The School of Living · everyday skills for a whole life
Fitness & Movement
Strength, endurance, and mobility built on evidence, meant to be kept for decades rather than weeks.
Squat, hinge, push, pull, carry — a full first year of barbell and dumbbell training, programmed honestly.
Syllabus · 5 units · ~24 hours
Unit I — Why Strength
Muscle, bone, and metabolism: what training changes · Strength and aging: the case for starting now · Myths: bulk, soreness, and no-pain-no-gain
Unit II — The Movements
Squat and hinge: the lower-body pair · Push and pull: horizontal and vertical · Carries, and bracing the trunk through all of it
Unit III — Programming
Sets, reps, and progressive overload · A three-day full-body template · Warming up and choosing starting weights
Unit IV — Form and Recovery
Video-checking your own lifts · Sleep, protein, and rest days as training · Aches versus injuries: which to train through
Unit V — The Long Game
Plateaus and deload weeks · Adjusting for age, schedule, and equipment · Month twelve: testing progress and setting the next year
From daily walks to a steady 5K, with pacing, shoes, and the patience that keeps you off the injury list.
Syllabus · 4 units · ~12 hours
Unit I — The Walking Base
Why weeks of brisk walking come first · Posture, cadence, and comfortable distance · Building the habit before building the speed
Unit II — Run-Walk Progressions
Intervals: one minute on, ninety seconds off · The talk test and conversational pace · Advancing only when a week feels easy
Unit III — Staying Whole
Shoes: fit over fashion · Shins, knees, and the ten-percent rule · Surfaces, weather, and running visibly at dusk
Unit IV — The First 5K
An eight-week plan to the start line · Race-day pacing for finishing well · After the race: keeping the habit
Hips, shoulders, and spine — daily work for a body that sits too much, with the evidence on what stretching does.
Syllabus · 3 units · ~8 hours
Unit I — Flexibility Versus Mobility
Range of motion you have versus range you control · What the research says stretching does and does not do · Static, dynamic, and loaded stretching told apart
Unit II — The Daily Ten Minutes
Hips: couch stretch, deep squat, and 90/90 · Shoulders and thoracic spine: doorway and wall work · Ankles, wrists, and neck: the forgotten joints
Unit III — The Desk Itself
Chair, screen, and keyboard heights that fit you · Movement snacks: the hourly reset · Standing desks: what they fix and what they do not
Set goals, place strength and cardio in a real week, track simply, and adjust when life interferes.
Syllabus · 4 units · ~12 hours
Unit I — Goals and Constraints
Naming the goal precisely enough to train for it · The honest audit: time, equipment, sleep, stress · Minimum effective dose versus optimal
Unit II — Assembling the Week
Placing strength, cardio, and mobility without collisions · Hard-easy sequencing and recovery days · Templates for two, three, and five available days
Unit III — Tracking and Adjusting
A paper log beats a gadget: what to write down · Reading stalls: fatigue, technique, or program · Travel, illness, and the art of the scaled-down week
Unit IV — Reviewing the Plan
The monthly review: keep, drop, change · When a plan should change and when you should not let it · Planning a year in seasons