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Today’s Health Upgrade

• Arnold’s Corner: Monday Motivation

• Is typing stealing your brain power?

• How to feel more optimistic about Mondays

• Workout of the week

Arnold’s Corner 
Monday Motivation: Open The Door

How many doors have you walked right past in your life?

I am not talking about real doors. I’m talking about opportunities.

One of our members I’ve trained with, Peggy, made me think about this. I’ll share what she wrote in just a second. But first, I want to get you thinking.

All of us walk past a lot of opportunities in life, and sometimes, we don’t see them. Sometimes, the unknown behind them scares us. Sometimes, we are so stuck in our ways it just doesn’t feel like who we are.

When Joe Weider invited me to America, that was a door opening to a new part of my life. But that’s big and obvious. I think all of us see those doors.

They can be much smaller.

Anything that is new to you might be a chance you don’t realize.

It can be going to a farmer’s market for vegetables. It can be training for the first time. It can be going to a class or a club or church.

All it has to be is something that the old you wouldn’t do — because that’s how you walk through the door that brings you to the new you.

It can also be something that you’ve been meaning to do, but you’ve been putting off over and over. You know you want what’s on the other side, but something keeps holding you back.

We have shared a lot of research here about how once you have a vision, you have to act on it. You can’t just think about it. Your brain needs proof that the vision you see is really who you want to be, and the only proof it believes is action.

A lot of you tell me you can’t find your vision. If you’re stuck, the best thing you can do is stop thinking and start doing.

That’s when you walk through every door you see.

When my friends invited me to train with the Graz Weightlifting Club, that was a door that changed my life.

When I was wandering through town and saw the magazine with Reg Park as Hercules in a window, I walked through a door and found my blueprint.

Neither of those things ever happened if I sat at home.

I especially want young people to hear this, because we see data on how much time they spend on their phones, playing video games, and gambling.

If the only door in your life is the one you’ve locked yourself behind, you’re not going to find what you’re looking for. I guarantee you.

It’s not just the young people. I know people of every age who have retreated into their devices and stopped looking for more in their life.

They’ve stopped finding the joy of being surprised, choosing the comfort of what they know.

I want all of you to open a door this week. Just do something that you’ve been putting off, or that takes you slightly outside of your status quo.

Let yourself be surprised.

Now, I am letting Peggy take over, because she wants to challenge women in her age group — and everyone — to join her on the other side of the door she opened.

—

Meet Peggy

My name is Peggy O’Brien. I’m 53 years old, and fell completely and unexpectedly in love with barbells and competing at 52. 

I took a trip that was a reach for me in 2025 to Venice Beach for my first Pump Club meetup, ruck, and visit to Gold’s Gym. 

At the time, I had been running the beginner bodyweight foundation in the Pump Club app for about a year. At Gold’s, the team set up a trap bar for us to try deadlifting.  I had never seen anything like this before. We were all invited to lift. 

Jen Widerstrom had just finished demonstrating how to secure a barbell across our backs for a squat.  A barbell can go across your back?  This person is strong enough to hold a barbell across her back like it’s a broomstick?!  I had never seen a physique like Jen’s either, and on that day I told her so.  I had no idea who this gorgeous living superhero creation was.  

People started lining up to lift, and I found myself swept up — kicking off my shoes and joining the line with everyone. I touched the trap bar. I lifted 180lbs that day. Adam Bornstein told me I was strong. Daniel Ketchell gave me a hug. I sat down on the floor and for the rest of the morning watched incredible feats of strength. 

I had never seen such effort and exertion — gym faces reddening with maximum effort.  Muscles and veins exploding. The fervor of cheers for the lifters. The slam of the weights on the ground. The thump that reverberated through our bodies as we sat watching. The clang and smash of the loading of the plates as the weights went up. And chalk. What was chalk? All I knew was that I was HOOKED. 

And so my journey began.

The Tuesday when I arrived home, I signed up at my local gym, and a portal was opened for me that day to observe and potentially join a powerlifting team. I leapt through. Unreal. But that’s how it happened. By the next Monday, I was lifting with the team that would become my family, and I never stopped.  

Today, I write a love letter to you, imploring you to compete if you are holding back.  

I competed this weekend and had a glorious time. But during the award ceremony, I went to accept my first-place medal. To walk and stand upon the podium. There were spaces for three champions to pose and hug — roast, play, and celebrate. 

I was the lone woman in my age and weight class. I pulled up the 8-year-old daughter of a younger teammate, and thankfully she ascended the podium with me. We stood on the highest block, flexing together. Smiling, laughing. Pure joy. 

It is my dream that one day that podium will be filled by all of you. I know it will be filled by that incredible 8-year-old one day, but in the meantime, let’s ascend that podium together. 

On the platform, there is no safer place to fail, and no finer place to be extraordinary.  

It’s only you against that bar, testing the strength that you have developed. Surrounded by fellow “men in the arena.” These are your people. High fives flying, fist bumps, shoulder smacks, chalk slaps. We celebrate together, we cheer together, we console one another,  and lick our wounds together. We succeed, we eat dirt, we soar, we fall, and together we get up and try over again and again to lift the impossible. 

Every single lifter cheering and physically willing that weight up for one another, because we are all connected by the same grind, the same dedication, the same fight against the force of gravity — our only opponent. The human spirit, for one day, celebrates taking things from a dead stop to setting them in motion. The weight flies, the chalk dust spirals up, defies gravity, and reaches for the heavens.  

When we lift together, we not only lift the weight, we lift ourselves. We lift one another; we lift the world.

I have had so many impossible dreams come true here. I have taken so many leaps because of all of you. A dream that I have is to inspire one or many of you to take the leap.  

To get uncomfortable. To find that your fears were unfounded. That you find your people. That you discover more support and camaraderie than you imagined possible by getting together with a group of perfect strangers of every age and from every origin. 

People who bind together for the day, by picking up heavy things and putting them down.  We’ve been doing this since the beginning of time, and there’s a reason we continue to do so. It would be my dream to see all of you who are considering competing to take your dream from a dead stop and to set it in motion. The whole Village is beside you. 

I’m slapping chalk over your back; the pattern I create upon your shoulders looks like wings.

LET’S GO! -Peggy

Together With Wispr Flow
Typing Isn’t Stealing Your Brainpower. But It Is Slowing You Down

You might have heard that writing pulls from the same mental fuel you need for thinking. The premise is half right, but not for the reason you've been told.

Your working memory is a fixed tank, and forming letters, spelling, and hunting for keys all draw from it. 

In kids, who haven't automated any of that, the drain is big enough that they remember and produce less when writing than when speaking. 

But in adults, it’s not the same. When researchers tested whether making typing harder actually damaged the quality of adults' writing, it largely didn't. 

The good news: your fingers aren't secretly bleeding your best ideas. But they are slowing you down in other ways.

Talking out your ideas usually feels easier because speaking is much faster than typing, so ideas leave your head before they slip away. And there's evidence that ideas held too long at the "output" stage can simply get lost. 

Not to mention, there’s the practical aspect of how thoughts work. When you don’t need to pause mid-thought to fix a typo or rescue a sentence, your thoughts flow seamlessly. 

That's why voice-to-text is a technological advancement with real upside. It’s not that it gives you a smarter brain, but it offers fewer speed bumps in your processing. 

The science suggests using it as a capture tool can not only save time but also improve your thoughts. Try it as a capture tool. You can talk out the messy first pass, let it clean up the mechanics, then edit with your eyes. You're not upgrading your thinking. You're getting out of its way.

We went looking for a voice tool that does that one job well: getting out of the way.

Most voice-to-text tech is so inconsistent that we ran back to the keyboard inside a week. But one didn't get uninstalled. 

We loved Wispr Flow, so we asked them to sponsor APC because they earned our attention the right way: we kept using it even after the novelty wore off.

You hold one key, talk, and let go. The text lands right where you're already working, nothing to open, nothing to upload. It strips the ums and you-knows on its own, so you're not re-editing the mechanics. And it works the same everywhere you type.

It's about three times faster than typing, which mostly means the thought reaches the page before it slips away.

Pump Club readers get 60 days of Wispr Flow Pro for free. They’re covering the first two months so you can see why we find it so useful. Set it up on your computer to unlock them, and the app works on your phone too.

Start Your Week Right
Do Mondays Feel Worse? Let’s Change That

Your alarm goes off, and your stomach drops before your feet even hit the floor. Some narrator in your head says the thing you know but don’t want to be reminded: Get up, it's Monday.

There’s something about Mondays that doesn’t make sense. A new week should bring new hope, but for many it’s more of an ominous feeling. 

So we wondered: Does Monday actually feel worse, or have you just been told it does since you were a kid with a backpack?

When researchers looked at mood data from 340,000 Americans, they found almost no evidence that Monday itself sours your mood. 

The real effect is that Fridays and weekends feel better, not that Mondays feel worse.

The study analyzed six mood measures on each day of the week. Over and over, weekends and Fridays had higher ratings and good vibes. But Monday wasn't dragging behind Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday. It was just a regular weekday, no better or no worse, despite the bad reputation. 

The dread likely comes from the contrast of what just ended. 

Friday works because something shifts and it lasts for about 48 hours. And then Monday feels bad because whatever made Friday good has usually vanished by the start of your day. 

This might seem obvious, but it’s good news. 

It means the fix isn't "trick yourself into loving Mondays." It means finding one ingredient that happens on weekends that can realistically happen on Monday, and smuggling it into the day. 

There’s no comparing the weekend to a regular Monday. However, you can find elements that anchor something you look forward to and place it at the start of the week. 

You might not think it matters much, but the start of anything tends to set the frame for what follows. 

In one workplace study, the mood people walked in with spilled into how they saw the whole day, something the researchers called "affective prime." And when people brace for a bad day, the day's stress tends to hit harder. None of this proves optimism fixes Mondays. 

But it does suggest that the one good thing you anchor to Monday morning isn't wishful thinking — it's a small lever on how the rest of the day reads. 

So don't try to love Mondays. Just give yourself one thing that makes you a little more optimistic about the day and week ahead. 

Fitness
Workout Of The Week: The 4-3-2-1

Last week, you had your first take of us blending energy systems together. 

For that workout, you started with the highest intensity (a one-minute sprint), and then each set slightly reduced intensity and increased duration. 

This week, you’ll do the opposite: start with the longest duration, then build up to the highest intensity. 

Once again, it's a fun and challenging way to touch every gear you've trained. But this week, you learn to push yourself once you’ve already been fatigued. You can perform this 2-3 times per week.

The Workout

Warm up: 10 minutes to get your blood flowing and prepare for the workout. The warm-up should not be exhausting.

The Work (equal recovery after each interval)

Select the type of exercise you want to perform (see “tool” below), and then complete the 4 sets and rest periods.

Set 1: 4 minutes moderate intensity + 4 minutes rest
Set 2: 3 minutes hard + 3 minutes easy 
Set 3: 2 minutes very hard + 2 minutes rest
Set 4: 1 minute all-out sprint 
Cool down: 4-5 minutes

Pick your tool

• Rower

• Ski Erg

• Rogue echo bike

• Kettlebell swings

• Sled push and pull

• Hill running or sprints

Give it a try, and start your week strong!

The Positive Corner of The Internet
About Arnold’s Pump Club Editorial Standards

We do things a bit differently here, starting with transparency.

1. The Content: All APC emails are researched, written, and fact-checked by the APC editors (see bottom of the email), with written contributions from Arnold (noted with “Arnold’s Corner”). Links take you to original studies (not second-hand sources).

2. Does AI play a role? Not for the primary content, but it is used in two ways. The main items are original content written by the APC team. The summaries at the end are AI-generated based on the human-written content above. We also use an AI tool to review our interpretations of the research and ensure scientific accuracy. We don’t assume AI is right, but we use technology to hold ourselves accountable.

3. Yes, we have partners (all clearly noted by “Together With”). Why? Because it allows us to keep the APC emails free. We first test products, and then reach out to potential partners who offer ways to help you improve every day. The bar is set high, and to date, we have turned down millions in ad deals. (Example: we will not partner with any non-certified supplements or those without evidence in human trials). If we won’t buy the product, we won’t recommend it to you. And if there’s no evidence it works, then there’s no place for it here.

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Publisher: Arnold Schwarzenegger​

Editors-in-chief: Adam Bornstein and Daniel Ketchell