For 15 years, I tried to become a gym guy. I’d manage a few months at a time. Then I’d get sick or hurt, or a work deadline would swallow a week. Every time, the habit fell apart and took months to restart. Then I rediscovered the kettlebell, and here are ten reasons it stuck. 1. I can train at home Most mornings, my kettlebell session is done before my five-year-old daughter wakes up. No packing, no commute, no changing, no opening hours. I train in my home office in the same boxer shorts I...
9 days ago • 4 min read
I walk past it a dozen times a day. I don’t always remember to use it. But several times a day, I do. And it’s the best fifty dollars I’ve spent on training. The doorway pull-up bar It fits above almost any doorway. The secret is placement. Put it where you already walk. Mine sits in the doorway between the living room and the bathroom, so it reminds me on the way there and on the way back. The one I use is the Gornation Door Pull Up Bar Extend-it (not sponsored, I just use it and love it)....
16 days ago • 4 min read
I've done 30+ burpees a day for 758 days. No misses. (30 a day for the first eight months, then 50 a day since.) That's around 33,000 burpees. It's not the most glamorous flex. A burpee is about the unsexiest movement ever invented. And a strong contender for having the ugliest name too. But the streak has taught me more about consistency than every gym membership I ever paid for combined. People assume the hard part of a two-year streak is the burpees. It isn't. They take about seven minutes...
23 days ago • 6 min read
On Monday morning, you're the man with the plan. You've planned what to eat. You've planned to go to the gym three times. You feel unstoppable. Then Thursday shows up. You got five hours of sleep. Your son has a hissy fit in the morning and makes you late for work. Your boss is visibly anxious about the big deadline and you're rushing to get the job done in time. So when you finally get home, all you want is to sit down on the sofa and calm your nerves with a burger and fries. Then you...
about 1 month ago • 7 min read
You promised yourself you'd go to the gym. Maybe you went a few times. Then what happened? Life got busy, or you got sick, and you fell off the wagon. And it took weeks or months to start again. You've probably repeated this more times than you care to admit. I know, because that used to be me. And after 15+ years of trying, I finally worked out why. Here's the part of the gym nobody admits they hate: Packing the bag The commute Changing Waiting for the machine The shower after The journey...
about 1 month ago • 8 min read
“Don't worry that children never listen to you; worry that they are always watching you.” — Robert Fulghum We talk a lot about what to teach our children, and we forget that the most important teaching happens without a single word being said. They watch you. They imitate you. They speak as you speak. They even cough as you cough. Let's call it the Shadow Curriculum. Enrollment lasts eighteen years. Attendance is perfect. And you're the only teacher, prepared or not. It teaches him how to...
about 1 month ago • 9 min read
“Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them.” — James Baldwin I don't know what I expected from fatherhood other than to have a little pink mush to teach the basics. But in the end, I feel like I was the one who was given the bigger lesson. What I didn't expect was that fatherhood would work on me in layers. First it was a constraint on my time. Then a demand on my readiness. Then a claim on my future. Then a clock I couldn't...
about 2 months ago • 9 min read
Most men in their forties can tell you their pension balance to the nearest thousand. Ask the same man what his body will be able to do in twenty years and he has no idea. He's never checked. There's nothing to check. Both are accounts. Both compound. He's been making regular deposits into one of them since he was twenty-five. It wasn't always like this. Your body used to be your livelihood. You worked it until you couldn't, or until your sons could take over. Then over the last half century...
about 2 months ago • 5 min read
Most men think muscle requires equipment. A membership at minimum, ideally a garage full of iron. Most of my training happens in about 10 square meters (107 square feet). And I'm more muscular now than I've ever been. My mother grabbed my arm to say something a while back and stopped mid-sentence because of what was underneath the sleeve. That's a stupid thing to be pleased about at 39, and I was pleased about it anyway. But that's the byproduct, not the aim. What I actually train for is...
2 months ago • 4 min read