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…
I’ll be honest with you – when I first heard the term “somatic strength training” about eleven years ago, I rolled my eyes so hard I nearly pulled something. https://www.rushwalter.com/what-is-holistic-strength-training-guide-to-mind-body-fitness-in-2025/ Here I was, thirty-plus years deep in the fitness game, and suddenly everyone’s talking about this fancy-sounding approach that seemed like just another wellness buzzword….
I invested the first twenty years of my training career often thinking that strength training was supposed to leave you completely drained. I’d walk out of the gym feeling like I’d been hit by a truck, and I thought that was the point. https://www.rushwalter.com/holistic-strength-training-for-beginners/ Of course those were the 2 plus hour days in the…
When I first started training people back in the early 80s, sometimes I had this ridiculously narrow view of what fitness looked like. https://www.rushwalter.com/holistic-strength-training-for-beginners/ Picture this: rows of intimidating machines, people grunting through heavy lifts, and everyone looking like they were preparing for some kind of military operation. Purposeful but is it fun? It wasn’t…
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