StansellFit

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.

01/16/2026

This is one of the best pieces of advice I can give any new gymgoer. Do not miss workouts. Do not miss workouts. Do not miss workouts.

Not only do you not get the stimulus for that day, it primes you for a backslide. Missing a workout is you telling yourself it’s okay to miss workouts. Your resolve loosens, and you start to allow thinner and thinner excuses to keep you from training.

You need an insanely high threshold for missing workouts if you want to achieve any kind of long-term success. Maybe it’s a little intense and/or not entirely relevant for this message, but I love the quote: “Those who stand for nothing, fall for everything.”

You need to decide that this is important and give yourself little to no wiggle room.

01/11/2026

As a trainer, my goal is to match up with clients I believe I can genuinely help. Part of that means being realistic with what each potential client has to give at this stage of their life.

I’m sure there are plenty of trainers that would be all too eager to take on anyone or to throw shade at me for not taking on a client that may need my help.

But in my experience, someone at a 10/10 stress is not in a position to be adding the kinda stress that in-person training creates. I also don’t want to take anyone’s money when I don’t believe they’ll be able to consistently show up and put in the work that this process requires.

There are all sorts of reasons someone may be getting absolutely buried by life. But the last thing I would suggest for them is to try to start a lifting program during these periods. To be clear, I’m not talking about someone that’s stressed at work. I’m talking about people that are struggling to exist.

For many of these people, even going for a 15 minute walk or doing two exercises at home may be a Herculean feat. And those are probably closer to where they need to start.

At the end of the day, it’s all about matching your routine with your capacity.

12/17/2025

Stretching has gotten a bad reputation in the fitness space due to poor evidence for various outcomes. But I’m not convinced we’re looking at the RIGHT outcomes.

The problem is that research relies heavily on metrics that are easy to quantify and many of the improvements people feel or see when they regularly stretch are qualitative in nature. And thus difficult to quantify. For instance, they may FEEL better or MOVE better.

This is the unfortunate limitation of research and why it’s probably not great to rely SOLELY on it. It should, of course, underpin your understanding of any topic if possible but it’s neither exhaustive nor infallible.

I’m of the opinion that if we have good research on something, best to start with that. But if it’s lacking, think critically and form your own opinions through trial and error. At least until it catches up.

12/15/2025

I get that everyone has aesthetic preferences. I do. But it’s much harder to get behind when those preferences keep people from being the healthiest and most capable version of themselves.

Muscle is unequivocally good for you. No one is saying you must become a bodybuilder. But the muscle you can build on a well-balanced strength training program is NEVER a bad look.

12/11/2025

As a personal trainer, I love chatting and learning from other trainers. I was having a conversation recently with about consistency and ways to help our clients understand that you will RARELY have perfect conditions.

Yet so many people seem to think it’s better to skip a workout when you aren’t feeling your best rather than showing up imperfectly. But imperfect done consistently is unequivocally better than perfect done inconsistently.

And of course I’m not saying there is NEVER a reason to miss workouts. Sometimes a break is needed. But the number of people that are training hard enough to truly warrant breaks is infinitesimal compared to the people that just need to show up.

Do not bias for perfection. Bias for consistency.

12/10/2025

Getting clients and new lifters to adjust their expectations of the physical discomfort of lifting is one of the hardest parts of being a trainer.

By all means don’t make things UNNECESSARILY difficult, but you cannot totally escape the discomfort. Rather than try, accept that it’s the price you pay for the myriad ways it improves your physical and mental wellbeing.

12/03/2025

I’m sorry runners. Running is fu***ng hard.

12/02/2025

Outcomes > Mechanisms

Just because something seems plausible doesn’t mean it’s true when looking at outcomes. The fitness and nutrition spaces are riddled with misinformation because of this mistake.

These are some of the more prominent examples, but there are many more. It’s not enough to understand how something MIGHT happen, you need to observe that it actually happens.

12/01/2025

For most of my training career, I believed the pursuit of strength was paramount. And I still believe that to SOME degree. After all, it underpins almost every way we interact with the physical world.

But it is not the ONLY variable that matters. I’ve recently discovered the importance of cardiovascular training and mobility. When it comes to health and wellbeing, I’ve always believed it’s more important to raise your floor than your ceiling.

Which means sacrificing the total maximization of strength in order to keep your body healthy and functioning well.

By all means, get strong. But don’t pursue strength at the expense of everything else. Move in ways you don’t normally move, load those movements, and play the long game.

11/30/2025

First half marathon in the books 🏃‍♂️ 🍂 . Had a great time. Marathon is up next.

Running has been such a good shakeup in my fitness routine. It’s been fun challenging myself again and doing something new. Still more to come but I’m enjoying the ride, even though I’m dying most of the time.

11/25/2025

Biomechanics and exercise “optimization” will take someone from 90% to 100% benefit from an exercise. That first 90% is putting in the work with basic exercises approximating whatever version of the movement they think looks right.

Far too many people are chasing that 10% of benefit and not putting in the work for the 90. If you do something that looks like a curl and you do it with gusto and you do it often, you will get far better results than the optimal curl with p**s poor effort and consistency.

I see this all the time with very analytical people. They’re always trying to determine the best way to do things, which is great but ONLY when layered on top of a blue collar work ethic.

Do suboptimal well before worrying about what’s optimal.

11/23/2025

Some thoughts on rest between sets ⏱️.

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Atlanta, GA

Website

https://www.stansellfit.com/

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