February 2023

Hey all,

My wintertime workouts tend to be focused on strength training with my main goal being to get as strong as possible (and since kids, as strong as possible with the least amount of time devoted to the gym).

This year—with less time than any year before—I set PR’s on nearly every one of my lifts and became stronger than any other year. The bulk of my routine was the same (creatine daily, fasted workouts with the occasional amino acids before some hard workouts, and a protein smoothie afterward) but there were a few changes.

1. Focus on protein. I was more stringent than in years past with getting my .8g/lb of daily protein.

2. Heavier lunches, lighter dinners. This translated to more deep sleep and better recovery at night.

3. L-Leucine. I started using L-Leucine the past 2 months (5g/day, ~5 days/week). The research is strong on the benefits of it for muscle protein synthesis so I gave it a shot and I haven’t noticed any side effects. The only downside is the strong taste so I switched up the protein powder flavor for the strongest one: double chocolate.

4. More core work. In the past, I would spend minimal time on my core since I’d secondarily be working it with most exercises. This winter I used more cables (vs. machines and weights) to engage my core more and I incorporated some core-specific machines into my weekly routine which challenged the muscles above/below the core through isometric contraction. My core, specifically my low back, has always been a weak part of my body so this translated to better stabilization with exercises like deadlifts, squats, and rows.

I’m not sure if one of these changes helped more than another but they’re all low-risk with benefits that extend beyond muscle hypertrophy so I’ll be sticking with them for the time being.

Have a great week.

Brian 

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New Blog Posts

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Mind

• 10 Life Lessons I Learned as an Occupational Therapist: Part 2

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• The 16 Best Newsletters To Subscribe To

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Body

• Breath by James Nestor: 3 Things I Now Do Everyday

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• How To Make The Healthiest Cup Of Coffee

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Dad

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The MBD Corner

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Mind

• A way to test your pace of life. It’s a quick 7-question quiz. I scored a 50 meaning, among other things, “You tend to be impatient, excessively time-conscious, and find relaxation difficult.”

• The 8 Best Techniques for Evaluating Character by The Honest Broker. My favorites (minus the explanations):

  1. Forget what they say—instead look at who they marry.

  2. See how they treat service workers

  8. Watch how they handle unexpected problems

• The news affects you more than you realize. A study compared two groups of people during the Boston Marathon bombing in 2013: those who watched 6+ hours of news coverage on the bombing and those who were actually running the marathon. The conclusion: the news watchers had higher stress levels! The researchers stated that “Repeated bombing-related media exposure was associated with higher acute stress than was direct exposure.”

• The age-old question: when should I stop reading a book if it sucks? The sunk-cost fallacy is a cognitive bias that tells you to keep going if you’ve already put some time into it but, in the end, that’s just a waste of time.

  Chris Williamson from Modern Wisdom suggests this: “100 pages minus your age is the rule.  If you’ve not wanted to take a picture of a passage by then and aren’t super gripped by it, then put it down.  The less time you have left on earth, the less space you should have for boring books.”

Body

• More air pollution = more anxiety and depression.

• A study of D1 football players showed that high academic stress and high physical stress both increase the risk of injury when researchers tracked players during the season. Surprisingly, high academic stress was twice as high to lead to an injury than periods of low academic stress.

• Exercise is great for serious mental illness.

• The foods that Americans eat over the years; broken down by proteins, fats, grains, etc. Below is a snapshot of protein but click on the link to be blown away by the amount of flour we consume. (Flowing Data)

• Great podcast with Andrew Huberman and Andy Galpin on weight lifting protocols.

Dad

• Great podcast about anti-fragility on Raising Good Humans.

• The ups and downs of being gifted:

• Trendiest U.S. baby names every year since 1930. See the link for the full images of males and females.