Best Practices, Not Trends

In our conversations, we often talk about best practices. In strength and fitness training, those best practices are straightforward: proper technique and consistency. When these two elements are present, results follow regardless of individual fitness goals. Exercise selection matters, but it plays a secondary role compared to mastering fundamentals. Trends in equipment and training styles may add variety and market appeal, but they do not inherently produce better outcomes.

Nutrition is the other pillar of health and fitness, and it is where agreement breaks down most dramatically. Debate surrounds vegetarian and vegan diets, high-protein intake, carbohydrate restriction, intermittent fasting, caloric restriction, bulking and cutting, carnivore diets, meal timing, supplementation, creatine, and more. It is ethically inappropriate for a fitness professional who is not a licensed or certified nutritionist to provide specific meal plans. Even when credentials are present, experience often warrants skepticism toward rigid or absolutist protocols.

The nutritional approach I find most defensible is a plant-based diet, though not necessarily an animal-free one. This view is informed by academic training, research, and anecdotal evidence. Still, in the absence of definitive long-term, controlled studies, I remain cautious. Unlike training principles, nutrition does not yet allow for the same degree of certainty, and I present it accordingly.

I am wary of fitness and nutrition fads, though I try to remain open to genuine innovation. Social media, fueled by monetization, has created fertile ground for exaggerated claims and outright charlatanism. AI has only amplified this trend. A recent example is the Netflix documentary Untold: The Liver King, which encapsulates everything corrosive about the pursuit of “optimal” health as spectacle. It is worth watching—not as instruction, but as a cautionary tale that speaks to something deeply human.

The guiding principle remains simple: focus on what works, question what doesn’t, and stay committed to long-term progress over short-term hype. Technique, consistency, and thoughtful decision-making, both in training and in life, outlast every trend.