About Me and AWorkoutRoutine.com

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Hey, what’s up? This is the page you come to when you start to wonder:

• Who the hell is the guy writing all of this?
• Why the hell should I listen to a word he has to say?

Those are some damn good questions, so here’s my attempt at giving some damn good answers.

Here’s The Short Version

I’m Jay, and I’m the writer/creator of AWorkoutRoutine.com.

I’ve been interested (or borderline obsessed) with all aspects of exercise, nutrition, strength, muscle growth, fat loss and every topic in between since 1998, when I was 15 years old. I’ve been writing about it all and helping others with it since 2001.

Since then, the stuff I’ve written, created, authored or developed has been seen and used by literally millions of people from all over the world (and many more each year).

My work has been featured by the likes of Time, Business Week, CNET and The Huffington Post (among many others), referenced in studies and text books, recommended by doctors, trainers, coaches and nutritionists, used by schools and universities at every level, and has gone on to help countless men and women improve their bodies and reach whatever goal they’ve set out to reach.

That was the short version. Now, here’s the longer and more detailed version…

My “Athletic Background”

Growing up, I was always an athletic kid who played every sport imaginable. From basketball, football and baseball, to tennis, hockey and soccer. Most were played in some type of organized league setting, but all were played regularly in various parks, backyards, streets and wherever else we could play before someone complained we were leaving ball-sized dents in their cars.

All the way through high school, I was a starting point guard in basketball, a midfielder in soccer, and a strikeout-record-setting pitcher in baseball. Between the ages of 10-16, you could have found me on tennis courts absolutely destroying guys who were twice my age and competing in doubles tournaments against guys from all over the country. Hell, at one point, I even had a 191 bowling average.

Long story short, I was always active and doing athletic things. Sounds good, right? It was… with one tiny downside. When you combine my high level of activity with my horrible ectomorph/hardgainer genetics and super picky eating habits, you end up being about 5’11 125lbs when you’re 16 (yeah, seriously).

As you can imagine, that’s when I decided to start working out to build muscle, get stronger, be lean and just generally be as fit, healthy and awesome as possible.

Starting To “Work Out”

So at a pathetic 5’11 125lbs, I “created” my very first workout routine. It involved randomly doing a bunch of bicep curls in my bedroom with 10lb dumbbells that were so old and cheap they probably weighed closer to 6lbs each by that point.

I “created” my second workout routine about 6 months later when I joined a gym with a friend of mine. He was kinda fat, and I was super skinny, so all he wanted to do was hours and hours of cardio, and all I wanted to do was 100 sets of curls and 100 sets of every chest machine in the gym.

Needless to say, that didn’t work out too well for either of us.

About 6 months after that, I had a subscription to a bunch of muscle/fitness/bodybuilding type magazines, and instead of creating my own bad workout routine again, I decided to use one of the supposedly amazing “gain-30lbs-of-muscle-in-just-2-days!” programs they contained.

The awesome looking bodybuilders used and recommended them, so they must work… right? Wrong. Without the infinite amount of drugs every single one of those guys were taking, these routines were all completely and utterly useless.

Cut to about a year later, and I had wasted nearly 3 years of my time, effort and money on workout programs and diet plans that sucked, supplements, magazines and equipment that were useless, and took absolutely horrible advice from the many clueless idiots who filled my gym.

It was at that point where it could have gone one of two ways for me:

1. I could say “F this!” and find a new hobby.
2. I could become obsessed with fixing it and learning every single thing I can about every aspect of weight training, diet, nutrition, building muscle, losing fat, and every topic in between.

As you can probably guess, option #2 was my choice. And that’s exactly what I’ve done.

My “Qualifications” And “Credentials”

Everything you read on this website comes from over 12 years of obsessive research and first-hand experience on my part.

Since 1998, I’ve read a seemingly infinite amount of scientific studies, research papers, books, articles, forum posts, and every other source of high quality information pertaining to improving how the human body looks, performs and functions. I continue to do so on a daily basis.

During this time:

• I’ve built a significant amount of muscle, lost a significant amount of fat, and gained a significant amount of strength.
• I’ve trained using various methods and programs, and eaten in accordance with various diets and plans.
• I’ve tested and experimented in too many ways to count in an effort to figure out exactly what works best and what doesn’t.

As a result, I’ve been able to make exceptional improvements to the way my body looks, performs and functions, and I have reached (and continue to reach) the majority of the goals I’ve set out to accomplish.

Making Mistakes & Learning From Them

But, despite all of that, I think one of my best “qualifications” may be that I have also screwed up in virtually all of the ways most people typically screw up when it comes to reaching some sort of diet and fitness goal, and that means I have the first-hand experience of knowing EXACTLY what it’s like and EXACTLY how to fix it.

I know what it’s like to get great results and horrible results, train the right way and the wrong way, eat the right way and the wrong way, gain fat, lose muscle, lose strength, get injured, and so on and so on.

I know what it’s like to have below average genetics. I know how hard it is and how long it takes as well as what it feels like to wish it was easier and happened faster. I know what it’s like to waste time, effort and money doing stuff that doesn’t work as well as it should have or as well as you hoped it would.

Pick a scenario. Chances are that I have the distinct advantage of having been there, done that and learned from it. No book or certification course can give you that.

Are You A “Certified Personal Trainer”

HA, no. I’m actually pretty happy that I never wasted any time acquiring that meaningless title. That certification is practically as easy to get as a driver’s license and requires similar levels of knowledge about diet and exercise.

No offense to the few truly great trainers out there, but you’re in the minority. The majority of the people in this industry with some kind of relevant degree, license or certification are just as clueless as the average idiot in your gym dispensing horseshit advice.

Instead, my qualifications and credentials are in the form of:

• 12+ years of first-hand experience.
• 12+ years of observing real world results.
• 12+ years of obsessive research.
• 10 years of working with others to help them reach their own diet/fitness goals.
  Speaking of which…

My Simple Idea To Help Others

While most of what I’ve learned about diet and exercise originally began so I could use it for myself and get the results I wanted to get, I soon began to wonder if there were other people out there who could benefit from it as well.

I figured there had to be plenty of other people making the same mistakes I made, hearing the same terrible advice I heard, and doing the same dumb things I was doing. Why not help them?

So, in early 2001, I began taking what I was learning and putting it out there for other people to learn from and use as well. And, wouldn’t you know… people liked it. A lot.

I quickly became the guy who was known for taking the diet/fitness information that would normally appear complicated and breaking it down into a clear, easy-to-understand format that was now completely filtered from all of the confusion, misinformation, lies, myths, and all around bullshit that almost always surrounded these topics.

Since that time, my advice has been read and used by literally millions of people from all over the world (and millions more every single year), and I’ve had the chance to work closely with the thousands of men and women who have come to me directly for assistance.

But wait, there’s more!

My “Accomplishments”

Since 2001, I’ve seen my stuff get recommended by numerous doctors to their patients, used as a teaching aid by schools and universities at every level, and put to use by various members of law enforcement and military. Not to mention, it’s used by countless trainers and nutritionists with their own clients.

Even cooler is that a lot of my stuff has gone on to reach some pretty impressive levels of popularity and has been mentioned in, featured on, and used by some pretty impressive sources. For example…

My Work Has Been Featured On…

Articles I’ve written, websites I’ve created and various diet and fitness related tools I’ve developed have been featured on the websites of:

• Time Magazine
• Business Week
• The LA Times
• The Huffington Post
• CNET
• LifeHacker
• Consumerist
• Mashable
• Boing Boing
• AOL
• Zagat
• Too many more to remember or even attempt to keep track of.

My work has also been mentioned in various local newspapers, local newscasts, and local radio shows.

Studies, References, Books And More

My work in nutrition (specifically fast food nutrition) has been referenced what feels like a billion times by now, but one of the coolest of those references was in an actual study done by researchers from Columbia University and UC Berkeley that was published in the National Bureau of Economic Research in 2009.

I’ve also been approached over the years by various authors and publishing companies asking me to either co-author a book, contribute something to a book, or sign a release to allow my work to be used in their book.

For example, I’ve allowed my stuff to appear in a handful of different text books that are being used around the world. On the other hand, I refused to sign a release to allow my work to appear in a book written by a “celebrity” you’ve probably heard of (long story).

I was also once asked to contribute to one of those “For Dummies” books, but I was super busy at the time and it seemed like too much work so I turned it down. It would have been hilarious to have some kind of “Diet/Fitness For Dummies” book on my resume, though.

TV Appearances… Almost

In late 2001, one of the first really big and popular things I did as an internet-fitness-writer-guy was this public “experiment” to prove that ab machines are useless for actually losing stomach fat and getting abs.

So, I bought some typical piece of crap ab contraption from some typical late night infomercial (I think it was actually called the “Ab Piece-Of-Crap”), used it for the specified frequency and duration it said was needed to get the “sexy six pack abs of my dreams,” and then closely monitored my progress (which, as you can guess, was completely non-existent).

My goal was to prove that “spot reduction” was a bullshit myth and that all of these ab machines were useless garbage. This may seem like common knowledge now (even though I’d guess 75% of the population probably still doesn’t realize it), but in 2001 it was kind of a big deal because there weren’t a million other people writing about it. I was one of first to REALLY attack these products.

This little experiment of mine kind of put me on that map at the time and was quite popular. So popular in fact that I was contacted by some Fox TV affiliate who wanted to have me appear live on the air as “the expert” providing the counterpoint for some segment they were doing on these infomercial ab machines.

Despite barely being 18 years old at the time, I was probably going to do it. But of course, this was all like a week before September 11, 2001, so my glorious TV debut never happened. Would have been pretty entertaining, though.

Since then I’ve been contacted a few other times by local TV news stations and newspapers to play a similar role in some other diet or fitness related topic, but I’ve mostly turned them down. I have however answered questions for newspaper reporters on a few occasions, so I’m pretty sure I’ve been quoted in a bunch of local newspapers that I’ve never actually seen.

The Results & Success Stories

All of the mentions, references, links, offers and popularity in the world are awesome, but my biggest accomplishments BY FAR are simply the amazing results I’ve seen people get and the amazing success stories I’ve heard from the MANY people who have used the information, advice, tools and programs that I’ve put out there.

From men and women, old and young, beginners and advanced. From average people just trying to build muscle or lose fat to bodybuilders, models and athletes. I’ve heard success stories from all of them.

Regardless of their specific background, or goal, or schedule, or individual needs… they got the results they wanted in some way thanks to me. It’s honestly hard to put into words how awesome that makes me feel. Fortunately, it’s a feeling that I’m able to experience over and over again.

I’m regularly thanked by people for helping them build muscle, lose fat, get lean, get ripped, get a six pack, get strong, increase their bench press, fix their diet, improve their workout, save money, save time, improve their health, clear up their confusion, save their life (I’ve helped a few people drop over 100lbs of fat) and just generally allow them to reach their diet and fitness goals as quickly and effectively possible.

Above all else, this is why I do what I do. Always has been, always will be. Hopefully it shows.

And That’s My Story… So Far

Hopefully all of the above has helped answer some of your questions about me and this website and makes you feel a bit more comfortable trusting it all.

If not, send me an email and ask me whatever you want to know. I usually answer.