[You can follow me on Twitter @creatorvilla.] Today I want to share the results of a study conducted several decades ago that has forever changed the way we view the relationship between sunlight, testosterone, and athletic performance. In the study, Doctors Abraham Myerson and Rudolph Neustadt exposed men to UV light and measured the excretion of various sex hormones. The study revealed that exposure to UV light triggered huge increases in testosterone levels which did not return to baseline levels for over a week. This increase was dependent on the location of the body and the amount of skin exposed to the UV light. The researchers found that men’s baseline testosterone increased by 120% (more than double!) when the participants’ chest and back were exposed to UV light. However, the biggest increase in testosterone came when the participants’ testicles were exposed to UV light. The latter resulted in a massive 200% increase (triple) in baseline testosterone levels. This study has enormous implications for guys attempting to optimize testosterone levels and for athletes who want to maximize performance naturally and legally. It is a wonder why the sporting and fitness industries haven’t gone mainstream with this knowledge. Then again, there is little money to be made by advising people to get more sunlight. Companies would rather sell you expensive supplements. Athletes who have this knowledge may also wish to maintain a competitive advantage over their rivals.

The main takeaway of the study is that exposure to UV light anywhere on the body drives a huge increase in testosterone levels. I, however, wanted to test out the particulars of the study. Bluntly put, I wanted to see what would happen when I directly exposed the balls to UV light. I did this through an open window during the heat of day when the UV Index was high. I noticed they immediately began to grow upon first exposure. I knew this is the area where the body produces the vast majority of testosterone, so it made sense that local exposure to sunlight would trigger a disproportionate increase. The physical changes I observed coupled with the increases in energy and motivation to work out convinced me not only that the study was accurate, but that it was a major game-changer for the sports and fitness industries.

Exposing one’s nether parts to sunlight is neither practical nor desirable for obvious reasons. This has led some guys aware of the benefits to use UV red light therapy to achieve the same outcome in the privacy of their own home (link). I don’t doubt this works, but since it’s not something I’ve personally experimented with, I won’t say much about it. What I do know is that red light technology can be quiet pricey. However, I did discover a cheap and natural method that arguably worked even better for me than expensive alternatives.

Disclaimer: Don’t try this at home. You should consult your doctor about Vitamin D and testosterone optimization given that they are very powerful hormones and a lot could go wrong.

Vitamin D is known as the sunshine vitamin for good reason. The human body has a Vitamin D receptor in nearly ever cell of the body and is highly evolved to generate Vitamin D upon exposure to the sun. After I first read the study a few years ago, I wondered whether the increase in testosterone was triggered by the local production of Vitamin D directly on the skin in response to the UV light exposure. That in mind, I experimented with different doses of Vitamin D topical applied directly to the balls. Lo and behold, I noticed the same enlarging effect as when I had gotten direct UV light exposure. In this process of trial and error, I came to the conclusion that less is more. When the skin is exposed to UV light, it naturally generates Vitamin D in a uniform fashion. Small exposed areas of skin naturally produce small amounts of Vitamin D, and applying to much Vitamin D to any one region can interfere with its natural synthesis by the body. I found that less than 1,000 IU was enough for me to achieve the desired effect and that higher doses were wholly ineffective. Whenever I apply Vitamin D anywhere directly to my skin I prefer to crack open the Vitamin D softgels rather than purchase a topical product. My method is cheaper and it enables me to control the dosing better than prepared formulations. I would apply about half of a 1000 IU softgel every few days and could notice a major difference within a few hours.

Today I make sure I get adequate sun exposure as part of a healthy lifestyle, but I have not experimented with UV light or Vitamin D in this fashion in years. Currently, I have no reason to maintain peak testosterone levels. However, if I ever found myself training for an athletic competition or was experiencing symptoms of low testosterone, the power of the sun would be my first recourse. Nowadays people are quick to take supplements, inject steroids, or go on testosterone replacement therapy, giving up on their body’s natural ability to produce what they need. Meanwhile, nature offers a cheaper (if not free) solution that is arguably more effective than artificial alternatives.

See my article on the The Most Natural Way To Optimize Vitamin D Levels for more pro tips on harnessing the power of the sun.

I’m a strong believer that exercise is a vital part of a healthy lifestyle, especially for those of us who live sedentary lives. Exercise gets blood flowing, releases happy chemicals, enhances emotional processing, conveys a sense of achievement, and makes us feel better about life. I haven’t always been a big fan of cardio. I played soccer in high school but running isn’t something I do for fun. I also prefer a muscular physique, so most of my time in the gym is spent lifting weights. However, I also know from experience and research that cardio is healthy for the mind and body. As a result, I incorporated a simple, intense exercise into my routine that let’s me have my cake and eat it too. I’ve termed it the gorilla walk. The gorilla walk is both aerobic (cardio) and anaerobic/anabolic (muscle-building)–the perfect marriage of cardio and resistance exercise.

Disclaimer: The gorilla walk is potentially dangerous, especially if you do it on a treadmill. Do not try this at home.

What I need for the gorilla walk is a space to walk fast/jog lightly, a backpack, and weights (plates and dumbbells). Inside, I like to use a treadmill and an old sturdy backpack. I started out with a 25 LB plate in the backpack and two 2-3 LB dumbbells in each hand. With a dumbbell in each hand, I like to jog as usual, with my hands moving up and down rhythmically. I want the backpack and dumbbells to be heavy enough that I can move 4-4.5 MPH for no more than 10-20 minutes. More weight=greater intensity=bigger gains. I can experiment by going up and down in weight and altering hand positions. For example, I sometimes take a break from the backpack, increase the weight of the dumbbells, and place them overhead or in a curling position. The goal is to get my whole body moving and building muscle at the same time.

The genius of the gorilla walk lies in its ability to activate the entire body. The backpack builds up the lats and shoulders, and the dumbbells work on arms, chest, and overall upper body definition depending on where you hold them. The legs and core work hard moving and balancing the weight. The gorilla walk is a cross-fit style work-out. It’s extremely stress-relieving and mindfulness-promoting, and efficiently consolidates many exercises into one. It can be good for losing weight, putting on muscle, and experiencing the therapeutic benefits of exercise.

Below are links to the treadmill and adjustable dumbbells I use, and a weighted military-style vest that’s perfect for this exercise. With a proper vest, I can do the gorilla walk with more weight than a backpack and look a little less ridiculous in a public gym.

Are you a fan of the gorilla walk? You can’t knock it it until you try it.

Treadmill: https://amzn.to/2PQTFtZ

Weighted Military-Style Vest: https://amzn.to/2PTn6vy

Adjustable Dumbbells: https://amzn.to/2N1yenA

25-LB Plate: https://amzn.to/2PQL5LI

Today’s athletes are far better than yesterday’s athletes–you hear it all the time. It’s a common argument used in generational legacy debates (Maradona versus Messi, Lebron versus Jordan, Woods versus Nicklaus). In fact, many people today believe that we’ve made progress in every area as a society, and athletic performance is the rule not the exception. After all, aren’t athletic records broken every year? The picture, however, is slightly more nuanced than a first glance would let on.

Journalist and Colombia-graduate David Epstein has spent the great part of his professional life studying athletic performance. He is author of The Sports Gene: Inside the Science of Extraordinary Athletic Performance and Range: How Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World. Epstein gave a Ted Talk in which he addressed the very question posed in the previous paragraph. Epstein concludes that humans couldn’t possibly have genetically evolved in such a short period of time. Epstein attributes advances in athletic performance today to changing technology, changing genes, and changing mindsets.

Changing technologies as in synthetic track surfaces and more aerodynamic bicycles. Changing genes as in better selecting for sports based on body types (e.g. taller builds in basketball and bigger builds for football). And changing mindsets as in more people attempting great athletic feats like matching Roger Bannister’s famous 4-minute mile. I would personally add a fourth explanation: changing performance-enhancing drugs. Reality is that athletes today are not genetically superior, but modern technology and scientific methods may be partially responsible for advances in athletic performance.

I have reposted the fascinating talk with permission from Ted.

Transcript:

The Olympic motto is “Citius, Altius, Fortius.” Faster, Higher, Stronger. And athletes have fulfilled that motto rapidly. The winner of the 2012 Olympic marathon ran two hours and eight minutes. Had he been racing against the winner of the 1904 Olympic marathon, he would have won by nearly an hour and a half. Now we all have this feeling that we’re somehow just getting better as a human race, inexorably progressing, but it’s not like we’ve evolved into a new species in a century. So what’s going on here? I want to take a look at what’s really behind this march of athletic progress.

In 1936, Jesse Owens held the world record in the 100 meters. Had Jesse Owens been racing last year in the world championships of the 100 meters, when Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt finished, Owens would have still had 14 feet to go. That’s a lot in sprinter land. To give you a sense of how much it is, I want to share with you a demonstration conceived by sports scientist Ross Tucker. Now picture the stadium last year at the world championships of the 100 meters: thousands of fans waiting with baited breath to see Usain Bolt, the fastest man in history; flashbulbs popping as the nine fastest men in the world coil themselves into their blocks. And I want you to pretend that Jesse Owens is in that race. Now close your eyes for a second and picture the race. Bang! The gun goes off. An American sprinter jumps out to the front. Usain Bolt starts to catch him. Usain Bolt passes him, and as the runners come to the finish, you’ll hear a beep as each man crosses the line. (Beeps) That’s the entire finish of the race. You can open your eyes now. That first beep was Usain Bolt. That last beep was Jesse Owens. Listen to it again. (Beeps immediately after) When you think of it like that, it’s not that big a difference, is it? And then consider that Usain Bolt started by propelling himself out of blocks down a specially fabricated carpet designed to allow him to travel as fast as humanly possible. Jesse Owens, on the other hand, ran on cinders, the ash from burnt wood, and that soft surface stole far more energy from his legs as he ran. Rather than blocks, Jesse Owens had a gardening trowel that he had to use to dig holes in the cinders to start from. Biomechanical analysis of the speed of Owens’ joints shows that had been running on the same surface as Bolt, he wouldn’t have been 14 feet behind, he would have been within one stride. Rather than the last beep, Owens would have been the second beep. Listen to it again. (Beeps) That’s the difference track surface technology has made, and it’s done it throughout the running world.

Consider a longer event. In 1954, Sir Roger Bannister became the first man to run under four minutes in the mile. Nowadays, college kids do that every year. On rare occasions, a high school kid does it. As of the end of last year, 1,314 men had run under four minutes in the mile, but like Jesse Owens, Sir Roger Bannister ran on soft cinders that stole far more energy from his legs than the synthetic tracks of today. So I consulted biomechanics experts to find out how much slower it is to run on cinders than synthetic tracks, and their consensus that it’s one and a half percent slower. So if you apply a one and a half percent slowdown conversion to every man who ran his sub-four mile on a synthetic track, this is what happens. Only 530 are left. If you look at it from that perspective, fewer than ten new men per [year] have joined the sub-four mile club since Sir Roger Bannister. Now, 530 is a lot more than one, and that’s partly because there are many more people training today and they’re training more intelligently. Even college kids are professional in their training compared to Sir Roger Bannister, who trained for 45 minutes at a time while he ditched gynecology lectures in med school. And that guy who won the 1904 Olympic marathon in three in a half hours, that guy was drinking rat poison and brandy while he ran along the course. That was his idea of a performance-enhancing drug. (Laughter)

Clearly, athletes have gotten more savvy about performance-enhancing drugs as well, and that’s made a difference in some sports at some times, but technology has made a difference in all sports, from faster skis to lighter shoes. Take a look at the record for the 100-meter freestyle swim. The record is always trending downward, but it’s punctuated by these steep cliffs. This first cliff, in 1956, is the introduction of the flip turn. Rather than stopping and turning around, athletes could somersault under the water and get going right away in the opposite direction. This second cliff, the introduction of gutters on the side of the pool that allows water to splash off, rather than becoming turbulence that impedes the swimmers as they race. This final cliff, the introduction of full-body and low-friction swimsuits.

Throughout sports, technology has changed the face of performance. In 1972, Eddy Merckx set the record for the longest distance cycled in one hour at 30 miles, 3,774 feet. Now that record improved and improved as bicycles improved and became more aerodynamic all the way until 1996, when it was set at 35 miles, 1,531 feet, nearly five miles farther than Eddy Merckx cycled in 1972. But then in 2000, the International Cycling Union decreed that anyone who wanted to hold that record had to do so with essentially the same equipment that Eddy Merckx used in 1972. Where does the record stand today? 30 miles, 4,657 feet, a grand total of 883 feet farther than Eddy Merckx cycled more than four decades ago. Essentially the entire improvement in this record was due to technology.

Still, technology isn’t the only thing pushing athletes forward. While indeed we haven’t evolved into a new species in a century, the gene pool within competitive sports most certainly has changed. In the early half of the 20th century, physical education instructors and coaches had the idea that the average body type was the best for all athletic endeavors: medium height, medium weight, no matter the sport. And this showed in athletes’ bodies. In the 1920s, the average elite high-jumper and average elite shot-putter were the same exact size. But as that idea started to fade away, as sports scientists and coaches realized that rather than the average body type, you want highly specialized bodies that fit into certain athletic niches, a form of artificial selection took place, a self-sorting for bodies that fit certain sports, and athletes’ bodies became more different from one another. Today, rather than the same size as the average elite high jumper, the average elite shot-putter is two and a half inches taller and 130 pounds heavier. And this happened throughout the sports world.

In fact, if you plot on a height versus mass graph one data point for each of two dozen sports in the first half of the 20th century, it looks like this. There’s some dispersal, but it’s kind of grouped around that average body type. Then that idea started to go away, and at the same time, digital technology — first radio, then television and the Internet — gave millions, or in some cases billions, of people a ticket to consume elite sports performance. The financial incentives and fame and glory afforded elite athletes skyrocketed, and it tipped toward the tiny upper echelon of performance. It accelerated the artificial selection for specialized bodies. And if you plot a data point for these same two dozen sports today, it looks like this. The athletes’ bodies have gotten much more different from one another. And because this chart looks like the charts that show the expanding universe, with the galaxies flying away from one another, the scientists who discovered it call it “The Big Bang of Body Types.”

In sports where height is prized, like basketball, the tall athletes got taller. In 1983, the National Basketball Association signed a groundbreaking agreement making players partners in the league, entitled to shares of ticket revenues and television contracts. Suddenly, anybody who could be an NBA player wanted to be, and teams started scouring the globe for the bodies that could help them win championships. Almost overnight, the proportion of men in the NBA who are at least seven feet tall doubled to 10 percent. Today, one in 10 men in the NBA is at least seven feet tall, but a seven-foot-tall man is incredibly rare in the general population — so rare that if you know an American man between the ages of 20 and 40 who is at least seven feet tall, there’s a 17 percent chance he’s in the NBA right now. (Laughter) That is, find six honest seven footers, one is in the NBA right now. And that’s not the only way that NBA players’ bodies are unique. This is Leonardo da Vinci’s “Vitruvian Man,” the ideal proportions, with arm span equal to height. My arm span is exactly equal to my height. Yours is probably very nearly so. But not the average NBA player. The average NBA player is a shade under 6’7″, with arms that are seven feet long. Not only are NBA players ridiculously tall, they are ludicrously long. Had Leonardo wanted to draw the Vitruvian NBA Player, he would have needed a rectangle and an ellipse, not a circle and a square.

So in sports where large size is prized, the large athletes have gotten larger. Conversely, in sports where diminutive stature is an advantage, the small athletes got smaller. The average elite female gymnast shrunk from 5’3″ to 4’9″ on average over the last 30 years, all the better for their power-to-weight ratio and for spinning in the air. And while the large got larger and the small got smaller, the weird got weirder. The average length of the forearm of a water polo player in relation to their total arm got longer, all the better for a forceful throwing whip. And as the large got larger, small got smaller, and the weird weirder. In swimming, the ideal body type is a long torso and short legs. It’s like the long hull of a canoe for speed over the water. And the opposite is advantageous in running. You want long legs and a short torso. And this shows in athletes’ bodies today. Here you see Michael Phelps, the greatest swimmer in history, standing next to Hicham El Guerrouj, the world record holder in the mile. These men are seven inches different in height, but because of the body types advantaged in their sports, they wear the same length pants. Seven inches difference in height, these men have the same length legs.

Now in some cases, the search for bodies that could push athletic performance forward ended up introducing into the competitive world populations of people that weren’t previously competing at all, like Kenyan distance runners. We think of Kenyans as being great marathoners. Kenyans think of the Kalenjin tribe as being great marathoners. The Kalenjin make up just 12 percent of the Kenyan population but the vast majority of elite runners. And they happen, on average, to have a certain unique physiology: legs that are very long and very thin at their extremity, and this is because they have their ancestry at very low latitude in a very hot and dry climate, and an evolutionary adaptation to that is limbs that are very long and very thin at the extremity for cooling purposes. It’s the same reason that a radiator has long coils, to increase surface area compared to volume to let heat out, and because the leg is like a pendulum, the longer and thinner it is at the extremity, the more energy-efficient it is to swing. To put Kalenjin running success in perspective, consider that 17 American men in history have run faster than two hours and 10 minutes in the marathon. That’s a four-minute-and-58-second-per-mile pace. Thirty-two Kalenjin men did that last October. (Laughter) That’s from a source population the size of metropolitan Atlanta.

Still, even changing technology and the changing gene pool in sports don’t account for all of the changes in performance. Athletes have a different mindset than they once did. Have you ever seen in a movie when someone gets an electrical shock and they’re thrown across a room? There’s no explosion there. What’s happening when that happens is that the electrical impulse is causing all their muscle fibers to twitch at once, and they’re throwing themselves across the room. They’re essentially jumping. That’s the power that’s contained in the human body. But normally we can’t access nearly all of it. Our brain acts as a limiter, preventing us from accessing all of our physical resources, because we might hurt ourselves, tearing tendons or ligaments. But the more we learn about how that limiter functions, the more we learn how we can push it back just a bit, in some cases by convincing the brain that the body won’t be in mortal danger by pushing harder. Endurance and ultra-endurance sports serve as a great example. Ultra-endurance was once thought to be harmful to human health, but now we realize that we have all these traits that are perfect for ultra-endurance: no body fur and a glut of sweat glands that keep us cool while running; narrow waists and long legs compared to our frames; large surface area of joints for shock absorption. We have an arch in our foot that acts like a spring, short toes that are better for pushing off than for grasping tree limbs, and when we run, we can turn our torso and our shoulders like this while keeping our heads straight. Our primate cousins can’t do that. They have to run like this. And we have big old butt muscles that keep us upright while running. Have you ever looked at an ape’s butt? They have no buns because they don’t run upright. And as athletes have realized that we’re perfectly suited for ultra-endurance, they’ve taken on feats that would have been unthinkable before, athletes like Spanish endurance racer Kílian Jornet. Here’s Kílian running up the Matterhorn. (Laughter) With a sweatshirt there tied around his waist. It’s so steep he can’t even run here. He’s pulling up on a rope. This is a vertical ascent of more than 8,000 feet, and Kílian went up and down in under three hours. Amazing. And talented though he is, Kílian is not a physiological freak. Now that he has done this, other athletes will follow, just as other athletes followed after Sir Roger Bannister ran under four minutes in the mile.

Changing technology, changing genes, and a changing mindset. Innovation in sports, whether that’s new track surfaces or new swimming techniques, the democratization of sport, the spread to new bodies and to new populations around the world, and imagination in sport, an understanding of what the human body is truly capable of, have conspired to make athletes stronger, faster, bolder, and better than ever.

Thank you very much.

(Applause)

Unbeknown to many people, there are a number of awesome calculators and references online that can helps us meet our health and fitness goals, whether that’s losing weight, gaining weight, or calculating repetition ranges with different exercises. Today I want to share a few of the most popular ones and the ones I have personally found most helpful. My goal for this post is to make you aware of some of the free resources out there and to serve as a reference. Let me know your personal favorites down below and I may update this post to include them.

Body Mass Index (BMI)

BMI is a calculation that many of you are familiar with. It is probably the main tool your doctor uses to assess the health of your weight. BMI is based on two inputs: height and weight. Readings of 18 and below is underweight. 19-24 is healthy. 25-29 is overweight. 30-39 is obese. And 40 and up is extremely obese. You can reference the chart below or plug your numbers into BMI Calculator USA, which will give you an exact reading. BMI has its shortcomings. For example, Michael Jordan in his prime had a BMI of 27-29, which would classify him as overweight, yet his weight size was ~30. That is because muscle is quite heavy (it weighs more than fat) and BMI doesn’t factor in training-induced increases in muscle mass. If you are an athlete with high muscle mass, then BMI is probably not the best measure for you. For most people, however, BMI is an effective tool to gauge the health of their weight.

Weight Loss & Weight Gain Calculators

Did you know that a pound is ~3,500 calories? That means if you want to gain/lose a pound a week you need to increase/decrease your calorie intake by 3,500/7 = 500 calories a day. For example, if you need 2,200 calories a day to maintain your current weight and want to drop a pound a week (holding physical activity levels the same), then you would need to eat 1,700 calories a day. There are calculators where you input height, weight, sex, age, and physical activity levels and they calculate exactly how many calories you need to eat to maintain your current weight or drop x amount of pounds per week.

Calculator.Net has a great simple tool for this purpose –> CNET Weight Loss/Weight Gain Calculator. Another great one is at Calculators.org –> CORG Weight Loss/Weight Gain Calculator. The CORG calculator has the added feature of allowing you to input how many pounds you want to lose/gain in x amount of time, and calculating exactly how many calories you need to eat a day to achieve it.

FYI, there was a 30-calorie difference in how much I should eat in a day to maintain my current weight between the two calculators above. That is because no two calculators use the exact same algorithm and there is some estimation involved. In general, these are very helpful tools based on math and science but don’t take every minute reading as the absolute truth.

Resistance Training Calculators (Bench, Squat, Deadlift, Etc.)

There are also calculators that estimate how many repetitions of an exercise you can do at unspecified weights based on how many repetitions you can do at a specified weight. Bodybuilding.com has one for any lift–> Bodybuilding One-Rep Max Calculator. Most people use tools like this calculate their one-rep max as a measure of overall strength, hence why Bodybuilding.com brands the calculator as a “one-rep max calculator.” However, you can also use it to calculate, your 3, 5, and 8-rep maxes. For example, if you input 200 pounds for 8 repetitions, the calculator will churn out 250 as a one-rep max. However, there is also a chart at the bottom that estimates how many reps you can do at other weight based on your one-rep max (e.g. you can do 95% of one-rep max for two reps; 90% of one-rep max for 4 reps; and and 80% of one-rep max for 8 reps.) So if my one rep max is 250, 80% of that is 200, which would mean I can do 200 lbs for an estimated 8 reps. The calculator above gives you all of these numbers.

Strength Level is another popular tool to calculate your strength relative to other bodybuilders in your sex/age group. –> Strength Level Calculator You input your personal data, the exercise in question (there are dozens), and the number of repetitions you can do at a given weight, and it will tell you where you stand relative to your peers. There are five divisions based on each individual exercise: beginner, novice, intermediate, advanced, and elite. For example, I may rank as advanced on the bench press and novice on the squat if my bench numbers are relatively high and my squat numbers are relatively low.

Note: Strength Level uses self-reported data from users (currently 150,000 submissions) to calculate averages. The website “filters” submissions from spam, but in my experience people still tend to inflate their lifts, so take it with a grain of salt. And, remember, at the end of you day you are your only competition.

You don’t need a lot of equipment to make major gains in the gym. If you don’t believe me, watch the 300. It can certainly be motivating to have somewhere to go to where other people are striving to reach the same goals. I have a membership at a local gym. But the fact is that anyone can get swoll from the comfort of their own home. Let’s be real–most people who lift weights are in it for the upper body. That’s what people see. That’s what people like. There are a lot of good reasons for lifting legs, but I won’t get into those now. If you want a muscular, shredded upper body, then there’s only one piece of equipment you need: a push-up/pull-up bar. If the treadmill is king of cardio, then the push-up/pull-up bar is king of upper body.

Pull-ups as pictured on the right target biceps, back, chest, and shoulders–four of the most visible muscle groups. Pull-ups also work the abdominal muscle. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve woken up with sore abs from a pull-up routine. You can also turn your hands around so that your palms are facing you instead of facing away from you. This variation of the pull-up is called the chin-up. I’ve found that it works approximately the same muscles as the traditional pull-up with a little more stress on the biceps. In my experience, it’s easier to bang out more reps doing the chin-up variety. Pull-ups, it follows, are a complete upper-body experience. If you did nothing but pull-ups, and you did enough of them, you’d be jacked in no time.

Push-ups are by far the most popular upper-body exercise known to mankind. Push-ups work chest, triceps, shoulders, and abs. Unlike pull-ups, push-ups are something you can reasonably do with zero equipment. However, having a push-up bar can be extremely useful. A bar adds resistance by enabling you to go deeper down where the ground would otherwise stop you. With no equipment, I can easily bang out 50-70 push-ups. When doing this many reps, it takes a relatively long time to tire out the muscles enough where real growth takes place. Most bodybuilders swear by the 8-16 rep-range for optimal muscle volume. Having a push-up bar can be very useful for anyone already capable of doing more than 10 reps with no equipment. If that’s not already you, it will be within a few weeks of beginning a push-up routine.

I’ve used one push-up/pull-up bar for the last 4 years. You can get it at Amazon on the cheap: Iron Gym Total Upper Body Workout Bar. Apparently, you can also use the bar to do crunches and dips, although I’ve only ever used it for push-ups and pull-ups. Iron Gym hasn’t modified their product at all in 4 years, and I don’t think they’ll ever need to. The nice thing about the workout bar is you can modify your grip rather easily. I like rotating between wide-, narrow-, and straight-grip pull-ups and push-ups for maximum adaptability. I also like doing push-ups with my feet on an incline (a sofa or bed) for increased resistance. Exercise common sense.

Take a look at some photos I took of the equipment. As you can see, there is some wear on the grip being as old as it is. It still works perfectly fine, and I probably won’t buy a new one for a while. Good luck and happy gains.

My Iron Gym Workout Bar:

Hard work doesn’t end when you leave the gym. The hardest part is often the next 72 hours after a workout. Your muscles are sore. You don’t feel like moving. And you’re itching to get back in the gym so you can do it all over again. Fortunately, there are a number of steps anyone can take to accelerate the time it takes to get back to 100% after a workout. And, in fact, you’ll actually be at more than 100% since your body will have adapted to your last workout.

1. Do Cardio

My high school soccer coach always used to prescribe cardio for muscle soreness. I know a lot of people today who swear by cardio for faster recovery. They do cardio whether the initial workout responsible for muscle soreness was aerobic or anaerobic. The logic is that cardio gets blood and nutrients flowing to the muscles thereby decreasing the time it takes to heal. And it might be dead on.

Researchers at California State University ran a study on 26 women and found that those who performed moderate-intensity cardio immediately after a strength workout returned to greater than full strength a day sooner than those who did light cardio or no cardio at all. Moderate activity may ironically help you recover faster than passively waiting for your body to recover (Don’t just sit there, do something!)

2. Get Better Sleep

Sleep is when the body does the majority of its recovery. Sleep is the best way to optimize hormone levels and give the body adequate time to recover from exercise. And sleep is about depth as well as length. If you’ve worked out for any length of time, you’ve probably already noticed that quality of sleep correlates with recovery time and athletic performance.

A study of 10,125 Chinese universities students found that men who slept at least 7-8 hours had more muscle strength than those who slept less than 6 hours (this same difference was not observed in women). Another study detected a 10-15% decline in daytime testosterone levels in test subjects whose sleep was restricted to no more than 5 hours. This decline was after just one week of sleep deprivation.

Check out my article on 8 Natural Ways to Get a Better Night’s Sleep. They are 1) exercise; 2) reduce stress; 3) get light exposure during the day; 4) eliminate blue light exposure at night; 5) install blackout shades; 6) use white noise to drown out sound pollution; 7) practice meditation before bed; 8) take a Zinc or Magnesium supplement.

3. Optimize Vitamin D Levels

Vitamin D is the king of testosterone. I like to call Vitamin D steroids from God owing to research that discovered double and triple increases in testosterone upon male exposure to UV light. Another study observed a 20% decrease in stress fractures in female Navy recruits who supplemented Vitamin D.

Vitamin D plays a vital role in overall health in both males and females. It is important for mood, energy, protein synthesis, and muscle recovery. It follows that optimizing Vitamin D levels may be the easiest and most powerful way to accelerate workout recovery time and maximize gains. Some things in life are free, and energy from the sun is chief among them.

4. Supplement Zinc or Magnesium

Researchers have observed increases in testosterone after Zinc and Magnesium supplementation. In a study conducted on ZMA supplementation (Zinc, Magnesium, and Vitamin B-6), men who took 30 mg of Zinc and 450 mg of Magnesium over an 8-week period observed a 25% increase in free testosterone levels. More testosterone=faster recovery. This is why bodybuilders on steroids can workout 4 hours a day and be ready to go the next morning. Unlike steroids, which can absolutely wreck health and lead to premature disease and death, Zinc and Magnesium are natural alternatives.

Another 12-week study on elderly women found that 12-weeks of Magnesium supplementation increased physical performance. Magnesium supplementation is commonly recommended to reduce recovery time in both men and women.

For more on Zinc, Magnesium, and ZMA, check out 4 Researched Benefits of Supplementing Zinc and 4 Researched Benefits of Supplementing Magnesium.

5. Take a Cold Shower

Researchers conducted a study in which they discovered that cold hydrotherapy reduced delayed onset muscle soreness after a workout. (Note: Caution is advised due to the possible safety risks of cold water exposure.)

The authors included 17 small trials involving 366 people in their review. Participants were asked to get into a bath or container of cold water after running, cycling or resistance training. In most trials, participants spent five to 24 minutes in water that was between 10ºC and 15ºC, although in some cases lower temperatures were used or participants were asked to get in and out of the water at set times. In the studies that compared cold water immersion to resting or no intervention, there was a significant reduction in soreness one to four days after exercise.

Source: ScienceDaily

Cold showers are a personal favorite. I have taken cold showers for almost two years now. In another article, I documented 7 benefits of the discipline. One benefit that I didn’t document is decreased muscle soreness. As soon as I enter the cold water, the last thing on my mind is how sore my muscle’s feel from yesterday’s workout. And, based on research and personal experience, cold showers can have a more lasting effect on muscle recovery.

Conclusion:

A hard workout is not a sentence to multiple days of pain and inactivity. In addition to getting in better overall shape, there are simple steps anyone can take to reduce muscle recovery time.

We like to have fun on this blog. And sometimes that fun involves pain. Here I introduce you the Bring Sally Up Push-up Challenge. The challenge is set against the song “Flower” by the artist Moby. The rules are simple. When you hear down, you go down into the push-up position. When you hear up, you rise. The object of the challenge is to make it to the end of the song. It may not seem like much, but trust me when I say it’s a lot harder than it sounds. On my first attempt, I made it to about the 2-minute mark.

Share this page with your meathead friends and fitness gurus and let me know how far you got in the comments. The challenge has been around for some time now but never seems to get old.

There are two types of people in the world. Those who take cold showers and everybody else.

Cold showers have become a fad in recent years. An increasing number of people are adopting the ancient art of cold hydrotherapy as a means of self-improvement. They claim that an act as simple as turning a nozzle clockwise in the morning can bring life-transforming benefits. About 18 months ago, I made the move and ditched warm water for good. Here I outline the benefits I have personally experienced that have left me with zero intention of ever taking a hot shower again.

1. Increased Energy

Energy is arguably the most important benefit of taking a cold shower. Like many of you, I am not a morning person. My energy peaks in the evening and stays elevated into the wee hours of the night. The most expedient way I have found to overcome low morning energy is to subject my body to a cold shower. Cold water acts as a shock to the whole system and puts the mind to work to restore homeostasis. The end result is an organism that is highly energized and ready to move about the day. I challenge everyone reading this to take a cold shower and fall asleep immediately afterwards — it simply can’t be done. (Give it at least 15 minutes, but you get the point.)

2. The Release of Happy Hormones

Nothing is free in nature. Our brain rewards us with happy hormones only when we have achieved something that contributes to our survival. A cold shower is a surefire way to get the endorphines and dopamine flowing early in the morning. After taking a cold shower, you will not only have greater energy but will feel good as your brain’s pleasure reward system is activated.

3. Greater Resilience

Resilience is something that does not come easy. On the surface mental strength is nothing more than a mind game. In reality, however, our brain takes past behavior and outcomes as hard evidence of how it should act in the face of new challenges. Taking cold showers is a proven way to build mental toughness. No matter how many cold showers you take, there will always be the temptation to feel instant gratification by turning the nozzle counterclockwise. With experience, you will learn to silence this voice, callous your mind, and acquire the stoic demeanor vital to navigating other life challenges.

4. An Antidote to Depression

Cold showers are an effective tool that everyone suffering from depression should have in their toolkit. While the benefits outlined above are sure to lift anyone’s state of mind, particular studies have been carried out on those suffering from depressive symptoms. Take this study, for example, in which cold showers relieved depressive systems in a group of test subjects. However, you don’t need a peer-reviewed, double-blind study to tell you something you can test on your own within a few minutes. If you are suffering from depression, why not give cold hydrotherapy a try. Commit to taking a 3-minute cold shower every day for a week. It costs almost next to nothing and may supply the boost you need to move forward with your day.

5. Improved Male Reproductive Health

Wet heat exposure is a well-known cause of low sperm count and infertility. The decision to implement a cold shower regiment is usually accompanied by the decision to abandon hot showers altogether. In this study, infertile men who gave up their hot baths, hot tubs, and Jacuzzis experienced a mean increase in total motile sperm counts of 491%. The author of the study concluded that the toxic effect of hyperthemia on male reproductive health may be reversible in some men. Whether you are in the baby-making business or not, as a man you should think long and hard about continuing a habit that has such a damaging effect on your vital reproductive organ.

6. An Increase in Testosterone

It is conventional wisdom among guys who take cold showers that they increase male testosterone levels. I have yet to come across a study that confirms (or refutes) this claim, so I will instead focus on my personal experience. After years of paying close attention and getting lab work done, I have a good general sense of where my testosterone levels are at any given moment of time. That said, I do believe that cold showers increase my testosterone levels over the course of an hour or two after exposure. I experience increased energy and feel eager to hit the weights.

Russian powerlifters, known among other things for their astronomical testosterone levels, seem to agree with me. Russian powerlifters have been known to ice their balls prior to competition. The routine is based on the fact that the optimal temperature for testosterone production is lower than the body’s overall temperature (hence why the testicles sag away from the body). Exposing the testicles to cold temperatures is believed to optimize this process and increases testosterone production. What science has definitively shown is that hot water has a negative effect on male hormonal health. As someone who has taken cold showers for 18 months, I believe the opposite is also true.

7. Save Time and Money

Hot water is rare in nature and takes technology to sustain. Even during the summer months, natural water rarely ever reaches the temperature of your average suburban shower. This is because the cool temperature at night does not allow the water to remain as hot as it would be if it remained under the midday sun 24/7. In short, by taking cold showers you will save money on your gas bill. You will likely also save on your water bill as most people who take cold showers stay under the water for only a few minutes. Cold showers will also save you valuable time in the morning and give you a head start on your day. In my experience a three-minute cold shower is sufficient for reaping all of the benefits. The length of time may vary for you, but I have found that any amount of cold exposure is better than nothing.

In this article, I laid out a case for the benefits of taking cold showers based on my experience and research but the jury is still out until you experiment for yourself. No two people are alike, and everyone’s experience will be different in meaningful ways. Let me know in the comments what your experience has been with cold showers and any questions or insights you may have gained from the discipline.