The New Rules of Lifting

Lou Schuler is a National Magazine Award-winning journalist, certified strength and conditioning specialist, and author or coauthor of many popular books about diet and strength training. In addition to the New Rules of Lifting books with Alwyn, Lou wrote The Book of Muscle (with Ian King), The Home Workout Bible (with Mike Mejia and many other contributors), and The Testosterone Advantage Plan (with Jeff Volek, Mike Mejia, and Adam Campbell).

A native of St. Louis, Missouri, Lou graduated from the University of Missouri School of Journalism in 1979, and worked for a variety of newspapers and magazines before entering the graduate writing program at the University of Southern California. While there, he started working part-time as a copyeditor at Muscle & Fitness magazine, which soon grew into a full-time job at Men’s Fitness.

After six years at Men’s Fitness, the last three as fitness editor, he moved across the country to Men’s Health magazine, where he worked as fitness director until 2004. Since then he has written for a long list of magazines, including Men's Journal, Fit Pregnancy, and Better Homes & Gardens. He also worked for a year as editorial director at T-nation.com.

Lou lives in Allentown, Pennsylvania, with his wife and three children.

Born in Scotland and initially exposed to fitness training through an intense competitive sport martial arts background, Alwyn Cosgrove began reading and studying any training related material he could get his hands on. This led Alwyn to formal academic studies in Sports Performance at West Lothian College and then progressed on to receiving an honors degree in Sports Science from Chester College, the University of Liverpool.

During his career as a fitness coach, Alwyn began with assisting in martial arts lessons in 1986 and teaching fitness classes in 1989, and has studied under all of the top fitness professionals and coaches in the world and has worked with a wide variety of clientele, from general population clientele to several top level athletes, World Champions and professionals in a multitude of sports.

A sought after ‘expert’ for several of the country’s leading publications including a regular contributor to Men’s Health magazine, Alwyn has co-authored two books in the “New Rules of Lifting” series (with a third on the way) and currently spends his time training clients, training his staff at Results Fitness, speaking on the lecture circuit and coaching fitness trainers worldwide in their businesses.

For the past decade, with his wife Rachel, Alwyn runs Results Fitness in Santa Clarita, California- which has twice been named one of America’s Top Gyms by Mens Health magazine, a gym which specializes in programs for real-world busy people, and prides itself on “changing the way fitness is done – period!”

Cassandra Forsythe, Ph.D., R.D., received her doctorate in kinesiology from the University of Connecticut, and completed her dietetic internship at UMass Amherst, both in 2009. Originating from northern British Columbia, Canada, she received her M.S. in Human Nutrition and Metabolism and her Bachelors in Nutrition and Food Science from the University of Alberta in Edmonton. 

She is a Registered Dietitian (RD), certified as a Strength and Conditioning Specialist (CSCS) from the National Strength and Conditioning Association (NSCA), and is a Certified Sports Nutritionist (CISSN) through the International Society of Sports Nutrition (ISSN).

Cassandra’s research experiences are the effects of low-carbohydrate diets, dietary fat manipulation, and resistance exercise on risk factors for heart disease, diabetes and body composition. She is also passionate about women’s health topics, including the Female Athlete Triad and pregnancy.

She works as a nutrition educator and weight loss coach and is the author of two popular books for women: “The New Rules of Lifting for Women”, co-authored with Lou Schuler and Alwyn Cosgrove, and “Women’s Health Perfect Body Diet”.