenomenal shape. If they can do it, you can too with the right mindset.

If you need guidance in this and are looking for a personal trainer in the Boonton Township or Mountain Lakes area of New Jersey, give my trial membership a go. It won’t cost you anything and you may even surpass what you previously thought yourself capable of achieving.