This is John and Anna from Charlottesville. We’re Busy. We’re parents of three fun, goofy, loud, loving, and wild children. We have our day jobs. We run some gyms! We do our best to keep up with maintenance and cleaning of our house and vehicles. We’re busy! There’s a lot left off that list and of course the details may look different from yours, but at the end of the day, we’re busy just like pretty much everyone else.

It’s hard not to want everything now. So much of our existence seemingly revolves around instant gratification. If I want to watch a particular movie I can have it playing on any of my devices in a matter of minutes. If I want a particular kind of food for dinner I can have it delivered to my house in thirty minutes or less. The more technology we create as a society, the less we collectively have to wait to get what we want.

The article that I reviewed for this discussion is “Evidence for an Upper Threshold for Resistance Training Volume in Trained Women” and it address the debate of lower volume versus higher volume training. The big debate of less versus more when it comes to what stimulates muscle growth. Women performing resistance training (RT) has been on the rise over the last decade, which brings up the benefits of RT. The authors conducting the experiment mention how RT helps strengthen bone mineral density, which prevents osteoporosis (more common in older women), improves maternal health and delivery for pregnancy, and helps breast cancer survivors.

I came across this video with Will Smith talking about self-esteem the other day, and I found his analogy to describe my feelings every time I used to walk into a crowded gym. I played sports in High School, knew my way around the weight room, but for some reason in a traditional gym atmosphere I always felt like I was being critiqued, or put in a particular bucket by other members of the gym.

If you’re into the gym and follow enough fitness accounts, I’m sure your ads are full of the newest percussion gun, foam roller, or self myofascial release tool. Not going to call out any company specifically, but what I will say is…they don’t do what they say they do. Their goal is to sell a product that makes you feel good after you use it, but are you actually better?