Note: I have a new feature in my fitness articles: “Five Great Stories I’ve Read Recently,” where I highlight Medium articles that I think deserve to be championed. So, if you’re not really interested in the fitness information (and I hope you are!) feel free to skim to the bottom. Either way…thanks for reading!

Let’s imagine for a moment that you could take a magic pill that would guarantee all the aesthetic and functional benefits of exercise. You could have rock hard abs and the strength and flexibility you needed to navigate the necessities of life without injury.

There’s just one catch: you could never actually exercise again, because it would undo all the effects of the pill. Would you take it? Many people would, and I could hardly blame them. Achieving fitness in our stressed and sedentary world is hard. But, in the famous catchphrase of Lieutenant Columbo, “There’s just one more thing…”

That pill would negate one of the most important benefits (perhaps the most important benefit) of exercise: how it makes you feel.

To be perfectly clear, I’m not talking about my daily regimen of body weight squats and push-ups. I don’t particularly enjoy those. But I do them because I want to mitigate the muscle and bone density loss associated with aging. They’re a necessary part of life that’s painful in the moment, but yield big benefits in the long-term. Kind of like saving for your retirement.

And then there’s cycling. Cycling is to me what riding a tube is to surfers: it’s spiritual. It’s a way of seeing the world. From mountain top panoramas to slices of city life in my own backyard — I’m privy to all of them on my bike. And the best part of cycling is that all my flaws, foibles, and fears melt away when I’m cycling up a huge hill. It’s just the rhythmic cadence of my breath and the small “whir” of the gears shifting. The dark clouds on the horizon recede, and the endorphins kick in.

Put very succinctly, cycling helps me manage depression.

Let’s talk about the “D” word. Even in 2026, the topic is still verboten, which is odd, considering that millions of people suffer from it.

Just to clarify: I’m not talking about the debilitating, life-sucking, I can’t get out of bed variant called “clinical” depression. (Although, studies have shown exercise can help with that as well.) Nor am I suggesting that many people couldn’t (or shouldn’t) benefit from medical interventions or therapy. Those have been proven to work.

But for people like myself who experience depression as a frequent, unwelcome and mostly manageable presence, there’s an antidote that’s inexpensive, convenient, and widely available.

It’s called exercise. And science backs me up.

Summarizing the findings of a recent study, lead author Kamela Choi PhD, an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School/Massachusetts General Hospital, wrote that on average, about 35 additional minutes of physical activity each day may help people to reduce their risk and protect against future depression episodes.

According to the study, both high intensity exercising (e.g. running, cycling etc.) and lower intensity movement such as yoga were linked to decreased odds of depression. The study indicated that individuals could see a 17 percent reduction in odds of a new episode of depression for each added four-hour block of activity per week.

Exercise helps mitigate depression in two ways: it floods your body with endorphins and facilitates the release of proteins called “neurotrophic factors.”

Endorphins are the “feel-good” hormones that are released when you’re having sex or skydiving. They’re usually associated with intense physical activity, and are synonymous with phrases such as the “runner’s high.” When I’m cycling, it’s the rush of endorphins that I’m chasing.

Many people, however, don’t feel inclined to cycle up huge hills, or run fast (and long) enough to achieve a “high.” The good news is … they don’t have to. That’s where the benefits of lower-intensity exercise comes in.

In explaining the role of neurotrophic factors, Dr. Craig Miller, assistant professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, said that in people who are depressed, neuroscientists have noticed that the hippocampus in the brain (the region that helps regulate mood) is smaller.

“Exercise of any intensity supports nerve cell growth in the hippocampus, improving nerve cell connections, which helps relieve depression,” according to Dr. Miller, who added for people suffering from mild depression, exercise can be equally as effective as medication.

The connection between neurotrophins and exercise was also underscored in another recent scientific study. In a recent PubMed article, Dr. Cristy Phillips, an Associate Professor at Arkansas State University, wrote

“evidence suggests that physical activity reduces the risk for MDD (clinical depression), mitigates symptoms, facilitates recovery, lowers the incidence of relapse, and decreases overall caregiver burden.

“Undoubtedly, many of the positive effects of physical activity on brain health and function derive from its ability to optimize central levels of brain-derived neurotrophic factor, particularly in the hippocampus.”

In non-scientific jargon, this means move … and you’ll feel better. Gardening, pickleball, yoga, weight training, pole-dancing, basketball, etc. It doesn’t matter. Move fast. Move slowly. Or somewhere in between. Exercise is one of the best medications out there. No prescriptions required.

f you found this article useful, please consider sharing it. Forwarding fitness articles boosts your metabolism!

Joshua Brandt is an Oakland, CA based Certified Personal Trainer through the National Association of Sports Medicine.

Five great Medium stories I read recently…

Paul Yee used mahjong as a metaphor for culture and assimilation. As a child of the 70s, I particularly enjoyed the incongruity of the southern fried classic The Dukes of Hazzard playing in the background while the author’s elderly Chinese relatives conversed in Cantonese.

The hands move at high speed, stacking the tiles and erecting a fortress of four intersecting walls. Following a dice roll, a wall is pulled apart and quickly dismantled as the hands alternate grabbing fistfuls of blocks.

From the slinging of tiles to the energetic Chinese banter, everything about this scene mesmerizes me. I forget for the moment my anxieties as an Asian kid navigating life in America. Typically I shun anything to do with my heritage, aching instead to be cool like Bo and Luke Duke.

Jojo Teckina wrote a touching ode to an artist who died recently and had inspired her as a child. She took a few pages from Michael Hague’s book “The Wind and the Willows,” and demonstrated what a profound impact the author had on her.

JoJo is a designer and illustrator, and the illustrations spoke to her with a resonance, depth, and clarity that eluded me. I saw a two dimensional page — and JoJo heard a symphony. That’s a gift.

He made images sound clear as a bell, producing melodies with nothing but color and texture. Running my fingers over these pages, I heard symphonies in my head. I felt the biting wind of winter’s snowy night, whistling over Ratty’s cold nose and stinging eyes. I could hear the deep blue ice tinkling in the image as it covered everything.

In the next scene, I can hear the cicadas humming, the breeze blowing, and grass rustling as the animals and flowers bathe in the green glow of a hot summer day. The heat is oppressive, but the smell is fresh, yellow, and wholesome.

When an artist can create that much sound on a flat surface, it’s nothing short of a miracle. As a child, I craved miracles in my life, and his paintings took me to concerts I had no idea I was missing.

“How will we be remembered?” is a profound and existential question. Three recent stories wrestled with that question in markedly different ways.

Debra Groves Harman looks back fondly on youthful memories of growing up on a farmhouse and canning fruit. The wistfulness is as rich and dusky as the terroir she so movingly describes.

I don’t have children; no one will remember me working in the dimly lit night, lighting the flame and watching the steaming water rise from the vat.No one will do this after me, using my canning pot and magnetic lid tool. My wooden spoon stained purple.

My old ’60s era farmhouse vibrates with the ghosts of my grandparents. Shutting my eyes, I can hear them calling, “Wipe your feet!” before I run in, ten years old, in a dress made from two dishtowels sewn together.

I grew up on this farm, the soil so rich it smells like chocolate.

Kimber J Klein was motivated by the tragic and unexpected death of her former boss to pursue a long-held dream. It’s as funny as it is touching.

I was left confused and absorbed in some pretty heavy soul searching, which often happens after the death of someone close to you. Someone whose time shouldn’t have come, a death that didn’t make sense. It always serves as a reminder that life is short, and whatever you have wanted to do, you better do it now. Get busy putting those check marks on your bucket list.

I decided to pursue one of the dreams I had, which was to attend a pastry program at the local culinary school. I was feeling a little lost and just wanted to disappear for a while in one of those oversized white jackets and bury myself in flour and sugar. So I applied, and was accepted.

Lastly, A.R. Jacobs wrote a piece that’s stayed with me nearly a week after reading it. What do we do with the quotidian items that contain the kernels of a loved one’s legacy? What do we keep and for how long? It’s an ineffable question, and one that the author treats with dignity and grace.

I read it three times. It’s worth it.

Five years ago, a stack of papers, nearly toddler height, commandeered a chair in my dining room. And like a toddler, the papers demanded attention. I could feel them glare at me every time I passed by.

They were the medical records — every scrap of medical history — of my husband’s symptoms, his diagnosis, and his treatment. Of his passing.

It was almost as hard to let go of the papers as it had been to let go of him.

Please support these writers and please support HUMAN WRITTEN work!

Note: I have a new feature in my fitness articles: “Five Great Stories I’ve Read Recently,” where I highlight Medium articles that I think deserve to be championed. So, if you’re not really interested in the fitness information (and I hope you are!) feel free to skim to the bottom. Either way…thanks for reading!

The San Francisco gym I used to work at might’ve been cooked up by the “Onion.” The trainers were vaguely androgynous, definitively standoffish, and exquisitely toned. Clients were treated with post-workout hot towels infused with lavender, and uplifted by posters with pithy expressions such as “Once you’re headed in the direction of your goals, nothing can stop you.” A small section of the gym was reserved for “contemplation.”

But perhaps the most distinguishing characteristic of the gym was its exercise equipment. Hanging from the ceiling was several pieces of plastic “fruit” (bananas, oranges, etc.) that functioned as the equivalent of playground “monkey bars” — except ten times more difficult. The fruit was very hard to grip, so hand strength was essential. But the biggest challenge was having the core strength to swing from one piece of fruit to the next, because they were unstable, and not attached to each other like they usually are in a playground.

In the two years that I worked there, I only saw two people successfully traverse the seven pieces of fruit. One was the gym owner. And the other was one of my closest friends (and client) Michael Harris. The crucial caveat is that Michael was 68 at the time.

I’ve written about Michael before. Imagine a really ripped version of the “Most Interesting Man in the World,” and you might have Michael. Maybe. Except for the fact that Michael can sprint faster than most men half his age and has calves that “could crack walnuts,” in the memorable words of a stranger we met while hiking through Glacier National Park. Michael has a myriad of monikers including “The Septuagenarian Samson,” “The Mentor” and my personal favorite, “Grandfather Heat.”

But, similar to other mythical characters, Michael has an “achilles heel” — his flexibility. Similar to other people that work in an office environment, Michael has extremely tight hip flexors, adductors, traps, and deltoids. I invented a series of movements that addressed these areas, and Michael liked it so much, he requested that I do three sets of them rather than one. Hence, the “Harris Triples” was born.

Here’s what it looks like. Before we start, an important disclaimer:

“Please be cautious when performing these exercises. If you have any pre-existing injuries, please consult a licensed professional before attempting. Be careful operating under the “no pain … no gain” mantra. The people that carelessly follow that mantra often end up with too much of the former and not enough of the latter.“

To start, get yourself in a standard push-up position, with hands shoulder length apart and feet wide. Move one foot forward and place it on the ground with your knee bent at 90 degrees. Now take the arm closest to the forward foot and bring your elbow in a bent position down to the ground on the inside of the foot. The movement looks like the picture below:

Note how my back (supporting) leg is straight. Only go as far down as your flexibility or discomfort level will allow while keeping the anchor leg straight. Hold for a five second count. This movement works muscle groups including the ab complex and the adductors (the groin muscles).

The next step is to raise the arm that was bent toward your knee and raise it straight into the air while trying to keep both arms aligned with each other. Aim for a five second hold again. Repeat both movements on each side. Now, you’re incorporating more of the ab complex, in addition to the lats and serrati (side muscles) and the deltoids and traps (shoulder and back complex). You can see the movement in the top photo below the headline.

Next, after going back to a neutral push-up position, spring forward with both legs and go into a deep squat by placing both palms on the ground and lowering your butt. Place your feet wide. (If you have balky knees, simply step forward into the squat) The squat should look like this:

Hold for a ten second count. If you can’t go all the way down (and many people can’t) only go to your comfort level. The muscle groups worked include the adductors, hip flexors, quads, hamstrings, and glutes; many of which are shortened and underutilized by extended periods of sitting. My clients hold this pose for two or three minutes while we do “pop culture burpees.” (long story.)

After leaping (or walking) back to a neutral position, complete two more sets.

If you found this article useful, please consider sharing it. Forwarding fitness articles boosts your metabolism!

Joshua Brandt is an Oakland, CA based Certified Personal Trainer through the National Association of Sports Medicine.

Five great stories I read recently…

Jason McBride wrote “Learning to Talk With Strangers One Bird at a Time.” It’s a lovely meditation on the lost art of paying attention, and is superbly illustrated as always.

J.R. Schaefers wrote “Photos 129.” Jojo Teckina, editor extraordinaire at “The Narrative Arc,” was effusive about this writer. She’s not given to hyperbole, so I had to see what all the hot fuss was about.

“Dark” and “funny” are my two favorite flavors of prose. And this guy has those qualities in copious amounts. Most of his writing is fictional, and he seems to achieved a kind of cult status. In this nonfiction piece, he took working at a neighborhood porn shop and turned it into something unexpectedly endearing and touching, with a dollop of acerbic humor.

Here’s a sample paragraph:

“I now know that if a Chinese-made vibrator that sells for $11.99 was worth the trouble of two people pulling an elaborate “Ocean’s Eleven” scheme where one party distracts me while the other sprints through the beeping inventory-control arbor — I’m happy to write that loss off as the cost of doing business. They were still on the hook for batteries, which were free at the counter with every purchase of things that go buzz in the night.”

Marcia Abboud is one of my favorite writers on Medium. She writes with a shocking level of emotional honesty. Her story “It Felt Like the End of The World in The Summer of ‘74” is about family trauma rendered in delicate and intimate detail. Except for the ending, which is pretty gross.

Many, many years ago, I played a fantasy baseball game called “Strat-o-Matic.” Imagine “Dungeons and Dragons” for baseball nerds. It was a total blast. We had people from all different backgrounds and beliefs — liberals, conservatives, blue collar, white collar. No one gave a shit. There was only rule — never, ever touch another man’s dice. Especially if they’re hot pink.

All those memories came gloriously flooding back to me with Mike Butler’s story “Hot Pink Dice Had Me on a Hot Winning Streak.”

And, lastly, a special shout-out to Debra Groves Harman. She wrote “Can I Use AI in My Writing at The Narrative Arc?”

I have a little secret: my main reason for writing on Medium is that it alleviates my depression. Very few things in life make me feel as good as writing does, as I’ve previously described.

AI writing has absolutely infested Medium. It’s obvious to spot. I’ve written about it before. Every time I read AI generated prose, I spiral into a bad mood. I’m glad someone is taking a firm stand. I wish other people would do the same.

Note: I’m debuting a new feature in my fitness articles: “Five Great Stories I’ve Read Recently,” where I highlight Medium articles that I think deserve to be championed. So, if you’re not really interested in the fitness information (and I hope you are!) feel free to skim to the bottom. Either way…thanks for reading!

Most gyms make their money off two popular misconceptions: (1) that you need to go somewhere to get in shape and (2) that the standard gym equipment is going to assist in that goal.

Obviously gyms have their place in our society. They have a positive impact on health for many people. They can also function as gathering places, and foster a sense of community. I still have many friends and clients from my tenure at a gym almost two decades ago. But the Pandemic revealed that other methods of staying in shape are just as viable.

And although most modern gyms have functional equipment (medicine balls, free weights, TRX straps, etc) that serve a valuable purpose, many gym machines are antiquated at best — and some are much worse than that. Here’s a look at some popular gym machines that you should avoid and the reasons why.

1) Ab Crunch Machine (pictured above)

Let’s start with the obvious problem: this machine won’t get you the highly coveted “six-pack.” The only way you’ll achieve that ephemeral goal is through diet, exercise, or photoshop. You can’t “spot reduce” fat on a body part.

Secondly — and perhaps more consequentially — the machine isn’t even effective for strengthening your ab complex. Anytime you’re in a highly stabilized environment (such as seated on the ab crunch machine), you’re limited in the amount of muscles you can recruit. This makes the exercise much less effective. Furthermore, in an effort to yield quick results, many people stack a ridiculous amount of weight on the machine, forcing them to use their upper bodies and lower back to bear the brunt of the exercise.

If you want really strong abs, focus on planks or push-ups instead. They target the entire ab complex in addition to the upper body and glutes (yes…glutes are involved in planks and push-ups!) and you can do them anywhere.

2) The Hip Adductor/Abduction Machine

This machine suffers from the same deficiencies as the ab crunch machine. So, if you’re looking to melt away the fat from your thighs … this machine isn’t going to do the trick.

As mentioned above, you can’t “spot reduce” fat. And even if the goals are more functional than aesthetic, this machine is still a poor choice. The stabilizer muscles that it ostensibly targets (the inner and outer thigh muscles) are called “stabilizer” muscles for a reason: they assist other larger muscles, such as the glutes, quads, and hamstrings, during movement. These muscles are often dormant and underutilized from extended sitting. Loading them up with a bunch of weight is counter-productive and could lead to injury.

A better alternative is to perform some exercises that allow the muscles to function in their proper role; such as body-weight squats or lateral walks with a resistance band.

3) The Preacher Curl Machine

Everyone has a list of their overrated bands, movies, or candy. (For the record: Green Day, “Wicked,” regular M&M’s.) Body parts are no different. In the category of “most overrated muscle” I nominate the biceps. Unlike other mythologized body parts (such as the glutes and abs), they’re not intimately related to the core. Biceps are also often shorthand for “strength,” specifically as it pertains to men, but there’s often no correlation.

I’ve known quite a few guys with bulging biceps that had a very weak core. To make matters worse, people (meaning guys) who focus on their biceps usually ignore their lower bodies.

OK. Rant over. So, you still want those glorious tee-shirt muscles. That’s understandable. But there are more effective ways to target them than this machine. In fact, according to a 2014 study of bicep curl effectiveness, the “Preacher Curl” came in dead last.

The problem is two-fold: isolating muscle groups is a very inefficient way to exercise and the amount of weight used on the machine can lead to injury. Rarely in life do we use our biceps in the way that the curl machine does. When we pick something up, for example, we don’t snatch it out of thin air and then curl it towards our bodies. Instead, we bend down, and use almost the entirety of our lower and upper body muscles to pick the object up. The exercises we do should mimic the way we move in everyday life.

The other problem with the machine is the amount of weight people stack on it. It’s usually way too much. This results in people raising their butts off the chairs and using tertiary muscles such as the deltoids. It also places way too much pressure on the tendons during the eccentric (lengthening) phase of the movement, which is a sure fire way to damage the muscle or injure your elbow.

Try doing a full-body movement such as a weighted squat instead. You’ll build muscle just as rapidly and in a much more organic and healthy way.

4) The Leg Extension Machine

Take a vulnerable tendon (the patella, which runs along the front of the knee), lock it out in an extended position, and throw a bunch of weight on. What could possibly go wrong?

You’ve scene this scenario before. Go into any gym, and there’s usually some guy that’s maxed out the machine with his butt off the seat, neck veins bulging, screaming orgasmically. Don’t do that. It’s putting yourself at a high risk for injury. Plus it’s socially awkward.

As with the other machines, you are seated in a fixed position, which limits your range of motion and ability to recruit different muscle groups.

The best exercises to engage the leg complex are bodyweight squats or weighted squats. If you don’t have balky knees, weighted lunges are also an excellent full-body alternative.

If you found this article useful, please consider sharing it. Forwarding fitness articles boosts your metabolism!

Joshua Brandt is an Oakland, CA based Certified Personal Trainer through the National Association of Sports Medicine.

Five great stories I read recently…

Don Lariviere wrote “Yes, You’re Gorgeous — So is Everything Behind You.” There are four magic words on Medium: “Written by Don Lariviere.”

Marcia Abboud wrote an uplifting piece that never sagged called “An Ode to My Boobs” for “Bouncin and Behavin Blogs.” It made me so happy to write that sentence. The article is even funnier. And poignant.

Barbarella Speaks wrote “I’ve Been Clubbing for 30 Years. Apparently, I’m Too Old For That Now” for “genXy.” The article exudes passion, wistfulness, and reverence.

Joe Guay wrote “Meeting (and Hugging) Medium Writers in Their Natural Habitats,” for “Zenite.” I read this story on a cozy chair with a hot cup of coffee. That’s how you should read it, too.

Lusy Sky wrote “One Receipt from 1999: The Mystery Behind It” for the “Narrative Arc.” I really want to give a special shout-out to this one. It’s about an everyday mundane act — trying to track down the orignal owner of a tape recorder. It’s the type of story the algorithms ignore for “sexier” topics. That’s unfortunate, because it causes gems like this to be overlooked. The beauty lies in the story’s simplicity and humanity. Please give it a read!

I recently encountered one of the most riveting stories I’ve ever read about fat loss and the journey to fitness. The writer, Marcia Abboud, is unstinting in her depiction of internalized shame and the desperate desire to transform herself.

For people who have been in the author’s shoes, the article will provide some solace. And for people who’ve never struggled with being overweight with all of its attendant (often external) miseries, the article is a great guide for understanding that treacherous terrain. It’s honest without being preachy. It packs a punch. If you haven’t read it, you should. It’s here.

One of the paragraphs that really resonated with me was when the author was discussing her struggle with hitting an ideal number on the scale.

She wrote:

The thing about pendulums is that they swing back and forth. My body wasn’t wired to stay at 64 kilos unless I trained six hours a day — it wasn’t realistic long-term. Life happened.

I was thinking about this quote when I recalled a recent documentary on the cultural juggernaut “The Biggest Loser.”

“Fit for TV,” depicts everything that made the show such riveting viewing: the puking, the insults, the sweating and tears, and lots and lots of very overweight people performing strenuous (and humiliating) activities. It turns out that sadism and schadenfreude is a perfect recipe for a ratings bonanza.

The launching point for the documentary was a New York Times article that highlighted a very inconvenient fact — the majority of contestants on the show gained back the weight they’d lost. And then some.

Danny Cahill, a contestant winner on Season 8 of the show, set a record for weight loss by shedding 240 pounds in seven months. He did this through exercising seven hours a day and burning 8,000–9,000 calories. Similar to other contestants, his caloric intake was severely limited. The NYT article posited that the end result of this disparity was something called “broken metabolism,” meaning that, essentially, the show had permanently (and detrimentally) altered how the contestants process calories.

Mr. Cahill now weighs close to 430 pounds. This should not be surprising. I’m not going to wade too deeply into the weeds of metabolic issues, because I’m not privy to the individual circumstances of the contestants. But I am much more familiar in another way the contestants suffered — their trainers were absolutely terrible.

One of the most telling moments in the documentary is when the show’s longtime trainer Bob Harper explains that “If you’ve struggled to lose weight in your life … you’re never going to get that monkey off your back. That monkey is going to be with you the rest of your life.”

That statement rang true for most of the contestants, I’m guessing. But one of the show’s greatest secrets is that I’m sure it also resonated with the show’s biggest star — Harper’s co-trainer Jillian Michaels. Yes, that Jillian Michaels. The bronzed, sculpted, charismatic and supremely coiffed purveyor of pain.

Before she became America’s favorite trainer, Jillian Michaels was Jillian Leigh McKarus, and she grew up in Los Angeles as an only child and the product of divorce. And she was bullied. Mostly because she was overweight.

“There’s still a fat girl in me,” she said in an interview during the height of her fame.

I was an only child and my parents were getting divorced and I would wait to come home — I would look forward to coming home and ordering a Domino’s Pizza and sitting on my roof by myself and eating the whole pizza. And that’s how I got through the day: Waiting for the Domino’s. That was my activity, that’s what I was going to do. I didn’t have any friends, I didn’t have a car, I was a fat kid, I didn’t have any siblings, my parents were divorcing, my mom was having to work.

By the time I was about 13 years old, I was maybe five feet tall and I got up to about 175 pounds, which was a lot for five feet. I was just so troubled and so angry and acting out all over the place.

As a trainer, Jillian Michaels had a superpower that very few trainers possess. And it wasn’t her sculpted abs or cascading locks. It was an ability to empathize with people who suffered from being very overweight and the societal stigmas they endured.

People often conflate sympathy with empathy. The former is a more universal expression of kindness. The latter is much more powerful — an ability to relate to people by virtue of life experience. “I’ve been where you’ve been.” Jillian Michaels could’ve harnessed this superpower for the betterment of her clients. She could’ve gone the route of Richard Simmons. I’ve written about my (latent) appreciation of him in a previous article.

But she chose a very different route. Certainly, denigrating and humiliating your clients is more “camera friendly.” But it does nothing to instill a long-term appreciation for movement and exercise.

I don’t have the (unrealized) gift that Jillian Michaels possessed. And I rarely have the opportunity to connect with people who suffer from obesity for a simple reason — they rarely come to a gym. One reason is that there’s a correlation between obesity and economic circumstances, and gyms tend to be expensive. And the second reason is that obese people usually don’t feel comfortable in a gym setting.

One of the most dramatic moments I’ve experienced as trainer occurred late at night in my former gym. It was around 9PM and the gym had pretty much emptied out. I went into smaller room that I used for stretching and unwinding. Immediately upon entering the space, I saw a person who was in obvious duress. She was quite heavy, and was sitting on bench while quietly weeping into a towel. On either side of her was a pair of free weights.

Her trainer was a co-worker of mine. I knew she had struggled with fitness and weight gain over the years. I watched as she wordlessly placed her hand on her client’s shoulder and held it there.

“I’ve been where you’ve been and it’s going to be OK.”

I was unsure of what to do. At first I was transfixed by the drama of the moment, so I froze. And then, shortly after, I slowly backpedalled out of the room. The moment was certainly uncomfortable — at least for me. But it also filled me with a sense of awe, wonder, and more than a little bit of envy. Here was a trainer relating to a client in a way that I was incapable of. It was deeply moving. I’ve never seen anything like it in over fifteen years as a personal trainer, and I doubt I ever will.

Jillian Michaels could’ve been that trainer. She could’ve used empathy to assist her clients in becoming healthier. Instead, she chose anger and antipathy. It’s certainly possible she saw herself reflected in their struggles. Perhaps, well outside the glare of the TV cameras, she became a lonely, bullied teenager again. And if the contestants hated themselves — well, Jillian Michaels hated them more.

Jillian Michaels had a gift. She squandered it in the name of TV ratings, and left a lot of wreckage in her wake.

AI is destroying Medium

Thank you, Joshua Brandt, for supporting our policy to reject AI-generated pieces. Your letter articulates the multiple benefits of human-writing and describes the dangers of relying on AI. We appreciate your support as we strive to provide a place where we can authentically write about the experience of aging. Sincerely, The Crow’s Feet Editors

Dear Crow’s Feet Editors,

I’m writing to express my sincere and heartfelt appreciation for utilizing human-written content on your site. Sadly, Crow’s Feet has become an anomaly. Many sites that I previously enjoyed — both as a reader and as a writer — have been inundated with AI.

When talking about the detrimental effect of AI, most articles focus on the toll it takes on the writing process. This is a huge issue, of course. As a writer, it’s tremendously dispiriting to see your work featured along side AI slop. Whether intended or not, that decision carries the judgement: “We don’t value your words.”

Experienced writers who fall into the habit of using AI as a crutch will eventually discover that writing muscles atrophy. And people (like members of my preteen daughters’ generation) that grow up with AI embedded in their lives from an early age may never develop that skill to begin with.

The hardest, grungiest, and most glorious part of writing is in the thinking. If you’re outsourcing part of that process to a “linguistic calculator,” you’re depriving yourself of the fuel and nutrients you need to grow as a writer. Writing is a highly complex neurological activity that involves memory, spatial awareness, filtering, and emotional processing.

People who use consistently use AI to write are impacting their memories, according to a recent M.I.T. study. According to the study, 83% of people who used large language models to write weren’t able to quote a single sentence they’d just written during a post interview, while almost 90% of “search and brain-only” users could quote accurately from their work. Other recent studies have shown a strong correlation between frequent AI usage and a decline in critical thinking abilities.

There’s another element to AI usage that’s incredibly ironic. I know many writers who fulminate against tech oligarchs and their stranglehold on just about every aspect of our daily lives, and yet many of these same writers willingly abet what has been called the “largest theft of labor in human history.”

What’s not often discussed is the toll AI takes on readers. That’s much harder to quantify. As a reader, it destroys confidence in the reading process itself. The first thing I ask myself when reading almost any article on Medium (unless I’m familiar with the author) is “did a human write this — or at least most of it?” That’s a soul-draining calculation to have to make.

Here’s one concrete appraisal of the damage, according to Medium’s own “State of Writing Report 2026:”

“Three-quarters of (Medium) writers suspect at least some of what they read was written by AI, and a third believe most or a lot of it is. That’s a remarkable level of ambient suspicion baked into everyday reading — it means writers are now reading everything through an “is this even human” filter, which is a meaningful shift in how content gets consumed and trusted.”

That sums it up nicely. Readers on Medium who want to read human written articles are in a perpetual state of disbelief. As a reader, if I can’t trust the words have been crafted by the author, how can I trust that the experiences they’re describing are real? The implicit edifice of trust that binds the reader and writer relationship comes crumbling down. This is especially true when the writing pertains to non-fiction — and even more so when the writing is autobiographical.

What actually constitutes writing an article with AI? Is it using a search engine as I did for the studies posted above? How about using an AI program such as Grammarly? What about checking the entire work for tone, structure, and narrative flow? These are largely esoteric questions with varied answers. I would argue that, in the above cases, there’s no question of authorship. What if, on the other hand, an author uses AI for significant chunks of the writing. Perhaps thirty percent of the article, give or take. What then?

I would say that article has no longer been written by the given author.

AI writing usually has tells. Being extremely prolific can be one. (Not always; there are certainly writers that have an endless supply of “magic pixel dust.”) Many times it includes artfully phrased sentences that don’t add up to a cohesive paragraph, and utilizes a construct I’ve only recently become familiar with: “negative parallelism.”

This is a weird idiom that’s rampant on Medium, where “XXX” is not “XXX” but actually “XXY.” So, for example, that’s not “writing,” it’s “cutting and pasting the computer generated crap of a million amateur Tolstoys.”

Yes, that sentence is bad.

Oddly, many negative parallelisms seem to come with receipts. I’m not exactly sure why that is. AI stories often use the word “receipts” as a stand-in for proof. All I know is that, in real life, I rarely take receipts. On Medium, I bombarded with them.

Then there’s the “nuclear option”: the AI detector, Pangram. Pangram is not without its critics. On Substack, it’s caused a “civil war,” and has been accused of bias against non-native English speakers. Medium’s official stance is “No, Thank You.”

Conversely, a study from the University of Chicago pegged Pangram’s error rate on longer pieces at nearly zero. (There was a slightly higher rate for shorter pieces with less than 50 words.)

I’ve used Pangram to check articles I had doubts about, and most of them come back as 100 percent AI written. The whole process makes me feel nauseous.

I’m an old-fashioned romantic as a reader. I want to experience the elusive combination of awe, jealousy, and wonder that I always do when I encounter good writing. Above all, I want to feel something.

To be truthful, I do feel something when I read articles I suspect were written by AI.

I feel duped.

If you got something out of this article, and value human-written content, please consider reposting. Thanks.

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An Open Letter to the Editors of “Crow’s Feet”: Thank You For Taking a Stand Against AI Written… was originally published in Crow’s Feet: Life As We Age on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

There is a ritual I always perform when visiting a new cafe: I pour a cup of coffee and add some cream. If the coffee is strong enough, the color of the coffee will take a few seconds before shifting hues. If the coffee is weak, the color will change instantly.

I was in a hotel lounge on a family vacation recently when I repeated the ritual. Almost immediately, I was greeted by a watery copper color. I was pissed. This didn’t augur well for the rest of my day.

I settled into an easy chair with my weak cup of coffee and began to scroll Medium. I was mentally prepared for an onslaught of nerve-jangling headlines.

Someone Called Me a Slut. Ten Signs He’s Having an Affair. Five Signs Your Poodle Is Transitioning.

Instead, my Medium feed sent me something called 28 Greaney Street. No headache inducing headline. Just a sepia toned picture of a young boy with brown hair and dental work with a calendar featuring Robin Williams as Mork in the background. The kid could’ve been me.

I took a sip of weak coffee.

“We’re in 1978,” I mumbled to myself. I read on. I was immediately taken back to the author’s tumultuous adolescence. It was not a journey I was prepared for.

The only people important enough to set foot on the freshly vacuumed powder-blue shag carpet in our living room were guests and Santa. Dare to cross uninvited, and your footprints in the pile would be a dead giveaway.

I was instantly hooked. I was in the author’s world. It was mine, too. The shag carpeting. A desire to superimpose neatness over chaos. Our family was Jewish, so Santa Claus wasn’t a concern, but that was a minor detail.

My coffee still sucked, but I felt a shimmer of anticipation. I thought I was on the cusp of a little discovery. Perhaps this story was a hidden gem.

I was right.

I’ve been a personal trainer for twenty years now. I casually use words such as “transverse abdominis” and “psoas.” I show people how to strengthen their hip flexors, correct postural distortions, and how to engage their glutes. I do push-ups frequently. And planks. And squats. I cycle up huge mountains with sweeping panoramic vistas and go on long-distance hikes. I’m fit…at least on the outside.

But on the inside, I was broken.

Long before I was a personal trainer, I was a writer. I published stories in major magazines. I was a staff writer for the J Weekly. I adored writing. I was passionate about it. Surfers talk about the high they get from riding the barrel of a wave. I felt the same way about writing. When you get in a narrative flow, and the words meld together seamlessly, there are few things in life than can compare.

Great sex, for sure. The kind that leaves scars and instills yearning. Cycling. Looking at my twin daughters while they’re sleeping. (Otherwise known as the “calm before the storm.”) But the list is very, very short.

Many years ago, writing defined who I was. And then, one day, I stopped writing. I don’t remember the exact date. But that day lasted for almost twenty years.

It was still the late ’70s on Greaney Street. I recognized it well. The floral-print sofas wrapped in plastic. The 8-track players. The sky blue Monte Carlo. The writing was spare, elegant, and honest. I was a passenger in the author’s car and we were taking a road trip through suburban ennui. All the milestones were there: the shared bathroom, the fights, the long and soul-destroying silences. And then, suddenly, and without warning, we reached our destination.

It was in the kitchen I found Dad that night when Mom was so sick. He was on the phone, whispering to the woman with whom he was having the affair.

“I’ll call you back,” he murmured. “I have to go pick my wife up off the bathroom floor.”

Several years ago, my partner and I got into a heated argument. It was the kind of argument that causes couples to go deep into the gutter. I forget what caused this particular argument, but I’ll never forget the lacerating barb she hurled at me. It stung, and she knew it would.

“Why don’t you go and finally write something?”

My first reaction after finishing “28 Greaney Street” was a bit disconcerting. A familiar feeling began to well inside of me. It was the same feeling I get whenever I read something I truly admire.

I was jealous.

I wished I had written the story. But the emotions were compounded by another feeling which was even more potent — a feeling I rarely get after reading something so profoundly moving. I actually could’ve written that.

I read the story several times over the next few days. I gleaned something different from it with every new reading. I was still jealous, of course. The writing was just that good. But my jealousy was tempered by something else — I felt hopeful.

Don Lariviere (the author) had written something that took guts and tenacity. In an age of algorithms, clickbait, and AI slop, he had written something deeply layered and contemplative. Equally as importantly, his youth sounded like my youth. If Don had excavated his memories so poetically, why couldn’t I do the same?

So I took a chance and did something that I’d never done before. I reached out to a complete stranger on a forum that I had only recently become engaged with.

“Hey Don. This is Josh. I’ve read a few of your stories. I hope I’m not violating any boundaries, but I’d love to talk if that’s possible.”

Thankfully, he readily agreed.

We did talk. For almost an hour. Although we never addressed the tragedy that undergirded his story, we have much in common. We’re the exact same age. We experienced the same teenaged loneliness and alienation circa 1985.

Yes, there were differences. He grew up Catholic in New England. I grew up as a secular Jew on the West Coast. Don was closeted as a kid. But, if being closeted is defined by unfulfilled sexual desires and an inability to express them, then I was a closeted straight kid.

I found a friend and an ally. Most importantly, I found someone whose work I admire unabashedly. An hour after I had finished talking to Don, I still had a gamut of emotions swirling through me. Ordinarily, I’d sort them out by going on a bike ride or doing some push-ups. Instead, I sat down in front of the keyboard and started typing.

I haven’t stopped since.

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Every art form has a work that is universally recognized for its transcendence and profound cultural impact. The painting world has the Mona Lisa. Rock has the White Album. Literature has Native Son. Television has The Wire.

And fitness studies has The Double Decker Bus Survey. No other health study has come close to replicating its influence. Sadly, unlike the other entries on the list above, most people have never heard of it.

In 1949, a British epidemiologist named Jeremy Morris, operating on a hunch, conducted a study that would revolutionize the way we view movement. He studied the coronary heart disease (CHD) rates of hundreds of drivers and conductors on London’s fabled double-decker buses and made a startling discovery: the drivers — who remained sedentary for almost the entirety of their shift — were twice as likely to have CHD as the conductors, who climbed between 500–700 stairs per shift.

There was also a significant catch: although the waist sizes of the conductors were smaller than the drivers on average, heart disease risk was not predicated on weight, but on movement. Thus, even a portly conductor was much less at risk than a driver of a similar build who remained sedentary throughout the day.

Morris later conducted surveys of postal workers that yielded similar results. The postal workers that delivered mail via walking or cycling were much less prone to CHD than their counterparts that had sedentary office jobs.

The studies have remained hugely influential nearly a century after first being published. They also highlighted an important fact that pertains to many people: incidental movement can be a crucial ingredient in fitness.

There’s another term of this type of movement that doesn’t involve exercise. It’s called NEAT or nonexercise activity thermogenesis. That’s a very technical term for movement that is done as part of a daily routine, but not considered exercise. Examples would be cleaning the dishes, tidying up the garage, taking the stairs, or standing much more frequently while at work.

According to Dr. James Levine, the MAYO Clinic researcher who first coined the term, NEAT can result in an extra 2000 calories burned per day, depending on the body weight of the person in question and the type of activity.

NEAT movement is particularly crucial for elderly people who risk being sedentary after retiring. According to a study published in the JAMA Network a few years ago, women who used NEAT activities such as walking, household chores, and opting to stand instead of sitting, had a greater chance of avoiding chronic diseases later in life.

The study followed more than 45,000 participants over the ages of 50 using the Nurses’ Health Study as the baseline. Participants were tracked for two decades. Slightly less than 10 percent of the participants were considered healthy agers, as defined by the absence of chronic health conditions.

Some of the more startling findings were that each increment of two hours per day in sitting watching television was associated with a 12% reduction in the odds of healthy aging, and that substituting an hour of watching television for moderate movement each day was associated with a 28% increased odds of healthy aging.

On a similar note, there have been several studies that show how many calories are burned doing various household activities. Keep in mind that caloric expenditure is just one metric of fitness. The studies don’t reveal how the activities help with metrics such as flexibility, functional strength, or mental well-being. Here are just a few examples:

Channel your inner Karate Kid and wash the car.

Hand-washing a car burns 135 calories in 30 minutes if you weigh 125 pounds and 200 calories if you weigh 185 pounds.

Patrol those dirty dishes.

Thirty minutes of cleaning dirty dishes results in 187 calories burned if you weigh 125 pounds and 300 calories if you 185 pounds.

Get your fingernails dirty.

Thirty minutes of digging, planting, and pulling weeds burns 139 calories for a 125 pound person and 205 calories for a 200 pound person. (I actually think this underestimates by a long shot the amount of calories burned when gardening.)

Flip some linen.

Changing bed linen for 30 minutes burns 187 calories if you weigh 125 pounds and 300 calories if you weigh 200 pounds.

The bottom line: if you’re struggling with fitness, find smaller tasks that are more ingrained in your daily life, and focus on performing them more regularly. The biggest takeaway from the London Bus Study still holds true after more than 75 years: movement is good medicine.

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Lessons From the Most Famous Fitness Study of All Time was originally published in Crow’s Feet: Life As We Age on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Mother Nature Got it Wrong.

About a decade ago, I operated a gym space in a converted warehouse. It was a very “San Francisco” style set-up: the other occupants included artists, weed distributors, and lots of tech start-ups. There was often a generation gap between myself and some of the tech workers. Occasionally, I tried to bridge the communication gap by leaving helpful notes in the men’s room such as “There is no app for flushing the toilet.”

One day, after another instance of seeing my advice go unheeded, I was exiting the men’s room just as a young tech worker named Doug was entering. We exchanged pleasantries the way people often do when they don’t really feel like engaging in conversation. Doug asked me how I was doing, and I responded that I didn’t get much sleep due to my infant daughters.

“Yeah, it’s like that,” he said.

“It is?” I responded. “I didn’t know you had kids.”

“Oh yeah,” he said. “My daughter is graduating from high school this year.”

Now I turned around and backpedaled. I told him I didn’t he realize he had kids — let alone a kid who was graduating from high school. I politely inquired about his age, and he told me he was 35.

“When my girls graduate high school, I’ll be 65,” I told Doug.

There was a long, awkward silence where we stared at each other like we were from different planets.

Because, in fact, we were.

One of my favorite anthropology terms is “liminal space.”

Loosely translated, this is a place that is neither “here” nor “there.” It’s a transitional space marked by ambiguity. Being an older dad certainly feels liminal. On one hand, Mother Nature has a definite preference for younger dads. The twenties are the “peak fertility” time for men, when testosterone and sperm levels are at their highest. Men in their forties (I had my twin daughters at 47) experience a significant decline in sperm production.

On the other hand, no matter how strong their sperm is, men take a lot longer to mature. This dichotomy has been the subject of many stand-up comedy routines, as well as the occasional diatribe by a frustrated spouse.

Very few scientific studies are able to pinpoint the exact age a man reaches emotional maturity, but a survey conducted by the comedy station Nickelodeon (ironically enough) is often cited when referencing the subject. According to the study, the average age of male emotional maturity is 43, which is more than a decade after women feel they’ve reached maturity, 32.

The survey also recited a litany of women’s complaints about men’s juvenile behavior, such as “finding their own passing of gas and burps amusing “playing video games,” “trying to beat children at games and sports,” and “not being able to cook simple meals.”

Therein lies the ultimate conundrum: in an evolutionary sense, men are better off siring kids at the age of 21. But men are much more emotionally equipped to handle the task at the age of 41 (or older.) That difference is much more than a liminal space — it’s a huge chasm. In this article I want to stake a firm claim for older dads. I’ll examine three distinct (and unscientific) categories: spousal relationships, energy levels, and the ability to relate to kids.

#1 Spousal Relationship

This is the category where being an older dad is the clear winner, and it ain’t even close.

There’s no one in the world I respect more than my partner. She’s — by far — the most selfless person I know. She’s incredibly good with children and animals. (Cantankerous middle-aged men are less in her wheelhouse.) I needed every single ounce of that respect when our daughters were infants.

Babies are cute. Everyone knows that. But the reality is that babies are cute when they’re asleep. When they’re awake they’re pudgy little mounds of soul-destroying projectile pooping. They wreak havoc on your sleep and sanity. There’s a reason that many affairs start during the pregnancy or shortly thereafter.

As it turns out, there’s only one mammal hardwired for monogamy, and that’s the California deer mouse. Monogamy makes no evolutionary sense, similar to wearing jerseys with another person’s name, posting incessantly on social media, or listening to Ed Sheeran. But when you combine that fact with no sleep and a list of flaws that become magnified due to that very same lack of sleep, you have a recipe for disaster.

When the newborn blowups morph into one cacophonous, amorphous blob of recrimination (and they will) older dads have a reservoir of self-knowledge and understanding that younger dads often lack. Call it risk impulse mitigation.

There’s a lovely Italian phrase “con un piccolo bacio d’amore vengono molti guai,” which loosely translates to “with a little kiss of love comes many troubles.” Wanting the kiss isn’t the problem. It’s understanding that the “many troubles” just aren’t worth it.

#2 Energy Levels

There’s no doubt that younger dads come out ahead on this one. Testosterone levels start to decline around the age of 30. What makes men more impulsive also gives them greater stores of energy. As a new dad, that’s something that’s in short supply — particularly if you’re older. I could go on a 50 mile bike ride with no problem, but when my partner asked me to “play” with our infant twin daughters, I was completely out of my element. Play with them for how long? And do what?

Conversely, I watched a family friend get down on his hands and knees, and crawl around making all kinds of weird animal noises. My little girls loved it. They laughed and applauded. I looked at him with a mixture of loathing and admiration. This just wasn’t in my “dad toolbox.”

#3 Ability to relate to kids.

I have twin daughters, so that’s my frame of reference. Some might say that being a dad to boys and girls doesn’t entail a lot of difference. They’re wrong. Frankly, I don’t know any dad — regardless of age, race, class, or sexual orientation — that can fully understand that emotional whirlwind that comes with preteen and teenaged daughters. They can go from “I just want a hug” to “I hate you and I’m going to slam every door in the house to prove it” in less than a minute.

The other day, my daughters were going ballistic about something completely incomprehensible. Desperate times call for desperate measures. So, I reached out to the “Babel” language program. The conversation went something like this:

Babbel Rep: Hello.

Me: Hello. I’d like to order something to help me understand my twin daughters.

Rep: Oh. Uh…do your daughters speak another language?

Me: No. I’m pretty sure it’s English.

Rep: You don’t know what language they’re speaking?

Me: It might be code. Or algorithms. Can kids today speak in algorithms?

Rep: Well, I think you have the wrong company, sir. This is a foreign language learning app.

Me: Yes, I know. I don’t understand my girls at all.

Rep: Well, I’m sorry to hear that, but I don’t know if we can help you. If they decide they want to learn Portuguese, give us a call.”

So, I’m calling this category an official “tie.”

Being a dad older in life is a gift. I didn’t have the emotional maturity in my twenties and thirties to be a father. Frankly, I’m still a little deficient in that category. But…I’m trying. The awkward moments are getting more and more infrequent, although they still happen.

Last Spring, my daughters were at a track meet. Their classmate sat down next to me, accompanied by her grandmother. The grandmother and I had an amiable chat. She had received a track scholarship when she was younger, and we discussed the importance of exercising when you’re older. She mentioned that, at her age, swimming was better for her joints than running.

“Me too,” I said. “That’s why I cycle. It’s less impact on my knees now that I’m 58.”

The classmate’s grandmother let out a smile.

“You’re two years older than I am.”

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Mother Nature Got it Wrong was originally published in Crow’s Feet: Life As We Age on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.