Do it the natural way

Plenty of people don't like to admit that they exercise to look good. That's OK. Let's make peace with that notion.

One thing is certain, if you do exercises that train your body to do real-life activities, you will look good and natural. The old design adage that form follows function works in the fitness world too.

How do you apply this principle?

Choose exercises that utilize multiple parts of the body. When you carry groceries back from the store, you are using a lot of muscles to stabilize the bags. Almost 90 percent of the exercises I do on done standing upright. This recruits the legs, midsection, and everything else that anchors our bodies.

I used to love bench pressing because I could move a lot of weight, but when do we lie on our backs and push a heavy load towards the heavens? Instead I do standing shoulder presses. This forces my entire body to stabilize.