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Today’s Health Upgrade

• The hunt

• Can you gain muscle even when in a caloric deficit?

• The games you can play for a younger brain

• Think better under pressure

• It won’t be the same (and why that’s ok)

Something New: The Hunt

What did you learn today? We want to put it to the test and reward those who picked up something new. View this like a scavenger hunt of today’s newsletter.

The Question: Today's email reviews a brain supplement that real research supports, but only when one very specific condition is met, and most people never meet it. What single condition has to be present for this supplement to do anything for your brain at all?

Please submit the answer here.

15 people who submit the correct answer will be rewarded with a $20 gift card to the APC store. Submit your answer here.

Fitness
You Might Not Have to Choose Between Losing Fat and Building Muscle

Most fitness advice treats fat loss and muscle gain like two opposing forces. Pick your lane, then switch when you're ready. Bulking phases, cutting phases, the endless back-and-forth. A new study suggests that for many people, that approach isn’t necessary.

Resistance-trained adults who consumed more protein while following a lifting program showed signs of simultaneous fat loss and muscle gain, even when eating maintenance calories.

Researchers split resistance-trained participants into three groups: a modest caloric deficit (about 250 calories below maintenance), a maintenance-calorie protocol, and an unsupervised control group. Both dietary groups consumed 2.5 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight daily (about 1.1 grams per pound of body weight) and trained four days a week. The control group trained without dietary guidance. After 10 weeks, body composition was measured via DXA scan.

The deficit group saw the most pronounced changes: roughly 3 kilograms (6 pounds) of fat lost alongside approximately 1 kilogram (2 pounds) of lean mass gained. The maintenance-calorie group showed a trend toward fat loss, while gaining a similar amount of lean mass. The control group, training without a protein target, showed essentially no change in either direction.

Your workouts are the primary driver of muscle growth. And the researchers believe that at high enough protein intakes, the body has what it needs to support muscle building, while the lower calories and metabolic demands of training help burn body fat. The two processes don't necessarily compete.

The sample was small (10 per group), featured younger participants (in their 20s), and focused on those with moderate training experience. The study's authors acknowledge that recomposition becomes more difficult as training status increases, so these findings may not translate directly to more advanced lifters.

Remember, you don’t need to protein max to see results. Multiple studies suggest that about 1.6 to 2.2 grams per kilogram of your goal bodyweight (anywhere in that range) can work great. But if you’re cutting calories and trying to see if you can burn fat and build muscle, eating closer to the higher end of the range of protein might help, assuming you’re also prioritizing resistance training. If you need help with your nutrition and training programs, we can help. 

Longevity
The Hobbies Linked to a Sharper Brain (20 Years of Research Agrees)

People spend a lot of time optimizing for brain health in complicated ways: tracking sleep scores, cycling nootropics, or stressing about omega-3 ratios. Meanwhile, one of the most consistent findings in cognitive aging research involves something far less technical.

Reading, playing board games, picking up a musical instrument, and dancing are each associated with a meaningfully lower dementia risk, a finding that has held up across more than 2 million people and 2 decades of follow-up research.

The evidence began to accumulate in 2003, when researchers tracked leisure habits and dementia outcomes. People who were more mentally active were significantly less likely to develop dementia over the follow-up period, and that held true even after accounting for age, education, and existing health conditions. That study became a foundation.

 A 2022 meta-analysis then analyzed 38 studies across more than 2 million participants and found that leisure activities were associated with a 23% lower risk of all-cause dementia and a 34% lower risk of Alzheimer's disease specifically.

Mental engagement appears to build your cognitive reserve, the same way strength training builds a buffer against muscle loss. You're giving your brain more to work with when it needs it.

The research is observational, so causation isn't established. And some researchers argue that early cognitive decline might lead people to disengage from stimulating activities first, thereby amplifying the apparent association. Also, no single activity type is the full answer. The most protective pattern in the research combines cognitive engagement, physical activity, and social connection.

If you're already doing any of these things regularly, that counts more than you might think. If not, the barrier to entry is lower than most health advice: a few hours a week of something that genuinely engages your mind could be what protects it as you age. 

On Our Radar
Can An Amino Acid Help You Think Better Under Pressure? 

You've probably seen tyrosine supplements marketed as "brain fuel" for focus and mental performance. Unlike many supplement claims, this one has some real science behind it. But what the label doesn't tell you matters more than what it does.

Research suggests tyrosine can protect your brain under extreme stress, but the doses studied are 5-10x higher than what's in a typical supplement.

A review of 15 placebo-controlled studies found that tyrosine — an amino acid your body uses to produce dopamine and norepinephrine — improved working memory and mental processing during demanding conditions. In one study, it helped people perform better during intense multitasking. In another, it reduced attention lapses after 24 hours without sleep. A third showed cognitive benefits under loud noise stress.

When stress drains your brain's neurotransmitter supply, tyrosine provides raw material for its replenishment. When you're not under significant pressure, extra tyrosine doesn't appear to do anything — your brain already has enough.

Here's the catch: tyrosine appears to work. But the studies with the strongest evidence used amounts that are much higher (about 7 to 10 grams) than what you typically find in supplements (about 500 mg to 2 grams). 

At the same time, the stress in the studies wasn’t a busy inbox. It was much more intense, whether 24-hour sleep deprivation, 90-decibel noise, or military combat training. 

So is it that you need that high a dose to offset an intense stressor, or that you need that dose to help you function for any type of stress?

We can’t say for certain, other than that it appears to work at higher doses and help you perform better when life is chaotic.

The good news? A chicken breast and Greek yogurt deliver about 1,900 mg of tyrosine — roughly what most supplements offer. If you're eating adequate protein, you’re giving your brain a steady supply, and a supplement could help you close the gap and hit the amounts used in the study. 

Here is the most trusted supplement we’ve found, and you can save up to 35% off your first order subscription with the code “PUMPCLUB.”

If you don’t want to supplement, there are many other natural ways to think better when under stress. Sleep (7-9 hours), regular exercise, stress management, and strategic caffeine can all do the trick, and each has decades of research to back it up.

Adam’s Corner
It Won't Be The Same

My son Bode has a joke.

For a few years now, he points at the top of my head and tells me I’m bald.

He drops the punchline, I roll my eyes, and he laughs. The joke worked because it didn't feel as bad as he made it out to be. The kind of teasing that lives safely between honest and exaggerated.

Then, one morning a couple of weeks ago, he started saying it and stopped.

"I was going to say how bald you are," he said. "But I don't want to because..."

He trailed off. The tact arrived just after the truth.

"It's okay," I said.

"No, Dad. You’re really looking bald."

I looked in the mirror.
I thought, maybe (hopefully?) just bad bedhead?

I asked my wife. She shoots straight and confirmed. My son wasn’t wrong. 

Change rarely announces itself. It just accumulates until someone you love sees it before you do, or it hits you so hard that you have no choice but to accept it.

That hair realization made me stop and wonder what else was changing.

Our youngest arrived the way all babies do: small and consuming and impossible to imagine life without. We knew from the beginning that she would be our last. We have three. It’s right for us.

So we've tried to savor all the last moments we get because we understand, consciously, that the stage we’re in right now is the last time we'll be in it.

Our daughter is a toddler now. I felt like I’ve been present, and even I can’t believe how quickly the time has gone. There’s no going back.

And that got me thinking about all the things that won't be the same.

But where I ended up wasn’t what I expected.

No “Off Switch.”

My instinct, always, is to find a way through. People tell me I have no “off switch.”

Didn't get into the graduate school I wanted. Worked harder and earned a scholarship. Got rejected from every journalism job I applied for. Climbed anyway, until I was writing for the biggest magazines in the world and running the largest health website. Tore every ligament in my knee. Rehabbed and deadlifted more than 500 pounds, which is more than when I had two unscathed knees.

I either find a way back, or I find a way to where I wanted to be all along.

So when I came across an old photo of myself training with Dwight Freeney — 270 pounds of NFL defensive end — and saw that I looked thick, comparable, like I belonged there (to be clear, I don’t belong anywhere near an NFL field), my first thought was automatic:

Should I try to get back there?

That's just how the engine runs. Show me what's changed, and I start calculating how to restore it.

But then something new arrived. When I looked at who I was, what I wanted, and how I prioritize my time and goals, I had a second thought.

I don't actually want that anymore.

And I had to process that for more than a minute. Because it was a different kind of answer than I'm used to giving myself.

What Arnold Taught Me About Peaks

I once asked Arnold how he handles aging. He built arguably the greatest physique in the history of bodybuilding. Watching it change had to be hard.  

How do you reconcile the gap?

He didn't flinch.

"Of course it's hard," he said. "But it's less hard than you'd think because that's no longer my vision."

At one point, everything he had pointed at one peak: to become the greatest bodybuilder in the world. He reached it. Then the peak changed. Movies. Business. Public service. The Pump Club. Different mountains. The intensity never left; it just found somewhere new to go.

The priorities of your former self shouldn't blind the realities of your current self.

I'm not comparing thinning hair to Mr. Olympia. It’s more that some things won't come back, and that’s ok. 

The newborns. The version of me standing next to Freeney. You can grieve them, or you appreciate that you had the moment at all.

But then comes the most important part: Because this isn’t about complacency. It’s about asking what the next peak looks like, and then going to climb it.

The more I accepted that some things belong in the past, the more I realized how freeing it is for what waits ahead.

You’re Not Aging, You’re Upgrading To A New Version

When I turned 40, I dreaded it. The number felt like a door closing. Then a friend reframed it in a way I've never forgotten.

"Stop looking at it like a number. Look at it like an upgrade."

I wasn't 40. I was version 4.0. When I turned 41, version 4.1, and so forth. Each year is not a step toward some finish line, but a new release — bugs patched, new features added, a few old ones deprecated in exchange for things that run better now.

Aging gives, and it takes. That part is true. But every version, if you're paying attention, comes with upgrades. More patience. More clarity about what actually matters. Less energy wasted on mountains that were never really yours.

Some call it gratitude. It is that.

But it's also something more specific: it's what happens when you stop measuring today against some earlier version of yourself and start asking what this version is capable of.

Looking back changes when you stop doing it with remorse. When you start doing it with appreciation, you might eventually stop needing to look back at all.

No Finish Line

Arnold wrote something this week that has me even more excited about the future:

Start stacking daily wins, and stop chasing the finish line.

If you know Arnold, and after 14 years of working with him, I think I have a good sense — it's not a motivational line. He's describing how this actually works. And by "this," he's talking about life.

You reach a peak, and from the top, you can see peaks you couldn't see from the bottom. The journey doesn't end. It reconfigures.

You're always at the beginning of something, even when you're deep in something else.

When I look back now — at the photo with Freeney, at the baby who became a toddler, at the mirror my son pointed me toward — I don't feel what I expected to feel. (OK, maybe I still miss my thicker hair.)

I feel an unexpected harmony of acceptance and ambition. There will still be goals where the old me — the one who needs to capture what evaded him — will show up. The hunger doesn't die.

And at the same time, I'm realizing, like Arnold, that some visions don't last forever. Getting better doesn't stop. But it does change.

We don't hit a point where improvement ends. We hit points where the shape of improvement evolves. Where "better" stops looking like it did before and starts looking like something we haven't seen yet.

No, it won't be the same.

And I think that's the way it's supposed to be.

Just because the vision changes, the journey does not. -AB

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