You’re nothing more than a bag of wires and some water. If you don’t think a fight with your girlfriend or a stressful work meeting can affect your back pain and the quality of your workouts, you don’t really see the full picture.
One of my 2026 goals is to convince more people of the direct, uninterrupted connection between muscular pain and one’s neurological state.
Muscle pain, especially back pain, is just an electrical signal from the body to the brain sent to alert the user of potential danger. Your goal in life shouldn’t be to completely ignore pain, nor heed to its every call. It’s to make the highest quality decision that you can possibly make given the circumstances.
So what do you do? The all or nothing attitude that is incredibly pervasive in gym culture and American culture is totally counterintuitive. Long-term gym rats know that the only real way to see consistent progress, especially in the face of unpredictable schedules and periods of stress, is moderation and maturity.
Not every session can be all-out assault, you need periods of undulating intensity.
Tough night of sleep? Drop your weights by 15% and focus on getting a good squeeze.
Few too many drinks last night? Maybe spend a few minutes stretching before you start lifting.
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01/02/2026
Lil late but 2025 WAS THE CRAZIEST YEAR EVER.
•Monster burnout.
•Left my favorite city. Moved to New Haven.
•Sabbatical. Travelled through Europe for three months.
•Huge emotional reset.
•Working with clients all over the globe.
•Went to City Hall and got married (featuring )
•Now building the dream gym in my backyard.
It was a challenging year. Full of growth, emotions, and exploration (physical and mental).
I’m ready for 2026. Full steam ahead: heart open and mind refocused.
Love all my friends and family.
SENZA FRETTA SENZA RUMORE SENZA PROMESSE INUTILI JAMME JA 🔒
This modified pigeon pose is fantastic because it ticks a few boxes at once: thoracic rotation, glute, and potential QL stretching as well.
If you’re bound to the office chair all day, or you just got off a long flight, this is the exercise for you. I also give it to my golf guys who need lumbopelvic rotation but crunch numbers all day.
I coach a small roster of folks who want to lift pain-free. If that’s you, send me a message and let’s talk today.
10/26/2025
Meaning exists not in the outrageously spectacular, but in the deeply seen ordinary.
I’ll be back in two weeks. So grateful for the rest.
09/28/2025
DM me for more humorous internet images and the best 1:1 coaching this side of the Milky Way
09/23/2025
Rest is nothing like you think it is. Rest isn’t “earned,” or even “deserved.” Rest is how you get stronger.
Fatigue is nothing but a chemical signal from your brain. Since your body is obsessed with maintaining homeostasis, your brain will send the sleepy signal as soon as fatigue presents a big enough threat to your body’s balance beam.
When you get banged up, or are going through a particularly stressful time, ignoring rest doesn’t make you “tough.” It just makes you stupid.
When I reached critical burnout in New York, I pretty much ignored all of these signals. I thought my lack of external stressors like kids, a real job, and whatever else pulls people down should make my fatigue “not real.”
It was wicked stupid! Don’t be like me!
Whether it’s an injury of the body or the mind, you’ve gotta stay honest with yourself. The pause I’m giving myself has already rejuvenated me beyond what I thought previously possible.
Make your future self proud.
07/25/2025
Pain is complex, but can usually be solved with the simplest of remedies. It’ll come up again, and that’s okay. The temple is never complete, always under restoration.
Your physical, spiritual, and emotional health amalgamate into a beautifully interconnected network of signals and receptors. Have fun with your friends. Eat slowly. Be yourself. There’s plenty of everyone else.
07/17/2025
I’m upset at the amount of slop I see on my fitness feed. I want there to be less of it.
Millions of people are turning to AI tools for guidance on health-related questions. This is not a future risk, this is not something that might happen down the road. There is a legitimate breakdown between peoples internal understanding of their own bodies and what can be done to improve it.
I think everyday maladies can be ameliorated with AI. But right now, the average person doesn’t have the tacit knowledge to understand if the information that’s being given to them is false.
Study: assessing the system – instruction vulnerabilities of large language models to malicious conversion into health disinformation chat bots. 24 June 2025, Annals of Internal Medicine. Modi, Menz, et. Al
07/08/2025
Thank you for the years. Gratitude. Amore.
love,
steve
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