Recovery Tools: Helpful or Just Expensive?

Counting calories, one of the greatest wonders of the fitness world. Whether you are trying to gain muscle, lose body fat, or somewhere in between, it can feel like a daunting task to track every single gram of food and drink that you consume. If you want to see any success while tracking macros, we need to start by making it as simple as possible. Macro tracking is just a way to pay a little more attention to what you’re eating. It’s not a strict diet and it shouldn’t take over your life. First, the Macros Macros are just the three main nutrients in food: Protein - Carbohydrates - Fat When people track macros, they’re usually logging their meals in an app so they can see roughly how much of each one they’re eating during the day, along with their total calories. It doesn’t need to be perfect One reason people get frustrated with macro tracking is because they think it has to be extremely precise. They imagine weighing every ingredient, measuring every gram, and turning dinner into a science project. For most people, this level of detail isn’t necessary. Tracking can simply mean logging your meals to create an awareness of what you’re actually eating on a daily basis. Even if the numbers aren’t perfect, the process can still be helpful and educational. If you're curious, start simple If you ever want to experiment with tracking macros, the easiest place to start is with a food tracking app. Apps like MyFitnessPal or Cronometer are good places to start. You just search for the foods you eat and log them throughout the day. At first, the goal isn’t to change anything. It’s just to see what your current eating habits actually look like. Sometimes people discover their protein intake is lower than they thought, or realize most of their calories happen late at night. Again, it’s about awareness. It doesn't have to be forever Another common misconception is that once you start tracking macros, you’re committing to logging every meal for the rest of your life if you want to continue to see progress. Nope! For many people, tracking macros is just a short-term learning tool. It helps you understand portion sizes, how different foods affect your energy, and what a balanced day of eating might look like. Some people enjoy tracking and keep doing it, while others track for a while, learn a few things, and then move on. The Next Steps If this is not for you, and you know it, that's fine! However, if food has always been a big question mark for you, then a great place to start is tracking for a few days. It might open your eyes to a few small tweaks you can make so you can see some progress. Just remember, you do not need to weigh every blueberry. Reach out for questions about where to start or how to set your macro numbers! Hart

The fitness world of Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter (not calling it X) have a lot of helpful information we can use and apply to our health and fitness journey. However, it also has a lot of ideas that get repeated so often they start to sound like facts. Over time these myths can make training feel more complicated than it needs to be. They create unnecessary pressure, confusion, or unrealistic expectations about what progress should look like. So, without further ado, here are some of those repeated myths that we would love to see disappear once and for all! -- BIG ONES! You have to be sore after every workout Soreness often gets treated like a scoreboard for how good a workout was. If you wake up the next day and everything hurts, people assume the workout worked. If you feel mostly fine, it can feel like you didn’t push hard enough. In reality, soreness usually comes from doing something new or increasing volume. Once your body adapts, you can have very productive workouts without feeling sore at all. Progress is much more about consistency than soreness. You need to work out every day to see results It’s easy to think more workouts automatically means more progress. For many adults, though, three to five well-paced workouts each week is plenty. The body actually adapts and improves during recovery, not during the workout. Trying to train hard every single day often leads to fatigue, plateaus, or injury. Lifting weights will make you bulky This one has been around for decades and still shows up surprisingly often. Building large amounts of muscle requires a lot of specific training, high food intake, and years of consistency. Most people lifting weights a few times per week will simply get stronger, move better, and build some muscle over time. Strength training is one of the best tools for improving body composition and staying healthy long term. Cardio is the only way to burn fat Cardio is helpful for conditioning and overall health, but it’s not the only way people improve body composition. Strength training builds muscle, improves metabolism, and helps maintain strength as people lose body fat. Nutrition habits also play a major role. Most successful long-term approaches include some combination of strength work, conditioning, and sustainable eating habits. Scaling means you are doing the “easy” workout Scaling is often misunderstood as a step backward. In reality, scaling helps match the workout to the person. Adjusting weights, reps, or movement keeps the intended pace and stimulus of the workout intact. Done well, scaling often makes the workout more productive! You have to feel motivated to train Motivation gets talked about a lot in fitness, but the people who stay consistent rarely rely on motivation alone. They build routines. Some days workouts feel great, other days they don’t, but the habit of showing up keeps progress moving forward. Motivation will come and go, but consistency is what actually builds results. -- QUICK ONES! Myth: If you miss a week of workouts you lose all your progress Reality: It takes several weeks of inactivity to lose meaningful fitness. Myth: You should never train if you're tired Reality: There’s a difference between exhausted and just not feeling motivated. Many workouts actually improve energy once you get moving. Myth: The goal is to PR every workout Reality: Most training days are practice days. PRs happen occasionally because of consistent work, not because every session should be max effort. Myth: More sweat means a better workout Reality: Sweat mostly reflects temperature, hydration, and genetics, not workout quality. Myth: You have to fix everything before you start training Reality: People sometimes think they need perfect mobility, perfect movement, or to “get in shape first.” Training itself is often what improves those things. Myth: You need a perfect program to make progress Reality: A decent program followed consistently will outperform a perfect program followed occasionally. Myth: You should wait until you're in better shape to join a gym Reality: Gyms exist to help people get into shape, not just maintain it. Myth: If a workout feels hard, you're doing something wrong Reality: Hard effort is part of adaptation. The goal is controlled difficulty, not avoiding discomfort entirely. Myth: Progress should happen every week Reality: Progress is about a general trend over months, but week to week it's rarely linear. -- Most fitness myths start with a small piece of truth but get exaggerated over time. The basics still tend to matter most: consistent training, reasonable intensity, good recovery, and sustainable habits around food and sleep. Did we miss any big ones? Hart

First you take the pizza rolls out of the package and put them in the microwave for 45 seconds. After that, you just need 15 seconds of cooldown time because that cheese is hot as lava so make sure to be patient. Once step 15 seconds is up, you have a fast easy meal in just about 60 seconds. In all seriousness pizza rolls are great, and in maybe a little more seriousness, eating real food at each meal should not be complicated or crazy time-consuming. Yes, it may be longer than microwaving, but it should still allow for some simplicity and flexibility. If you can recognize the parts, you can put together a solid meal almost anywhere in about a minute. A helpful guideline is that most meals should include three or four of the following: a protein, a carbohydrate, some kind of produce, and a fat. It does not need to be perfect. You are just trying to make a reasonable decision quickly and consistently. Now before we get into it, I am not saying that you need to cut out all packaged foods or not indulge every now and then, but on a regular basis, putting together a simple 3-4 ingredient meal will move towards your goals and also save time in your life. Keep things simple. - The easiest place to start is protein . Before anything else, ask yourself, “Where is the protein?” Protein tends to be the piece most people miss, and it plays a big role in recovery, fullness, and stable energy. Once you pick that first, the rest of the meal usually becomes easier to build around it. This could be something simple like chicken, eggs, beef, yogurt, cottage cheese, deli meat, tofu, or even a protein shake. Next comes a carbohydrate . Carbs are not cheating and they are not something you have to earn. They are fuel. They help workouts feel better and they prevent the big energy drop that often leads to overeating later in the day. Rice, potatoes, tortillas, oats, fruit, pasta, and bread all work. The goal isn’t to avoid them, it’s to pair them with protein so the meal actually holds you over. After that, add some color with a fruit or veggie. This is usually the easiest upgrade you can make. A fruit or vegetable improves fullness and overall nutrition without requiring complicated rules. It might be berries in yogurt, an apple with lunch, frozen vegetables with dinner, or peppers on a sandwich. You don’t have to love vegetables. You just need to include something for most meals. Finally, you can add a fat if it makes the meal more satisfying. Things like avocado, cheese, olive oil, nuts, or peanut butter help meals feel complete and keep you full longer. You don’t need a large amount, just enough that the meal feels like real food and not a diet. - In real life this ends up looking very simple. Greek yogurt with granola and berries for breakfast. A turkey sandwich and an apple for lunch. Chicken, rice, and frozen vegetables with a little olive oil for dinner. A protein shake and a banana after a workout. Even eating out becomes easier when you choose a protein first and then add a side and something with color. - This allows us to make a meal that is relatively healthy and moves us towards our goals, but doesn't require any counting macros or tracking of any kind. Consistency in nutrition usually comes from simplicity. If you can quickly put together a decent meal on busy workdays, travel days, or late nights, your eating becomes sustainable. A simple system that still works when life isn’t perfectly planned. Hart

We’ve all been there. You finish a workout, lie on the floor for a minute, and one of two thoughts usually shows up: “I could not have gone any harder.” “I completely blew up.” Most people don’t struggle with fitness in conditioning workouts, they struggle with pacing. The Mistake When the clock starts, adrenaline starts too. Music is loud and everyone moves at once. You sprint the first round, and for a moment, you feel amazing. Then your breathing spikes and suddenly a workout that was supposed to feel steady becomes survival when rest breaks get longer and reps get sloppy. The Goal Pacing is not about going slow. It is choosing a speed you can repeat for the amount of time needed. A well paced workout should feel almost too easy for the first few minutes. You should be able to breathe through your nose or speak in short sentences. Ideally you finish the first round and feel like you could immediately do another at the same speed. Done right, the first 3-5 minutes of a 10:00 workout should look boring from the outside. The Fix Your first round should be your slowest round. Period. If this sounds impossible to do, then it needs to be reeeeheeally slow! Make it feel so lazy that other people think you’re weird. This allows your heart rate to increase very slowly as you get more and more into the workout. It’s better for your health, and your scores! Halfway through you’ll notice you still feel the same. Your breathing is elevated but controlled, and your reps look similar to round one. You aren’t staring at the barbell between sets wondering how you got there. The Why Starting too fast turns workouts into intervals with long rest, instead of a sustained effort. Finding sustained efforts is what improves endurance, recovery between movements, and long-term performance. Many people think they’re bad at conditioning when really they just run out of energy early and spend the rest of the workout trying to survive. Done right, this can improve fitness almost immediately. The Next Time Keep track of your round times. Get a whiteboard and a marker so you can write down each round. Round 1 - 1:45 Round 2 - 1:45 Round 3 - 1:30 Round 4 - 1:15 …etc. It might take a few workouts to find the sweet spot, but down the line you will be happy you took the time. See you out there! Hart

Not the scaling you were expecting…? First off… the scale doesn’t matter. And also, it does. No judgment whether it is for you or not, but it is important to have a better understanding of what we are seeing, and why it is more than just the blinking number on the screen. Let’s face it, stepping on the scale can stir up all kinds of emotions. It’s totally natural that many of us have experienced frustration, self-judgment, or even avoidance. Today, I want to help you understand the scale for what it truly is… a tool that can offer data. When to do it, and How Often We often make the mistake of giving one weigh-in way too much power. If you weigh yourself once a week or once a month, that number might be influenced by factors like hydration, what you ate yesterday, or how much sleep you got the night before. These things play a bigger role in that number than we think, and in turn can cause us to believe we aren’t making progress even when we actually are. When you weigh yourself every day at the same time, however, you start to see a pattern emerge. Day to day fluctuations are normal and weight naturally shifts due to water retention, hormones, or even muscle glycogen. But over time, you’ll notice if the overall trend is upward, downward, or stable. That trend is what gives you actual information. So if you are thinking about giving the scale a go, remember to be consistent, same time, same scale, same clothes. Knowing the trend over time allows us to make informed decisions. Do we like what’s going on? If yes, keep doing what’s working. If not, you have information to guide adjustments like tweaking nutrition, training, or habits. Not for You, No Big Deal Now, let’s be clear. You don’t have to weigh yourself. If stepping on the scale causes anxiety, or if you’d rather focus on other markers like strength, energy levels, or performance, that’s completely fair. There are many ways to track progress, and the scale is just one option. If you have a few goals you are trying to reach, it is worth finding one or two ways to track and measure your progress. It allows us to see tangible results and make informed decisions if we need to. Disclaimer Whether you weigh daily or choose another path, remember: the scale doesn’t define you. It’s simply a tool you can use or not use to help you make informed decisions. Approach it with curiosity instead of judgment, and know that every bit of data is just one small piece. Hart

Let's set the scene… It's 75° and sunny outside, clearly a mid-January day in Colorado, and you're about to go for a run. You threw on some shorts, your favorite running T-shirt, and now you grab your running shoes. The shoes you bought specifically for running. Why wouldn't you do the same thing for the gym? Instead of throwing on those exact same running shoes, or another set of random shoes to do back squats, deadlifts, and Olympic lifting, you need the right tools for the job. I'm not going to sit here and write about a specific shoe that you should go out and buy, mainly because my Nike deal has not been made public yet, but there are some important considerations when picking shoes so that you can move safely and effectively in the gym. ------ Why running shoes aren’t the right choice Those neon Nikes might increase your running pace a little bit, but they make it harder to find stability when it comes to lifting. Running shoes provide a lot of cushion and protection that you might need over the course of a 30-minute run. However, while lifting, you need to prioritize your connection with the ground. The soft cushioning of a running shoe reduces our stability under weight. Therefore, when you do something like a back squat, your feet and knees may cave in due to your shoe, instead of your body. This may cause a change in technique, lack of strength, or even increase the risk of injury a little bit. These shoes can also hinder our balance and ability to feel the floor. The thick foam dulls feedback from the floor, causing our weight to shift easily and reduce the amount of force you can put into the ground. What to look for in a shoe for fitness In functional fitness, your feet are the foundation. Every squat, deadlift, clean, lunge, jump, and carry starts with how you interact with the floor. If your shoe collapses or shifts, force leaks out before it ever reaches the barbell or the movement you’re trying to perform. That doesn’t mean minimalist shoes are required or that cushioning is bad. It means your shoe should match the demands of your training and your body. Let’s keep it really simple. When looking for a new shoe for the gym you want to focus on three things: Firm, flat, and fit. You want firm shoes so you can put force directly into the floor while having solid stability throughout. Flat shoes help keep us balanced from heel to toe, preventing us from being driven forward while lifting. And they need to fit well. Wide enough through the toe box to let your toes spread and your feet do their job. If your toes are crammed together, balance and force transfer suffer before the movement even starts. ------ Here is a short list of a few shoe choices to consider: Nike Metcons Nike Metcon Free Reebok Nanos Flux Adapt Trainers NoBull Trainers But, you don’t have to spend hundreds on shoes. Those old, flat Chuck Taylors are a favorite among powerlifters because they tick all the important boxes. Next time you come in for a deadlift day, break out your old Chucks instead of your big squishy Hokas and thank me later! Hart

For a long time, mobility has been treated as something separate from training. Something you do before you workout, after you workout, or on an entirely different day. Stretch more. Roll more. Do more mobility drills. These tools can absolutely be beneficial but they often distract from a bigger truth. Mobility is built through how you train. The point is not that extra mobility work is useless. It’s that if your strength training is done well, much of the mobility you are chasing will show up naturally. First off, mobility and flexibility are not the same thing. Flexibility is passive. It’s how far a joint can move when there’s no real demand placed on it. Mobility is active. It’s your ability to move through a full range of motion with strength and stability. If you can stretch into a position but can’t control it under even a little bit of weight, that range doesn’t belong to you. This is where strength training becomes a powerful mobility tool. When you squat to full depth with control, press overhead through a complete range of motion, or hinge slowly with tension the whole time, you are learning to load positions that we move through in life. That load teaches your body those positions are safe, and over time your nervous system stops guarding them. Control matters more than load here. Slow reps, pauses, and tempo work force you to work on difficult positions instead of rushing out of them. Those end ranges are exactly where mobility is built, and turns flexibility into something useful. This approach also requires leaving the ego at the door. Chasing heavier weights while cutting depth or rushing reps may boost short-term numbers and confidence, but it can stall your mobility in the long run. Focusing on your full range of motion and good positions builds resilient joints and strength that carries over into everything else you do! The best part is that none of this requires extra sessions or complicated routines. Squats, split squats, hinges, presses, and lunges all become mobility work. You don’t need to “cancel stretching forever,” but you may not need nearly as much of it as you think if your training is doing its job. At the end of the day, the goal isn’t to be able to stretch into impressive positions on the floor. The goal is to move well for a long time. When lifting is done with a full range of motion, control, and humility, it becomes your most effective mobility practice. Hart

Most people don’t think much about breakfast. They skip it, rush it, or grab something that feels “good enough” and move on with their day. Then by mid-morning, energy dips and hunger spikes. That’s not a coincidence. How you start your day nutritionally matters more than most people realize. Yes, “breakfast is the most important meal of the day” might be a myth, but breakfast sets the tone not just for hunger, but for energy, training performance, and food choices later on. When breakfast is skipped, very low in protein, or loaded with sugar, you’re quietly making the rest of the day harder. Skipping breakfast often feels productive. Fewer calories and one less decision to make. But physiologically it’s rarely that simple. When you don’t eat in the morning, hunger just gets postponed. By late morning or early afternoon, it comes back stronger, and decision making gets sloppier. That’s when portion sizes creep up and certain foods become harder to resist. It’s easy for us to think we will eat less throughout the day if we skip breakfast, but most of the time that’s not the case. Even when breakfast does happen, protein is usually missing. Toast, cereal, pastries, smoothies, and coffee with a splash of milk aren’t “bad foods”, but they don’t do much on their own to keep you full or energized. Protein slows digestion, stabilizes blood sugar, and tells your brain you’re satisfied. Hitting your protein is one of the simplest things you can do to build or maintain muscle. Protein doesn’t just build muscle. It keeps you full, reduces cravings, and smooths out energy levels throughout the day. Getting a solid dose early in the day gives you a head start before decision fatigue creeps in. It makes it easier to eat well later, not harder. You’re less likely to snack mindlessly, overeat at night, or feel like you’re constantly playing catch up to hit your protein target for the day. For most active adults, a breakfast with only 10–15 grams of protein is just not enough. Closer to 30–40 grams is where hunger stays controlled and energy stays steady. Sugar makes things worse. Even breakfasts that appear reasonable can cause problems when they’re mostly sugar. Cereals, pastries, muffins, flavored yogurts, and sweetened drinks can spike blood sugar quickly. The crash that follows brings fatigue and the urge for more coffee or snacks. That cycle repeats itself all day. The first meal of the day influences far more than just hunger. It affects energy, training output, recovery, and how easy it is to make good decisions later on. A balanced, protein forward breakfast makes the rest of the day easier. A better breakfast doesn’t need to be complicated or time-consuming. It just needs to prioritize protein and mainly come from whole foods. It doesn’t need to be perfect, but with a few minor substitutions, you can start to move things in the right direction. Hart

Let’s get this out of the way first… No one is here to cancel happy hour. But if you’re training consistently, trying to feel better in your body, and wondering why progress sometimes feels slower than it should, alcohol is usually part of that story whether we want it to be or not. Alcohol isn’t evil. It’s just not on your side when it comes to fitness. It’s Not Just About Calories Most people think alcohol only matters because of the calories. That part is true, but it’s actually the smallest piece of the puzzle. When you drink, your body treats alcohol as a toxin. That means everything else like burning fat, repairing muscle, even regulating blood sugar, gets put on hold while your liver works to clear the alcohol from your system. Researchers have shown that your ability to burn fat for fuel drops significantly after drinking. In a study published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, fat burning was reduced by up to 73% for several hours after alcohol consumption. Your body literally cannot prioritize fat loss while alcohol is present. So even if you ate well that day, trained hard, and hit your protein, your body is now forced into storage mode instead of rebuilding mode. Every workout you do creates small amounts of muscle damage. That’s not a bad thing, that’s the stimulus for growth. Recovery is when your body uses protein to repair that damage and build stronger muscle tissue. Alcohol interferes with that process. Your Sleep Is Worse Than You Think Alcohol can make you fall asleep faster, which is why so many people think it helps their sleep. But the quality of that sleep is worse. Studies from sleep labs have consistently shown that alcohol reduces deep sleep and REM sleep. The two stages that matter most for physical recovery, hormone balance, memory, and mood. It also raises your resting heart rate through the night and increases how often you wake up, even if you don’t remember it. You might be in bed for eight hours, but your body didn’t get eight hours of recovery. This matters because poor sleep increases stress, worsens insulin sensitivity, and drives cravings the next day. All things that work directly against fat loss and performance. So… Do You Have to Quit Drinking? No. But you should know the trade offs. One or two drinks occasionally won’t derail anything. But drinking several times per week adds up fast. Not just in calories, but in missed recovery. If your goal is to get leaner, stronger, have more energy, and feel better in your body, alcohol becomes something you have to manage instead of ignore. The Real Takeaway You don’t need to be perfect to make progress, but your habits should point in the same direction as your goals. If you’re training hard, eating well, and showing up consistently, alcohol often becomes the one thing quietly working against all of it. Cheers! Hart