Fitness Focus
Why You Need a Summer Maintenance Workout
BY EBENEZER SAMUEL, CSCS After months of training hard, it’s beach season, and you should get to enjoy it. And that means sliding away from chasing gains into maintenance mode, a training level many people don’t understand. Pulling back from...
THE 3-MOVE MOBILITY WORKOUT YOUR BODY NEEDS
BY EBENEZER SAMUEL, CSCS You've built muscle and you've built strength. But how well do you move? Meet the most underrated concept in the weight room. In general, we all love finding ways to build to superheroic aesthetics. But in...
WHY YOU NEED TO BUILD YOUR GRIP STRENGTH!
BY EBENEZER SAMUEL, CSCS Yes, you may want big biceps, or a 300-pound bench press, or the ability to do pullups with ease. But if you want to live for decades upon decades, then you want something else too: Grip...
Build Your Summer Body with Back-Chest Supersets
BY EBENEZER SAMUEL, CSCS As the summer approaches, you know you want muscle. But you also don’t want to spend all your time in the gym. And that’s when the back-chest superset can help the most. Truth is, the back-chest...
Why Back Exercises Are the Key to Getting in Summer Shape
BY EBENEZER SAMUEL, C.S.C.S. When most guys think of getting in summer shape, they think of arm exercises and chest moves and abs. But the real key to building your summer body is actually training your back. By targeting your...
Four Plank Variations To Build Six-Pack Abs
BY EBENEZER SAMUEL, CSCS The basic plank gets a bad rap in training circles. It’s viewed as a beginner move, and it’s often a move that’s butchered in certain gyms, with plenty of workout newcomers either lifting their butts sky...
The Leg Workout That’ll Build Your Abs
BY EBENEZER SAMUEL, CSCS If you want to build strong six-pack abs, it’s about more than training your abs. The path to a aesthetic core has long started with training your legs. Honestly, this is what I wish I’d known...
Try These Calorie-burning Moves
BY EBENEZER SAMUEL, CSCS The quest to burn calories is endless. And your workouts play only a small role in that calorie-burning process. Truth is, you’ll get your best calorie-burn on a daily basis from increasing your total step count...
THE ULTIMATE CALORIE-BURNING WORKOUT
BY EBENEZER SAMUEL, C.S.C.S. If you’re doing a workout purely to burn calories, you’re doing it wrong. Whether you’re trying to lose weight or you’re midway through a summer cut, your workouts should focus on building muscle and strength, not...
THREE LIGHTWEIGHT EXERCISES FOR LONGEVITY
BY EBENEZER SAMUEL, C.S.C.S. I say it all the time: You need to push your limits and train heavy. And earlier in February, we reviewed several exercises worth pushing to their heaviest. But that doesn’t mean that lightweight moves have...
THREE EXERCISES YOU NEED TO MAX OUT!
BY EBENEZER SAMUEL, C.S.C.S. You can do every major exercise. But how many of these moves can you . . . dominate? If you’re truly chasing strength and muscle gains, this is a question worth asking. Because everything they’ve told...
THE ULTIMATE FITNESS TEST-Three exercises you should dominate with your SMRTFT dumbbells
BY EBENEZER SAMUEL, C.S.C.S. Sometimes, you need a workout. Other times (aka, once every two to three months, if you ask me), you need a test that’ll tell you exactly where you are on your fitness journey. The fitness test...
LAY YOUR 2025 FITNESS FOUNDATION
BY EBENEZER SAMUEL, C.S.C.S. You have big fitness goals in 2025. But reaching those goals isn’t an instant process. Whether your goal is to run a marathon, drop 20 pounds, or build an NFL-ready bench press, it won’t happen instantly....
BY EBENEZER SAMUEL, C.S.C.S. You’ve trained hard and pushed yourself throughout all of 2024 (especially if you’ve followed all our SMRTFT workouts). But how exactly do you navigate the final weeks of the year, when the mind is overwhelmed with...
BY EBENEZER SAMUEL, C.S.C.S. Between the holidays and last-minute work projects, and winter weather issues, the last thing you have time for in December is a body-slamming, sweat-inducing, hour-long workout every single day. But that doesn’t mean you have to...
THE ULTIMATE GO-HEAVY DUMBBELL WORKOUT
BY EBENEZER SAMUEL, C.S.C.S. To get the most out of your strength training, at some point, you’ll need to train heavy. Pushing the limits of what you can lift is critical to building strength. It helps in other ways, too,...
AVOID THESE BEGINNER GOBLET SQUAT MISTAKES
BY EBENEZER SAMUEL, C.S.C.S. Few exercises build compete leg strength better than the goblet squat. The most underestimated of squat variations, the goblet squat has you holding a dumbbell at your chest as you lower into the bottom of a...
CAN YOUR WORKOUT HELP YOU DESTRESS?
BY EBENEZER SAMUEL, C.S.C.S. You know that a good workout can help build muscle and strength. But one forgotten training benefit: It can help you decrease stress. Proper training helps alleviate stress by driving mood-boosting endorphins and providing an outlet...