Author Archives: FormIsEverything

I recently let myself off the hook, and it was probably one of the best decisions I have made for my health. I was coming off my umpteenth “failure” at trying to seriously tighten my eating window. A tight eating window is another term for “intermittent fasting”, which means some flavor of not eating forContinue reading “Do I Really Need to Do Intermittent Fasting?”

Here at Form Is Everything we are about basic calisthenics exercises and programs for building strength and muscle with minimal injury risk and for any age and experience level. Rather than progressing towards skills or more and more difficult versions of the exercises, we build strength by improving technique, adding manageable volume, and increasing frequencyContinue reading “Your One-Year Muscle Building Calisthenics Template to Go from Beginner to Advanced at Any Age”

Here are the undisputed truths that we face as we get older: we need more than ever to move frequently but actually move less frequently due to sedentary jobs, long commutes, fatigue, aches and pains, and demands on our time. We need strength training to improve health and counteract loss of muscle mass but oftenContinue reading “My Incredibly Simple and Effective Health and Fitness Template: The Rule of Twos”

I use basic calisthenics exercises to build strength and muscle and preserve and improve mobility, flexibility and joint health. The workout discussed here, and shown in the video linked below, is a complete intermediate workout for those who are interested in building strength and muscle with basic exercises rather than progressing towards skills, and forContinue reading “A Complete Intermediate Calisthenics Workout for People Over 40”

An accessory to the fashion trend called The Paleo Diet is The Barefoot Shoe. Just as every upstanding Neanderthal watched his or her carbs, sprinted once a week, and made bone broth, so did the health-conscious cave-woman, man and child wear the latest barefoot shoes from Vibram. I discovered this when I became interested inContinue reading “Barefoot Shoes: A Cautionary Tale (The Flimzy Shooz Blooz)”

Continuing from my last article on how to progress body-weight calisthenics strength and muscle building outside of conventional means like increasing reps, increasing volume, and moving to more difficult exercises, I’m taking a look at the Mind-Muscle connection and how we might be able to progress by focusing on it. The Mind-Muscle connection always seemedContinue reading “On Progress and the Mind-Muscle Connection”

Traditional notions of “progress” in strength training are ubiquitous but you need to know that they have an expiration date. In weight training, progress means adding more weight, sets, reps or training days. In calisthenics, substitute harder exercises for more weight. For example, as a beginner, you may start with knee push-ups for two setsContinue reading “On Progress and Using Concepts Instead of Programming”

I love the micro-workout approach to strength training. There are a lot of ways to approach micro-workouts. For me, they are a way to break up a single workout into several parts and spread those parts throughout the day. For example, a typical full-body workout for me would be three sets of push-ups, three setsContinue reading “The Problem With Micro-Workouts”

This is Part 2 of my interview with San Diego Fitness trainer and high frequency basic calisthenics advocate Kyle Boggeman. You can read Part 1 here. Steve: In my own experience, one of the biggest challenges with frequent training is how to reconcile fatigue with the concept of making “progress”. In fact, you have toldContinue reading “The Power of High Frequency Basic Calisthenics Training: Interview With Kyle Boggeman, Part 2”

Back when I started training calisthenics I was very excited about the potential for building strength and muscle with basic movements such as push-ups, pull-ups and squats. That excitement has not waned ten years later and has served as the basis for my humble little book on the subject. Although calisthenics skills such as theContinue reading “The Power of High Frequency Basic Calisthenics Training: Interview With Kyle Boggeman, Part 1”