Just giving you all heads up that I FINALLY am commencing recording "The Art of Sliding Bench Training" course (in about 20min) to be exact. Plan is to really just nail down everything as this week and hopefully release at least 1-3 modules, but possibly the whole thing by the end of next week. The goal is to ultimately summarize everything I've learned about these machines from why it's an ideal machine, to exercises, technique, progression, programming, and how workout design. Let me know if there's any other suggestions and things you want to see. I'll do my best to fit them in. After this is out possibly bands or the "hybrid system" will be next. Still haven't plugged this group (which probably isn't smart) but once that course is done, we'll hopefully have some company more company in here. Hope you all are doing well, Mike

Folks!! I used to like grabbing resistance bands and tying them off on our deck railing and enjoying the good weather! I wanna know what other folks' creative setups are for outdoor "gyms"!

Figured I'd drop this over to you guys as I'm feeling the urge to make another total gym video and or band video on the channel. Let me know if there's a workout and or related training video you want to see. Summer is lining up though for both some very cool band and sliding bench content regardless if everything goes as planned. Hope you all are doing and performing well, Mike

Whatup Buttercups; figured this might be useful to share for others as possible inspiration (not intended to be a pat me on the back story). Background Babble Turning 40 this year; although people frequently think I'm late 20s (got to be doing something right, right?) For most of my life: - sat around 130–145 lbs weight range - strong nutrition discipline (20+ years) - no real structured strength training - work very hard-play hard mentality Complications early in life: - hood background so wasn’t exposed to people who ate well/worked out/lived normal lifes - metal plate in leg (15) from skateboarding - experimental spine surgery (17) w/ full spinal cage top to bottom; still in place So for years, lifting wasn’t just ignored it was intentionally avoided due to risk, low knowledge and poor guidance. Years of chronic pain. One thing became obvious early: eat poorly = inflammation and increased chronic back pain eat clean = you can function That shaped everything around longevity. Training-wise, I always assumed lifting was off the table due to back pain and the fear mongering the doctors told me at the time (pretty much never do anything physical). Every time I tried, it either felt off or the few people I hired didn’t understand the hardware in me and would recommend high probability of getting hurt exercises. So I stuck to: - walking + biking - yoga (helped mitigate pain) - what I’d call “farm strength” through my career (mini-deadlifting objects all day 50lbs-400lbs) Enough to function, maybe arguably keep me in good health but nothing over the top. The Mindset Shift Around July 2025 (~135 lbs), made a call: goal = not ending up physically fragile later in life as a 60-year old man already at a defecit with all the metal implants. I needed real strength, not just “movement”. Started with kettlebells because it felt “safe enough” to test. KB Attempts: - basic KB work - Dan John’s ABC + other programs (squats/presses/curls) - Pavel Tsatsouline’s Right of Passage progression (presses/pull-ups/squats)

Lately I’ve been running a pretty simple upper/lower split again because it fits my schedule / recovery best. . One thing I’ve noticed though, is I feel best when I actually give myself about 3 full days before hitting the same area again. So what I’ve been experimenting with recently is: - Upper - Rest - Lower - Rest - Repeat It’s technically a little lower frequency, but honestly it’s been working really well. I feel more recovered, workouts feel better, and it’s freed up some time with everything else I’ve got going on. I’ll probably look to add a bit more walking/cardio as we get into summer, but for now this setup has been working fairly good where I'm feeling pretty fresh each time without any regressions. Also quick note, I know I haven’t been posting a ton in here, it's going to probably be like that I until I get that first course going. I do want this to be a place where you guys can share and help each other out too, so feel free to jump in, keep things positive, and keep it centered around training. Curious what kinds of splits you guys are using and more importantly, is it actually working for you?