Rose City Strength

03/14/2026

The woman in the first video is 80 years old and this footage is from her initial assessment. When we first spoke on the phone she said she only wanted to train upper body which is something I expect to hear from a 16 year old boy or 40 year old man but not an 80 year old woman. When I asked why she said she walks 4 miles per day and has done so for the last several years almost without missing (except for one day when she flew to Portugal 😆). Which is fantastic but obviously doesn’t tick the box for having a stable, mobile, strong, injury resilient lower body. When I asked her to sit to the plates she could sit just fine but was unable to stand back up without using her hands to assist. Which is at the same time incredible considering the joint angle of her hips and knees in the sitting position but also not at all surprising or uncommon for a woman her age. With a few simple cues and some reassurance she was able to knock out 10 reps with ease. It’s amazing to think about how much this woman’s life is going to be improved by a little targeted lower body and core work (and how if she had it her way we would just be knocking out heavy bench presses each week 😝)

# morristownnj

03/02/2026

One of my guys created an app 😂 🤷🏻‍♂️ It’s kinda making me want to bring the stache-only look back… And some PR’s from the Monday crew

03/01/2026

A long overdue FAQ page for the website and some PR’s from this week

02/22/2026

https://rosecitystrength.com/blog/f/growing

02/15/2026

Four more who will never have a “bad” back, bad knees, etc. Where was this when I was in 6th grade?? The number of times I hurt myself doing these lifts as a young person is almost too many to count. I learned but I learned the hard, slow, dumb, painful way. I was catching up with a physical therapist friend last week who treats a lot of young athletes from Madison and Chatham and we were joking about how absolutely ***100%*** guaranteed it is for these kids to hurt themselves with the instruction they typically receive

02/10/2026

Some PR’s from today

02/07/2026

New rack and some PR’s from this week

madisonnj chathamnj florhamparknj summitnj morristownnj hardingnj squat bench deadlift

02/01/2026

The snow
Turned in
To
Rain

I deeply miss this man. So much time spent in deep conversation - “the well of thoughts” as he called it.

Gyms had been allowed to reopen for a grand total of two days when the old-old gym flooded. It was a strange time to be looking for commercial space and of what little was available very little was suitable (or affordable 😅). I had spoken with everyone I could think of but I hadn’t found the right place and the clock was ticking so I thought what the heck let me go talk with the crazy old man who has that building on the corner. In the warm weather the front door was propped wide open and the smell of lubricating oil rolled coolly out to greet me on the sidewalk. Standing on the threshold I called out and a voice called back. Stepping inside my hand gripped a worn wooden banister and I heard my feet make a hollow ringing sound against the spiral steel stairs as I climbed. Coming out of the final turn three things happened in immediate succession of one another: my second foot hit the landing; my eyes locked with those of an elderly man - obscured and magnified by thick glasses - sitting behind a desk at the opposite end of a long room; and on an otherwise clear summer day lightning crashed and thunder boomed and shook through the bones of that old building.

And a heartbeat later rain began to fall in sheets on the thin roof.

01/24/2026

Since the gym moved there have been an unusually large number of people who have joined in such a short period of time. Historically RCS has been immune to the New Years bump, we’re no longer downtown, I don’t have any signage up yet (I’ve learned my lesson - twice - about large, painted murals 🙃), there is virtually no foot traffic and even if you were to walk up to the windows you wouldn’t be able to see through the bottom half which is old patterned, wired glass. Right now the gym is harder to find than when we started eight years ago in the basement of a pizzeria. So what gives?

I was discussing this with a client who said that in the past two or three months he’s noticed a significant uptick in strength training related content in his social media and news feeds. Everyday there seems to be more research coming out about the myriad benefits of strength training and with that influx of content I think people must be getting hip to the fact that the so-called ‘strength’ classes they’re taking in their HIIT, pilates and barre studios are missing the mark for what strength training in the research means and where the benefit lies (last week one of my clients told me about the deadlifts they have begun to incorporate in pilates using THREE pound dumbbells - this coming from an ultra petite woman who can deadlift ~150 pounds 🤷‍♂️).

When I was picking a name I had real reservations about Rose City Strength. I thought it might be too intimidating for the average person to walk through the door. Rose City Fitness sounds a lot more friendly, inclusive and approachable. Even Rose City Strength & Conditioning softens it up a bit. But I decided to stick with strength because strength was the very basic and essential thing missing from all of these other things and because I felt strongly that eventually there would have to be a societal shift toward true-blue resistance training in order for the average person to achieve the level of fitness, health and wellness that we all desire.

TLDR; stay in your lane pilates and I will sacrifice a chicken to you and the algorithms for the blessings you presumably have conferred 🙏🐓💪

12/16/2025

Between Thanksgiving, the gym move and people’s work travel and vacation schedules there are some clients I haven’t seen in close to 3 weeks. And some of those people - the newer folks, in particular - haven’t touched a weight in that time. Coming back from a break like that can be daunting especially when this is new. Personally what I’ll oftentimes have my clients do coming off a break is take the warm ups as if we didn’t miss a beat and the they’re going to hit the planned top sets and if it becomes apparent that we need to call an audible then we do. Depending on a lot of factors sometimes the PR’s are there and sometimes they aren’t. The trick is always to take what’s there and leave something in the tank. In fact if you had to break good, productive training down to its basic essence the previous sentence wouldn’t be too far off the mark.



SSB Squat 315x15
Deadlift 385x15

11/27/2025

What color racks for the new space? 🤔

And better question —> How many can we fit?? 🤤

11/26/2025