About Me and Other Such

A quick introduction and FAQ for my adoring fans.

Who is Matt?
My Philosophy
Coaching & Consulting

Who the Hell is Matt?

I’m somewhere between a personal trainer, coach, online consultant, open source advocate, and journalist. I haven’t really fleshed out a coherent mission strategy, as you can tell. I don’t talk about myself in the third person. In fact I try not to do a lot of the stuff that’s considered protocol. Call me unprofessional if you must. If that’s a problem for you, there’s plenty of other sites for you to read.

I’ve been ‘lifting weights’ for over 10 years now, with no real goal other than the enjoyment of it. I compete casually in powerlifting and strongman events as they come up, but I would never label myself a serious competitor. It’s all about fun for me, and it’s something I enjoy doing.

I have the standard story line of the skinny kid that wanted to get big and score all the babes. It didn’t quite work out that way, but I’ve stuck with it ever since. In the mean time, I went through phases: ‘strong for my size’, ‘fat’, and now ‘injured and trying to find a nice balance between being strong, being in shape, and not crippling myself for life’.

These are the joys of our hobby-sport-activity thing.

I became obsessed with the ins and outs of the topic early on, since I’m a nerd, always looking for that advantage to improve my own results. It just happens that exercise & sports science is one of subject areas that’s got a lot of potential for LabcoatingTM. To that end, I’ve read just about anything and everything related to the topic, from books to the regular abuse of my university’s journal database to read real research (instead of just reading blogs and assuming everything I read online is true).

I do have a bachelor’s degree if you care about that sort of thing, and I’m a CSCS-certified member of the NSCA. I don’t think that matters too much, but some folks do.

My Philosophy on Fitness and Exercise

Short story: get strong and you get big, lean, and fit. Strength is the root of every other fitness quality.

Longer version: I’m a big believer in the idea that the intelligent and rational application of science should underlie any exercise or nutritional program. This doesn’t mean you have to pull protocols straight from studies (God help you), but the data that research gives us helps to define boundaries: not so much what does work, but what doesn’t. I’ve written a very long, wordy, and complicated e-book on this subject that you can find here, if you want to slog through a thesis dissertation on my thoughts.

A key facet of my approach is working with the stress responses of the body. Fatigue can be a crippling thing, and frankly most of the exercising population is taking a sledgehammer to a problem that requires a scalpel and tweezers. Learning how to work with the body, rather than fighting it, is a cornerstone of my programming.

Other than that, I’m a proponent of basic strength training combined with skill, flexibility, and conditioning work as appropriate. What this means is that I like lifting heavy crap because strength is the root of all other fitness qualities. Every other sporting quality is built on strength. We can quibble over what strength means, and that definition will actually vary from circumstance to circumstance, but the core principle remains.

Of course you need to be able to move properly and without pain, too. Corrective exercise and mobility work go hand in hand with strength training. Together, strength and mobility are the foundations of the house. Once you’ve got the foundation, you can handle the details easily.

This puts me on the same page as better-known people like Mark Rippetoe, Glenn Pendlay, and Bill Starr. I have no interest in letting physiotherapy guidelines dictate strength programs, since the dirty little secret is that most physio programs are about as evidence-based as Flex magazine, at least when it comes to telling people how to train to get strong and perform well.

If you want my thoughts on CrossFit, well – it can be done right, but it usually isn’t. If you want to combine strength and conditioning (‘metcons’ in the parlance), have at it; but you can do it better than they do with their haphazard programming and lack of respect for sequencing of exercises.

Are you available for coaching or training?

Perhaps.

Read here for more information.