Quaranturnt Day 28 - I Got Hammies, But I’m Not A Hamster

Hey Crew, 

Quick warning, tomorrow, we have a spicy surprise coming. The first of a few. That’s all I’ll say for now. 

The end of week four is here. That’s wild. I can’t believe this is four full weeks of workouts, rambles, instagram videos… It’s been tough at times but whenever someone asks if I’m getting tired of it yet I just send them my favorite moment from Arrested Development.

I wanted to talk a bit about what makes a good workout for you. Many people will say a good workout is when you feel the burn a lot in your muscles. Some will cry out for something that leaves them gasping for air. Ninety Nine point I’mmakingthisnumberup percent will say a workout is only good if you sweat a lot. And everyone feels like the workout was real when they’re sore the next day. 

But each of those could be very misleading.

• The burn is just a buildup of lactic acid. Lots of lactic acid may be good for what you want…but I’ve never heard anyone say “my goal is to have a super muscular high lactic acid threshold”

• Lung-crushing workouts are certainly mentally challenging, but I could tell you to just do 5 minutes of burpees every day. Your lungs would probably prefer a dose of Corona over that kind of torture but you wouldn’t really get any results unless your goal is to get marginally better at burpees.

• Sweating is cool (pun intended) but if that was a good workout, we’d all be models by the end of August.

• Soreness is satisfying. But it’s not super well understood exactly where it comes from and it certainly isn’t an indicator of how successful the workout is. Our best idea is microtears in the muscle tissue, but is your goal directly really to break down muscle tissue? Especially when that comes more frequently when you do new random exercises….do you think the best exercises come from doing random shit every time you get in the gym? (ref: To learn more).

These are all great measures of working hard - it’s hard to get through a lung-incinerating workout if you aren’t pushing yourself hard. But you need to really think about your main goals and keep in mind what you are shooting for. Make sure the metrics you optimize for actually align with your intended results. If you’re working hard with progressively harder exercises (heavy weight/more intense work), your body grows whether you feel it or not. You have to trust the process.

The breath work is now over. I really hope at least a few of you tried it out. I think, especially in a time like this, calming yourself, locking into the present moment, and returning to breath is invaluable.  Here is the IG post for the following workout.