Let’s begin by honestly answering these four questions.

I am QUALIFIED to give an opinion. Why? I workout.

I sometimes reminisce about my teenage years when my parents paid the bills, paid for my clothes and food. I believed I was just put on earth to get huge and complain about my clothes, food, and the fact that they didn’t provide me with everything I wanted.

As a bodybuilder with a regular job, you can find yourself away from home 10-12 hours a day, which includes commute, work, and gym time. As a husband and father, this typically doesn’t go over too well. Here’s what I do to keep my wife from wanting to divorce me.

Most people, when given the opportunity, like to run on about how busy they are and how they have no time to do anything they want to do or to get everything done that they need to get done in a day. Bodybuilders do it.

You will have your supporters and your naysayers as with everything in this world, but I am in complete support of this shift in the paradigm. Why?

Of all of the things I wish I could go back and redo, these five things stand out as the most important or all-encompassing.

Just like bad milk, our time is limited. It runs out for everyone.

Which is the best method?

In my 30 years of competing and 20 years of training competitors, I have narrowed the endless list of requirements for success down to five main variables.

Being outside of your normal routine and away from home can make it challenging not to wreck your diet, but there are a few ways to manage the damage.

This turd doesn’t stray: She asks if things are cooked in animal fat. She will not eat a burger, opting for the non-meat version every time. She won’t eat a snack or anything that the other girls eat, even if there is a group of them together hanging out.

There’s a reason techniques in the past were so widely used for so long: they worked. Go old school and give these exercises a shot.

Or so says a 22-year-old.

Some believe that fructose only replenishes liver glycogen and is unable to replenish muscle glycogen. Others believe that fructose is used first to replenish liver glycogen and then will replenish muscle glycogen. All we care about, for carb-loading use, are the visual results.

Only the serious need apply.

There are great bodybuilders from all over the world, but the U.S. has been the clear leader as far back as I can remember. This isn’t a coincidence.

There are a lot of great tips, but these are what I consider the best for training back, shoulders, chest, triceps, biceps, calves, legs, and abs.

Most people fail miserably with their poorly thought-out ideas, weak plans, and grandiose proclamations of how they are going to change their lives — usually before the end of the first week. So what?

I recently read two statements that I not only disagree strongly with but am qualified to disagree with. Total immersion in a goal isn’t the only way to success, and if you believe having a family has to take away from your goals — well, you’re wrong.

I’ve heard, “Know your worth” a lot lately, and my response is to say that that statement is absurd and shows that you may not understand business as well as you think you do.

The problem, if I may opine, is that too many people do not understand that credibility is not given by the person who opines; credibility is given by others.

I’ve been tanning since I was about 16 years old, and beds these days just aren’t the same. If you really want a tan you’re going to have to find another way.

30 years of training, 20 years of competing, 15 years of working in the industry, and I’ve never once been to the Olympia. I don’t plan to go anytime soon either.

I’m a judgmental dick, but technically, I’m no different than some of the people I judge.

At 9:30 my right lip was swollen, by 12:30 the skin on the entire right side of my face was pulled tight, and by 1:30 I was in the emergency room.

Not all online trainers are bad. Many members of team elitefts have been in this line of work for decades, training people long before social media even existed. Here’s what to look for.

Quit doing old, dumb shit that doesn’t work.

We took eight weeks off after what was pretty much a train derailing from the tracks, and someone replaced my wife with some crazy bitch that I don’t recognize.

If you struggle to find motivation and have been training for only a handful of years, I would question your passion for training. If you struggle to find motivation after training for 20 years, I feel ya.

We can argue which factors are to blame until we are blue in the face but these are the main issues.

We are all a representation of our sport and industry. Which means I’m gonna have a problem with a shitbag begging for money for something he or she could pay for themselves if they weren’t so lazy and entitled.

Didn’t place? Only made last call-out? No problem — just blame your prep coach.

You can spend months dieting and training in preparation to show your best on stage, but if you screw up in the final 30 minutes, what you’re left with is a sub-optimal package and poor placement.

We have a current state of back development in the sport that erectors are thick and upper backs overpower lat development. There’s a reason for this — and a way to fix it.

You have every right to be boring and unappealing to others because you can’t carry on a conversation about anything outside of nutrition or training. But everyone around you is going to realize you suck.

In my entire life of training, I’ve only ever had six training partners, and never more than one at a time. Now I have two. That’s right — there are three of us.

I can’t help but be annoyed at what has come of this generation in the gym. Basketball shorts over tights? Nalgene bottles? Functional exercises? What is wrong with these kids?

After being plagued with injuries for six years, these three things got me back to pushing legs 100% without risk of injury.

I had another birthday, which meant the return of my annual day spent obsessing over my age. This time I realized something new: I know how I want to die.

I have been asked so many times lately about rear delts that I figured I would make this the topic for the second edition of Body Mechanics 101.

If you want full back development, you’re going to have to stop focusing on the deadlift.

I see terrible training mistakes on an almost daily basis, and not just the ones veteran meatheads like to post on social media to poke fun at someone in the gym who doesn’t know any better.

I’m putting the satire on hold for one article. Here’s some straight-up information to help you become a better online trainer.

I took the opportunity to write myself a letter but with one caveat: I couldn’t include ANY reference to working out, competing or being “buff.”

…and thankful if you get it.

It is my opinion that most body parts do not necessarily need to be worked through a full range of motion to be effective. Exclude the back.

After all these years and cycles through training trends, it turns out that Lee Haney might have been right all along.

While I was recently wallowing in my own self-pity, I had an idea: what else could possibly go wrong?

Apparently when you become a self-proclaimed expert in training and nutrition, you also know everything about politics, social issues, and life. Have we always been this arrogant?

Feeling young and looking young are two entirely separate things.

I get asked a lot about what to do about workouts, diet, etc., while on vacation. My response?

Everyone has a line. You may not know where it is and you may never reach it, but it’s there.

If you had asked me when I was 20 if I was going to still be training at almost 50, I would have said absolutely. I just didn’t know these five things would change.

You have questions, team elitefts has answers. Today’s topic: intra-workout supplementation.

There are legitimate reasons that sidetrack us, and there are situations where we want to find an obstacle so we don’t have to work. Do you know the difference?

It occurs to me that the large majority of whining is coming from physique competitors. Apparently no one has been honest with you up to this point.

I’m getting tired of hearing words like “politics” thrown around to scapegoat a lost competition. Yup, it’s rant time.