Carl J. Borg

Building live 1-on-1 video personal training. Your coach plans every session, corrects your form live, and keeps you accountable. Never AI.

[Carl J. Borg @carlborgly]

12+ weeks into Bespoke Fit.

1000+ live 1-on-1 sessions.
100% of members who joined are still training.

Turns out the hard part of fitness was never the workout. It's having someone who notices when you skip one.

[Carl J. Borg @carlborgly]

@senatorshoshana Congrats on the first 30! For hiking, the piece incline work misses is the downhill. Add slow step-downs off a box, 3 sets of 10 per leg with a light dumbbell, twice a week. Your quads and knees will thank you on the way down your next 14er.

[Carl J. Borg @carlborgly]

@DrKristieLeong @1Cosine Thanks, Kristie. For most busy people I'd aim for 2 to 3 full-body days a week, enough to keep building muscle while leaving room to recover.

[Carl J. Borg @carlborgly]

@MohammedAlo Fair point, and good to see the combo comes out on top for the lipid panel too. Easy takeaway either way: lift twice a week, add zone 2, and let diet and meds carry most of the LDL work.

[Carl J. Borg @carlborgly]

@wsellers @PatsKam Honestly 1 to 2 a week is a solid floor to build from. What helped me most was making sessions smaller and fixed: same two days, same time, 35 minutes, plus a 15 minute backup version for busy days so the streak never breaks.

[Carl J. Borg @carlborgly]

@AnnMIronsCPALLC Whiny and still doing it beats motivated and skipping every time. The out-of-practice part fades fast, usually within a couple of weeks.

[Carl J. Borg @carlborgly]

More founders are dieting. Love it.

One catch: lose weight by diet alone and roughly a quarter of it tends to be lean mass, not fat.

The fix is boring:
2 strength sessions a week
Keep your steps up
Don't crash the calories

Lose the fat. Keep the muscle you'll want at 60.

[Carl J. Borg @carlborgly]

@theelgrimes 1 to 2 rolls plus weights is a solid base, not a compromise. To bounce back faster, keep heavy leg work at least 48 hours away from a rolling day and make one of your lifts a lighter, quicker session.

[Carl J. Borg @carlborgly]

@NanaDianeHC @DrSeanOMara Stronger than you've ever been after 30 years of that is a real comeback. Hill sprints plus the heavier vest is a great combo, keep stacking those weeks.

[Carl J. Borg @carlborgly]

@neilquinn @AJA_Cortes Totally fair worry, but the spine adapts to load like the rest of you when you build it slowly. Adding about 5 lb every couple of weeks, with the pack riding high and snug, is a sensible way to work up to 20.

[Carl J. Borg @carlborgly]

@AshlandPresby @MetabolicFactor Simplest plan that works: 2 or 3 full-body days a week, same 5 moves each time. A squat, a hinge like Romanian deadlifts, a push, a pull, and a loaded carry. 3 sets of 8 to 10, and add a little weight once the last set feels easy.

[Carl J. Borg @carlborgly]

@neilquinn @AJA_Cortes That's the best reason to train it. For hiking and backpacking, pair the cardio with one rucking day: 30 to 45 minutes with a 20 lb pack, hills if you have them. It builds the legs and the downhill durability that VO2 max work alone misses.

[Carl J. Borg @carlborgly]

@BenBikmanPhD Worth adding that fasting insulin is one of the most trainable numbers on a lab panel. One training session improves insulin sensitivity for roughly 24 to 48 hours, so 3 sessions spread across the week, strength plus a brisk walk, keeps it lower most days.

[Carl J. Borg @carlborgly]

@getcwic That one stings, but writing it down while it's fresh is exactly how the next block gets better. Most rough marathon days trace back to first 10K pace or fueling, so splits and gels are the two things worth logging first. What did the back half look like?

[Carl J. Borg @carlborgly]

@CoachDanGo The brushing teeth framing works because nobody negotiates with a 2 minute habit. Same rule for training: a fixed daily slot and a minimum small enough to survive bad days, like 10 minutes of squats and pushups. Longer sessions are the bonus, not the habit.

[Carl J. Borg @carlborgly]

Protein is only half the signal.

Muscle needs a reason to use it, and that reason is load.

What we build into busy members' weeks:
2 full-body strength sessions
Last few reps genuinely hard
30 to 40 g protein at each meal

Eating enough doesn't keep muscle. Using it does.

[Benjamin Bikman @BenBikmanPhD]

Older muscle needs more protein at a meal to get the same building response as younger muscle. When the two were compared, older men needed about 1.7 times as much protein per kilogram of body weight before muscle building reached its peak.

This is part of why people lose muscle with age even when they think they're eating enough, because a serving that works fine for a younger person can fall short for an older one.

After about 60, I'd aim for a generous serving of protein at every meal, roughly 30 to 40 grams for most adults, and I'd pair it with lifting.

[Carl J. Borg @carlborgly]

The worst part of a long gym break isn't losing muscle.

Muscle comes back faster than it took to build.

The habit doesn't. It quietly dies in week two.

The rule: never miss two weeks in a row. Shrink the session, keep the slot.

Every member who joined us is still training.

[Carl J. Borg @carlborgly]

@NanaDianeHC @DrSeanOMara Up to 36 at 68, with 2 inches off the waist, is a big win. To keep it climbing, add one short interval day to the vest walks: 5 rounds of 1 minute uphill or on stairs, 2 minutes easy. How heavy is your vest?

[Carl J. Borg @carlborgly]

@1Cosine @DrKristieLeong It is a stubborn one, and you're already doing the best thing. Two levers that often help on top of lifting: about 30 g of protein at each meal, and protecting sleep, since short nights tend to show up at the waist. How many lifting days do you get in a week?