QOTD from Mark Rippetoe
The man with a permanent case of le mot juste bangs out another memorable thought:
…There are few examples in life that don’t follow the basic rules of the universe, the ones that dictate the behavior of everything.
One of the most basic of those rules is that, with the exception of the occasional lottery winner, you pretty much get out of an effort what you put into it. We’re all quite familiar with this reality, although we are often willing to believe people who tell us otherwise, about exercise and about life.
The sooner everybody—both halves of the population—accepts the fact that effective exercise is more like training for athletics and less like lying around on the floor, more about performance and less about appearance, the sooner it will be understood that women really don’t need their own figure salon.
Lift Strong Day April 6: Help Cosgrove fight cancer
I’ve had the pleasure of knowing brilliant strength coach and cheerfully foulmouthed verbal abuser of fitness industry idiocy Alwyn Cosgrove for many years. He whupped my ass when I was in California and then he bought me breakfast afterwards. (What a gentleman!) What you may not know about the Angry Scotsman is that not only has he produced some devastatingly well-researched critiques of fitness-industrial complex bullshit, as well as some wicked strong athletes, he’s flipped Death the bird too.
Three years ago Cosgrove survived a bout with cancer. Now he’s raising money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society by selling Lift Strong, an 800-page manual compiled by some of the best brains in the biz…
FDA yanks more diet pills for undeclared drugs
I guess the upside here is that diet pills really do work — because they’re full of crank, happy drugs, and laxatives. BTW, the FDA in its bureaucratic wisdom usually pulls things after they’ve caused a problem; they don’t generally review things before. ‘Cause that would be, like, socialist. The FDA has expanded its recall […]
‘Scuze me Miz Obama, which way to the GUN SHOW?!
I can’t decide what is stupiderer and more trite: the recent media frenzy over using Twitter (hot on the heels of “journalism” that uses MySpace pages as “research”, producing articles such as “Teen Killer Wrote ‘lol lol :-D’ On hots3xxxy69’s Page Before Slaying Mother With Brick; Also Thinks Britney ‘sux omg lololol’”); or the ink […]
In Russia, weight lift YOU
Previous Hardcore of the Year award in the Under-18 category went to the girl who had her arm bitten off by a shark and then returned to surfing. Now we have a new contender: Russia’s Strongest Girl…
Five-foot female fitness fanatic pins knife-wielding attacker to a wall
When she saw a knifeman repeatedly stab a man in the face and neck before leaving him for dead in the street, Georgina Harmer was appalled. But without a thought for her own safety, the feisty 50-year-old gave chase and grabbed hold of the thug…
Spezzatino Volume 4 now available
Great news! Volume 4 of my magazine Spezzatino is now available to subscribers! Here’s what’s inside…
Proceeds from subscriptions go to support the Healthy Food Bank.
“If you were on a desert island…”
…and had to give one fitness tip, what would it be?
(Um, other than, I guess, “find water, get shelter, stay alive”… but after that, when you met your essential requirements and started thinking about how you could squat a barbell made out of coconuts…)
I totally figured everyone would have the same one as me, but apparently not. Check it out — 19 folks share their numero uno coconut-barbell-busting idea.
When “consult your doctor” may not be helpful: nutrition
“Consult your doctor” is a common piece of advice given to folks who are considering starting a nutrition and exercise program. Unfortunately, this places upon doctors a responsibility for public education for which they may not be qualified…
As if you weren’t cynical enough: the conspiracy map of organic food
Think when you buy organic labels that it means the product is lovingly made by longhair hippie mom and pop in some backyard shed while listening to Phish? Think again. I guess it’s inevitable: eventually we will all be owned by one giant corporation. An elaborate, and mildly disconcerting, map of the world of organic food brands. From now on, the only folks I’ll trust to be truly small scale are the Mennonites and my octogenarian neighbours. *eyeing small religious communes suspiciously for evidence of Procter and Gamble*