5 Reasons to Start Training with Gymnastic Rings

5 Reasons to Start Training with Gymnastic Rings

The end of the year is upon us which means getting through the holidays. How we manage our physical and emotional stress will dictate a happy holiday for sure. Here’s a tip: Try Gymnastic Rings! Not only are they a great way to add something new to your workout routine, they have a lot of benefits too. Check out my top 5 reasons everyone needs a set of rings below. Need a set of your own? I also talk about my top two choices at the end. Continue reading →

6 Amazing Benefits of Drinking Coffee

6 Amazing Benefits of Drinking Coffee

You’ve heard it all before. Yes, the slew of nasty comments from those caffeinated-beverage-naysayers. Coffee will give you bad breath! Coffee will stain your teeth! Coffee will give you adrenal fatigue! Coffee will keep you up all night! Pish, posh. Coffee will give us more time to do important tasks that we likely procrastinated during the daytime. Things like clean our houses, do our laundry, do our taxes, or just peruse Pinterest for hours on end. What if we were to say, “Coffee will improve your overall health!”? That got your attention, didn’t it? Perhaps even the attention of non-coffee drinkers alike.

Humor aside, coffee has some serious benefits. The coffee drinker can reap advantages such as: potential diabetes prevention, liver preservation (especially for the alcohol drinker), improved energy levels and brain function, cardiovascular protection, and more! Without further ado, here are some super amazing benefits of drinking coffee, that make us feel a little less guilty for our supercharged habit. Continue reading →

Tips for a Plastic-Free Holiday

Tips for a Plastic-Free Holiday

Did you know that turkey day is actually a very trashy day? But it doesn’t have to be that way. Too much plastic is needlessly purchased for the holidays. Are you ready to say goodbye to needless plastic this holiday season?

My new book called Say Goodbye To Plastic: A Survival Guide To Plastic-Free Living is packed full of tips to help newcomers to the plastic-free lifestyle as well as inspire practiced veterans to continue to dramatically reduce their holiday waste print. Studies have shown that very year Americans needlessly throw away 25% more trash between Thanksgiving and New Year’s than any other time of year.

Let’s bring on the holiday cheer this year (yes, even in a pandemic) and put the brakes on using and discarding plastic. After all, why pay money for plastic packaging that is destined for disposal when you can save money and our planet by opting for biodegradable solutions and reusables instead. Continue reading →

Zero Waste Tips for Fall Hiking

Zero Waste Tips for Fall Hiking

No matter where you live, there’s something energizing about the fall. School starts, new projects begin, and those lazy summer days are now a distant memory.

There’s no better place to enjoy the changing of the season than on the hiking trail. Breathe in that crisp autumn air all while leaving no trace with our zero-waste tips and tricks offered below. Continue reading →

How to Exercise with a Face Mask

How to Exercise with a Face Mask

Burning fitness question of the moment: If you have to wear a mask to work out, what’s the right way to do it? And how to do it with an activity like rowing that’s often high-intensity? Is it even a good idea?

 

Many of us don’t have a choice in the matter. Our gyms have decided that the only way we’re getting back in is if we wear a mask, even while working out. Other gyms and states have decided that wearing a mask while doing the actual workout is optional, although you have to wear one any time you’re not working out.

If you’re a fitness professional, though, it may come down to a choice between putting that mask on and working. The good news is, you don’t have to choose. It IS possible to wear a mask while working out or teaching. We dive in. Continue reading →

Best Way to Warm-Up Before Exercise

Best Way to Warm-Up Before Exercise

Over the past 20-30 years, fitness and sports training programs have evolved in a way that yield exceptional human performance results. You may remember in the 70-80’s, a 4.5 second 40m sprint was unheard of. 300lb football players were non-existent. Now, there are 300lb football players who can run the 40m sprint in 4.6 seconds. The average weight of big players in football is 300+ lbs.

You cannot argue with results! Sports science and training is producing some of the biggest, fastest, and strongest people in human history. Continue reading →

5 Tips for Balancing Remote Work and Full-Time Parenting

5 Tips for Balancing Remote Work and Full-Time Parenting

Many parents are currently navigating an entirely new normal: Working from home while taking care of their kids full-time. As school picks back up and many kids remain at home for remote learning, figuring out how to balance their schedule and a full-time job sometimes feels totally unmanageable.

Most parents have had experience working remotely in one-off, unplanned situations. However, working at home day in and day out for the foreseeable future while also caring for (and in some cases, teaching) kids at home proves to be a major struggle without careful planning where needed and flexibility when possible. Continue reading →

3 Tips for Better Rowing Technique

3 Tips for Better Rowing Technique

There’s nothing we love more than getting a juicy question in our social media DMs or blog comments. Like this one: “I’ve been rowing for a while and I know I’ve developed some bad habits that I need to shake. Help!”

Does that one resonate with you? If it does and you’re feeling a little “meh” about your rowing stroke, know that you’re in good company!

We all feel this way sometimes, or even a lot of the time. Congratulations, you’re a rower!

Just like in golf, get a bunch of rowers around a table and the conversation will make its way to technique.

From novice to Olympian, it’s “I’m not getting my hands away fast enough at the finish,” “I want to connect better at the catch,” etc. etc. [Actual statements heard from the mouths of super-seasoned veterans.]

That’s awesome, you may be saying, but what do I actually DO?? Continue reading →

Enhance Your Workouts with Pyramid Training

Enhance Your Workouts with Pyramid Training

I didn’t create the Pyramid workout method. I learned it in the ’80s at the Naval Academy when working to improve my own PT scores and have been using it, altering it and developing new routines ever since.

Below is a recent question I received…

Stew, I like your pyramid workout and have used it to help me with my Army fitness tests in the past. What other uses do you have for them? Have you ever considered mixing them with other exercises, military-style events, new combat fitness test events, and cardio workouts? Just wondering what you think and how you would break up each set? Continue reading →

Indoor Rowing Workouts to Get You Back on Track

Indoor Rowing Workouts to Get You Back on Track

We’ve all been there… You’re going along fine with your rowing machine workouts. Showing up for them according to your plan, feeling like you could conquer the world when you’re done. Nothing’s going to stop you now!

And then life gets in the way.

You get sick, you go on vacation, you get an injury that requires you to lay off for a while. One day you wake up and you realize, “I’ve gotten way off track.” Days or weeks have gone by without a real workout happening.

Now what?

First off, stop and take a deep breath. Getting off track with your workouts is totally normal. It doesn’t make you bad, wrong, or any kind of a failure. It makes you human. Continue reading →