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Today’s Health Upgrade

• Arnold’s Corner: Monday motivation

• The drink that supports better aging

• Why it’s hard to shake critical feedback

• Workout of the week (And a special opportunity to train live with Coach Jen)

Arnold’s Corner
Monday Motivation: The Bricklayer’s Mindset

I was a bricklayer.

It was how I paid the bills when I first moved to America. Even the biggest title in bodybuilding, Mr. Olympia, only paid a thousand dollars back then. 

It makes me proud that in March, the winner of our Arnold Classic and our Arnold Classic UK took home more than a million dollars. He can focus on bodybuilding.

But in our day, that wasn’t an option. Some guys were teachers. Some sold insurance. Franco and I laid bricks.

We put an ad in the paper and sold ourselves as European craftsmen. We figured if people heard the accents, they would picture old-world masonry instead of two bodybuilders with a wheelbarrow. 

It worked. 

The phone rang. And then we had to go out and actually do the job, which was the part nobody could fake. Luckily, Franco knew what he was doing.

The work was simple. Mix the mortar. Set the brick. Tap it level. Scrape the edge. Then do it again. And again. Nobody claps for you. There is no crowd, no music, no trophy. There is just the next brick sitting there waiting for you.

You can still find some of the walls we built in Venice.

That’s where my lesson today comes from.

One brick doesn’t look like anything. Ten bricks don’t look like anything. A hundred bricks, you’re starting to see something, but it doesn’t impress anyone.

You just keep laying bricks until the job is done.

And you know what happens after four or five hours on a wall? You are so damn tired, and you feel so great that you stop measuring.

You are not standing back every ten minutes asking how far from finished it is. You are covered in mortar, your hands are raw, you’re schvitzing, and you are happy. The work took the question away from you.

That is the part nobody tells you about hard work: It doesn’t just build the wall. It terminates the voice that keeps asking when the wall will be done.

Instagram and TikTok and all the rest spend all day showing you finished jobs.

The one who transformed and lost a hundred pounds to get a six-pack.

The one who got out of debt and built a business worth millions.

The one who met the love of their life after years of being alone.

They’re showing you the whole house while you are staring at an empty plot of land with one brick in your hand wondering how you’ll ever get there.

That’s the problem with social media. Most of it isn’t about the work. It’s about the result.

Whether it’s meant to be bragging or meant to be inspirational, it ends the same way for you.

It makes you feel like you’re too far away to even start. Fitness, finances, work, love. All of it.

It’s time to stop comparing and start laying your own bricks.

I want you to develop a bricklayer’s mindset.

Every day, lay one brick.

One workout.
One meal where you have protein and fiber.
One bill paid.
One job application submitted.
One chapter of a book read.

Each decision you make is a brick you can build on.

When you stop comparing and start laying bricks, no matter what goal you are building towards, you will feel a sense of accomplishment. 

Or, at the very least, you will be so worn out at the end of the day that you stop worrying about the finished job and start focusing on the job itself.

You just keep working. One brick at a time.

The only way you won’t build something is if you walk away when the job isn’t finished, and we know most people do exactly that.

So here is the second half of it, and this is the part I don’t want you to skip.

Do the work every day. Then once a week, count your bricks.

Pick a night. Sunday works. Take five minutes and write down what you actually did. Four workouts. Twelve meals with protein and fiber. One bill paid. Sixty pages read. Not how you felt about it. Not whether it was enough. Not what you meant to do and didn’t.

Just what you did.

Because the voice in your head is a liar. It knows only one way to measure you: against the finished house.

It will never volunteer that you laid eighteen bricks this week. You have to tell yourself, and you have to see it written down in your own handwriting, or that voice wins by default.

A wall being built doesn’t have the flash of a TikTok post. It gets built by the guy who showed up on a Tuesday when nobody was watching and laid forty bricks and went home.

That was Franco and me. That can be you.

You can change your life.

One brick at a time.

Now tell me: what is the one brick you’re laying today? Reply and let me know. Then go lay it.

Together With Pique
Do Tea Drinkers Age Slower?

Most of how you age is decided by the big stuff. Some of it is genetics, which you don't get a vote on. The rest is mostly within your control and influenced by how much you move, how you sleep, what you eat, and other lifestyle choices like whether you smoke or how much alcohol you drink.

That's the foundation, but if you're hunting for a small edge on top, there might be one steeping in your mug.

Regular tea drinkers appeared "younger" than their age predicted on a panel of routine blood markers.

Researchers tracked more than 13,000 participants, comparing tea drinkers with non-drinkers. The scientists kept a close eye on how people changed, particularly with those who started and stopped drinking tea. 

When people went from not drinking to drinking, the "younger" effect showed up in one model but not in the other. 

However, people who were consistent drinkers for a long period showed blood work suggesting better aging. And the magic number appears to be about 3 cups per day (the scientists didn’t see any additional benefits beyond that). 

The scientists believe that polyphenols, catechins, and theaflavins in the leaves, which have antioxidant and anti-inflammatory benefits, could explain the improved blood work, but they don’t know for certain. 

This doesn’t mean that 3 cups of tea per day will make you live longer. Instead, it shows a link between the behavior and a potential mechanism. And "biological age" isn't your lifespan, or some disease you'll dodge. It's a prediction based on your bloodwork. 

If you already drink tea, that's a mark in your favor, and you don't need to change a thing. If you don’t, it might be a small healthy behavior that could make a difference. One small brick that will support the other big bricks you lay. 

If you're sipping the same thing every day for decades, make sure it’s loaded with the stuff that makes a difference.

If you steep a tea for too short a time, you might only get a fraction of the nutrient benefits. Steep it too long, and it turns bitter, so you don’t drink it all. And that’s just part of the science of tea.

That's why we recommend Pique. They cold-extract the tea and turn it into crystals, so each serving gives you a consistent amount of those plant compounds instead of whatever a random steep happens to deliver. 

Pique tea dissolves in hot or cold water in about ten seconds. And since you're ideally drinking it every day, it's triple-toxin-screened by third-party labs for heavy metals, pesticides, and mold, so you get the good stuff and nothing you didn't sign up for.

Pump Club readers get 20% off for life plus a free starter kit on subscriptions over $100. No code. The discount applies automatically when you check out. 

Start Your Week Right
Why the One Bad Comment Sticks (And How To Change It For The Better)

One offhand criticism can live rent-free in your brain for longer than you want. And yet, for many people, five compliments seem to barely have the same impact. 

If this feels like your experience, you’re not alone. Bad leaves a deeper mark than good, a concept that psychologists call negativity bias. 

But understanding why it happens and who it affects most is the key to reprogramming how you receive information, so you can embrace the good and shake off the bad. 

There appear to be two scenarios where the bad seems to stick. The first is about your attention and what your mind snaps to in the moment. The second is about your memory, and what stays with you long after. You might recognize yourself in one, or both.

Research suggests that how anxious you tend to run is closely tied to how much a piece of criticism yanks at your emotions and pulls your focus off course.

Scientists pooled 172 studies and tracked where attention jumped when something threatening flashed on a screen. In the anxious group, attention snapped toward the threat fast and consistently, even when the image appeared too quickly to consciously notice. In everyone else, that automatic pull didn't show up at all.

Researchers think an anxious mind runs in a higher-alert mode and scans for what might go wrong, so a threat grabs the spotlight before you've had a chance to think. And they suspect it feeds on itself: the more your attention darts to the bad, the more on edge you feel, which keeps you scanning. 

Maybe your attention doesn't focus on the bad in real time. However, the negativity bias can still find you. Scientists reviewed decades of research on feedback, relationships, money, and ordinary daily events and found that one harsh comment outweighs a handful of kind ones. 

A bad first impression takes far more good behavior to undo than a good impression takes to wreck. This has nothing to do with anxiety; it's a basic feature of how most people record experience. The good tends to fade; the bad gets filed in bold.

If you run anxious, the bad grabs your attention in the moment and settles more heavily into memory later. If you're even-keeled, your focus may hold steady, but the bad still leaves the deeper footprint in what you remember.

The good news: you can change this for the better.

You can't delete negativity bias, and you wouldn't want to because bad feedback can be very useful. 

The goal isn't to silence it. It's to help the good register with the weight it deserves. 

If bad news tends to swallow your focus, start with a short mindful pause. In one experiment, people given a brief mindfulness exercise (just a few minutes) went on to weigh good and bad more evenly and reported feeling more optimistic than a control group. 

And if you're the type who's hardest on yourself, talk to yourself the way you'd talk to a friend having a rough day. 

Across dozens of trials, that habit lowered self-criticism and eased anxiety, and the effect held months later.

Fitness
Workout Of The Week: Follow Along With Coach Jen

A note from Ketch: This week, we’re giving you a special inside look at The Pump Club app workouts, and something we’ve never offered before. 

Arnold’s birthday sale ended, but we’ve made some big changes.

First, “Earn it Back” is forever. 

As Arnold said, the $50 OFF birthday discount was temporary. Anyone can join now for $150/year and still earn back $100/year. You’ll get the first $50 back when you complete your first 12-week workout program. And then you’ll earn back another $50 when you complete your fourth workout program.

And, we’re adding a $50 referral bonus when a friend joins and finishes the Foundation program. That means, with “Earn It Back”and the referral, you can earn back all of your money.

Second, we launched a new program today. It’s Adam’s baby. The Hybrid Full Body Foundation. It’s a blend of full-body weight training three days a week with cardio mixed in for a complete fitness program.

Finally, Jen is going to livestream her way through the Intermediate Dumbbell Foundation for anyone who loves follow-along workouts. 

If you’ve been curious about our programs and want to watch a pro do it, Jen goes live at 9:15 am Pacific today. You don’t even need to be a member to join Jen. You can find her live workout here:

• Jen’s Instagram

• The PUMP CLUB Instagram

• Arnold's Pump Club Facebook

• The PUMP CLUB YouTube

If you want a better idea of what she’ll be doing, here’s the workout she’ll be completing today.

The Dumbbell Foundation (Workout #1)

1. Dumbbell deadlift: 3 sets x 6 reps

2. Dumbbell incline press: 3 sets x 6 reps

3. Chest-supported dumbbell row: 2 sets x 10 reps

4. Dumbbell biceps curl: 2 sets x 10 reps

5. Dumbbell step-up: 2 sets x 8 reps

6. Lying bent leg raise: 2 sets x 10 reps

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