DESIGNING BETTER LIVING THROUGH STRENGTH
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EUGENIZATION
a personal training blog

From the category archives:

Program Design

A Quick Thought About Genetics and Exercise.

by Eugene Thong on July 9, 2009

Joanne asks me:
What about (insert famous athlete’s name here)’s training program?  It got him/her to such success; shouldn’t we emulate it?
The short answer is no.  The reason?  You couldn’t survive his/her training program.  And even if you could, you might not have the same degree of success.
Shouldn’t we seek to emulate what the best performers [...]

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Two Steps Forward, One Step Back.

by Eugene Thong on June 29, 2009

Do you know what the trouble is with looking solely at performance as a method of gauging results?  It’s easy to underestimate the beneficial impact of change.
Imagine, for example, that you’re a professional-level golfer.  Your coach tells you to switch your hand position because it will help to prevent that nasty habit you have of [...]

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Don’t Change Everything…

March 16, 2009

…when you change up your program.  There’s a simple reason for this:  The most common reason for changing a routine is lack of results.
As an example, say you stop losing fat on a weight loss program, and you change your feeding schedule, your diet composition, your workout frequency, and your training partner.  Assume fat loss [...]

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Election Day and Farmers.

March 3, 2009

Ever wonder why Election Day is in November?  It turns out that in 1845 (the year the official date was set) most Americans were farmers.  November happens to fall right in between the end of the harvest season and the start of winter.
And why it’s on a Tuesday?  Transportation in 1845 was not by train [...]

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A New Year Beckons!

January 4, 2009

Happy New Year to everyone!  It’s around this time that 2 types of articles/posts begin to spring up: articles gushing with misguided overenthusiasm about setting New Year’s goals; and overly cynical posts that say something to the effect of “New Year’s goals are so worthless/I don’t believe in New Year’s goals/You’ll just end up quitting [...]

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Creating a Program Part 2: Exercises.

September 9, 2008

As I wrote about in the previous installment, most of the training programs I write for clients are function-based, as opposed to bodypart/muscle group based. I outlined the reasons in my previous post, but for your reference, they are:
1. Form follows function, so train the function to improve form.
2. Peformance is easier to track [...]

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The Beauty of Chaos Theory (and my thoughts on Crossfit).

September 3, 2008

Over the weekend my friend Andrius asked me about Crossfit, given its popularity among BJJers and mixed martial artists. What I told him (or rather, what I hope I conveyed) amounted to the following:
1. Crossfit has a lot of good things going for it: It promotes athleticism, community, benchmarking, and it’s undeniably fun. [...]

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Creating a Program Part 1: Program Template

September 2, 2008

Well, I promised a program template for a rank beginner, so here it is. By no means is this an end-all, be-all template for exercise – rather, consider it a jumping off point that should be tweaked to your individual concerns.
I don’t think you’ll get any argument over the idea that you need to [...]

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He Was Ahead of All of Us.

July 18, 2008

While I contend that short, intense exercise bouts and proper diet are all that are necessary to achieve and maintain health, the idea isn’t original. Jack LaLanne trumpeted this concept 60 years ago (as well as the crazy notion that eating too much sugar would make you fat and eventually kill you).
Here’s the relevant [...]

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Ideal Exercise.

July 1, 2008

Michele asks, “What do you consider the ideal amount of exercise per week?”
Good question. The inevitable follow-up riposte: “What are you looking to do?”
The problem: Ideal for one person’s purpose may not be ideal for another person’s. An ideal program for a 41 year old Olympic swimmer looks a lot different than an [...]

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