About a week ago at my personal training studio, two of my clients were chatting it up. One is in her 50’s and the other is in her 60’s and both are in phenomenal shape (only partially my doing, it’s my guidance yes, but at the end of the day it’s them doing the reps). One was telling the other she was in a beauty salon and overheard one of the beauticians telling the other she was doing pull ups with a band at whatever gym she happens to train at and she had decided not to chime in. They both chuckled.

Band assisted pull ups is one way, but not the best way if you ask me.

Anyway both of those women got their first chin up training with me. In fact they’ve both done amazing things in my gym repping out with starting maxes across several different exercises and both are past double bodyweight on the hip thrust (probably the best exercise for the glutes) for sub maximal reps (one even was able to do 450lbs for 10) and both put on a healthy amount of muscle.

To have a good ass, train like a badass.

They both had sought me out because they knew getting stronger would improve multiple things in their lives. You see when you are stronger, you have a different outlook on life. You have confidence that gets strengthened in the gym, but goes beyond and affects every part of your life. And it’s not just the physique that improves but the entire structure and ability to keep living an active lifestyle.

The more life experienced of the two had stark improvements in the measurements of her bone density and when she told me about the numeric improvements I said to her “Yeah but don’t forget you also go on runs, biking, hiking etc. It’s not just the weight training”

“Yeah but I was doing all that before, the only thing that was different was training here”

“Well thank you for choosing Eric Moss Fitness for all your health and fitness needs”

Its been shown that weight training helps with bone density, that’s a well known correlation. But beyond that, empirical evidence in gymnasts shows stronger bone density in gymnasts, at the point of contact where they fling themselves up to the bar. I believe that heavy hip thrusts with how it sits on your femur can have a similar effect (and it seems the bone density tests back me up). It’s not just about the booty (although glutes are more important muscle for over all health and longevity), it’s also about not breaking a hip.

Now back to that beautician, truth be told even though she doesn’t train with me I’m glad she’s doing something because just about anything is better than nothing and for too long women have shied away from the weight room. Women are the most over marketed to, yet underserved demographic in fitness (rubber coated pastel colored light dumbells can only take you so far).

I don’t know why but for some reason it’s been drilled into a lot of women’s heads that they need to do something else or workouts specifically for women. The reality is just about everyone can benefit from getting stronger and the principals of strength training still remain regardless of age or gender.

Though the math behind effective programming can get complex, the principle remains the same. Start with weights within your capabilities, progress them until your previous limits are well within your capabilities as they grow. Yes you have to lift heavy but earn the right first by getting the reps.

Start with what you can do and apply progressive overload in a way that doesn’t set off those threat mechanisms that shut down progress, review progress and adjust accordingly.

If you need help with this, I offer a free trial at my personal training studio on Main Street in Boonton. Just text me at 973 476 5328 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, Butler, and Parsippany New Jersey.

I don’t normally like to poke fun at other personal trainer’s programs but sometimes I just can’t seem to help myself. I noticed there is a trend on youtube where “so and so reacts to insert celebrity names workout routine” usually in a non complimentary manner. In which I’d chime in saying that they don’t know the full story.

I mean, if those people saw my personal training clients bench pressing wooden dowels they might poke fun at it also, but the reality you can’t argue with the results my personal training clients get. One of my personal training clients today is bench pressing just 10lbs less than double his starting max for 47 reps in a 10min period. He made that progress in 8 months. You can’t argue with success.

Anyway, I was discussing a training program from admittedly someone I never met and they told me someone they know was being asked to bench press beyond what they are capable of and they’ve been sitting uncomfortably on a plateau for like a year.

So knowing this, I couldn’t help but chime in why what they are doing is…shall we say…less than optimal. Here is why…

Sure training to failure can produce some results in terms of building muscle. In fact for years, the advice that was typically given was to take your 10 rep max and attempt to do 12 reps. Yes you can build a bit of muscle but you hit a plateau relatively quickly at which point attempting to do more and force progress can lead to back tracking or injury. I prefer to allow progress.

When this person was asked why they have people train like that, they said people want to feel the burn.

“They’ve been training for a year and have nothing to show for it.”

How’s that for a burn?

See for me, if I’m going to dedicate time to doing something, I want to have something to show for it. If I’m training for a period of time, and I didn’t get stronger quite simply it didn’t work. If a program doesn’t work, I discard it.

And even if it did work, it won’t always work due to something called the law of accomodation which is just a way of your body saying “whatever this is, it won’t kill me so I don’t need to continue adapting”

That is why I’m always learning and writing new programs so I have a rolodex of programs to pull from. In fact earlier this week, I had saved a program on my phone for easy access for when the need arises. Got the necessary equipment in place for when it’s needed. This particular plan will have the training plan if all goes according to plan to keep someone’s bench press continually moving forward for the duration of a year. It is handy to me to have a full year of training plans figured out.

When someone hires me for training, it is my job to make sure they get results from the effort they put into it. I’m always watching to see if the plan is panning out the way I intended or if progress is starting to slow down, I switch it for something that does. That’s how results can continue to come for year after year.

If your training program is stagnating and you want to get result, I offer a free trial at my personal training studio on Main Street in Boonton. Just text me 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, Butler, and Parsippany New Jersey.