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Today’s Health Upgrade
The standing rule
Are your snacks holding you back?
Better than wearables
Arnold’s Podcast
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Instant Health Boost
The Standing Rule That Boosts Longevity
You don’t need to train for a marathon or lift like Arnold to add years to your life. Sometimes, the simplest health change is the one you’re probably ignoring — until now.
Standing up throughout the day can help reduce your risk of early death by up to 55 percent.
That’s the takeaway from a study that tracked more than 7,900 adults over several years. Researchers weren’t just looking at how much people moved—they wanted to know how often they interrupted long periods of sitting.
People with the most total sedentary time who sat for long, uninterrupted stretches had the highest risk of premature death. And no, even controlling for moderate to vigorous exercise didn’t erase the risk. That means a daily workout won’t undo the damage of sitting all day without movement.
The antidote was simple: get up, even for a little, and your health will benefit.
Those who stood up and moved for even a minute or two every 30 minutes slashed their risk by more than half.
Think about that. Just breaking up your sitting time — walking to get water, stretching, doing a quick bodyweight movement — signals your body that you’re not sedentary. And that one habit can have a compounding impact on your heart, metabolism, and even brain health.
Set a timer or use your watch as a reminder to stand. Ideally, you'll be able to do it every 30 minutes. Practically, even if it’s only every 2 to 3 hours, you’re still giving your body the benefit of getting up. If you’re on a call, pace. If you’re writing emails, do them while standing. If you’re watching TV, use commercial breaks as movement breaks. Tiny bursts of motion add up to massive health benefits.
You don’t have to overhaul your life. Just get up — and you’re already doing more than most.
Together With David
Are Snacks Secretly Holding You Back?
You’re watching your meals and tracking your protein. But if the scale won’t budge, it might be time to look between meals.
Most snacks are oversized, overhyped, and overloaded with calories. And research shows the problem is growing.
Research suggests the average snack portion has increased by up to 45 percent over the last few decades. And those bigger snacks mean more total calories and unintended weight gain—even when you're doing everything else right.
This is where most protein bars fall short. They promise health but deliver more like a dessert: 10+ grams of sugar, low-quality protein, and more calories than you need. It adds up fast without filling you up.
That’s why we recommend David. It’s not just another bar—it’s a smarter way to snack. With 28 grams of hunger-satisfying protein, 0 grams of sugar, and only 150 calories, it’s everything a healthy snack should be.
While many protein bars are filled with low-quality protein, David has a perfect PDCAAS score, thanks to a complete amino acid profile from milk isolate, egg white, and collagen. And unlike most “healthy” bars that taste like cardboard or regret, David delivers a doughy, dessert-like texture, with chunks and crisps in every bite.
The last time we shared new flavors, Cinnamon Roll and Red Velvet, they sold out fast.
As an APC reader, subscribe and save 10 percent. You’ll get early access to new drops, exclusive merch, and members-only events. Or, buy 4 boxes and get 1 free. Snacks shouldn’t stall your progress. David helps you stay full, stay fit, and stay on track.
Performance
The One Tool That Beats Wearables
When it comes to training smart, you might track your heart rate, recovery scores, or calories burned. But what if the best predictor of how your workout affected you isn’t from a smartwatch or app?
Researchers found that a low-tech questionnaire was — by far — the most reliable predictor of how exhausted athletes felt after a workout, outperforming six other popular training load metrics, including popular wearables.
Scientists tested well-trained runners on four different treadmill workouts, followed immediately by a time-to-exhaustion test to measure how much their performance dropped.
They compared:
Low-Intensity Training: 60 minutes at a relaxed pace
Moderate Intensity: 12-minute run with 4-minute recoveries
High-Intensity, Long Bouts: 3 minutes of intense runs with 2-minute rests
High-Intensity, Short Bouts: 30-second sprints with 30-second rest
Across the board, runners' performance dropped after every session.
But here’s the twist: the high-tech wearables were not good at predicting training load. Only a NASA question aligned with how much their performance dropped. All the other methods failed to reflect the actual fatigue runners experienced.
Why did the questionnaire work? It measures what the athlete actually felt—mental demand, physical effort, frustration, and sense of performance, not just biometrics. Researchers concluded that subjective experience, not data, might be the most accurate gauge of training impact.
We like many wearables, but you likely know your body best. If your training leaves you wrecked, you don’t need fancy tech to confirm it. A simple question — “How hard was that workout?” — might be your most valuable recovery metric.
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Publisher: Arnold Schwarzenegger
Editors-in-chief: Adam Bornstein and Daniel Ketchell
