Fitmd

The ab wheel rollout is one of my favorite exercises for direct abdominal training—but only if you’re actually using your abs.

One of the most common mistakes is rolling out with your butt sticking out and your lower back arched. Instead, think about tucking your hips and rounding your back as your re**us abdominis contracts and pulls your pelvis into posterior pelvic tilt.

As you roll out, let your hips travel with the rest of your body. Only go as far as you can while maintaining that position.

And on the way back? Think CRUNCH, not “pull with the arms.” Use your abs to draw the wheel back underneath you.

If your butt starts sticking out before you can return to the starting position, you’ve gone too far. Shorten the range and build from there.

Small technique changes. Huge difference in what you actually train.

I’m not going to pretend I love step-ups, but they’ve earned a permanent spot in my programming because they’re one of the best ways to build single-leg strength and stability.

This is one of the few exercises I’d actually call functional. At some point, you’re probably going to carry groceries, luggage, or a child up a flight of stairs.

A few tips:
✅ Keep your front foot planted on the step.
✅ Drive through the middle of your front foot instead of pushing off the back leg.
✅ Lean slightly forward to load the working leg.
✅ Use support if your goal is strength. Practice without it sometimes if you want to challenge your balance. Both approaches have value.

Increase the step height to ramp up the challenge and place more demand on the glutes.

The latissimus dorsi, or lats, is a broad, fan-shaped back muscle that goes from the upper arms down to the pelvis. The lats help to pull the elbows down and behind the body, as well as bring them in from the sides, so the lat pulldown is a good option for targeting them. Despite how wide lat bars tend to be, gripping a bit wider than shoulder width works well for most people. Adjust the thigh pad at an appropriate height so that you’re stable. Start with your arms fully extended. You should feel a stretch near your armpits. Bring the bar down to your upper chest, leaning back slightly and keeping the bar close to your face, but don’t lean back so much that you’re using body weight. Control the bar on the way back up and let your arms straighten completely. Repeat for 3 sets of 6-8 reps.

For most people, what you eat consistently matters far more than exactly when you eat it.

✅ Prefer training fasted? That’s perfectly fine.
✅ Feel better with a meal beforehand? That’s fine too.

The “anabolic window” has also been massively overstated. Your body doesn’t suddenly stop building muscle because you missed a 30-minute post-workout shake. Total daily calories, adequate protein, and consistency will have a much bigger impact on your results.

Experiment, find what helps you perform and recover best, and stick with it. 💪🏽

Random exercises produce random results

The research shows gloves:
❌ Reduce max grip force by 15–20%
❌ Slow rate of force development by up to 38%
❌ Blunt the tactile feedback your nervous system needs to recruit grip muscles efficiently

And before you say “but I’m working harder with gloves” — higher effort doesn’t equal better adaptation. Grip strength is built through absolute force output, not relative effort. Gloves reduce both the force you produce AND the neural efficiency of how you produce it.

The only legitimate reason to use gloves: skin protection. That’s it.

Lifting straps are a completely different conversation. Studies show straps increase deadlift 1RM by 10–16% and allow significantly more reps on heavy pulls by removing grip as the limiting factor. For heavy deadlifts, rows, and shrugs where your back and legs still have more to give — straps are legit.

Just don’t strap everything. Train your bare grip regularly. Grip strength is one of the most validated proxies for overall physical health we have, although it’s likely a correlative, and not causative, relationship (i.e. more active, healthier people have stronger grips). Nonetheless, training your grip is still probably a good idea.

As far as calluses? Use a pumice stone 2–3x weekly after showering, moisturize your hands after training, and keep your hands dry between sets. However, calluses will still form as a necessary part of adaptation, so it’s also a matter of where your priorities lie. It’s what I like to say to my clients: “Calluses build character.”

The 1-Arm Dumbbell Row is one of the best exercises for building a stronger, wider back.

This movement targets the lats, upper back, and rear deltoids while also challenging core stability. Focus on maintaining a flat back, neutral spine, and level hips throughout the set. Rather than simply lifting the weight, think about driving your elbow back in a smooth arc as if you're trying to put the dumbbell into your front pocket.

Control the weight through the entire range of motion, avoid twisting or shrugging, and let your back muscles do the work.

CABLE TRUNK ROTATIONS are a more dynamic version of the PALLOF PRESS, another exercise meant to work the deeper abdominal muscles. Rotational movements recruit both the inner and outer obliques, muscles that run diagonally along the sides of the abdomen, as well as the deeper sheet-like muscle called the transverse abdominis. These muscles also serve as stabilizers when performing heavy lifting, in which they may work indirectly. Here’s one way to target them more specifically.

People tend to associate how they feel before a workout with how productive it is going to be, assuming that it’s not going to be worth it if they don’t feel their best. Not only is your emotional state not always predictive of how your workout is going to go, it also doesn’t matter.

That’s the great thing about exercise. It improves your life whether or not you think you “had a good workout” or not. In fact, most people will still see progress over the long term regardless of how they feel on any particular day. Show up anyway. 💪🏽