In order to get stellar results in the gym you need to lift progressively heavier weights, but more importantly, you need to learn and maintain good form. To help you have successful workouts and prevent you from getting injured, allow me to identify several form abuses, as well as suggestions for fixing them.

Bench presses are crucial for developing the size and strength of your chest, but when they are not done according to proper form they can lead to all sorts of injuries. Often, I see guys arching their backs so that a small log can actually fit between your back and the bench. This will lead to low back injuries in a hurry.

Correct this by keeping your back totally against the bench so that not even a piece of paper can be slipped beneath you. Wide-grip lat pull-downs are a fundamental part of every back routine. I often see guys rushing through this exercise leaning forward, pulling the bar down behind the neck. Correct this by pulling the bar down in front of you to your chin with your back slightly arched, and your chest puffed out. After pulling the bar down, hold it steady for two seconds, then take one-to-two seconds to let it rise back up to starting position. A special note here: Wide-grip lat pull-downs and shoulder barbell and dumbbell presses should never be performed behind the neck, since this can lead to rotator cuff damage.

Biceps curls with barbells, E-Z curl bars, and dumbbells are essential for adding mass to arms, and chiseling those peaks in your biceps. But as you lift, focus on contracting biceps and not arching your back. Swinging, jerking and arching the back as you curl does not build your arms, it causes injuries. Instead, keep your body vertical. If you can’t, then use a lighter weight. Practice curling while keeping your back against a wall, or while seated on a bench.

Squats are perhaps the most effective weight training exercise you can do in the gym. They not only work quads, hamstrings and glutes better than any other exercise, but there is practically no muscle group, from abs to triceps, that don’t benefit from squatting. I am often horrified when I see guys leaning forward, knees over their toes and spines flexed. When you squat, keep your back straight, your head up and your toes pointed outward. Drop your butt down and keep the backs of your upper legs slightly less than parallel to the floor. Squat down slowly and become more explosive as you come up, using your glutes, hams and quads to push you up.

You have a lifetime to lift all the weight in the gym, but if you cheat on your form and hurt yourself, you’re liable to end up with injuries that will take you out of circulation, maybe for good!

Contact trainertomb@aol.com with your questions about workout form.

Being on the down-low seems to be at the height of popularity at the moment. Of course, it has always been in existence right back to Greek mythology! Guys could always get a little man action on the side away from their doting wives. Of course, they weren’t gay, just open minded. Now, however, the idea almost seems to have reached cult status!

Provided all parties are aware during this little dance of the down-low, then one can argue no harm is being caused. More than likely, the only person who has the whole picture is the guy cheating on his wife.

How does he rationalize it? Oh, ever so simply, any guys who cheat on women with guys have a list of rules – of understandings – that they utilize to make it all ‘o.k.’ First, they are following actions they can’t control; if they ever get caught they always have the ‘I am being true to myself’ to fall back on. Secondly, they are seeking out something their wife is unable to provide; they follow this up with a quick and clear, foot down comment that is usually never required … ‘I would NEVER sleep with another woman’. That reaction alone leads to questions about being on the down-low versus being a closeted gay man. Do they even still sleep with Mrs. DL?

Cheating, as I have talked about before, is a potential pitfall of serpents, particularly when you are cheating with someone of the same sex. You run the risk of exposing your entire life to people you may not want to know that you like a little man time! Before anyone starts yelling at me about there being no shame in being gay, that’s true.  There is, however, shame in cheating.  There is also shame in pretending, if that is the case, that a foray into the world of man-on-man play time is anything more than a sexual urge that one knows is so easily gratified.

If you are searching for something – perhaps it’s your identity or perhaps it’s an escape from the doldrums of married life – it would serve anyone well who intends on going down the down-low route to make damn sure you know what you are looking for and know even more clearly the risks you are taking.

As soon as you say ‘risk’ in relation to being in the closet or a D-L kinda guy, the immediate thoughts are of being caught ordisease. Great, and while those aren’t untrue, remember two things: first, getting caught doesn’t necessarily mean getting caught with your drawers around your knees. No – did you ever wonder that while you are sucking face with some tragedy in a sleazy bar, it may also be the fave place of your wife’s hairdresser? He would love to tell her what her hubby gets up to! Or the florist? Or dog groomer? Now, I realize I have been extremely stereotypical to prove a point, but what about your lawyer you
didn’t realize was gay because he isn’t a flamer? You are caught. As for the disease angle, cheating in any way puts you at risk of that!

Let’s say by some sheer chance or miracle you get a pardon from your lovely lady and no one will ever know your business. Right.  So, you meet a guy and date, have great sex, get a dog and a picket fenced house, even get hitched in NYC – how long before you start seeking an escape from the monotony of your new gay life?

So, you live life on the down-low; what does that mean to you? A quick shag every so often

? Fine. OK. Whether it’s right to say it or not, I think those on the down-low should stay that way. The reality is they aren’t desperate for the love of a good man, they have love; they are desperate for the high that comes from breaking the ultimate taboo for a straight man.

Now, the most difficult and biggest downer to being on the DL is if you confuse the issue, start believing after 3 good lays with the kid in the next town, it means you have developed a deep connection. So what?  Do you do you try and forge a relationship, maybe go to dinner, learn something about them … all fine and dandy but, HELLO!

You are married. You are never going to offer yourself 100%, yet you will expect that in return. You see no issue in asking for exclusivity with the disclosure that you can still go back to your wife. Never stay the night, unless she is away, etc. What kind of life is that for anyone? What kind of life is that for you?

I have a friend who trawls the bars and internet meeting loser after loser, each one, in fact, more stupid and less ambitious than the last. Yet his claim is he is driven by the need to be loved. I will give him that; however, whenever he meets one guy who slightly offers some form of commitment, my friend can’t get away fast enough whilst complaining he can’t meet a genuine guy to settle down into a relationship with. Oh, did I not mention? My friend is married to a woman! He constantly pushes his luck,
staying out late, and getting away with it under any old guise he can come up with. He is not the minority; he is part of a majority of a new subset of the gay culture. He is not simply on the down-low; he is an undercover relationship junkie who will never get the right hit, because he is ultimately unavailable. He has managed to convince himself that the secret to his happiness lies in the potential of a gay relationship. I do mean solely in the potential, not in the end result.  He revels in the drama of each dalliance, each little mini-relationship, which always ultimately ends up with him being willingly used financially and unwillingly abused emotionally – all within the space of about 6 days.

He knows, as does any little trollop he picks up, that he will never leave his wife. He always hints that maybe possibly one day, etc.

We all know he never will. Not just because he loves her, but as with so many men in his position, he has a whole life outside of the gay world and bed hopping. He couldn’t just move out – he would lose a whole part of his straight life. No one is going to side with the ‘gay’ cheating husband in a divorce, are they? Divorces are nasty and, ultimately, you lose something!

So if you are going to down low it, be careful, be aware and ultimately know your limits and don’t impose them on others you will end up in a losing situation no matter the outcome. The Down Low life, like lies or secrets, have a horrid habit of coming out, no pun intended.

Alex Vaughn is the Editor-in-Chief of the Florida Agenda. He can be reached at editor@FloridaAgenda.com

by Dr. Dalton A. Yakerty

The Predicament

“Don’t think my partner is cheating on me physically, but I think she’s doing it emotionally all the time.  Is there such a thing as emotional adultery?  She has a male best pal who’s straight, and they’ve been ‘like brother and sister’ since childhood.  They speak almost in a code and share a history I can never compete with.  If she was straight, they’d be a couple in a nanosecond, so I’m left feeling like the other woman even though she and I are supposedly the couple.”

My View

There’s no more self-serving argument among gays than the one over what constitutes “cheating.”

Some of us clock ourselves in righteous liberation, when we just want to get our rocks off with whoever we please, while others who are merely obsessive and controlling wave high the flag of fidelity.  In both cases, one suspects the primary concern isn’t for the other, but rather our own wishes and wants.

I’ll leave the theological and moral arguments to your priest, rabbi or trendy shaman, but ask instead if there’s not a strong psychological basis for some type of  faithfulness and exclusivity in a relationship, some common-sense approach that may be overlooked by many in the LGBT community.

Research and my own experience as a counselor demonstrate that those relationships work best, and last the longest, where there’s some zone of intimacy that’s exclusive to you and your partner.

That zone of intimacy has different aspects to it, i.e., being able to divulge your innermost fears, disappointments and dreams, sharing the most complete history of your family and inner actions of your workplace, being free to show your weaknesses and quirks, expressing your need for affection and sexual pleasure, and finally finding within a particular person your greatest fulfillment to love and be loved.

I knew two professional football players whose wives divorced them because they said that outside of sex, these two straight men found in each other all the other aspects of that zone of intimacy, reducing their wives to little more than sexual surrogates.

What the person describes in this week’s predicament is a little similar, because the zone of intimacy with her partner is reduced to only a portion of  what she wants it to be.  Are there people for whom a highly reduced zone is enough?  Yes, but not likely for her and to this degree.

Emotional adultery is real and with the growth of social networks, chat rooms, and porn sites,  the opportunity and temptation for it is only a mouse click away.  The effect can be exceedingly corrosive because in the beginning it can seem so innocent and trivial.  And that’ s how mo

st relationships end, not with a bang, but bit by bit.

Counter-View from a Reader

“I really connect with what this person wrote.  So-called friends have messed more with my relationships than anything else.  Rather than supporting your relationships, they can create tension.  Jealousy comes more often from friends than from anyone I’m dating.  If they’re single, they want you to stay single, and their advice is frequently built on self-interest.  This male friend of your partner wishes you no good and as sure as hell you should worry what he’s telling her behind your back.”

Would YOU like to give advice in our next column?

Read the predicament below and send your reaction to DrYakerty@aol.com.

“There’s a big problem in the gay community that no one talks about, and that’s domestic violence or abuse, and it doesn’t just happen with male couples, but also with lesbians. Not sure why this gets hidden, maybe we turn away from anything that might give ammunition to the right-wing homophobes, but the result is that some of our gay brothers and sisters are left in abusive relationships with no one to turn to.  Have you ever known anyone in this situation?  What advice did you give him or her?”