The Healthy Addiction
Straightforward ideas about strength, movement, nutrition, and building a capable body for life.
My name is Jerry Trubman and I’m the owner and founder of The Protocol Strength & Conditioning. The gym where Cal trained for a little over 12 years. I met Cal on October 15, 2013 at the Vail Community Wellness Fair, which the Vail School District was sponsoring. I had signed up for a table
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Greetings, Don’t start a silly crash diet until you’re doing these 3 things… Although we are not a nutrition/weight loss program, we feel that it’s our duty to make sure you have the tools you need to succeed in your strength training journey. The list of things below is certainly not a complete list (hence
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You may be looking at the subject line and thinking to yourself, “What does this have anything to do with training?” I swear I’ll get to that… Last July, my wife and I took our first big vacation in almost 10 years (‘start a small business’ they said… ‘it’ll be fun’ they said)… a cruise
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The vast majority of people who begin their gym-going journey usually have one main goal… losing weight. And I get it… according to the CDC, 73 percent of Americans are either overweight or obese (scary number, isn’t it?). So, it makes sense that when our phone rings with someone interested in our services, weight loss is
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They say getting old isn’t for sissies, but it sure beats the other option. Today’s post is a quick (but very important) life-lesson I’ve learned about strength training for older athletes. Let’s start with the obvious… The science has spoken on the importance of strength training as we get older, so if anyone tells you
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There certainly has been a lot of press on the latest weight loss “wonder” drugs lately. Diet/weight loss is normally a topic I stay out of, but many of my students have asked me what I think of these drugs, so I thought I’d take a moment today to give my take… For the crowd
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By: Jerry Trubman, Owner and Founder This week’s installment of Coach’s Corner focuses on the most important thing to do before starting any exercise… proper setup! You are just as likely, if not more likely, to suffer a silly injury by not addressing the kettlebell (or any exercise for that matter) haphazardly without getting into a safe
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By: Jerry Trubman, Owner and Founder Last weekend two of our instructors, Coach Kelli and Coach Doug, attended the StrongFirst SFG Level 1 kettlebell certification. For those unfamiliar, this is one of the most challenging three-day courses in our industry. Not only challenging in the sense of its physical requirements (although there was certainly plenty
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🏋️ Master the Kettlebell Swing Basics: Your Ultimate Guide to Proper Form and Technique! 🏋️ In this comprehensive tutorial, we’ll dive into the fundamentals of the kettlebell swing, a powerful and effective exercise for building strength and enhancing your overall fitness. Whether you’re a beginner looking to learn the basics or someone seeking to refine
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This post was written in Janauary… AKA, the ‘New year’s resolution/start a crazy unsustainable workout plan’ time of year. If you’re over the age of 40 and you’re seeing all the ads and offers out there, you may be thinking to yourself, “I’m sure these insane workouts could work for the young crowd, but what
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I’ve been blogging since 2010. My posts are considered to be ‘long-format’… meaning the average post is more than 2000 words. I’ve been criticized by some who say my content is too long (or as the cool kids say, “TL;DR”), which I’ve always been ok with. I like getting into the weeds on the topics
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The secret weapons I use personally on a DAILY basis… When I began my fitness journey, I was told that I NEEDED supplements. I fell for all the ads, and all the hype. Results? None. After a number of years, I got so jaded that I stopped taking EVERYTHING (I even stopped using protein powder
Read ArticleOne of the most frequently asked questions in my line of work are in regards to diet. I must confess, it’s not my favorite topic. It’s not that I don’t have opinions, it’s just that these conversations are just not pleasant to have with folks. There are a number of reasons for this, but the
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The Push-up is a simple exercise anyone can do just about anywhere! And, a properly-executed pushup is WAY more than just a great upper-body exercise. In this video, we break down level 1 or our 5-level push-up program. This is a great video for those who are either working towards their first floor push-up, or
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Last month my wife and I had an awesome vacation. Much of the time was spent floating around in the middle of the ocean completely disconnected from the world. It was great to spend some time reconnecting to what really matters… our marriage and our connection to one another. It’s been about 8 years since
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You’ll have to excuse me, I might spend a little too much time cooped up in my 4 walls and things tend to slip past me, but I found myself stuck in a conversation recently where the topic of ‘functional training’ came up. I asked a simple question, “What do you mean by functional
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Sometimes great life lessons can come from odd places. In today’s post, I’d like to share one with you. Since our kids are grown and out of the house, children’s movies don’t generally come across our radar, but one recently did… Kung Fu Panda. The nudge to see it actually came from a book I
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By: Jerry Trubman, Owner and Founder The title of today’s post is a quote from Thomas Sowell, an African-American author, economist, and social theorist. I first heard this quote last year, and it has messed with my head ever since. I’ve been trying to put some thoughts to pen and paper, but just couldn’t
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The Biggest Secret… There Is No Secret This post was written in early February of 2023. We have just gotten through dealing with the New Year’s rush at our facility. And by ‘rush’, I mean the two weeks I spend at the beginning of every year trying to convince people (who are looking
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By: Jerry Trubman, Owner and Founder If you’re a homeowner (or business owner), at some point you’ve needed to hire a contractor. There’s a saying in the world of contracting that there are three levers you can pull when selecting a skilled trade: Good, fast, and cheap. The problem is, you only get
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Today’s post is the grand finale of a 5-part series (click here to read the previous posts). Here’s a quick recap: Master instructor Mark Reifkind recently retired from StrongFirst and was asked to summarize his decades of coaching experience. Instead of writing an entire novel, he boiled it down to just 5 bullet points. Here
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Today’s post is part 4 of a 5-part series (click here if you missed part 1, here for part 2, and here for part 3). Here’s a quick recap: Master instructor Mark Reifkind recently retired from StrongFirst and was asked to summarize his decades of coaching experience. Instead of writing an entire novel, he boiled
Read ArticleToay’s post is part 3 of a 5-part series (click here if you missed part 1, and here if you missed part 2). Here’s a quick recap: Master instructor Mark Reifkind recently retired from StrongFirst and was asked to summarize his decades of coaching experience. Instead of writing an entire novel, he boiled it down
Read ArticleToday’s post is part 2 of a 5-part series (click here if you missed part 1). Here’s a quick recap: Master instructor Mark Reifkind recently retired from StrongFirst and was asked to summarize his decades of coaching experience. Instead of writing an entire novel, he boiled it down to just 5 bullet points. Here they
Read ArticleBy: Jerry Trubman, Owner and Founder Today’s post is part one of a 5-part series. It was recently announced that one of my longtime friends and mentors, Mark Reifkind, was retiring from his position of Master Instructor for StrongFirst. He was asked to write a blog post summarizing his 50+ years in the iron game.
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By: Jerry Trubman, Owner and Founder A long-time mentor of mine, Sergio Giardini used to always say, “I know a lot of people who go to the gym. I don’t know a lot of people who train.” Of course the larger problem is that most Americans simply don’t exercise at all (for reasons that were
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The Protocol Turns 12! Coach Jerry shares his thoughts on hiring coaches, snarky gym shirts, and why he doesn’t give a crap about training elite athletes. —————– Today’s post may sound like it’s written for my colleagues, but please stay with me… there’s plenty of stuff for non-trainers as well. This post is being published
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By: Jerry Trubman, Owner and Founder I’m writing this in June of 2022. After almost two and a half years of successful avoidance, the double red lines finally got me. What’s worse is that it happened on a vacation. My wife had the Alpha in April of 2020 and I managed to not get it
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By: Jerry Trubman, Owner and Founder Today’s post fits into the category of, “Things I didn’t want to talk about, but spent WAY too much time thinking about, so now I gotta write.” One of my students challenged me to take on this subject. Once again, we need to start with an important disclaimer… Warning:
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By: Jerry Trubman, Owner and Founder Today I’d like to walk you step-by-step through the process of getting started in a fitness program. This is how the majority of conversations go when someone calls into our facility with questions about our programs. This also happens to be a subject that most online outlets do a
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By: Jerry Trubman, Owner and Founder Today’s topic comes from a podcast I enjoy listening to called Barbell Logic. It made me think about what the strength journey means to me, and I decided to share some thoughts. Enjoy! Don’t Worry, Be Happy Over the past few years, some of us have struggled with happiness.
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By: Jerry Trubman, Owner and Founder This is not a re-post! You keep asking, so periodically Marie and I rewrite posts detailing what a typical day of eating looks like for us. We started doing this around 6 or 7 years ago and, I’ll be honest, not too much has changed… but a few things
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By: Jerry Trubman, Owner and Founder In case you missed part 1, you can check it out by clicking here. For this next installment, I’d like to go down a slightly different rabbit hole. Since this is coming out right around the New Year’s holiday, I thought I’d share something for those who may be
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First and foremost, offers the best value for your money, compared to any other type of gym. The primary reason is that we are locally owned and operated, and the goal of the members of our community-based gym is to provide help, support, and encouragement for each other. You’ll find the environment more welcoming and
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