Contagion: Your Gym Behavior Matters

Sometimes I watch people lift, and they look they’re doing their taxes. There’s a lot of sighing, slumping down on a bench between sets, leaning on racks, head down, shoulders forward, scrutinizing their program or scrolling social media (lord knows that’s me sometimes; okay, lots of times), the minutes inching by while they plod around …

Fear: Dictator Or Compass – The Choice is Yours

I must not fear Fear is the mind killer Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration I will face my fear I will permit it to pass over me and through me And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path Where the fear has gone there …

Listening: How Acting Exercises Helped Me Become a Better Coach and Athlete

"Listen like you are an animal in the forest," -Steve Perlmutter Steve was my first year acting workshop teacher, specifying in a practice called "Meisner," based on the theories and exercises created by Sanford Meisner. Without getting bogged down in actor lingo, I'll try to describe parts of the Meisner method and how it ended …

Making A TV Show and Going to World’s Strongest Woman, Among Other Things

What's new? Everything. My show is online. It's about an exorcist helping the lost souls of NYC. It's as exactly as rad and weird as it sounds. It's called Asher. Here's the trailer. You can watch FULL episode, for free HERE. You can help me make the second episode by donating a few bucks (or a lot …

Train Like A Newb

I’m at a point now where lifting feels like a relatively simple and routine part of my life. But lo, it was not always so! I like to remind myself that the great stuff sometimes didn’t feel great until I had given it time - learning something new is often accompanied by the growing pains of …

Losing to Win: Learning to Take Responsibility for My Story

If you don't know me very well, you might not know that Strongman, my sport, my hobby, my athletic pursuit, one of my greatest passions, is a lot more to me than just something I do to stay in shape or entertain myself.  For me, Strongman has been a refuge, a place of rediscovery and …

The Beginner’s Gauntlet: You Don’t Hate Working Out, You Hate Being Out of Shape

Chest pains. Nausea. Body shakes. You dread working out, because this is what it means to you. Total exhaustion and PAIN.  You avoid working out, because working out means pain. UNBEARABLE pain. But this isn't what working feels like. That's what being out of shape feels like. Don't get me wrong, an effective workout should …

HANDLE IT: Break Down and Prioritize Your Goals

Handle it. When it gets hard, but you handle it. When you’re tired, but you handle it. When you want to give up, stop trying and leave it to someone else, but you handle it. We are capable of so much more than we realize, but sometimes when we work on setting personal goals, we …

And Then I Had No Job: Uncertainty and Gratitude

At 6 am on December 21st, I stood outside my job, at David Barton Gym Limelight. There was a padlock on the door, and a note saying that the gym, the entire franchise, was closed. Effective immediately. Permanently. Just like that, I had no job. I won’t try to summarize my whole year - it …

You’re Not Shallow For Liking/Wanting Compliments

I read a post on This is Female Powerlifting that I enjoyed; wrote a whole thing and then realized I had a blog post! So let's talk about external validation and wanting to look a certain way (maybe because of said validations, maybe not!).   I empathize with the writer's many points and she touches on …