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What Is Epsom Salt? The scientific term for Epsom salt is magnesium sulfate heptahydrate (usually shortened to magnesium sulfate), a chemical compound made up of magnesium, sulfur, and oxygen. It takes its name from Epsom, the town in Surrey, England where it was discovered. Epsom Salt: Uses...

What Is CLA? CLA stands for conjugated linoleic acid and refers to a group of naturally occurring fatty acids. CLA is found primarily in the meat and dairy of ruminants such as cows, goats, sheep, and buffalo, though the amount can vary depending on the animal’s diet, altitude, breed, and...

The hack squat is a lower-body exercise involving a hack squat machine. It’s a go-to exercise for many gym-goers because it trains your entire lower body without stressing your knees and back as much as other free-weight squatting exercises. What’s more, it helps you develop lower-body...

Do you need a better strength training program or do you just need to work harder? Research conducted by scientists at Solent University may help you answer that question. After parsing 18 studies examining how hard people habitually train, the researchers found that when people were told to...

by Greg Nuckols What does it take to reach your strength potential? And what do the steps to do so look like? I couldn’t find a complete, accessible overview anywhere, so I decided to make it myself. This article will be the anchor for the website. It’s a comprehensive framework, meant to get...

…And How to Fix Them The King of Messed-Up Exercises Whether or not the squat is the “king of all exercises” can be debated, but one thing is certain: The back squat is the most commonly screwed-up exercise on the planet. Here are the 11 most common ways lifters mess it up. 1. Lack of...

By Bret Contreras Was your father Zeus or Odin? Did you ever have a favorable exposure to Gamma radiation? Have you ever been bitten by a radioactive genetically modified spider? No? Well maybe you hit the genetic lottery then when it came to strength. We all know or have seen people who...

The gym can be an intimidating place. Besides the grunting and the weights dropping, there is a secret code of conduct that is totally foreign to any newcomer on what to do and not to do. These rules of etiquette aren’t just for newbies! I see a lot of “veterans” who completely disregard them...

By Aadam | Remember that scene in The Matrix where Neo’s having Kung Fu training uploaded directly into his brain and at the end he’s all like, “I know Kung-fu”? Well, I hate to break it to you, but he was wrong. He didn’t actually know kung-fu. He only thought he knew kung-fu: Meaning, he...

Sometime in the late 1800s—nobody is quite sure exactly when—a man named Vilfredo Pareto was fussing about in his garden when he made a small but interesting discovery. Pareto noticed that a tiny number of pea pods in his garden produced the majority of the peas. Now, Pareto was a very...

The economist J.K. Galbraith once wrote, “Faced with a choice between changing one’s mind and proving there is no need to do so, almost everyone gets busy with the proof.” Leo Tolstoy was even bolder: “The most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow-witted man if he has not formed...

In the grand scheme of things, I have little to nothing figured out. But just in case I’ve stumbled on something that could help you, here are a few ideas about living well, doing good, and making life better. If you want to change your life, then change your identity. All behavior is belief...

Remember that scene in The Matrix where Neo’s having Kung Fu training uploaded directly into his brain and at the end he’s all like, “I know Kung-fu”? Well, I hate to break it to you, but he was wrong. He didn’t actually know kung-fu. He only thought he knew kung-fu: Meaning, he understood kung...

What Is Hyperbolic Discounting? As humans, we like to believe we are well informed, forward-thinking, and consistent in our preferences. Unfortunately for us, many scientific studies have shown this simply isn’t true—we almost always prefer immediate gratification even when the future reward...

The places that you go, the events that you attend and a lot of your daily decisions surround your workout. You try your best to plan your hangouts, make your work schedule fit and of course, make it so you can obtain a good night of sleep before hitting the weights the following day. One thing...

The fitness industry is filled with misinformation. I am reminded of this every time I scroll through Twitter, Instagram and Facebook and see my newsfeed lined with garbage. Surprisingly this actually ticks me off. How are uninformed people supposed to find quality nutrition information? I mean...

Whether or not you should wear a lifting belt is a surprisingly contentious subject. Some people are adamant that you should always wear a belt with the opinion they dramatically decrease your injury risk. Other people are adamant that you should never wear a belt, either because they think...

As we age, the general belief is that muscle loss and increased fat gain are inevitable. This is false. In this article, you'll learn how to continue building muscle mass as you age. You’ve probably had an older friend or relative tell you that after you hit your late thirties, everything goes...

And Why Strategies Beat Diets The Problem With The D-Word The thing about “diets” is that they can become a serious burden. If you try to dramatically change everything about your eating at once, you’ll likely fail. So a better goal is to become mentally prepared to eat better at every...

Low FODMAP vs. Gluten-Free Diet Gluten-Free or Rational Thought-Free? I blame that tennis player for most of today’s gluten tomfoolery. Yeah, Novak Djokovic. Here’s the ridiculous way it went down: In 2010, Djokovic met with Dr. Igor Cetojevic, a Bosnian Serb who theorized that Djokovic’s...