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Today’s Health Upgrade

• Can exercise influence your offspring?

• Forever chemicals and cancer

• How to rewire bad experiences

• Adam’s Corner: Good news, bad news

On Our Radar 
Could a Father's Workouts Shape His Kids' Health?

Most of what we know about how parents influence their children's biology has centered on mothers. Research on maternal exercise and offspring health continues to grow. What's been far less explored: whether a father's habits before conception might matter in ways science is only beginning to map.

New research suggests that fathers who exercise may pass endurance and metabolic advantages to their offspring through changes to sperm.

First, this is animal research. That belongs upfront, and why this is “on our radar.” We usually stay away from animal studies unless the mechanism is sufficiently specific and other research suggests similar findings, which is why this latest report has our attention.

Researchers took two groups of mice — fathers who exercised regularly and fathers who didn't — and compared their offspring. The kids of the active dads came out ahead in nearly every measurable way: more muscle, less fat, stronger bones, and better stamina. They ran longer, covered more ground, and recovered faster after hard effort.

But the more revealing experiment came next. Scientists isolated microscopic molecules found in the sperm of exercised fathers and injected them directly into fertilized eggs from non-exercised mice. The offspring still developed the same advantages — better body composition, better endurance — even though no exercising father was ever involved. 

That's what makes this finding significant. It rules out coincidence and points to a specific biological messenger as the likely cause.

Here's how researchers think it works: exercise activates a kind of internal switch in the body that drives energy production in muscles. When that switch is turned up high enough, it changes the makeup of molecules carried in sperm. Those altered molecules then travel into the earliest stages of a developing embryo and nudge its cells toward building more efficient, higher-output energy systems, essentially giving the offspring a head start on the kind of biology that exercise usually has to build over years.

But the findings aren’t completely exclusive to animals. Prior studies have found that exercise measurably changes the molecular landscape of human sperm, including some of the same types of molecules that drove the mouse findings.

Whether those changes produce any detectable benefit in human children has never been tested. The mechanism appears to exist in people; the outcome side remains an open question for future research.

But the research suggests that exercise may be leaving biological footprints that extend further than previously measured.

Together With Our Place
What "Forever Chemicals" Do to Cancer Risk

The headlines make it sound settled: forever chemicals cause cancer. The research is more nuanced than that, and can help you know where to make changes and when you don’t need to panic. 

A systematic review and meta-analysis of 11 studies found that PFAS exposure is associated with an 18% higher relative risk of kidney cancer, which translates to roughly 3 additional cases per 1,000 people over a lifetime.

PFAS are classified as endocrine-disrupting chemicals, meaning they can interfere with hormone signaling by mimicking or blocking hormone receptors. That category isn't inherently alarming; hormone therapies and contraceptives work through similar mechanisms. But unintentional hormonal disruption, combined with evidence that PFAS suppresses immune function, gives the cancer association biological plausibility. And research shows that something is going on.

Scientists pooled data from cohort and case-control studies examining the relationship between per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) — synthetic compounds found in nonstick cookware, water-resistant clothing, food packaging, and drinking water — and kidney, liver, and testicular cancer.

The kidney cancer association held across geographic regions, study designs, and PFAS types.

A separate finding linked high occupational PFAS exposure to more than double the relative risk of testicular cancer. That number needs context: the finding applies specifically to chemical plant workers and firefighters, not typical household exposure.

The research a covers a lot of ground, but the main takeaway is simple: you don’t need to panic, but you do want to limit exposure in areas where it’s unnecessary. 

One of the most actionable takeaways is easy to miss: nonstick cookware is one of the few PFAS sources you can actually do something about today.

Most nonstick pans still rely on coatings. And coatings degrade. Heat them too high, scratch them, or just use them long enough, and they wear down. That's not a brand problem, it's the physics of the category.

The Always Pan Pro from Our Place was built around a different approach entirely.

It starts with stainless steel, adds an aluminum core, and reinforces the interior with a titanium layer that's 300% harder than stainless alone. There's no coating, which means nothing flakes, chips, or degrades over time. Food releases cleanly on its own. Our Place has made cookware this way since day one: third-party tested, zero PFAS, zero compromises.

Our Place is running a special sale right now — save up to 40% sitewide. Their Titanium Pro Cookware Set is $449 during the sale and normally retails for $698. 

No code needed, and every order comes with a 100-day risk-free trial, free shipping, and free returns.

Fewer chemicals. Better cookware. One less thing to think about.

Mental Health
How To Rewire A Stressful Event (And Help Yourself Heal)

You know that moment after a terrible day when you can't stop replaying it? The difficult conversation, the near-miss, the thing that just won't leave your head? There's now evidence that what you do in the hours afterward might matter more than you'd expect.

A single 25-minute guided session of playing Tetris after recalling a traumatic memory reduced intrusive memories by approximately 70 percent compared to other methods. And the results weren’t just temporary. They held up for over six months.

Researchers recruited frontline healthcare workers and randomly assigned them to one of two conditions: a guided smartphone session involving memory recall followed by Tetris with specific mental rotation tasks, or an equally long session listening to a philosophy podcast, designed to match time and attention demands. 

At five weeks, the Tetris group reported 1 intrusive memory per week, compared with 5 in the control group. Six months later, the intervention group continued to show fewer PTSD-related symptoms.

The scientists believe the impressive results reflect how memory works. When you recall a traumatic event, that memory becomes temporarily unstable, creating a window in which it can be reshaped. A task like Tetris competes for the same mental "channel" your brain uses to form and replay visual imagery. 

Engaging that system while the memory is active may disrupt how the experience gets re-stored, making it less likely to surface uninvited.

This isn't a replacement for therapy, and it won't resolve serious trauma on its own. But the barrier to entry is almost nonexistent: after something genuinely distressing, 20 minutes on a spatially demanding game or puzzle might be worth the experiment.

Adam’s Corner
Good News, Bad News

I knew it the instant I saw the text preview on my phone. 

Seven words.

“I have good news and bad news.”

For the better part of a week, I’d been convincing myself to break a rule I’d held for seven years. The rule: I don’t leave my family for long work trips. Not for clients. Not for income. Not for any opportunity, no matter how good it sounds on paper.

The rule means flights away and back in the same day are a regular occurrence. International trips? They happen, but I’m gone for just 48 hours.

However, I was going to make an exception for this.

A wellness conference in the UK. Some of the biggest names in the space. The kind of stage I used to step onto without a second thought.

I was already going to be in Europe for our big Pump Club pilgrimage to Arnold’s childhood home in Austria. Staying for the event meant not just bending the travel rule but shattering it completely.

So I had conversations with my wife, talked with my kids about why I would be gone longer than I ever am, found coverage, and made the arrangements. I said yes. Booked the flights. And set everything up.

When I did, I felt something I hadn’t experienced in a while, but something too familiar to forget: a low current of guilt running under the excitement. After all, the rule existed for a reason. A reminder of past decisions that forced changes. 

But my family was behind me. My wife encouraged me. And then I got the text a few days later. 

Before I could even reply, the phone buzzed again. This time it was a call, not a text.

I said hello, and then everything came rushing out.

I’m so sorry. This is wrong. But the event doesn’t want you. 

The reasons amounted to the ultimate rejection letter:

I’m not a big enough name.
No one knows who I am.
I won’t draw a crowd.

I’d like to tell you I was unbothered. Confidence and success are beautiful shields. But pride isn’t bulletproof.

The practical frustration landed first: the hours of logistics, the conversations with my wife, the flights I’d have to cancel. But that part fades. What stayed was something deeper. Something personal and, to my surprise, unresolved.

You may not have been rejected from a speaking event. But you know this territory.

The email that didn’t come back. The job that went to someone else. The relationship where you gave everything and still came up short. The moment someone measured you against a standard you didn’t know they were using and found you lacking.

And then came the part that’s harder to admit: the way that one moment started rewriting everything around it.

Compliments feel good, but they’re often fleeting. Criticisms sting, and they have a way of not just lingering but expanding, until one person’s bad assessment has somehow distorted everything you know to be true.

A good review lifts you for a morning. A dismissal finds the bruise you didn’t know you were nursing and sets up camp there. It replays. It compounds. What started as one opinion from one room slowly begins to feel like a verdict on your entire life. It’s not logical. It’s not fair.

It happens to everyone.

And the question — the one that actually matters — is what you do with it once it arrives.

The Life I Chose

The travel rule was created because I used to live on the road. For three years, I traveled three days a week, every week. Tuesday through Thursday. My life was in Denver. The work was in LA.

I was building a startup with Arnold, LeBron James, Lindsey Vonn, and Cindy Crawford. It was the kind of opportunity that made every sacrifice feel justified in the moment. I had a newborn and a two-year-old at home. I was missing things I would never get back.

When I saw the damage my decisions caused, I drew a line. Not because others can’t travel or make it work. But it didn’t work for my family and me.

In general, I’m never gone more than three days. I don’t travel every week. And, when possible, I keep it to 24 to 48 hours. If the trip runs longer, my family will come with me. Last year, we all flew to Austria for our Pump Club event in Arnold’s hometown. This year, the logistics didn’t work, which is part of why the UK decision was so complicated to begin with.

In some ways, you could say the decision to change how I work cost me. The line I created meant sacrificing clients, income, and opportunities.

It also changed something else. I stopped leading with my name.

I am New York Times bestselling author. I was the Fitness and Nutrition Editor for the world's biggest men’s magazine and the Editorial Director of the world's largest health website. I’ve helped produce some of the most listened-to podcasts in the industry. I had spent years building a name.

And then I decided to step back. Let the work be the story. Let the community be what people talked about, not me.

And that decision has been a success. This newsletter now reaches 1.2 million people every day. The app is changing tens of thousands of lives. But if you asked most people what I do, they probably couldn’t tell you.

The agency I founded says it all: You might not know our name, but you’ve certainly seen our work.

That was a choice. Made with open eyes.

I thought I’d made my peace with it.

Turns out, peace is easier to hold when no one’s testing it.

The Wrong Ruler

The event’s assessment wasn’t accurate, but it also wasn’t entirely wrong. I did make myself smaller on purpose. I chose not to fill stages every season. That was the point.

But here’s what the rejection surfaced, something I hadn’t expected to find underneath it:

I was still, despite being convinced otherwise, measuring my life by someone else’s metric.

Not consciously. Not obviously. But the sting of their verdict told me something. If I were fully settled in the choice I’d made, one event’s opinion wouldn’t have the reach it did.

So many of us live inside other people’s expectations without realizing it. We carry credentials that signal success to rooms we don’t belong to anymore. We feel the need to justify choices that are actually right for us because they don’t look right from the outside.

Maybe it’s the career you chose that confused your parents. The relationship that didn’t fit the timeline everyone around you was following. The body you’re building that doesn’t match the aesthetic someone else decided was the goal. The pivot no one in your life understood.

We spend so much time asking, “Is this enough by someone else’s measure?”
But we should be asking the harder question:

Does this life actually work for me?

Your life only has to work for you. That’s not permission for selfishness. It’s a reminder that you are the one living it.

The event decided I wasn’t big enough. But they were measuring something I’d deliberately made smaller. That’s not a mistake I made. That’s the life I chose.

Their ruler just isn’t measuring what I’m building.

And yet, here’s what I couldn’t have anticipated when I wasn’t the one saying “no”: How much I felt the desire to prove them wrong.

Not to be petty. Because there’s real fuel in being underestimated by people using the wrong metric. They counted followers. They missed impact and meaning.

I like that I have that fire. I like that the reflex isn’t to sulk — it’s to push harder.

And that’s a reminder for when friction finds its way into your life.

You don’t get to decide whether rejection arrives. You only get to decide whether it defines you or directs you.

I’m still processing the text I received early this week. I’ll probably be sitting with it for a while.

How will this change me? I don’t know. Possibly not at all. Or maybe, I’ll be determined to make a point you can’t miss.

What I do know is this: the rejection didn’t take anything from me. Not a life changed. Not a word written that landed where it needed to land. Not a single day I was home when I said I’d be home.

One assessment, using one metric, in one room, does not rewrite the story you’re living.

I got a text message, and the 7 words were misleading.

The good news, it turns out, wasn’t just that I didn’t have to leave my family longer.

It was the reminder that no one else gets to decide what the good news is. -AB

-Adam Bornstein is the co-founder and co-editor-in-chief of Arnold’s Pump Club

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