Suzy - culture critic for The Free Press, a center-right rag founded by her sister and fellow gobshite Barry Weiss - is strident in her conviction that Bourdain left in his wake a toxic generation of men who take food too seriously. Bourdain's legacy, to Weiss, was spawning a legion of "travel bros" convinced the only way to find authentic Pho is to dose up on Mefloquine and trek the Ho Chi Minh trail.

She paints a bleak picture of the post-Bourdain landscape. "I thought we had enough shows in which middle-aged American men, who fancy themselves gourmands, travel, eat things, and talk about it […] it's been done." There is a case to be made for the deluge of copycats since Tony's passing in 2018. However, she cites Phil Rosenthal, Guy Fieri, and Bourdain himself – three of the best to have ever done it - so I’m inclined to think she just doesn’t watch food TV.

But all that has changed for Suzy, thanks to Stanley Tucci's new show, Tucci in Italy.

She praises the show's "light history, interviews with locals, and demonstrations of ancient meat-curing techniques." Tucci is "very watchable," she says. But when it comes to Bourdain's No Reservations or Parts Unknown? In 774 disjointed words, she casts aspersions on plenty of people who may have been influenced by Bourdain but doesn't levy any meaningful, substantive commentary on the man himself.

The little she says about his work makes me wonder: has Suzy ever read his books or seen a full episode?

Had she thumbed through one of his books, scanned one of his myriad interviews, or watched even a single episode of his shows, she would find the same themes that attract her to Tucci’s show - locals, traditions, and historical context - are present throughout Bourdain’s work.

She mentions in passing Kitchen Confidential, the book that thrust Bourdain out of the kitchen and into the spotlight, where he details his early start as a dishwasher in Provincetown and the years of misadventures that followed.

In best-selling detail, readers are introduced to a rogues gallery of chuckle fucks, self-destructive geniuses, terminal line cooks, and titans of the New York dining scene, intertwined with his inevitable affairs with heroin and cocaine.

Kitchen Confidential wasn't a manifesto. It was a memoir that captured the piratical, debauched, yet noble and underappreciated life of the working cook.

The book is chock-full of reflections on his own misbehavior, but they're unvarnished (albeit humorous), often with shame and self-flagellation – and Tony himself was openly critical of fans who took the darker moments as a guide rather than a warning.

If the book celebrated anything, though, it was the honesty of the kitchen and those who could survive it.

"Your past didn't matter. Your education didn't matter. Your nationality didn't matter. All that mattered was: Can you do the job?"

I would expect someone dubbed a "culture critic" to be knowledgeable about their subject. Armond White of National Review may have made a career off writing contrarian polemics about an Oscar-worthy film. He at least had the decency to sit through There Will Be Blood before panning it.

To Weiss, knowledge of a subject is for nerds, and time is better spent concocting rage bait and yucking yums she's never tasted. But Suzy's ignorance extends well beyond her quarry. You don't need to be a fan of Tony's to refrain from writing like, "We have a chef culture wherein tatted up, foul-mouthed cooks—that is, the people who heat up entrées—think they're rock stars."

It's a low blow. With one facile swoop, Weiss denigrates an entire class, of which she clearly knows fuck all.

Tony did sing the praises of these Ed Hardy-themed microwaves. They work harder, longer, and with more passion than many of those they serve – while remaining among the most underpaid and overworked laborers in America. Many of whom are undocumented immigrants.

One of Tony's most profound impacts came from showing the world who really runs our kitchens - immigrants from Central and South America - and challenging public perception of their role in American society. "Our entire service economy—the restaurant business as we know it—in most American cities, would collapse overnight without Mexican workers."

As the Trump Administration tweets Ghibli memes of terrified immigrants being hauled off to a Central American gulag, the restaurant industry is serving as the vanguard against this fascist fever dream of masked ICE agent raids. Go to any forum for American cooks and you'll find a collective front determined to help each other protect their fellow workers.

One would not be overstating matters to say that fans of Bourdain are more likely to be cognizant of the gravity of these times, as he told their stories from his first book to his last episode. But to refer to any of those cooks as one who "heats up entrées" should earn her a lifetime ban from anywhere that serves something more complex than a bag of chips.

Her need to knock cooks down a peg and her aversion to food lovers is made all the more curious when you consider her affection for Stanley Tucci.

You know, Stanley Tucci, who co-wrote, co-directed, and starred in Big Night - one of the greatest cinematic homages to restaurant cooking. The Stanley Tucci that wrote not one but two fantastic books exploring the depth and gravity of his connection with food.

Stanley Motherfucking Tucci, who said of his Emmy-winning show, Searching for Italy, "It's simply just showing how hard [chefs] work, and how necessary they are. That's really what it's about. They are necessary in so many ways."

Clearly oblivious to any of this, she continues on, pointing out that Tucci's show seeks to "chase the high" of Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations and Parts Unknown, blissfully unaware of why the hype exists in the first place.

Bourdain's indelible personality, the talented team at Zero Point Zero, and his sincere, thoughtful message were the once-in-a-lifetime combination that set the bar at a height. The power vacuum left in the wake of Anthony's death has given way to some pretty good (and pretty shit) travel television, the merits of which are worth debating. But in this shallow, enigmatic bit of commentary, she once again reveals her devastatingly vapid grasp of Tony's work.

Tucci isn't an antidote to Bourdain – he's building on it. Every producer and every host of every show is aiming to strike the same central nerve Tony did – to be the cultural phenomenon that was Anthony Bourdain.

In Suzy's assessment, “[Bourdain’s] brand was so ascendant” because he ate cobra hearts and rocked a punk-chef aesthetic. That, she assesses, is what ultimately led to his famous Hanoi lunch with then-President Barack Obama. One could forgive her for misattributing the event to an episode of No Reservations - a show that had been off the air for six years - and hand-waving the cultural, political, and personal significance of this moment, as both Bourdain and Obama have their own unique ties to Vietnam.

One could also say I'm being a defensive fanboy and reading too much into the little she gave us…if one incongruous line after another didn't betray her obliviousness to the entire fucking journey that led them to that moment.

Tony's first show, A Cook's Tour, was exactly what the title implied: the bitter chef who wrote Kitchen Confidential and scared people off Monday's fish was going to travel the globe eating whatever he could for all to see. And for a few seasons, yes, Anthony Bourdain, the chef-turned-author-now-turned-travel-host, became the "beating cobra heart" guy. He was the loud-mouthed irreverent shit-stirrer who drank to excess on an epic international bar crawl, dined on strange food, and peppered his commentary with dick jokes and innuendo. And people loved him for it.

But if that was your only takeaway, even in the early days, you weren't paying attention.

He was interested in the people behind the wok, the clay oven and the freshly dug roasting pit. Those seated around the dinner table in the thatched roof hut, at the next stool in the working man's bar, or reclined on a blanket under a starlit Saharan sky. He listened to their stories about life, family, and food and helped us connect, in some incredible way, to the world beyond our own.

What came out of that journey, aside from the gastrointestinal trauma and jungle hooch hangovers, was a chance to see these strangers in a new light beyond the lens of news cameras and movies that fuel our preconceptions.

His time at the Food Network ended abruptly after the pig fuckers canceled a trip to Ferran Adrià's El Bulli—a once-in-a-lifetime, never-before-seen, all-access pass to one of the most important chefs in modern history—and asked Bourdain and his team to do more ratings-friendly (and inexpensive) BBQ-themed shows at home.

The folks at Food Network, much like Suzy, felt that anything more introspective than deep-fried, gust-busting Americana was navel-gazing (a funny thought considering a decades-long civil war rages from Texas to the Carolinas over the best ways to smoke a pig). Immovable in their convictions - though astute given the network’s explosive rise in popularity - Bourdain cut ties and moved over to the Travel Channel, launching his second show, No Reservations.

Having seen No Reservations in and out of sequence more times than I can count, I once again struggle to understand what the fuck Suzy Weiss is talking about when she says Tony's central message was "a meal is only worth eating if you nearly die in a tuk tuk to get there."

I do remember Bourdain lamenting the pain he suffered from eating the aforementioned warthog ass while telling his audience to live by the Grandma rule.

"You may not like Grandma's Thanksgiving turkey… But it is 'Grandma's Turkey…so shut the fuck up and eat it."

This wasn't a throwback to his "guy who eats weird shit" days. It was one of his stark reminders that, for millions of people, these "gangrenous street meats" (as Suzy calls them) were often a rare, life-giving meal, and he would have slit his own throat before insulting his hosts.

No Reservations evolved as Tony committed himself to experimentation and exploration. Amid all the food porn and pastiche, the camera's lens shifted slightly away from the food - before taking a hard swing in July 2006.

Bourdain and his crew were filming an episode in Beirut when war broke out between Hezbollah and Israel. Bearing witness to a city in the Middle East that defied Western notions of Arab civilization - and having it cut violently short - was a moment that perfectly captured the best of Tony's spirit.

In the episode that followed, when others would have focused on the threat to themselves and the crew, Bourdain chose to focus on the people outside the safety of his hotel. He would later write of those events and the people of Beirut:

"One day I was making television about eating and drinking, the next, I was watching the airport I'd just landed in a few days earlier, being blown up across the water from my hotel window.

I came away from the experience deeply embittered, confused—and determined to make television differently than I'd done before…the days of 'happy horseshit', the uplifting sum-up at the end of every show, the reflex inclusion of a food scene in every act, that ended right there.

The world was bigger than that. The stories more confusing, more complex, less satisfying in their resolutions. As I noted in my utterly depressing last lines of Voice Over in the eventual show we put together: in the real world, good people and bad alike are often crushed under the same terrible wheel.

This was a city where nothing made any damn sense at all—in the best possible way. A country with no president for over a year—ruled by a power sharing coalition of oligarchs and Hezbollah, neighbor problems as serious as anyone could have, history so awful and tragic that one would assume the various factions would be at each others throats for the next century—yet you can go to a seaside fish restaurant and see people happily eating with their families and smoking shisha, who, in any other place would be shooting at each other."

This dignified, humanizing and honest portrayal of the world around him became a central theme of No Reservations. The eating, drinking, and self-indulgences of the past, as Bourdain would say, "were so Season 3." (Thankfully, he never relinquished his more lurid urges – See No Reservations episodes: Food Porn 1 & 2, Holiday).

In her only direct comment about the show, Weiss quips, "Dessert on No Reservations was always the same, and it was shaking your head at Imperialism." It is here, as we sift through her poorly qualified contempt for the Bourdain Bro Boogeyman, that I believe we find her actual trouble with Tony.

See, Tucci's show is relegated to the politically sterile safety of modern Italy. The "light history" and ancient cooking techniques are not accompanied by the uncomfortable focus on geopolitics and genocide.

Where Tucci's excellent show has him dining at an agriturismo in Umbria, Anthony was traveling to Vietnam and Cambodia – breaking bread with former Vietcong and the victims of America's illegal bombing campaign. Hundreds of thousands of tons of unexploded ordinance litter the countryside, still claiming victims - many, these days, who weren't alive to see them dropped.

The warm, gentle voice of Tucci encouraging the viewer to have a Negroni from Nonna's front porch is much more palatable than Bourdain's sips of rice whiskey as the one-armed man recounts the day he lost the ability to provide for his family.

With each visit to the Middle East, he tore from our minds images of violent extremists shown on Fox News and CNN, replacing them with the people—the real people—that an audience his size might have never seen. Much of this came at a time when America was still in the throws of post-9/11 Islamaphobia.

On a visit to Iran, a country typically depicted chanting “Death to America!” he wrote:

"I have said that Iran is the most outgoingly warm, 'pro-American' place we've ever shot — and that's true: in Tehran, in spite of the fact that you are standing in front of a giant, snarling mural that reads 'DEATH TO AMERICA!', you will, we found, usually be treated better by strangers — meaning smiles, offers of assistance, curious attempts to engage in limited English, greetings and expressions of general good will — than anywhere in Western Europe."

It is likely that this introspective confrontation with history - his willingness to show how it shaped the world outside of our livingroom - makes Suzy Weiss so uncomfortable.

She doesn't want her food to be political.

Except food is one of the most political fucking things, no matter how you slice it. From who cooks the food to the ingredients they choose, it's steeped in every dish.

In a clip titled "Anthony Bourdain's Insufferable Legacy," which seems to be a "pretending-to-podcast" style clip to promote the article, Suzy signs off, "Eat the pizza… it's not that deep!" with a sickly smug smile before turning off the camera to do something more important than talk about food, like torturing mudbloods.

Did Tony, or any serious person, ever say you need to listen to a podcast on 19th-century Neapolitan cuisine before calling up Domino's?

I am sure Suzy is aware that pizza, as we know it in America, was the product of Italian immigration.

I wouldn't blame her, however, for not knowing that it was a working-class food dismissed as "ethnic" by racist upper-class Americans. That pizza is a prime example of cultural appropriation, mass commercialization, and immigrant erasure as the identity shifted from an Italian-American to an "American" dish.

The message was attainable for everyone except Suzy: knowing where your food comes from, how it's made, and who is making it can be both personally fulfilling and, perhaps, make the world a better place. As the man once said, "The least interesting thing about a dish is usually what's on the plate. Who made it, why they made it, and where - that's the story."

Anthony waxed poetic in Kitchen Confidential about the seafood in Japan. In Medium Raw, the chapter Lust is a series of tumescent vignettes from Hanoi to Mexico that describe, in lurid detail, intensely delicious dishes from one locale to the next.

One of the few signs Suzy may have actually read Bourdain's work is when she references a passage from that chapter, observing that "Bourdain turned eating a prawn into an Allen Ginsberg poem."

Okay, so flowery prose about crustacean brains isn't Suzy's thing – no surprise, considering she can't fathom giving food thought beyond dipping sauces for nuggets. (Ketchup, if I had to guess.) But she glosses over the fact that it was the entire fucking point of the chapter.

After a love letter to Pho, Bourdain makes the intent pretty clear:

"But writing about sights and sounds and flavors that might otherwise be described as orgiastic—and doing it in a way that is calculated to inspire prurient interest, lust, and envy in others … that raises more questions in my mind as to… I don't know … the moral dimension.

Sitting here, choosing words, letter by letter, on the keyboard with the explicit intention of telling you about something I did or something I ate and making you as hungry and miserable as I can—surely that's wrong.

But fuck it.

Who doesn't like a good wank now and then?"

Food is about pleasure above all else. "Is it good?" is the quintessential, universal question for all things edible. So whether or not Ms. Weiss cares for commentary beyond that is irrelevant.

What is relevant is her worthiness to criticize anything with more depth than the kid's menu at Ruby Tuesday.

Bourdain's work isn't secret, underground, esoteric, art-house slop coveted by hipsters and wonks. His range and creativity ensured that his shows have something for everyone; the messages are universally resonant, and they're available on every bookshelf and streaming platform for all to see.

Despite Suzy's caricature of his fans, Bourdain was not a food snob. He chided arbiters of the authentic while holding one-dish Singaporean hawker stands in higher esteem than most heads of state. Bourdain was just as appreciative of a pot-au-feu as a Michelin-tasting menu. In fact, he often preferred the former, believing "Good food is very often, even most often, simple food."

As Tony’s television persona evolved, his shows grew from what he described as a "gonzo-travelogue of vérité footage and thrown together voice-overs" to a first-class ticket around the world. He succeeded in showing his viewers the beautiful, sometimes heartbreaking, differences from one location to the next – while emphasizing that, in the end, we all share a love for good food and warm company.

For the series premiere of Parts Unknown, he travels through Gaza, Jerusalem, and the West Bank, where he reveals a human side of a people the West, until recently, had been content to view as subhuman. He opines in the opening narration, "By the end of this hour, I'll be seen by many as a terrorist sympathizer, a Zionist tool, a self-hating Jew, an apologist for American imperialism, an Orientalist, socialist, fascist, CIA agent, and worse. So here goes nothing."

Bourdain was a force for good. A voice that is sorely needed today. But in the dense primordia that bounces around Suzy's skull, the legacy of Bourdain is infecting men with brain worms, causing them to lust for a hike through the Andes to dine on alpaca testicles. And her views are not likely to be changed, as she wrote of the criticism she received from her piece:

"I learned from my assessment of Anthony Bourdain not to criticize beloved television shows, so I'll just wish the Survivorheads a dramatic 50th season."

Suzy could have made an assessment of Bourdain and his work. Instead of some half-baked clickbait where she inexplicably asserts, "I have nothing against Bourdain the man" while contradicting herself at every turn, she could have watched a few episodes, talked to some fans, and tried to understand the thing she clearly hates.

Through Tony, many gained a newfound respect for those who cook and serve in restaurants. He showed us who resides at the heart of the kitchen and spoke against prejudice. He showed us the “good shit” and opened people's eyes to new tastes and experiences.

He went on an incredible journey and took the world along for the ride.

Anthony Bourdain had an intense cult of personality. With any fandom, there will be fanatical obsessives who deify their idol and miss the point. But I guaran-fuckin-tee you those people, and his millions of other fans around the world, understood his message better than Suzy Weiss.

Vanity and a military issued fear of becoming a “disgusting fat body” keeps me from eating breakfast, lunch and dinner with double starch and a side of gravy. While I have avoided the post-enlistment ballooning many of my former comrades go through, I have, at times, reached points where my health habits were geared towards ensuring I drop dead on a toilet before I turn 45. The canary in the coal mine for my unhealthiest point was in 2018 when I realized being able to hold my whiskey glass on my gut was a bug and not a feature.

Keto was the fad at the time and I’ll say it genuinely worked for me. I shed 30lbs in about 5 months with minimal exercise, all while eating fat fucking steaks and chicken braised in cream cheese. Maybe my kidneys or liver took a hit, but it was nice to get back to normal levels again.

But as I get older, I realize I need to get back to a consistent state of relatively healthy living. And I’d like to maybe see my abs again before I die. This can be difficult as those who know me know I love nothing in this world more than food and bourbon. So with that, I’m going to write a few posts on my workout and diet. I make no claims of being an expert in fitness or nutrition. It’s the “this shit worked for me, maybe it will work for you” approach to blogging.

Why am I getting back into the swing of things and posting about it?

I’ll post a “starting physique” photo later. The short of it is I’m down to 188lbs from 200 after improving my diet/reducing my alcohol intake. Yet, I still feel like a sedentary bag of ass. And I’d like to continue eating good food while mitigating the likelihood I develop bowel cancer, heart disease (which runs in the family), or diabetes. Really not a fan of needles.

Accountability is a common excuse for these vanity exercises under the guise of content creation. Honestly, I just want to start writing. This is something I know a little about and people who share my lifestyle - mid-30’s, WFH desk job, with semi-regular travel - might find it useful.

“Why should I listen to you?”

You probably shouldn’t. But here’s a snapshot of my fitness levels after 9 months of consistent exercise in Afghanistan using my routine:

• 350lb bench press PR

• 650lb squat PR

• 275lb dead lift (this was for 2 sets of 10, I never tried to max my dead lift)

• ~10% body fat

• These forearms, tho.

  

While I had two other deployments where I lifted pretty regularly, I had a long break before this deployment. Most of my gains were in that 9 months. My only supplements were pre-workout (NO Xplode) and Gold Standard Whey Protein. There was like a month where I took this weird post-workout something or other that I bought at the PX. It was ice cold going down and after the third time of waking up to run to the bathroom in the middle of the night I stopped that shit.

General Guidelines and Timeline

I have never liked isolation workouts. If I don’t hit every muscle group in the gym I feel like a piece of shit. This has been the basis for every regimen I’ve put together, adding more complexity and more days per week as my fitness advanced. With that in mind, here are the general guidelines for my routine:

• Form is everything. Do not kip, jerk your body in weird ways, or perform a lift you can’t do at a steady pace with perfect form. Like swinging your arm to curl a dumbbell. If you can’t lift it right, don’t lift it at all.

• Focus on “vanity” muscles and getting into the routine.

• All exercises are 2 sets of 10 reps unless otherwise noted.

• Weight should be high enough that you have to work for the last few reps, but could still do 2-3 more than 10.

  • You shouldn’t need more than a minute between sets.

  • You should never need a spotter unless you’re going for a PR.

    • Big ol’ asterisk on this to say “know your body and your limits.” Don’t push for 10 on the bench if you’re feeling weak at 5. You will have rough days and your ego isn’t worth an injury.

• If you’re just starting to lift or haven’t been to the gym in a while, start with light weights for the first few weeks and get used to the motions.

• Listen to your body. Be mindful of your back, knees, and shoulders. If I don’t link to a guide on form, look it up before executing. Especially squats.

• Don’t be lazy.

  • Do every exercise standing up when possible.

  • Do not use machines unless the exercise calls for it OR if you have no other option.

  • You trigger additional muscles when using free weights/bars vs something like a smith machine.

• 1 scoop of protein immediately after a workout.

• Do not start working out with pre-workout. Save it for later when you really start pushing your body. Newbie gains are real and you don’t need that shit right away.

• The best way to lose weight is to become comfortable eating the same thing pretty regularly. We’ll talk more about food here shortly.

• Increase weight weekly. Even if it’s just a few pounds on your bench or squats.

When I look back on my time lifting in Afghanistan, I had three main phases.

Phase 1:

I lifted every other day and hit chest, back, bis, tris, shoulders, legs, forearms, abs in 1-2 exercises each. This lasted for about two months. Once my joints stopped clicking, I could keep to the routine, and I wanted to incorporate functional fitness into my routine, I slowly transitioned into Phase 2. This routine took about 35 minutes.

Phase 2:

I now lifted every day except Sunday. I would have an alternating routine for hitting each muscle group. E.g. Monday I would do bicep curls with supination (learned that one from P90X). Tuesday I would do hammer curls and barbell curls.

I also began incorporating some functional fitness into the end of my routine. Clean and jerk with a shoulder press at the end, lunges while holding barbells, kettle bell swings, etc.

My ab routine was also more intense. Before it was leg lifts and decline sit ups while holding a 35lb plate over my head. Now it was that plus Russian twists with a medicine ball and a sequence of leg lifts into V’s into full sit-ups that I repeated for a few sets.

Somewhere around this time I spent about 2 months doing 10 mile runs on Tuesdays and Thursdays before lifting. I fucking hated running and I still hate running. I don’t know why I did this. Call it my Forrest Gump moment.

What I do know is it made me really fucking hungry and I gained a few pounds despite my level of high activity. The locals would make “Afghan Pizza” (meat and cheese and veg on top of fresh baked naan) and I have no self-control when it comes to good food.

Phase 3:

I had a lot of time to kill before and after shifts, so I recognize this was an insane amount of work and I don’t foresee myself getting back to this level of intensity. But near the end, I was doing two lifting sessions a day.

I took my every-other-day routine and turned it into a morning and evening routine.

I incorporated a 5 minute jog as a warm up for both sets. I also started a 20 minute boxing routine. Nothing crazy, just starting with jabs, then jab-hook, then jab-hook-uppercut, etc. Doing the same movements on each side before adding an extra step. I also started to group up exercises - e.g. chest, biceps, triceps - and perform one of each before moving on. My thought was to introduce a little shake up to counter muscle memory. No idea if it worked, but it felt good. Lastly, I broke up my ab workout between the two sessions.

Throughout all of this, I never deviated from my 2 sets of 10 reps approach except for the cleans/jerks and a few others. I didn’t even test my PRs until I returned from my deployment.

What to eat?

As I write more, I’ll share some of my favorite recipes, but don’t get bent out of shape when it comes to food. I never worried about macros. Stop eating as much garbage, control your portions, and you’ll be fine.

Do you drink soda more than once a week? Cut that out.

Do you eat fast-food during the week? Get a sandwich that isn’t 1,100 calories and a bottle of water.

For breakfast I would eat a three egg omelette with ham, cheese, and a hash brown chopped up inside or a bowl of cereal with whole milk. Lunch was a turkey sandwich with tomato and a thin layer of mayo or a fat salad with french dressing, cottage cheese, chick peas, chicken or ham, cherry tomatoes and banana peppers. Dinner was chicken breast or turkey with vegetables.

I was a desk jockey. My only exercise was my workout. I lost weight. Once you spend a month calorie counting, you get a good sense of your portions and how to stay within your caloric deficit. Do this, cut out the junk, and you’ll be a whole new you in no time.

Let’s Get Down to Business: Phase 1

Now that all that shit is out of the way, here is the routine.

Unless you’ve been lifting already, before you even think of going to the gym, you are going to work out at home for a week.

• 20 Push Ups

• 50 Crunches

• 20 Air Squats

• 20 Jumping Jacks

• 20 Lunges

Do this 2-3 times a day, stretch afterward, and that’s it. You need to get your body used to moving before you start throwing weights on.

Gym Time:

For the first week, start off super light. If you could technically do 30’s on the biceps, start at 20’s. You just want to get into the motions and feel things out. After that, remember, you want to work for the last few reps but still have enough juice that you COULD go 2-3 reps more past 10.

Reminder: All exercises are 2 sets of 10 unless I say otherwise.

Warm Up:

• 5 minute jog: pace doesn’t matter, just move your body. It’s bad to stretch cold muscle.

• Sun Gods: Forward and backward rotations with your arms to the sides, above your head, and out front. 10 rotations each direction with your swings starting small and getting wider.

• Perform bicep curls, shoulder press, and bench press with a very light weight before you begin the lifts. I usually do 5-10 lbs when I’m first starting to lift. I won’t ever go past 15-20 lbs.

• Stretch. I’ll make a video with some of the main stretches, but just do the stuff you remember from gym class. Yes, you can over stretch. So hold them for 20 seconds and don’t bounce or force anything.

The Lifts:

• Supination bicep curls

  • Perform exercise standing, alternating arms, no swinging to finish the exercise.

• Shoulder press

  • Free weights or bar.

  • DO NOT PUT THE BAR BEHIND YOUR HEAD. You will fuck up your rotator cuff. Whether it’s lat pull downs or overhead press. Do. Not. Do. This. Keep your weights slightly in front of your shoulders when using dumbbells.

• French Press/Tricep Press

  • Use a dumbbell between both hands or a curved bar.

  • Be sure to not over rotate your arms. Keep your upper arms stationary and let your triceps and elbows do the work.

  • Sometimes your arms can do more than your tendons and joints. If you feel stress anywhere, lower the weight and let your body adapt. This is an exercise where I feel that every time I return to the gym.

• Bench Press

  • Do 10 with just the bar before adding weight.

• Lat Pull Down

  • This will be done with a machine.

  • Remember: No bar behind your head and no yanking motion to complete the rep. These machines often have an adjustable pad to hold you in place by your thighs.

• Calf Raises

  • Hold two relatively light weights with your feet shoulder width apart.

  • Raise yourself up onto the balls of your feet and lower. That’s one rep.

  • 2 sets of 20 for this exercise.

• Flat Rows

  • God, I fucking hate this exercise.

  • One hand and knee on the flat bench. Keep a straight back and do a slow, steady motion when lowering the weight. You want to feel a pull through your back before you execute the second half of the lift.

  • Once you become very confident in keeping your proper form and posture while executing this exercise, you should “explode” when pulling the weight up. Slow, steady drop, powerful pull.

• Decline Sit-Ups

  • Lay on the decline ab bench and hold a weight to your chest.

  • As you perform the sit up, extend your arms so the weight is flat to the ceiling and allow your arms to go over your head as you sit up. Maintain that position of the weight as you lay back and finish your rep.

  • 2 sets of 20 for this exercise. It’s okay if you can’t start with a weight.

• Leg Lifts

  • There is that device with the high back and grips for your hands. You plop yourself in, tighten your core, and lift your legs straight in front of you.

  • You might need to do knees-to-chest if you do not yet have the core strength to do this with straight legs.

  • 2 sets of 10.

• Forearm Curls

  • Grab 10lb dumbbells and with your arms at your side, start to curl them using only your wrists.

  • I typically shoot for 100 reps. Go until it starts to burn. Stop, wait a minute, then repeat. You’ll get to 100 eventually. At that point you’ll be ready to go up 5lbs.

• Squats

  • Please go watch videos on proper posture before you do this shit. You can fuck up your knees and your back.

  • Squats are one of the most important exercises. You want gains? Learn to squat and don’t skip it.

This is an excellent starting point for anyone just getting into lifting or getting themselves back to the gym after a long hiatus. I’ll be adding some additional exercises for each muscle group as you get into the rhythm, but if you do this for a month, I promise you will see a huge difference.

Use your notes app to record your weights for each lift so you can remember them week to week.

In my next post, I’ll talk about how we start to increase weights, give you a few exercises to add to the routine as your body acclimates to being more active, and give some video guidance on a few of the exercises and stretches above. I’ll also have a few recipes that are great for meal prep or quick eats.