Years ago on twitter (now X), an account I followed (and befriended in real life), shared that he considered September 1st to be his personal “New Year”.
He was (and is) a very cool guy. He worked in finance, very fit, eventually started an Ecomm brand while doing consulting, I believe he is married now.
Anyways, his reasons for making September his personal new year were interesting.
1. EVERYONE slacks off during Summer. In Europe, most people dont work for the entire month of august. In America, people take vacations. The overall drive for productivity is lower
2. Everyone always slacks off going into Winter. The holiday season is awesome for sales, but its also cruising time or downtimes for many other industries. The holidays for fitness are usually the worst months of the year.
3. If you had a good year, by September your decision making has compounded. In 8 months and 240 odd days, you should have made progress and achieved milestones for any kind of goal. If your usage of time was effective, you’ll know by September. If your year is going flat or backwards, you’ll know that as well.
4. For companies in the consumer business, September is the time to start planning. Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Christmas, New Years. Businesses that rely on Q4 spending should be strategizing in Q3
And I will add my own reasons
5. Jewish is New Year happens in September. I am Jewish, if you all didnt know.
6. In the Eastern Orthodox Church, September 1st is the start of Liturgical New Year.
I have a fondness for orthodox chants and hymns as background music when working
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What follows is a collection of Health briefs
1. Lengthy Mobility routines are largely unnecessary.
If you spend 45 minutes on a foam roller doing band distractions before touching a barbell, you are wasting your life. Ever since “mobility” hit the mainstream public Ive seen people engage in circus trick sequences and its largely a time waster.
The fastest way to gain real mobility is to train a joint with full range of motion under tension. Lifting weights is in essence weighted stretching, its lengthening and shortening a muscle in line with its given function.
This is not to say mobility work itself is worthless
Excess stiffness can be a symptom of inactivity, a stressed nervous system, and you can train your muscles to be more relaxed, but this work is best done separate from a lifting session
I recorded this short mobility recently that I personally enjoy doing in the morning, and after flying. There are no deep stretches or anything challenging, its simply to facilitate bloodflow through body’s joints and dissipate tension
2. High-rep intensity > 1RMs as you age
As you age, your 1 rep max inevitably declines, but this is what many men fight to preserve. And fail, eventually you have to accept that the glory days have ended.
What you SHOULD prioritize are high reps, especially when it comes to legs, and bodyweight work.
Part of aging is fundamentally a decline in mitochondrial energy output.
Being able to lift a heavy-ish weight for 20+ reps keeps mitochondrial output high. It requires a lot of ATP, it produces lactate, it pushes your muscles to their energetic brink. Its also immensely stimulating for muscle tissue along multiple pathways.
3. Training Grip is probably pointless if you already lift
I saw a post the other day on twitter from a well-known health influencer talking about how grip strength was so important and how training it was crucial because it correlates with lower risk of disease
NOT THIS SHIT AGAIN.
Grip strength is a PROXY for lean body mass and physical strength. It is NOT something you need to train directly.
People who have strong bodies and retain muscle age better. Skinny and fat and weak people dont.
The real message is to build muscle.
If you go to the gym, lift heavy weights, can do pullups, your grip gets stronger by default.
If you want to train grip as a specialty, have at it, but its not having a special effect on the heart. Thats what cardio is for.
4. Be Useful
I was talking to a friend the other day about this; while my goals have shifted on this the past year with Athanor…I spent the first decade-plus of my internet career just talking to people and being as useful as I can.
I built my moat around a small, high-intent audience.
People that (for the most part) I actually would hang out with and see myself being friends with long-term.
Admittedly now, I am aiming to go for a bit of a wider reach, especially on Instagram and twitter…
But if you’re reading this right now, you’ve probably known about my beginnings.
Right now, I’m in that phase where I conver that into something tangible in reality, in hard techn (chemical tech to be more specific).
All of this has been possible because Ive done my best to help people over the past 10 years and provide practical solutions for their health.
Be useful isnt sexy, but if your goal is to have a virtuous following, you should internalize it
That second point about focusing more on reps as you age is super helpful.
I'm only 30, so I assume I have a few more years at least of being able to focus hard on 1 rep max (unless I'm wrong), but it's good to know how to shift my training as I get older. Great stuff!