Brad's Strength and Fitness

My plan this year, like it was last year, is to gain ten pounds of muscle. But unlike last year I'll be focusing on avoiding strain. And it's a delicate balance! Of course no one wants to get hurt, but you gotta challenge your muscles if you want them to grow. If you do too little they'll stay the same, or even get smaller (atrophy). If you do too much you will strain them, so it takes some careful consideration. Luckily for me I'm not a numbers person, and I have no interest in what most people call "left brain" stuff. No "how much do ya bench?" for me! Instead I have a good sense of how my body feels, and what it can do at any given time. Right now it's about 7 am and I'm just waking up, drinking some coffee and talking to you. Overall, I'm feeling kinda stiff, but with some gentle movement I'll loosen up my muscles as the day progresses. I start every morning with an evaluation of how I feel. I did some pressing movements yesterday...

One of the things that finally helped me lose the weight that I had gained during middle age was swimming. I had a friend who had a pool and he gave me permission to use it at any time. Mostly he was away at work when I used it, and only I did very gentle laps, especially using my snorkel, which if you've ever used one, makes swimming much easier, as you can just keep your head down and mostly float along. I was 53 in this photo, and had gained about 40-50 pounds in my mid-forties, which I wanted to get rid of. Of course swimming was just part of getting my act together, learning more about food, that sort of thing. But swimming was the foundation. It got me off the couch and moving around. Of course it wasn't a social activity, I would just put on my goggles and snorkel and paddle around. As I got stronger I didn't need the snorkel as much, but I'm a terrible swimmer, so I got a lot of exercise doing it. And using the term "swimming" gives me more credit that...

Since my goal this year is to add ten pounds of muscle to my body, I'm focusing on foods that are high in protein, that I like, and I can eat over and over and over. And to find the right foods for you will take some experimenting, which is fine if you've dedicated a year to doing this. If you try something and it tastes awful, spit it out, go back to something that you know, and give yourself credit for trying. But don't be afraid to change things up. Humans are omnivores, and we like variety. I've put together a good catalog of meals that I enjoy, like the one pictured above, which I just finished a little while ago. Yes, I know it looks like breakfast, but I had it as my dinner. And I'll probably have a very light supper in a couple of hours, late in the evening. As you know, muscle isn't built during a workout, it's build afterwards. Yes, of course you gotta train hard, and lift some heavy weights, but afterwards is when the construction begins. I'm ...

There are a lot of reasons to build muscle - you may want to star in the next superhero movie, you may want to impress girls, you may want to fill out a sports coat better at a future job interview (especially if you're a skinny guy), you may want a life with less pain and with more mobility (if you're an older guy like I am), the list goes on and on. But what I really recommend that you do it for is the feeling of accomplishment, which you can get from just about anything that brings you closer to your goal. I started to try to add muscle to my body at age 27, which was about forty years ago. My goal was never to be a big muscley guy, I just hated being so skinny, and scrawny (insert skinny joke here). It made me self-conscious, and I knew that it was holding me back from the life I wanted, including getting the job, and getting the girl (both of which happened). Looking back, my body hadn't changed that much, but the sense of accomplishment that I got from doing it made a...

My goal this year is to gain more muscle, and not make myself miserable while doing it. If I were just trying to do it for a couple of weeks, or even a few months, I could probably scrape by, but this has got to last the whole year, and hopefully next year, and next year. This is what I call a "forever plan", which is how long I plan to live. And no, I'm not gonna achieve my goals by eating typical fast food, I will achieve them by eating foods high in protein. I like chicken. It's a great source of protein, it tastes good to me, and my body digests it well. But unfortunately I've found it difficult to find while I'm out riding around suburban Phoenix, so I'm excited to tell you my newest discovery - chicken fillet patty at Jack in the Box. I like to eat after being out on my recumbent trike for about an hour, and since I get out very early I usually have the dining room to myself. I eat alone, and that's my table there on the right, where I have a goo...