Wondering How To Get Bigger Arms? As I’ve written many times before, most everything in the health and fitness world is individual. Very few puzzles are going to be solved, or theories held true with generalizations and sweeping statements. There is a conspicuous exception to this, however. I’ve been a personal trainer in Austin for
Setting Fitness Goals Common sense dictates that it’s far easier to establish a personal goal than to achieve one, unless of course, your goal is simply to set a goal. The realization and acceptance of the fact that you need to make a change, is perhaps the most vital and courageous step of the transformation
What Is The Difference Between Abs And Core Muscles? As I have mentioned several times in my blogs, over the course of 22 years as a personal trainer in Austin, I get asked a lot of questions related to fitness and health. Some of it is trivial stuff, some of it is simply asking how
Obesity Is A Killer It’s long been known that there is a definitive connection between having too much body fat, and the subsequently heightened possibilities of getting cancer. Obesity, in fact, has become a very widespread public health concern across the world as it not only has been definitively linked to certain cancers, but to
What Are The Best Ab Exercises? Everybody is always asking what are the best exercises for this muscle, and what are the best ones for that muscle? I’ve been an Austin personal trainer for over 22 years now, and if someone posed the question of what are the best chest exercises, I could easily pull
Wondering How To Get A Tight Butt? When you’ve been a personal trainer in Austin, or virtually anywhere, as long as I have, you tend to get a lot of questions from gym goers, clients, and just people you meet. They usually want your advice on how they can improve one or more aspects of
Are you Asking Yourself How Many Calories Should I Eat To Lose Weight? Are you asking yourself how many calories should I eat to lose weight? A lot of people are, and unfortunately, they’re getting the wrong answers. In my essays and blogs, as well as in person with my clients over my 22 years
CrossFit: Is It A Great Workout Or Potentially Dangerous? Curiously to some, I’ve never until now written an essay, or even a blog post about CrossFit. There really was no specific reason for that, other than as an Austin personal trainer for 22 years, as well as a being a gym owner for a long
Do Crunches Produce Flat Abs? To say that there are a plethora of myths and falsities strewn across the fitness landscape would certainly be an understatement. On this website, particularly in some of the blog entries, I’ve debunked several such myths. I always enjoy hearing them, as some are quite amusing, but simultaneously, I feel
Adapting and Improvising Your Workouts The ability to improvise and adapt is one of the strongest traits associated with humans. It doesn’t come intuitively to all, but generally speaking, we as humans, seem to have this ability down to a science, so to speak. Improvising your workouts can be a way to get a breath
What Are The Best Arm Exercises? When you’ve been a personal trainer in Austin for more than 20 years, and a gym owner for nearly a decade, you get a lot of questions. I always welcome them as I enjoy helping people get healthier and stronger. That’s why I chose this profession and enjoy it
Asking Can I Lose Weight Without Dieting? Every day, people decide they want to get in better shape. Maybe they have an aesthetic goal. Perhaps it’s just a matter of dropping a set number of pounds they are interested in doing. Other times in rehabilitative. There’s plenty of reasons and motivations, and as an Austin
Wondering What Are The Best Ab Exercises? It usually goes a little something like this. “Hey Andy, what is the fastest way for me to put on some muscle”? “Hey Andy, what are the best ab exercises”? The swiftly running stream of what are the best…insert your fitness goal here, never runs dry. One of
Another 10 Fitness Questions Answered! Every so often, I like to post a different type of blog here. One with 10 fitness questions answered, as opposed to a longer blog, or essay, which focuses solely on one topic. Fitness questions abound, as does bad information. Hopefully this can clarify some of the common, as well
Do Toning Shoes Work? Can a pair of shoes do away with your big thighs, cellulite, weak legs, let you burn more calories, build more muscle, and get in shape faster at the gym? According to the manufacturers, yes they can. There’s a type of shoe available these days called toning shoes. Reebok and Sketchers
Wondering What Is The Best Diet? There’s a sweeping statement in the fitness community that 80% of your results will come from nutrition. Not 79%, and not 81%. Just 80%, and that applies to everyone. As a longtime Austin personal trainer I can tell you with certainty, that is silly. It’s obviously going to depend
Alleviating Knee Pain For A Better Quality Of Life One question I get on a fairly regular basis as a longtime Austin personal trainer and gym owner is how to go about alleviating knee pain. The truth is that it can be something as simple as performing a basic quadricep stretch, or it can be
Asking How Can I Lose Weight? Sometimes the questions I get from people at my gym, or via e mail, are very simple sounding and straight forward, but if you scratch the surface a little, you realize that there’s much more going on than one would initially summarize. Since I became a personal trainer in
Interested In Some Circuit Training Exercises? There are many ways one can approach a weight training regimen. You can work towards getting stronger, and bigger, or you can work towards getting leaner. You can work to become more stable, you can work to become more explosive, and so on. Within all of the possibilities also
Wondering Where To Find Workout Routines? A couple of weeks ago, I wrote an essay about workout routines here on my website. I explained how I don’t write them for people. Even those who have trained with me for years will not get a prescribed workout routine from me. Why? Because they are useless except
What Are The Best Glute Exercises? One question I asked all the time as a longtime gym owner and Austin personal trainer, is what are some of the best exercises a person can do. Guys usually want to know what the best arm or chest exercises are, and women tend to want to firm up
Want to Know How to Gain Weight? When you’ve been an Austin personal trainer for over 20 years and a gym owner for nearly a decade, you tend to get a lot of fitness questions thrown your way. The most common is how to lose weight. People see all of the fad diets and approaches.
Want to Know How to Build Muscle Fast? How to build muscle fast is a question I’ve heard from many men, and a handful of women, during my 20 plus years as an Austin personal trainer, and gym owner. There’s ways you can expedite the process, just like any process, but nothing comes overnight. Even
Are You Wondering How To Build Bigger Calves? One of the age old dilemmas of some people working out in the gyms across the world is how to build bigger calves. There are many machines from the donkey press, to both seated, and standing calf raise machines, all the way down to body weight exercises
Wondering How Much Protein Is Too Much? In the health and fitness world there is a seemingly endless amount of theories regarding which exercises are superior to others. There are endless published and vocalized opinions concerning how many reps and sets need to be performed in order to accomplish a specific goal be it weight
Is spot reduction possible? In any given field, there will be facts, theories, misconceptions, as well as some long standing mythology. The health and fitness world is no exception to this. There are a plethora of fitness myths that are very commonly believed to be true. Some, naturally, are more pervasive than others. There is
Are You Wondering What is the Best Way to Lose Weight? When you’ve been a personal trainer in Austin for over 20 years, it goes without saying that you get asked a lot of health and fitness questions. People want to know what the quickest way to accomplish their health and fitness goals are. They
Want to Know How to Lose Weight Fast? Everywhere you look, people want instant gratification. Not that it’s a bad thing necessarily, but our society has made a premium of focusing on how fast things are achieved, how quickly websites load, how fast our cars and motorcycles go, how fast our smartphones are, and so
Don’t be that Stereotypical Personal Trainer. This is How to Become a REAL Personal Trainer As promised last week, this week’s blog is about how to become a personal trainer. One of the best things about my job as a personal trainer in Austin, is when I work with truly motivated people. These are the
Do You Know What to Look for in a Personal Trainer? When you have decided it is time to get in better shape, work past an old injury or imbalance, or train for a specific sporting event, you might consider hiring a qualified personal trainer. Gyms all over the world are filled with personal trainers,
What is Frozen Shoulder Syndrome? As an Austin personal trainer for over 20 years, I’ve worked with many conditions ranging from simple orthopedics, to gastrointestinal issues such as IBS, Crohns, and so on. I also have worked extensively with lesser prevalent conditions such as Ankylosing Spondylitis, which most people outside of the field have never
Is Obesity Really Genetic? Is obesity the result of a lack of will power? Most people in America seem to think so despite the studies showing genetic predispositions may play a bigger role than one’s choices. Obesity and genetics is something that has a multidimensional effect on not just those who suffer from it, but
Suffering From Postural Imbalances? Whenever I have a potential client contact me about personal training, we will always meet for a consultation first. As long as I’ve been an Austin personal trainer, this has been my protocol, and that’s been for over 20 years now. The reason for the consultation is multi fold. It allows
Question of the Week: Rich Piana: What is my Opinion of him? As a personal trainer in Austin for over 21 years, I have had a lot of people ask me over the years if I know certain people. Sometimes they are inquiring if I work with a celebrity they are especially fond of. Other
When Losing Fat, Where Does it Go? I’ve always not only welcomed questions on this blog, but encouraged them as well. As long as I’ve been a personal trainer in Austin, I’ve been asked an incredible variety of fitness questions over the years, but the one I got yesterday from my 7 year old daughter
How to go About Finding a Gym Recently, a long standing Austin personal training client of mine, whom I also call a good friend, moved out of town to Arizona so he and his wife could be closer to their kids. Good for them, bad for me, as I truly enjoyed his company both professionally,
How Important is it to Warm Up? There are a lot of known quantities when it comes to health and fitness. For example, we know with full certainty that if you want to get healthier, you’ll have to eat. That’s pretty basic stuff that doesn’t require you to be an Austin personal trainer for over
Does Weight Lifting Produce Bulky Women? One of the main objectives of this blog, has been to educate people about health and fitness by drawing upon my experience of 21 years as a personal trainer in Austin, as well as a gym owner here for nearly a decade. I have written many posts and essays
Some Gym Questions Answered In a previous blog, I answered 5 very common fitness questions. In this blog, I’ll stick with that format, but with the added twist of tailoring the questions and answers to pertain to frequently asked gym questions. As a 21 year Austin personal trainer, and a gym owner for nearly a
Never Underestimate the Importance of Strong Core Muscles As an Austin personal trainer for over 20 years, one thing I cannot stress enough to clients is the importance of strong core muscles. The core is essential for virtually everything we do, be it gardening, working out, moving from one place to another, getting out of
What are Unspoken Gym Rules? I’ve been a gym owner for nearly a decade, and an Austin personal trainer for over 21 years. I’ve seen a lot of people come and go in the gym. It’s always great to see someone come in for the first time with a heartfelt determination to make some positive
Wondering Should You Be Changing Personal Trainers? Few things in this world can remain a constant, other than time, perhaps. It doesn’t stop for anyone, or anything. In the rest of the world, things evolve, dissolve, and fluctuate. The health and fitness world is no exception. We may change gyms because we move to a
Some Basic Gym Do’s and Don’ts In a recent blog, I took a different approach than usual, and wrote a factual personal training do’s and don’ts. It was done with humor, but all of the “ridiculous” scenarios were completely unstretched truths and experiences from my 21 years as an Austin personal trainer. As many of
Here’s A Few Humorous Personal Training Expectations From My 22 Years Of Experience As An Austin Personal Trainer As a personal trainer in Austin for over 21 years, I thought I’d use this particular blog entry as a rather humorous/common sense guide for what to expect when hiring a personal trainer. I’ll call this personal
Are Teens and Supplements a Bad Mix? With football season approaching, many teenage males are hitting the weight room with exceptional vigor in an effort to get bigger and stronger. Often times, in the month of August, high school football teams do what is known as 2 a days. That simply means that there are
So, How Does Personal Training Work? A gentleman stopped by my gym this morning and was inquiring about doing some training with either me, or a member of my staff. Having never worked with a trainer before, he naturally had a host of questions regarding scheduling, pricing, duration of sessions, as well as frequency. In
How Should You Go About Exercising in the Heat? As I write this blog entry on exercising in the heat, it’s 107 degrees and the sun is beating down relentlessly in Austin, TX. In fact, when I woke up at 6 this morning, it was already 82 degrees and extraordinarily humid. There’s a good chance
Exactly What Does a Personal Trainer Need to Know? When you’ve been an Austin personal trainer as long as I have, naturally, you get a lot of questions. I often field workout questions, nutrition questions, physical therapy related questions, etc. Occasionally though, you’ll meet someone who’s either new to the field of personal training in
4 Common Nutrition Myths Over the many years I’ve been a personal trainer in Austin, I’ve written many times about proper nutrition. There’s a never ending supply of misinformation and nutrition myths floating all over the internet, from YouTube, to message boards, etc. Naturally, everyone has different fitness goals, as well as different needs, but
Asking Yourself How Often Should I Workout With A Personal Trainer? When people contact me with an interest in doing some personal training with me, we always set up a free, no sales pitches, etc, in depth consultation. The purpose is to get a greater understanding of what the potential client is interested in achieving,
Looking for Fitness Tests? Over the many years that I’ve been an Austin personal trainer, I’ve had many people ask me if I thought they were in shape. My first response has always been to ask them, “in shape for what”? Are you going to run a marathon? Play football in the fall? Wrestle? Perhaps
What is Cupping? There’s a big to do about red spots, coupled with great curiosity at this year’s Olympics. Everyone across the globe is asking what the big red circles on Michael Phelp’s body are. Some people have speculated it must have something to do with the notoriously poor conditions at the athlete’s village. Others
5 Fitness Questions Answered In a recently written essay, I answered 10 commonly asked fitness questions. I’d like to continue where I left off with that in this blog by answering 5 fitness questions that I frequently get asked. When you’ve been an Austin personal trainer for as long as I have, you can imagine
Just How Long Should I Workout? When you’ve been a personal trainer in Austin as long as I have, you can imagine, a lot of questions get thrown your way by beginners, as well as advanced lifters and athletes. There’s a myriad of mythology surrounding the health and fitness world concerning everything from nutrition, bogus
I Can’t Lose Weight You Say? Nothing is working they say. I’m doing everything I can they say. I’m eating right, I’m exercising, and I can’t lose weight. I have bad genetics they say. I’ve been a personal trainer in Austin for over 20 years now, as well as a gym owner for 9. I
Is It Possible? Will Exercise Make Me Live Longer? There are a lot of myths surrounding the health and fitness world. We hear all kinds of great new discoveries, as they are touted, only to realize that they are nothing more than wishful thinking. As a longtime personal trainer in Austin, I’m asked a lot
Does it Matter if it’s Fast or Slow Weight Loss? When we are trying to lose weight, there are many different approaches we can take. We can embark on a new fitness regimen. We can embrace a diet. Ideally, we would do both for the best possible results, but what about speed? Does it matter
Fitness Questions Answered This site has been a labor of love for me over the many years that I’ve been an Austin personal trainer. I update the blog every 4th day, usually, and write a lot of essays as well. In either format, I address one subject and support my views with facts, science, and
Want Some Weight Loss Tips? No matter the subject, there’s no shortage of advice from those who truly are educated in that specific field, and likewise, there is no shortage of advice from self proclaimed experts. Fitness is no exception, especially when it comes to weight loss tips. Turn on YouTube, and you’ll find a
More Workout Myths As a longtime personal trainer in Austin, I’ve pointed out repeatedly over the years on this blog, as well as in my gym to my clients, that there is an overabundance of misleading information, and simply out and out falsities circulating within the health and fitness world. Maximum heart rate calculation formulas,
What Are Alternative Exercises? There are a lot of ways to accomplish most anything that you seek to accomplish. You can build a house out of any number of materials such as wood, brick, etc, and you will have a house. You can make any number of food dishes by using a variety of ingredients.
