Earlier I watched my 67-year-old client Patricia carry four grocery bags up two flights of stairs with better form and less effort than her 32-year-old daughter. The difference wasn’t that Patricia was stronger in the traditional sense – she couldn’t outlift her daughter on any gym exercise. The difference was that Patricia had spent two…
Several years ago, I had what I now call anther “gym revelation” moment. I was working with Ed, a 42-year-old client who could deadlift 400 pounds, bench press 315, and squat 350 for reps. On paper, he was incredibly strong. In reality, he couldn’t pick up his three-year-old daughter without his back seizing up, and…
I thought I knew what explosive power was until I got schooled by a 140-pound dancer named Carlos at a movement workshop several years ago. Here I was, a guy who’d been training strength athletes for decades, watching this lean dancer explode through animal flow transitions with more raw power than most of my powerlifting…
More than once since I’ve begun structured exercise I’ve experienced that moment which has been both humiliating and enlightening – it showed me just how disconnected I’d become from the natural movement patterns we’re all born with. What we don’t use, we lose physically; and we can get it back. Animal flow brought me back…
Last summer with laughter, I watched a five-year-old completely destroy my carefully planned workout program without even trying. My friends grandchild Jake was visiting while I was training a client outdoors, and within minutes he was bear crawling around us, transitioning into perfect squats, then rolling and tumbling with this effortless flow that made our…
Several years ago, I found myself in the middle of what I now call my “fitness identity crisis.” https://www.rushwalter.com/understanding-faithful-fitness-a-holistic-approach/ I’d been training people for over two decades, building my entire career around physical strength and performance, when a client asked me a question that stopped me cold: “Do you think God cares about our physical…
When your a strength trainer and anyone glides past me carrying twice as much, they get my attention. https://www.rushwalter.com/holistic-strength-training-for-beginners/ Then when I noticed they were moving with this effortless grace that made me question everything I thought I knew about strength and mobility. That moment sparked my deep dive into primal movement patterns, and what…
About thirty years ago, I made one of the biggest mistakes of my career – I tried to create a “one-size-fits-all” natural movement program for my gym. https://www.rushwalter.com/holistic-strength-training-for-beginners/ Spent weeks crafting this elaborate system with progressions, rep schemes, and fancy names for everything. Handed it out to fifteen clients, expecting amazing results. Three weeks later,…
Perhaps because I was and continue to proclaim I am a good tree climber, that I have always enjoyed natural strength movements. So when I am asked to help school children enjoy moving more, I jump at the opportunity. https://www.rushwalter.com/holistic-strength-training-for-beginners/ I was demonstrating what I thought was a simple bear crawl during a family fitness…
Several years ago, I thought recovery meant chugging a protein shake and maybe foam rolling for five minutes if my legs felt extra cranky. Then I hit what I now call “the wall that changed everything” – a period where my strength gains completely stalled despite following all the traditional recovery protocols. https://www.rushwalter.com/holistic-strength-training-for-beginners/ Sleep was…
Join our community of faith-driven fitness enthusiasts. Get exclusive workouts, devotionals, and equipment recommendations.