StansellFit

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This is the home page of Atlanta-based personal trainer, Bo Stansell. I have a decade of experience in the strength and conditioning and fitness community.

10/08/2026

I had this conversation with a client recently. When I am at my lowest and cannot find the push to get back into the gym, I lower the barrier to entry.

One of the best ways to do that is to eliminate the exercises I dread. Those exercises being in there is sometimes enough of a barrier to make me say f**k it. But if I say, “Okay, I’m just gonna do these couple upper body exercises”, not only will I be FAR more likely to get to the gym, when I’m AT the gym, I’m far more likely to do more than I planned at the outset.

But you really don’t have to. This is for those times when we desperately need to lower the activation inertia, so we can build momentum back up.

So the next time you’re really struggling to get to the gym, make a deal that you only have to do the stuff you like when you get there.

10/01/2026

You do not need to be a body mechanic. It’s far more important to understand the relationship between training variables and the onset of pain than to know the exact structures involved or the mechanism of dysfunction. Especially since truly figuring this out will lead you down a lot of blind alleys and often doesn’t actually fix the problem.

You don’t need to be perfectly symmetrical. And you don’t need to move perfectly. If you have pain, back off until it’s not pi**ed off anymore. Do other stuff in the meantime. And slowly re-add and progress the painful stuff.

It doesn’t need to be complicated.

09/30/2026

“How do I know when to move up in weight?” is one of the most common questions I get. Having a system that at least gives you SOME criteria for when to move up is probably a good idea.

I frequently deploy double progression to soften the increase in stress. It’s sort of a “take one step back to take two steps forward” process to mitigate the risk of increasing stress too quickly.

My number one concern is keeping my clients (relatively) safe. So any system that allows me to smooth out the progression does that.

09/29/2026

Sometimes it’s good to take a step back to make sure that what you’re doing and where you want to go are in alignment.

For me, I was forced to prioritize something other than lifting and I realized I didn’t care nearly as much about losing muscle and strength as I thought I would.

That created a huge shift in my thinking about fitness in general. Being fit can look very different to different people. For me, it looks like being strong ENOUGH, looking good, and feeling good. Which means not continuing to push for things that have little return and much higher risk.

Most of this stuff is bonus, so don’t be afraid to experiment, do s**t for fun, shift priorities, whatever. You’ll be fine. The fact that you’re doing this stuff at all is HUGE.

09/28/2026

Blows my mind how many trainees and also TRAINERS that don’t understand muscle growth.

Most newbies can build muscle just by stepping foot in the gym, but to get to the level where you truly look like you go to the gym, you gotta dial things in.

These are the biggest mistakes I see.

09/21/2026

Can you overeat fruits and vegetables? I guess if you try hard enough. But you would have to eat SO much and the loud protesting from your GI system would prevent this from being sustainable for long anyway.

Don’t be so hyper-fixated on potential mechanisms that you forget to do a basic sanity check.

Fruit is not the enemy.

09/18/2026

I am not suggesting that peptides are useless or unsafe. I’m telling you that we simply don’t have enough human data to determine either. This is true for many supplements as well.

This is less about the drugs and more about the attitude toward taking s**t like this. Why would you put something in your body unless you knew beyond a reasonable doubt that it was safe and effective?

Have you tried all the normal stuff first before running to the pharmacy or your local GNC? You know, things like lifting regularly, getting lots of movement, eating a balanced diet that covers your nutritional needs, and having good sleep hygiene? Lift, sleep, eat well, manage stress. You don’t need this other s**t.

I understand the desire to want to take something that can give you a boost, but it’s nothing that couldn’t be handled better by adjusting one of the above levers.

Stop gambling with your body and looking for a magic bullet. Do the basics well and stop getting advice from influencers that care more about selling you stuff than giving you good information.

P.S. I want to make it clear that I’m not talking about GLP-1 agonists here. I’m talking about the less studied peptide market and almost the entire supplement market.

09/02/2026

I’m a huge fan of supersets whenever possible because they sacrifice very little strength and muscle growth but save a good chunk of time when programmed well.

But there’s some nuance about how and when to use them, which I’ve hopefully provided here.

References:

Zhang X, Weakley J, Li H, Li Z, García-Ramos A. Superset Versus Traditional Resistance Training Prescriptions: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis Exploring Acute and Chronic Effects on Mechanical, Metabolic, and Perceptual Variables. Sports Med. 2025 Apr;55(4):953-975. doi: 10.1007/s40279-025-02176-8. Epub 2025 Feb 4. PMID: 39903375; PMCID: PMC12011898.

Robbins DW, Young WB, Behm DG, Payne WR. Effects of agonist-antagonist complex resistance training on upper body strength and power development. J Sports Sci. 2009 Dec;27(14):1617-25. doi: 10.1080/02640410903365677. PMID: 19967584.

Iversen VM, Eide VB, Unhjem BJ, Fimland MS. Efficacy of Supersets Versus Traditional Sets in Whole-Body Multiple-Joint Resistance Training: A Randomized Controlled Trial. J Strength Cond Res. 2024 Aug 1;38(8):1372-1378. doi: 10.1519/JSC.0000000000004819. PMID: 39072654.

Burke, R., Hermann, T., Piñero, A., Mohan, A., Augustin, F., Sapuppo, M., Coleman, M., Wolf, M., Korakakis, P. A., Swinton, P. A., & Schoenfeld, B. J. (2026). Less time, same gains: Comparison of superset vs. traditional set training on muscular adaptations. Science & Sports, 41(1), 77–90.

08/30/2026

One of the most common problems I see with regular gymgoers is difficulty figuring out how to progress exercises. They often get caught in an endless cycle of trying to increase by too much, getting injured, backing off, trying to do too much, get injured, and on and on.

Or they never increase or increase so infrequently that they’re wasting a ton of time and never seem to make any progress.

It’s hard to know what you’re gonna have on any given day, so “planning” to go up in weight can be precarious. Especially as you get more advanced. But for many, if there is NO system for increasing it simply won’t happen.

Something like a double progression system that I’ve detailed here allows enough flexibility to account for fluctuations in capacity while also giving you clear triggers for when to progress.

At the end of the day, as long as the elements of your program—reps, weight, range of motion, RPE, sets, etc—are increasing in some way over time, you’re on the right track. Exactly how you go about that has some wiggle room.

08/24/2026

This isn’t an exhaustive list by any means.

Any more you might add or any you disagree with? Let me know!

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Atlanta, GA

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https://www.stansellfit.com/

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