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The Answer To Last Week’s “The Catch”

Last Friday, we asked: ​​A controlled sleep-lab study on pre-bed phone use challenged the assumption that screens harm sleep. Which age group's melatonin recovered before they fell asleep?

The Catch: Teenagers.
Both teenagers and young adults had their melatonin suppressed by 90 minutes of unfiltered phone reading, but about 50 minutes after putting the phones down, the teenagers' levels had recovered, and the young adults' had not. The takeaway isn't "phones are fine," it's that the cost of a pre-bed scroll may climb with age, not drop. If you're out of your teens, cutting screens earlier than one hour before bed is the safer call.

Ten people who answered correctly will receive a $20 gift card. Keep reading, as we’ll feature another version of “The Catch” later this week.

Today’s Health Upgrade

• Arnold’s Corner: Monday motivation

• Can a multivitamin help you with stress?

• 4 ways to help your habits stick

• Workout of the week

Arnold’s Corner
Monday Motivation: You’re Not the Exception

This week in The Pump Club, I trained with five people from the app, and it was heaven.

It was everything I love about the gym. Five people you’d never expect to be friends, all united by their shared fight to be better every day.

It was also just inspiring for me.

A 21-year-old engineering student. A 34-year-old mom of two toddlers. A 43-year-old dad. A 64-year-old woman. And a 36-year-old woman who has carried more grief than most of us will in a lifetime.

Different ages. Different bodies. Different fights. But every one of them used to believe the same lie: That their situation made them an exception. That whatever was working for everyone else didn’t apply to them, because their case was different.

I want to tell you about one of them in particular.

His name is Christian. About three weeks after his daughter was born, he thought he was having a stroke. His left arm went numb. He spent Mother’s Day in the hospital. He got lucky. Everything was fine. But he weighed 251 pounds, and he was prediabetic; diabetes runs in his family, and he knew something had to change.

His sister told him she was the Ghost of Christmas Future in that hospital room, let him know that this was what his future looked like if he didn’t make changes, and sent him our app. He started with knee pushups, and five at a time was all he could manage. That was 100 weeks ago.

Here’s the part I love. When Christian first heard me on a podcast say that I don’t believe in diets for long-term fat loss and that I eat carbs, he laughed.

He thought, “He just doesn’t understand fat people.”

I want you to read that line again. Because that is the lie.

That is the voice in your head that has kept you stuck. Whatever your version of it is: he doesn’t understand moms, he doesn’t understand people my age, he doesn’t understand what I’ve been through, he doesn’t understand my genetics. It is the same lie wearing a different costume.

Christian stopped believing it. He focused on protein. He started eating lentils. He ate more fruit. He learned his portions, and now he doesn’t even measure anymore. He worked out 30 to 45 minutes, three or four days a week, in his basement, with his bodyweight, then with dumbbells. No gym membership. No fad diet.

He has lost 80 pounds. His A1C dropped from 6.3 to 5.3. He’s wearing clothes that haven’t fit since high school. And the line that hit me hardest: “I finally feel like I’m looking at my face in the mirror.”

He is not alone. Different stories, similar incredible success. Just look at the rest of the champions I trained with.

Carlee is 34. In the last 19 months, she lost her job, her father died, her father-in-law was diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer, and her husband works 17-hour days four times a week, while she watches a 3-year-old and an almost-2-year-old. She has lost all the weight she gained across two pregnancies, over 100 pounds, and a little more on top of that.

She is the strongest she has ever been. Her words: “I am at my lowest weight while also being my strongest. I have found myself again.”

If anyone had a reason to wait for life to calm down, it was Carlee. Life is not going to calm down. That is a lie, too.

On Monday, with Ketch and Nic and the whole team, Carlee deadlifted 300 pounds — a big goal she’d set for herself, accomplished early. She’s showing her boys what real strength is, every day, no matter what. She isn’t claiming an exception.

Annie is 64. She started working out at 35. For 27 years, she went from one program to another, never quite getting where she wanted.

She joined the Pump Club at 62, and within three months, her body had changed in ways that 27 years of effort never produced. Her words: “My body looked better at 62 than at 40.”

It wasn’t her age that was holding her back. It was that for 27 years, nobody handed her a real plan and made her follow it.

Now, Annie talks about seeing the two ways people age: by depending on others, and by remaining independent. She knows she will be in the independent category.

My favorite progress Annie has seen (besides her biceps, which rival Linda Hamilton’s in Terminator 2) is funny. Like me, Annie rides motorcycles. Motorcycles are heavy as hell. If you park facing downhill, you need to have serious strength to walk that bike back. Annie used to be very careful about where she parked, or ask someone for help.

Now? She doesn’t stress. She can handle anything herself.

David is 21, studying civil engineering at the University of Rhode Island, and training six days a week before class. He told me his goal in life is to be “fit, smart, and a gentleman.” He learned this from his oldest brother, who was a big fan of mine. I don’t say that to brag. I say it because everything you do, the work you put in, the example you set, gets passed down, whether you intend it or not. Somebody is watching you right now.

David lived up to everything he said while he was hanging out with us in LA. He was a hard-worker. He stood on the corner of the smoothie pop-up holding a sign, not because anyone asked him, but because he wanted to be useful.

He also deadlifted 500 pounds with the gang. And most importantly? Everybody said he was a perfect gentleman. He was offering chairs to the women constantly, making sure everyone was taken care of before himself.

And then there’s Dominique. Doms.

Doms has lived with depression and anxiety for more than two decades. She lost her older sister when she was 15. She lost her mother in 2022. She told me there was a point where she stopped fighting. 

She accepted what she thought was her fate. She gained 26 pounds. She saw herself as a victim.

And then one day, she looked in the mirror and decided she was done being that person. She wanted to be a warrior.

So she got a gym membership. She joined our community. 

Two and a half years later, she has lost the 26 pounds, gained real muscle, and, in her own words, “It used to be 95% struggle and 5% happiness. Now it’s the opposite.”

She still struggles. She told me so directly. The struggle did not disappear. What changed is that she stopped letting it run her life.

Now she’s planning to get on stage at a bodybuilding competition, and we worked on her posing. As someone with anxiety. Every day, she’s decided to confront her fears. I love it.

Five people. One room. Not one of them had ideal conditions.

Christian was scared into it by his own body. Carlee was drowning in life. Annie had a quarter-century of failed workouts behind her. Doms was carrying a weight most people can’t imagine. David is the only one who started early, and he started because somebody else showed him the way.

So here is what I want you to do this week: Stop telling yourself your situation is the exception.

Stop waiting for it to become perfect.

Stop assuming the people who are succeeding had something you don’t.

They didn’t.

They just stopped believing the lie.

Pick one thing.

One workout.

One meal.

One small swap — protein shake for candy, water for soda, a walk after dinner.

One habit that confronts whatever you are facing.

Do it today. Do it tomorrow. Do it the day after.

That is how warriors are built. Not in good conditions. In real ones.

We’re in your corner.

Together With Momentous
Can a Multivitamin Help With Stress?

Stress management advice tends to focus on what you do: sleep more, move more, slow down. All good advice. What gets less attention is whether what you eat — or don't eat consistently enough — affects how well your body holds up under pressure.

A meta-analysis of 16 randomized controlled trials found that B-vitamin-rich multivitamin supplementation reduced perceived stress, with the strongest benefits among adults whose diets were short of the nutrients their bodies need.

Researchers tracked stress, mood, and anxiety in people who used multivitamins. Across studies, there was a noticeable, consistent (but not dramatic) reduction in perceived stress among people who were already stressed or eating a less-than-ideal diet. The picture was murkier for mood and nonexistent for anxiety. 

A separate review found the same thing: there were real benefits for stress and mild mood disruption when taking a multivitamin, and this held up across a wider range of people than the B vitamin research alone.

The mechanism runs through B vitamins' central role in neurotransmitter synthesis — serotonin, dopamine, norepinephrine — and the biochemistry of the stress-response system itself. 

When you’re chronically low on vital nutrients, your system doesn't collapse, but it operates at a disadvantage. Correcting that gap with a multivitamin restores what should have been there, likely explaining why people experience improvement.

If your diet is varied and consistent, the marginal benefit here is smaller. But if you're managing real stress and eating inconsistently, a B-vitamin-rich multivitamin is a low-effort addition with genuine evidence behind it. It won't fix your schedule. It might help your body handle it better.

The last two times we mentioned multivitamins, we recommended Momentous Essential Multi, and both times the product was out of stock before many of you could purchase a bottle. 

Why? Because Momentous rejected multiple production runs because the final packaged product did not meet their quality standards.

That meant lost money on the product they rejected because it didn’t pass the quality test, lost potential sales, and frustrated customers who couldn’t get the product. If you were one of those people, we apologize for the delay.

And, this is exactly what we recommend Momentous products. When a company is willing to put quality, purity, and safety over profit, you know that you can put something in your body with peace of mind, which is a rarity in the supplement industry.

If you’ve been waiting, Momentous Essential Multi is back in stock and built for exactly what this research suggests: filling real nutritional gaps without megadoses, gimmicks, or fairy dust. The formula uses bioavailable forms of key nutrients (such as B vitamins, vitamin D, zinc, and magnesium), modeled on how they occur in nutrient-dense foods rather than in lab extremes.

That matters because the benefit in these studies didn’t come from one “miracle” nutrient. It came from consistently getting enough of the basics. 

Momentous makes one we trust because it’s designed to support long-term health, not short-term hype. Save 35% off your first subscription order or 14% off any non-subscription purchase with the code “PUMPCLUB.”

Start Your Week Right 
The Habit Isn't the Problem. The Setup Is.

Every failed habit gets blamed on the same suspects: not enough willpower, not enough motivation, just not being "that kind of person." But research suggests the real problem is usually structural, and structural problems have structural solutions.

Scientists identified several consistent patterns — morning timing, personal choice, environmental consistency, and simplicity — that separate habits that stick from habits that don't.

Researchers pooled data from 20 studies across exercise, nutrition, hydration, and dental care. Habit timelines got most of the media coverage. The more useful finding is what actually determines whether a habit forms at all.

Morning habits formed more reliably than evening ones. By the time evening arrives, accumulated decisions and fatigue tend to erode good intentions. Anchoring a new behavior in the morning helps it stick before you have to worry about competing for your mental bandwidth.

Environmental consistency was a meaningful driver. Performing the same behavior in the same place, triggered by the same cue, is what eventually converts effortful action into something automatic. Varying the context delays that conversion considerably.

And simpler habits formed faster. The neural wiring for automatic behavior gets built through repetition, and behaviors that are genuinely easy to repeat actually do get repeated.

Maybe the most underrated variable is that personal choice matters. The behaviors people selected for themselves showed stronger habit formation than the behaviors assigned to them. This complicates the assumption that external accountability programs or prescribed routines are always a net positive. Intrinsic buy-in is a structural ingredient, not just a preference.

This doesn’t mean you can’t build habits in other ways. However, it does mean that if you struggle to form new habits, taking a more strategic approach can increase your likelihood of success. 

Choose the habit you actually want, anchor it to the morning, keep the setup identical each time, and start smaller than feels necessary. Do those four things, focus on consistency, and you might be surprised to finally see change that lasts.

Fitness 
Workout Of The Week 

You’ve heard the saying, “take it one step at a time.” This workout takes it one arm or leg at a time. 

Every movement is single-arm or single-leg. That's not an accident. It’s something most people overlook, but a workout designed this way can help you identify weaknesses — and make them stronger.

When you train one limb at a time, your body can't let the stronger side compensate. The rear-foot elevated split squat exposes the leg that's been coasting. The single-arm press reveals the shoulder that's been hiding. Weaknesses have nowhere to go. Over time, the gap closes, and you come out of this program more balanced and resilient than any bilateral program would have made you.

And before you think lighter weights result in a lesser workout, there's also a load reality you’ll discover: a single dumbbell used correctly, with a full range of motion and tension, is a genuinely serious challenge. 

How to do it

Perform each exercise as a straight set. That means you’ll do the first exercise, rest, and repeat for the number of sets listed. Then, you’ll move to the next exercise. Continue this pattern until you complete all the movements. 

Exercise 1: Dumbbell rear-foot elevated split squat: 4 sets x 5 reps/leg
Exercise 2: Dumbbell alternating overhead press: 4 sets x 5 reps/arm
Exercise 3: Dumbbell kickstand Romanian deadlift: 3 sets x 5 reps/leg
Exercise 4: Renegade row (pushup + row): 3 sets x 5 reps/arm
Exercise 5: Suitcase carry: 3 sets x 30 seconds/arm

Give it a try, and let us know what you think!

Editor’s Note: We’ll never stop giving you a free Workout of the Week. Because we believe everyone should have access to exercise.

But there’s a difference between a workout and a program. 

A “Workout of the day” feels great — you sweat, you’re sore — but soreness isn’t the goal. Exhaustion doesn’t make you better. Your body adapts best when workouts build on each other with intention, not when every session stands alone.

This workout will challenge you today; but a program is what changes you over weeks, months, and years. If you need help, you can try our customized programs free for 7 days. We do the thinking, giving you access to the best coaches, and provide accountability, so you see the improvements.

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). 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