CityWide SuperSlow Blog

Its so hard to believe, but next month will mark 11 years of using high intensity; slow strength training as my sole form of exercise.

Anyone who has read my posts knows I'm an iconoclast.  I'm not that way just to be controversial.  I truly believe that most of the conventional wisdom regarding health and fitness is wrong.  I certainly put my money where my mouth is when we opened a fitness place that believes that exercise should be done once or twice a week for only 20 minutes.  There are times, at CWSS, when we even have mini disagreements among ourselves.  Even though we are all fit and lean, we still debate, around the edges, on the best ways to get there.  This proves that there are many paths to the promised land.  Below is one of mine.

The question posed to me was: How do you get through the holidays without eating lots of sugary desserts (and other bad stuff)?

Conventional wisdom says: The key is moderation.  Moderation in everything is good.  There are dietary things that are bad for you.  We should reduce our consumption of them, sugar being the worst.  Everyone’s allowed a “cheat” once in a while.

Sorry, I don’t buy it.

After becoming a believer in slow; super intense exercise I decided I wanted to open a place in Chicago where there was a ton of people and no facilities.  It was fortuitous to be introduced to a young lady, Jessie Schoenfeldt, who had a desire to have her own facility but had no money.  Perfect.  I put up the cash; she was prepared to manage it.

I then thought "how cool would it be to include Denise?".  I could simply give her half of my half of the arrangement and we could have a common interest.  Some people go to art museums; some collect antiques.  I thought it would be fun for us to share a business.  And why not one we both had a passion for?