Category: Strength Training

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New Programming for 2020

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If you haven’t noticed by now, I am a man who is comfortable with paradox. My children love to tease me citing images of me holding a tiny kitten or playing tea with a toddler. I’m no stranger to being called a “gentle giant.”When it comes to programming I love consistency. I can contentedly follow a program from months on end, pursuing the same lifts and the same exercises, seeking stimulus in a deep dive into form and technique and increasing intensity as my ability improves.Until it’s time to change.And yep, it’s time to change. At the end of our… Read More »

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Starting All Over Again…Again

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A few weeks ago I started running – again. We, my staff and I, decided that as a way to boost community around the gym we needed a shared goal and, for some reason, it was decided that a 5k was the perfect solution.It should be noted that while at one time I was a runner, my last official run was the Warrior Dash I ran six years ago.Six years is a long time. When I started I, naively, thought it was the best way to get fit and made it a regular part of my routine for the first… Read More »

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Mea Culpa, Again…

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I hate being wrong.And I am wrong far more often than I would care to admit. But one of the things my mothers did right was to instill in me the importance of admitting when I am wrong. No one likes that guy who refuses to admit he was wrong even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.And the evidence is pretty overwhelming.As far as this blog is concerned there are two glaring mistakes I’ve been making and in order to look myself in the mirror each morning I need to come clean. Think of this as my… Read More »

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Mental Meat Heads – Cincinnati

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Over the weekend of October 7th and 8th I was in Cincinnati, Ohio hosting yet another of our Mental Meat Heads workshops. I’ve been home almost two weeks now and I’m just beginning to process all that happened over this roller coaster of a weekend. We got off to a rough start. My partner in Mental Meat Heads, Chip Conrad, flew in to Birmingham Thursday night. Chip’s my boy. In the very short five or so years we have know each other Chip has become an industrial ally, a mentor, a co-conspirator, and a close friend. Our plan was to get… Read More »

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AFS Powerlifting Team

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The Agoge Fitness Systems’ Powerlifting team is now in its second week of training. At present there are nine of us on the team, five men and four women. We’re following a program laid out for us by Hugh Morgan and Bob McKee, two national level competitors who were lifting during the 70s and 80s. Hugh and Bob shared the platform with such lifting greats as Paul Anderson and Bill Kazmaier and, now in their 70s, are still able bodied and healthy enough to coach programming and demonstrate technique. We are very honored to count them as part of our… Read More »

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Mo’ Better Lifting

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Don’t look to set PRs in the gym, set them on the platform. That’s very much a competitor’s outlook on training but it holds merit for all trainees. A big mistake I see happening in the gym is seeking out big numbers – now. I get it. We all want progress. We all want to get stronger. Moving more weight evinces that progress, so why not lift the heaviest weights we can handle? The case is made here in an exploration of what we mean by “handle.” Most often “handle” is interpreted to mean complete the lift, i.e. move the… Read More »

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Charles Levine

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Meet Mental Meat Head Charles Levine. Charlie lives and works in Cincinnati, Ohio. Professionally he’s a group fitness instructor specializing in boot camp style fitness. Additionally he’s an aikido-ka with over 14 years of experience under his belt. Listen in as we discuss training, martial arts and how the two crossover and support each other. For audio, CLICK HERE. To watch the video, click below. [leadplayer_vid id=”5332E51E1B395″] Mental Meat Heads Interviews are talks with the cutting edge thinkers and doers of the health and fitness industry. For more about Charlie check him out at 513fit.com or on Facebook at www.facebook.com/pages/513fit/157…037559?ref=br_tf. To our perfect… Read More »

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Guest Post: Julie Carlisle

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Julie Carlisle is the latest addition to Agoge Fitness Systems. She teaches the evening Strength Class on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 6 pm. Julie has an extensive fitness and training background and serves as a professor of anatomy at Jefferson State. ​I’m staring at the floor, 15 inches from my nose, accounting for every speck of dirt, pebble, dog hair, and other unrecognizable bits. As I breathe fully, I struggle to keep my core active and my hips in line with my spine. Squeezing my shoulder blades together and sliding them towards my spine results in more stability, but also… Read More »

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Andy McCloy

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  Meet Andy McCloy. Andy runs Body Creations, Inc. in Madison, Alabama. He specializes in athletic performance and functional fitness. Listen in as we discuss the nuts and bolts of his training, how he balances single fatherhood and running a business that competes in a highly competitive market, and what it’s like to be a transplant to the Deep South. CLICK HERE to access the interview. To download, right click and “Save As.” To learn more about Andy and his gym, check out the Facebook page HERE. To our perfect imperfection, Dave Read More »

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Charles Abouzied

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Happy New Year! This year I’m kicking off Mental Meat Heads 2014 with a revisit with a man who is easily one of my favorite people on Planet Earth. Charles Abouzied has the soul of a Buddha and the heart of lion. As the leader of an eager group of fitness enthusiasts Charles runs Crossfit House of Pain in central New Jersey. Listen in as we discuss Crossfit, the Biggest Loser, body image and overcoming limitations, both internally and externally imposed. To listen CLICK HERE. To download, right click and “Save As.” To watch on YouTube, click below. For more on… Read More »

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January’s Elimination Diet Challenge!

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If you’re local you’ve probably heard me mention at some point that we’re doing an Elimination Diet Challenge for the month of January. The purpose of such a diet is really quite simple. There are several foods within what we could term the Typical Western Diet that most of us actually have a hard time with. We don’t digest them as well as we might think and it’s possible that our bodies response to these irritants actually impairs our overall digestion and ability to assimilate nutrition. So why isn’t this obvious? Like the protagonist in a Dostoevsky novel, it turns… Read More »

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Rannoch Donald

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  Meet Rannoch Donald. Besides going into the pool for possessing one of the coolest names of all time, Rannoch is a Renaissance man, a generalist in the finest sense of the word. He’s a martial artist, a blogger, and overall movement enthusiast. A former band promoter, he’s now turned his talents to the fitness industry. Rannoch hosts fitness workshops in the south of Spain, drawing in names like Steve Cotter, Mike Mahler and Erwan La Corre. Listen in as we discuss fitness, martial arts, diet, eating habits, and what it takes to be a better man. To check out… Read More »