Elevating Fitness

A brief history of LouLike the blurb on the main page says, I'm an award-winning journalist, certified strength and conditioning specialist, author or coauthor of many popular books about diet and strength training.

My books include The New Rules of Lifting for Women (with coauthors Cassandra Forsythe and Alwyn Cosgrove), The New Rules of Lifting (with Alwyn Cosgrove), The Book of Muscle (with Ian King), The Home Workout Bible (with Mike Mejia and many other contributors), and The Testosterone Advantage Plan (with Jeff Volek, Mike Mejia, and Adam Campbell).

I also worked on two new books published under my coauthors' names: Built for Show, by Nate Green, and Huge in a Hurry, by Chad Waterbury.

I graduated from the University of Missouri School of Journalism in 1979, and later attended the Professional Writing Program at the University of Southern California. ("Attended" is a nice way of saying I didn't graduate.)

In my first year of grad school at USC, I started working part-time at Weider Publications, and in 1992 took a full-time job as a copy editor at Men's Fitness. I stayed there six years, the last three as fitness editor.

My MF colleagues and I won several Maggie Awards, which are given by the Western Publications Association, including one for personal columns and essays. (I wrote two of the three we submitted the year we won, so I can claim a majority of the award.)

I moved to Men's Health in 1998, and became fitness director in 2001. Several colleagues and I won the National Magazine Award in 2004 in the Personal Service Category. My contribution was a feature called "Death by Exercise."

After leaving MH in 2004, I contributed to a long list of magazines, including Men's Journal, Fit Pregnancy, Better Homes & Gardens, and of course Testosterone. I also put in my time as a blogger, first at the original version of this site, then at Male Pattern Fitness, which is part of the SB Nation network and is now manned by my friend Andrew Heffernan.

I live in Allentown, Pennsylvania, with my wife and three children.