I've been writing about strength training for so long that I find it difficult to read about it in the mainstream press. Take this story, an "online exclusive" from Newsweek called "The Four Worst Weightlifting Blunders."

The reporter interviewed Joe DiAngelo, a trainer and chef in New York city who works with an extensive list of celebrities and other rich folks. I don't know him, but as I've said about celebrity trainers in a previous post, the skills necessary to court and keep famous clients aren't necessarily those that make someone a competent conditioning specialist. 

Most of these trainers, I assume, have both skill sets -- they can get someone in better shape while also playing the role of celebrity appendage. But there's no telling which is more important to any particular celebrity-trainer matchup.

The four "blunders" are pretty simple and straightforward: "eating badly," "underestimating your strength," "trying to be macho," and "having bad form."

It's the details that kind of suck. Like this:

If you aren't eating a proper diet, weightlifting may actually make you bulgy, not buff. Combining a fatty diet with squats and free weights, for example, can make your butt look bigger. Why? Because you are building glute muscles but keeping the fat layer the same size. So the muscles will push the fat forward and the butt will look bigger. But with a healthy, low-fat diet, you'll get lean muscles and burn the fat away.

When you put it this way -- lifting will make your butt fat unless you eat a "healthy, low-fat diet" -- all you're doing is scaring people away from strength training.

You could just as easily say this: "If you eat too much for your activity level, you'll get fat." It doesn't matter if you're a runner, a lifter, or a couch fungus. You'll put on fat wherever your body tends to store it. (For the sake of my sanity and your reading pleasure, I won't touch the "low fat" part of the quote.)

The rest of the advice prattles on in much the same fashion. Don't be a wimp and lift too little, but don't be a mook and try to lift too much. Throw in the final tip -- don't have bad form! -- and readers are left with the impression that strength training makes you fat, leaves you injured, and doesn't work anyway unless you can thread the needle between lifting too little and too much, and threading it with perfect form.

So let's clarify things for the sake of online-exclusive readers everywhere.

1. The biggest weightlifting mistake is not lifting weights.

Your body will get weaker, fatter, and slower throughout life unless you reverse the aging process with serious exercise. All exercise is good, but you need to lift if you want to maintain total-body strength and muscle function.

2. The second-biggest mistake is not challenging yourself to get stronger.

Forget about whether weights are too heavy or too light. If you aren't getting stronger in your lifts over time, you aren't doing it right. (For further insight, T-nation offers this interesting take on gaining strength.)

3. You can't starve yourself and expect to achieve any benefit from strength training.

Muscles need calories to grow. Your body needs calories to recover from one workout to the next. If you're just starting out, you don't need any state-of-the-art supplements or to hit any particular macronutrient ratio. Those things might help, but every nutritionist I've met believes that the key to a healthy, successful diet is eating plenty of good food.

We all know what good food is by now -- lean protein sources (meat, fish, poultry, dairy, eggs), fruits and vegetables, seeds and nuts. I'd throw in whole grains for people who aren't severely overweight. A glass of wine with dinner is a good idea for most of us.

You can find good gyms and competent trainers just about anywhere. You can find good workout programs online or at any decent-size bookstore. I'm partial to  my  own  books, as you could guess, but I'll be the first to admit that someone new to lifting could get good results from just about any well-designed workout program.

Really, is it any more complicated than that?

Thursday blog meat:

* Scientists believe that Americans have screwed the pooch when it comes to our international reputation, primarily because of "a perceived high-level disdain for science." So there's a downside to promoting intelligent design and abstinence-only sex education while suppressing evidence of climate change? Damn! Who saw that coming?

* I'm on the road for the next three days at the annual JP Fitness Summit in Little Rock. Be excellent in my absence.