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Old Lives Matter

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Hey omorfe (reminder, that’s Greek for good-looking man) What follows is a small rant about a topic that has been percolating for some time now in my mind. Everything started while I was listening to a Bill Pearl interview, one of the world’s greatest bodybuilders and overall amazing human being.  He said that in the first version of his magnificent Keys To The Inner Universe book, he used photos of him for the exercises. That was a few decades back. However, in the latest version (the one I have) he’s using graphics. The reason for the switch? As he explained, the photos looked old. So if people new to his world and the industry saw the photos, they’d pay less attention to the book’s information. All because the photos looked antiquated.  Now, if this is the one of the biggest malakies (B.S. in Greek) plaguing mankind, I don’t know what is.  Just because something looks (or even is) old loses effectiveness? Gimme a freaking break. One of the most influential guys in marketing and adv
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Why Google probably wants you fat

 Hey omorfe, A while ago I Googled "how to lose weight" for fun.  And the first piece of advice I got was generic malakies (that's B.S. in Greek) like this: * Eat a high protein breakfast * Avoid sugary drinks and fruit juice * Drink water before meals * Choose weight-loss-friendly foods * Eat soluble fiber * Drink coffee or tea * Base your diet on whole foods * Eat slowly Some of those tips are decent, like eating slowly (your brain needs time to send the "OK, we're satiated" signal) and drinking coffee (helps lower appetite) But others aren't. Example:  Not everyone can eat breakfast, whether it's high in protein or not. Also, eating breakfast doesn't magically boost your metabolism and help you get rid of the extra flab. In fact, many of my clients prefer skipping breakfast, and they still lose weight and fat (losing the latter fat is more important, btw) So there's nothing magical about it. Or take the "drink water before meals"
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how good looking men can train around a low back injury

 Hey omorfe, (reminder, that's Greek for good-looking man) Let's start by tackling the most burning question you might have: "Is this article only for good-looking men, Fotis??? What if I consider so-so in terms of looks?" Look, me calling everyone who reads me a good-looking man is part of my brand. It's clear men worldwide don't get the love, respect and recognition they deserve. When I call you a good-looking dude, I do it because I try to put a smile on your face and make your day. If you think "boohoo I'm not good-looking enough" you're missing the point. Anyway, let's move on to less interesting stuff: Every once in a while I get people asking me how to train around a low back injury. Here are a few of my suggestions: * tweak exercises that hurt If Romanian Deadlifts (RDL) hurt, tweak your technique a bit. For example, I've minimized and even eliminated RDL-specific pain by asking people to change their foot position. Tiny techn
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My daily challenge for the month of February

 Hey omorfe, (reminder, that's Greek for good looking man) Yesterday I announced the F.F.F. challenge. If you missed it, read the latest article on my blog for the deets. Today I'll share the challenge I shall tackle for February. Here it is: Each day I'll train two upper body lifts. Those lifts are the ones mentioned in my "4+1 upper body lifts I always try to include in my programs" piece. In case you missed it, here they are:  "1) Single Arm Girlfriend/Wife/Side-chick/ Mistress Curl You ask your girl to hang from your arm. When she does so, you try to curl her. Performing even one rep will put you at the pinnacle of all humans. You'll be a strong and muscular mofo and I doubt I'll have anything left to teach you. But until you do so, let's see 4 more conventional exercises: 2) Hammer grip pull ups  - Really dig those, especially if you can do them with handles or rings. Great back and bicep builder 3) Inverted rows  - Another great back and bic
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Announcing the F.F.F. challenge

 Hey omorfe, (reminder, that's Greek for good looking man) Since today is February 1st, I thought it would be cool to do another monthly challenge. If you were around back in summer, you might remember my S.S.J. or Swole Shoulders July challenge (if you don't, well that's another reason to join my glorious email list ) The goal was to perform a shoulder exercise daily while following a couple of rules. At the end of the month, whoever followed along was pretty darned happy with his delt gains. We'll do something similar with F.F.F. But first, what does it stand for? It's... Fenomenal Frequency February Yes, yes, I know. It's not f-enomenal, it's ph-enomenal. But damn it, I wanted that triple F and decided to (once again) butcher the English language. What's the concept? This month you'll pick one task to do daily. Here's where it gets interesting: 1) You're free to pick the task yourself (I'll provide a few suggestions later) 2) It doesn&
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r/fitnesscirclejerk Versus Fotis Chatzinicolaou

  r/fitnesscirclejerk Versus Fotis Chatzinicolaou Hey omorfe, (reminder this mean good-looking man in Greek) Yesterday, r/fitnesscirclejerk (a subreddit on, um, Reddit) shared my “one exercise to banish in 2022” piece. As expected, most of the comments were A+ entertainment. Plus, they only focused on my training recommendations and humor. Imagine what would happen if they also knew that I: hit on multiple girls on the public almost daily paint my nails dark green am an anime/manga geek who rewatches/rereads his favorite series multiple times prefer supporting animal shelters over big non-profit organizations that help hoomans believe Donal Trump is someone to study if you’re interested in becoming successful (Success, after all, is your ability to hit your goals and is a morally neutral word) Anyway, let’s see a few of those comments along with my thoughts: HTUT-2 D-2 wrote: “That whole user reads like someone put a lot of time and effort into a satirical account to avoid dealing with
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here's how NOT to deal with food cravings

 Hey omorfe, Every Sunday I'm visiting my parents. And my mom is *always* buying me some amazing ice cream (yes, even during winter). What's interesting is that I ate the ice cream at 2pm today. And, I'm betting you euros to donuts, tomorrow at 2:30pm, I'll get cravings for sweets. Note: this is  not  accidental. Your body will send craving signals after 20-30 hours and try to make you gorge on junk food. If you can resist the tempation, you'll be good to go (at least for the next few days) Speaking of cravings, here's a question I saw a while ago: "Im on day 8 of eating healthy and I'm having terrible cravings to get either a bag of chips, or a brownie. I know about moderation but that doesn't work on me. If I go buy a small bowl of chips, my brains gonna go "well there's more right there, why not go for that too?" as soon as i finish a reasonable until ive finished all of it. I've tried everything to only eat a small amount, but
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