Welcome to the positive corner of the internet. Every weekday, we make sense of the confusing world of wellness by analyzing the headlines, simplifying the latest research, and offering quick tips designed to make you healthier in less than 5 minutes. If you were forwarded this message, you can get the free daily email here.
Today’s Health Upgrade: Living Longer
Number you won’t forget
Weekly wisdom
Weekend boosts: Book club, the instant sleep fix, podcast recommendation
Arnold’s Podcast
Want more stories from Arnold? Every day, Arnold’s Pump Club Podcast opens with a story, perspective, and wisdom from Arnold that you won’t find in the newsletter. And, you’ll hear a recap of the day’s items. You can subscribe on Apple, Spotify, Google, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
Number You Won’t Forget: 10 Hours
Sitting is a part of life — but make sure it doesn’t take too much time in your day.
Research suggests that people who sit for more than 10 hours per day are nearly 10 percent more likely to develop dementia. And that risk skyrocketed when start sitting for more than 12 hours per day, with the study suggesting that people who sit for 15 hours per day are three times as likely to develop dementia.
This isn’t even about gym time. The association appears to disappear for people sitting less than 10 hours per day, so it’s more about ensuring you stay active during the day when you can, whether moving around your home, taking walking calls, or just standing up at your desk.
Weekly Wisdom
Manage intensity — don’t chase fatigue.
Editor’s Note: As a young strength coach, everything changed — in training and business — once I learned this lesson. It’s been packaged up in many ways by others, but here’s the best way to think of it.
Most workouts are designed to make you feel exhausted. But that’s not the goal of training.
The goal of your training is whatever you’re trying to accomplish, whether more strength or muscle, greater fat loss, improvements in athletic performance, or upgrades to your cardiovascular health.
There are endless goals, but that means understanding you’re not chasing exhaustion and soreness.
Too many people judge the quality of a workout by how destroyed they feel afterward or the next day's soreness instead of how rapidly they progress.
It’s very easy to make someone sore. But if a workout makes someone so sore that they can’t come back two days later and train even harder than the previous session, the workout failed.
That’s not to say that soreness will never happen. Or that workouts aren’t hard. They should be incredibly challenging. But if the rate of recovery is longer than the rate of progress, you know you have a program that is being measured by fatigue — and not results.
Change your focus away from fatigue and towards intensity and consistency, and you’ll be surprised how much better you feel and how much everything starts to improve better than ever before. -AB
Weekend Boosts
💪A Book Club Unlike Any Other
What if you could interact directly with some of your favorite authors? Now you can. By popular demand, we’re starting The Pump App Book Club. But it’s not like every other book club. We’re reading books, creating challenges to improve you, and allowing members of The Pump app to meet the authors and ask them questions during a live virtual Q&A in the Pump’s community.
Our first book is The Comfort Crisis by author Michael Easter. We highly recommend you pick up the book. And if you want to interact with Michael in a few weeks and unlock all the benefits of The Pump (workouts, habit building, access to coaching and support), download the app and begin your 7-day trial.
💪The Instant Sleep Fix
The 4-7-8 method is a breathing technique that calms your body, and research suggests it improves your heart rate and HRV (an important measure of recovery) and lowers anxiety and blood pressure. This combination puts you in a more relaxed state, which can help you fall asleep faster and have higher quality sleep.
Want to give it a try? Here’s how it works:
Breathe in through your nose for a count of four seconds.
Hold your breath for seven seconds. (If you can't hold for this long, start with three to four seconds)
Exhale for eight seconds, making a "whoosh" sound through pursed lips. (Again, if this is too hard, exhale for a shorter time period.)
Repeat up to four times.
💪Podcast To Check Out
Pump Club contributors Brad Stulberg and Steve Magness wrote the book on Peak Performance (literally). So when they started a podcast (Farewell) with longtime journalist Clay Skipper designed to help you get the best out of yourself on the things that matter to you most, we knew we had to join the discussion. Check out this episode where we explore dieting do’s and don’ts and lessons from Arnold and LeBron.
That’s it for this week. Thank you all for being a part of the positive corner of the internet. Have a fantastic weekend!
Arnold, Adam, and Daniel
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Publisher: Arnold Schwarzenegger
Editors-in-chief: Adam Bornstein and Daniel Ketchell
