Strong Stuff newsletter

Strong Stuff

Join us

"JJ really meets you where you are in your fitness journey... JJ never makes me feel dumb or inadequate, and my experience with him and Out Fitness has helped me get over my gym anxiety." –Brittany

I'm Josh Jones Forbes (he/him), a certified personal trainer (NSCA-CPT) and vegan athlete. I reimagined myself over the course of 15+ years of exercise, and I’m still discovering new gifts from strength. I founded Out Fitness in 2022, because our LGBTQ+ community in Cleveland deserves a safe, affirming space to enjoy strength training.

Join me for 10 calm minutes or less every few weekends. You’ll cut through the "fitspiration" scams and get real inspiration to activate your strength. I’m breaking open a secret that algorithms keep hidden: Good fitness practices are sensible, not sensational.

📭

If you're already a member but you're not receiving newsletters, check your email settings here.

💪

Looking for my Strength Starter Kit? That's here.

How to enjoy newsletters outside your inbox

A “read-it-later” app is a focused place to read (and listen to) all your newsletters and saved articles. The most popular apps are:

Reader (my favorite, $10+)
Instapaper (free+)
Matter (free+)

Each app will provide you a unique email address, which you can use to subscribe to newsletters you care about. For subscribing to my Strong Stuff newsletter, update your email address here. Then the newsletter, including member-only editions, will appear automatically in your read-it-later app.

Why pay for a newsletter?

Because otherwise, all "fitness content" is distorted by powers that do not care about you or your health: addictive apps; unregulated supplements; drug manufacturers; anti-fat, -Black, and -queer gym corporations; and the food industrial complex.

You're supporting a real human (me!) who cares about you. I follow the same values for Out Fitness and my newsletter. That's why I've made these choices for all my writing:

No AI and no algorithms, because they can replicate the worst patterns of their human inputs
No ads, because I’m focusing on you instead of chasing advertisers
100% honesty about my experiences and scientific sources, because you deserve better than misleading clickbait and YouTube thumbnails

If you cannot support by paying right now, subscribe to free editions here.

Past editions

Latest

"If you finish, you win."

This is my Strong Stuff newsletter. Let's reclaim strength from toxic fitness culture and uplift what's strong about you and everything you love. Because when we each feel stronger, we can build a better world. Congrats, you’re taking 10 minutes for calm focus on your

Smith machine and other things you can try

This is my Strong Stuff newsletter for our Out Fitness community. When we each feel stronger, we can build a better world. So this newsletter aims to reclaim strength from toxic fitness culture and uplift what's already strong about you and everything you love. Congrats, you’re taking

Claim your strength but check your pride

This is my Strong Stuff newsletter for our Out Fitness community. Congratulations, you’re taking 7 minutes for calm focus on your own wellness, which is just what the world needs. While you read, if you think of someone else who might like this, send them here. Hi friend! This

Let's triple down on strength 💪

I'm sharing a plan to upgrade all three of our studio's rooms to be "strength rooms," because our members almost always prefer our current Strength Room. The change would effectively triple our capacity for workouts! Every room's equipment would include: dumbbells with

10 years of lifting: a love letter

A funny thing happened on the way to my thirties. I fell in love, against the odds, with weightlifting. Last week I reached 10 years of strength training (and with seven years as a vegan). Unlike the lifters who were high school athletes or college gym rats, I didn'

How much protein?

I know you know that protein is important for building and maintaining muscle. Protein messaging is everywhere. Food packaging now shows protein right on the front. Commercials highlight more and more protein. Doctors often recommend increasing protein. And if you choose to go vegan or plant-based, everyone will ask

Book recommendations [updated]

This is a list of my 9 favorite books for a thoughtful, inclusive look at fitness, exercise, and food! Over the last three years, I've learned loads from these authors and their often personal stories. I've included Bookshop links because independent bookstores (American Booksellers Association) receive

How many reps?

Here's a short explainer for a common question: How my repetitions should I do in one set of a strength exercise? There are several schools of thought about rep ranges. I'll debunk a couple and then provide a strong recommendation! First, we'll start with

A thesis for Out Fitness

I'm in a reflective mood as our studio, Out Fitness Collective, celebrates one year since opening here in Cleveland in October 2022! It has been an terrific learning process and made me exponentially more thoughtful about "fitness." Also recently, I read an excellent, new book, "

Building beginner strength workouts

This is a companion piece for my Strength Starter Guide. It's the most common and consequential Google search most people make to start strength training: "workout plan for beginners." The results are dizzying, full of jargon and strangers' opinions. I wish I'd found

Making your own meal shake

I didn't include this shake in my list of favorite recipes, since it's not a truly wholesome meal that I encourage everyone to make. But there's a reason why shakes and powders like Soylent or Huel (or worse, Muscle Milk) are so popular: The

"I want to lose some weight."

Living in a fatphobic society means nearly all of us want to lose weight or avoid body fat. Weight discrimination is a constant (and still legal) harm for the majority of Americans. In medical settings, doctors use BMI as the most important or even sole measurement of a person'

Motivation

My clinical depression (or feeling fit AND sad)

Exercise is one of my lifelines, and right now I'm dangling from the end of the rope. It's been 12 days since I last worked out. That might be the longest gap in my lifting in seven years. But nothing unusual caused this. When my day

Food

Why I'm a vegan who loves to eat

Four years ago in 2019, I made a New Year's resolution to eat less meat. I had read about the environmental impacts of meat production and the ways it wasted land and water. I heard the World Health Organization say bacon and salami can cause cancer. I was

Motivation

My 7-year training anniversary reflection

Today marks seven years since I began strength training! When I was approaching one year out of college, I decided to commit myself to lifting at least once every week, mostly out of dissatisfaction with myself. I must have thought I'd make it at least one year, because

Exercise

A strong lower back (even with lower back pain)

Lower back pain is so common. Globally, an estimated 31% of adults experience lower back pain, with higher rates for women in particular. The pain typically begins around or after the age of 30. Before you first experienced back pain, perhaps you never even noticed your lower back or its

Motivation

Learning affirming alternatives to "dieting"

Almost everyone I know has wanted to lose weight by dieting at some point in their life — me included. There is constant social pressure for people, especially women, to lose weight, and as a result, most of us have a negative body image. When I'm coaching someone, weight

Motivation

"No brain, no gain" — the psychology behind your workouts

I was as surprised as anyone when strength training became my hobby. My experiences with exercise had been varied, but I always remembered the negative ones and thought of myself as "unathletic." Overcoming that mental trap required rethinking my identity and finding the right motivations. It's

Exercise

300+ physical activity ideas!

"What kind of exercise should I do?" The best exercise is the one you enjoy — but finding it can take time. The database on this page is your source for nearly 400 activity variations to consider. You might be surprised to see how many common activities can be

Exercise

Shoulder pain during strength exercise?

The section of my NSCA textbook about shoulder impingement was a revelation for me. My shoulder joints aren't very flexible, and for years I've been frustrated by pinching pains when doing overhead dumbbell presses. Disclaimer: This article and my coaching are not intended to fix shoulder

Motivation

What "fitness" means to me

My love of fitness was latent for a long time. Finally embracing that passion is part of my ongoing effort to accept my full self, and I've learned (and unlearned) a lot of core beliefs and values along the way. For the majority of my life, I felt

Food

Recipes: JJ's feel-good foods

These are recipes that are wholesome and simple enough to eat whenever you want. (If a recipe doesn't include the step "combine ingredients," then it's too complicated for me. 😉) Print / save these recipes Jump to a recipe: 🧀 Vegan cheddar cheese 🥣 Crunchy protein cereal 🌯 15-

See all