“Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.” - Mike Tyson

I was thinking about this quote in the lead-up and even during my race on Sunday, the 50th anniversary of the five-borough New York City Marathon.

Why?

Because I got punched in the mouth (multiple times) in last year’s race.

For me, it was absolutely necessary.

I entered last year with not nearly enough training, thinking I could run a sub-3-hour race in my second-ever marathon while being a) heinously under-fueled, b) cramping as a result of A, and c) focused on a Hyrox race I had 3 weeks later (which went awfully).

But this year’s punch in the mouth never came.

This year, I had my (figurative) mouthguard in, parried the punches, and swiveled out of the way to deliver a haymaker.

There are many, many takeaways from the race and the training.

I’ll try to do justice to all of them in this article, the likes of which will also apply to anyone trying to do anything hard.

Running this race gave me a level of confidence about myself I haven’t felt in a long, long time, and I think it’s important to share what worked for me both physically and mentally if my readers truly want to be High-Performance individuals.

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Some of the Most Meaningful Work You’ll Do Happens When No One is Watching

There are many “isms” around achieving great things:

“Don’t worry about what others think,” “You only have one life,” “You’re only as effective as the five people closest to you,” yadda yadda yadda.

One that I was reminded of when I spent the better half of my high school career laser-focused on getting a college basketball scholarship:

The work you do when no one is looking is what moves the needle forward.

In a small high school with 600 students, having eyes on me felt crucial.

It was hard, maybe even painful, not to have a flashy highlight during a varsity basketball game.

It was demoralizing to see my teammates get more pats on the back when I was just coming off the bench for a few minutes.

That was when I started spending longer hours at the YMCA on weeknights and weekends. In the later hours of the day, when most of the people who played pick-up went home, I’d stay to shoot around for another hour or two.

Practicing the shots I’d shoot in-game.

Imagining a defender whizzing by me, pump-faking and shooting it.

Even creating scenarios where I had to shoot time-expiring buzzer beaters.

Those weren’t always things I got the opportunities to do in a game. But the more time I spent in the YMCA before a staff member kicked me out, the more those opportunities came. And they started to look like how I practiced them in the empty gym.

Where no one but me saw the shots go swish.

The same thing has rung true for my current focuses in sport, in my professional life, and in my personal life.

The most effective training runs were the boring, long ones I did by myself, with nothing but an audiobook playing and no one seeing my real-time pace except me.

The best newsletters — hopefully like this one — are the ones I sit down, jot down ideas for in my notes app, and Pomodoro my way through and proofread before blasting them out.

The best gifts I’ve given to my wife or surprise parties I’ve thrown for my friends have come from the little moments where I browsed our shared Amazon account (lol) or taken a mental note of a friend saying “I really want ____” and bookmarking it for a special occasion.

No one will see most of the work that goes into a really special moment.

In today’s world, where everything needs to be broadcast, LEARN to be OKAY with not showcasing the hours of work that it will take for something to be as close to perfect as you can get it.

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Developing this muscle is also developing a deeper relationship with yourself.

As an introvert with extrovert tendencies, I’ve always found that it can be an INCREDIBLY useful skill to learn to be alone and be okay with it — sitting with your thoughts, thinking up new ideas, et cetera.

Being able to enjoy your aloneness allows you to appreciate the work you do alone more and amplify the work you do in front of others.

Getting Punched In The Mouth Is Necessary For Growth

I spoke about this in my previous newsletter last week.

We as humans are starting to get too comfortable with searching for, and even being outright handed, the easy way out.

You need to fight the urge to take the easy way out in more scenarios than you think.

Doing hard things, things that require your time, energy, attention, and even money, is a skill that pays dividends in ALL areas of life.

Without 2025’s breakdown at Mile 18, I don’t have a near-perfect race in 2026.

But I also don’t have a near-perfect race if I don’t sign up for the marathon.

This year’s race was a deliberate choice to risk getting punched in the mouth again.

If you’re unwilling to take that risk because you’re too scared to fail…

Then when are you ever going to do anything worth bragging about?

You need to be okay with (figuratively, of course) getting punched in the mouth (or eating sh*t, as I called it in last week’s newsletter).

No one I know and look up to has done anything of note without first falling flat on their face and learning from that mistake. Sometimes, those people even weathered multiple mouth-punches before they got to where they want to be.

Suffering is essential to the human experience, and we need to stop acting like that’s only something Buddhists should believe. It is part of a range of feelings we are PRIVILEGED to feel.

Some miles this past Sunday hurt a bit. That was the point.

The experience of having been punched in the mouth gives you perspective. It reminds you you’re not as high-and-mighty as you think you might be.

It tells you there’s always someone (or something) bigger, better, stronger, or faster in that moment.

But it also challenges you to get back up.

It challenges you to respond.

Not to lie there and accept defeat. And if you’re able to get back up, your attitude from there on out determines whether the next punch from life lands square in your jaw again, or whiffs and you punch back.

And most importantly, it changes your idea of what “hard” is. What was once difficult can seem like a cakewalk after you’ve made hard your new moderate, or even easy.

The Human Body is a Remarkably Capable Organism

Do we as humans have limits? My answer would be “maybe,” depending on what parameters we’re talking about.

If you told me even 2 years ago that I would run the marathon the way I did this past Sunday, I would have had a hard time fathoming it.

But the body—when fueled by a relentless idea formed in the mind —is capable of some absolutely wild stuff.

Deciding you want to go all in on some sort of physical activity or challenge can have tremendous downstream effects on how your physiology responds.

I knew after not having the best Hyrox performance a month ago in Boston that I wanted to fully dedicate my time to redeeming myself with a stellar marathon performance.*

*It is a bit anomalous to do Hyrox and marathons in the same season. I am not necessarily someone everyone can model their training after, but I have seen similarly impressive athletic turnarounds across many different sports.

I gave myself 4 weeks to push my body and then supercompensate for the New York City Marathon.

I had already developed a very strong engine this past summer, training in the heat, being diligent with running at incline (hills pay the bills), and fueling and hydrating adequately before, during, and after exercise.

I knew it would take an incredible amount of willpower — combined with race-day adrenaline — to hold the pace I was aspiring to this past Sunday.

So in my training, I did what I did back in high school at the YMCA.

I went to the course in my backyard in Queens.

I ran the Pulaski and Queensboro bridges back-to-back ad nauseam.

I remembered my legs and how heavy they felt in 2025. And I did everything in my power in these last few training runs to imagine myself NOT hurting at those points in the race, but instead being EXCITED and pushing harder.

It took 3 or 4 training runs running that route, the last 13 miles of the marathon, to develop a familiarity with the course in my mind that my body would remember on November 1st.

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And even with the conditions being slightly different (a little more fatigue, a LOT more people cheering), my body did what it had to do in that moment.

This isn’t to say you can just will your body into doing whatever crazy activity you want it to do.

But you absolutely CAN use your mind and visualization techniques COMBINED with smart training and proper body awareness to put yourself in a flow state that makes a more grandiose physical effort feel less pressurized.

And the body, nervous system, and muscles may just all follow suit.

Training Does NOT Need To Be Perfect. You Just Need to “Win” your Workouts.

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This is a question I’ve been asked more than once since chatbots, agents, and automatons have come into the fold over the past 3 to 4 years.

“Do you worry that AI can do your job better than you?”

It’s the hottest doomsday question that a lot of people seem to stave off, ei…

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Lots of news lately around running.

The Chicago Marathon was this past weekend, and there were some exciting headlines coming out of it. Most notably, Vin Mauri, the treadmill extraordinaire who debuted in the Glass City Marathon in Toledo at 2:05:54, ran a 2:06:46.

Fellow American Clayton Young eventually surpassed him when he stopped at the 20-mile mark to stretch, but he’s become famous for nonchalantly jumping onto the scene while running 70 miles per week on the treadmill at Planet Fitness.

You read that right.

Along with breaking the American 30k record within the race and almost breaking Conner Mantz’ American Marathon record, he’s shown that the basics can work extremely well, and a little bit of confidence/the right mindset can go a long way.

On the Women’s side, Emma Grace Hurley, the current American 8k record holder, set the record for a Women’s Debut Marathon, running her first ever in 2:20.

Fun fact: I’ve followed her on Strava ever since she and I raced the Cow Harbor 10k together on Long Island in 2024. And when I say “together,” I mean she finished in 32 minutes, 11 minutes ahead of me, and had no idea who I was (and still doesn’t).

Between the Chicago buzz and a botched Boston trip for a Hyrox performance I’m not proud of (but one of my clients PR’d spectacularly in), I started to dwell on something:

I love racing.

More than I thought I ever would. And the crazy part? I feel late to the party. It got me thinking…

Why do we (humans) race?

What got into us, both now and back then, that caused us to lace up our shoes and compete for medals, podiums, and gear?

We can go back all the way to 776 BC to look at the first Olympic Race, the Stadion, which was a 192-meter sprint held by the ancient Greeks. It’s hard to know how many other racing events originated from this shorter-distance race, but this is what we have records of.

If we jump forward a few hundred years, we learn about Pheidippides’ 25-ish-mile run from Marathon, Greece, to Athens to announce the Greek victory over the Persians in the Battle of Marathon.

Hundreds and hundreds of years later, in 1896, back in Athens, the first modern Olympic Games paid homage to Pheidippides, hosting a competitive marathon run.

In 1897, the Boston Marathon was born.

For the past 100+ years, smaller races — 5 kilometers, 10 kilometers, half marathons, and 10-milers- have emerged as a way to welcome everyone to run-racing. These races take all shapes and sizes — competitive, cash-prize entries and simple turkey trots every Thanksgiving.

And in the past 20 or so years, ultra-marathon running — which encompasses any distance beyond a traditional 26.2 — has gained popularity as well.

This past weekend saw a small batch of highly dedicated trail runners and ultra-marathoners head out to Moab, UT, for Moab240, a 243-mile race through the desert of Utah. My good friend Alex was one of those runners.

Sadly, the race was canceled by the race directors due to Tropical Storm Rachel flooding the course and making certain sections of the trail unnavigable and a hazard to the runners.

Think about that for a second, though.

We’ve come from a few guys sprinting in a coliseum and one guy running (literally, for his life) 25 miles to now willingly signing up for races that are anywhere from 50 meters to 250 miles.

How did this happen? And why do humans love to race now more than ever?

For the sake of accuracy, I can speak mainly to popularity in the United States in today’s post. What is almost certain is that other less-developed countries, namely those in Africa, have had runners for much longer than the U.S. has.

The reason Kenyans and Ethiopians are at the front of every major marathon is that their people have been running recreationally, competitively, and routinely for much longer than we have (and will likely continue to do so now because of that reputation).

It wasn’t until Frank Shorter became the first Olympic Marathon Gold Medalist in 1972 that a larger share of Americans started to take a real interest in distance running and racing.

Along with that, the formation of Title IX that year also allowed more women into sports (shoutout to RunTheDay.com for these citations and the below graphic), which catapulted running popularity exponentially.

As the graph shows, the next few decades after 1972* would see exponential increases in popularity; millions more became drawn to running as philanthropy infused running for a cause into the mix, and technology like shoes (shoutout to Bill Bowerman), GPS, and smartwatches enabled more data and performance.

*Honorable mention - I am currently reading The Running Ground by Nicholas Thompson, CEO of The Atlantic, and 2:29 Marathoner. Thompson’s running prowess dates back to pre-1970, when he first saw Bobbi Gibb, the unofficial (or official, depending on how you look at it) first woman to run the Boston Marathon in 1966. Gibb famously masqueraded as a man sneaking onto the course near the start line, and finished ahead of many of the most talented men that day. The ethics of participation were debated intensely afterwards, but it’s very possible she had a lasting impact on the decision to bring women into competitive running with her stellar performance. Mind you, this was before super shoes existed — she ran almost the entire race in some worn men’s shoes (and some of it BAREFOOT) that she hadn’t even broken in.

When we jump to the 2000s, social media likely only helped running grow even more.

Once people could share personal bests, first-time runs, weight-loss journeys sparked by running, and dabble in new routes and paths across the world, the appeal could only grow.

This likely stoked runners' competitive drive as well. Social media, for all its boons, can be a terrible source of comparison, which can become toxic if you don’t take periodic breaks.

That said, competition is good for any sport. The dawn of shareable content no doubt made the line on the above graph go parabolic.

So, what inside of us makes us want to keep doing this crazy thing? Why would we willingly skyrocket our heart rate for 20 minutes to an hour multiple times a week, month, year just for a medal/to say we beat someone in our age group?

On a biological level, racing floods the body with dopamine and serotonin.

Dopamine, being the anticipatory hormone, brings on feelings of excitement and joy for the opportunity to compete. Whether someone is a former athlete or is just maintaining their fitness late into their life, running a race offers a chance for any participant to feel like an athlete again and chase the same feelings that literally make us young.

Serotonin and oxytocin, which come after the race, generally elicit joy, reduce stress, and ease the brain into a state of meditative gratitude and happiness. Couple these hormones with the fact that racing can produce a healthy cortisol spike-drop cycle, boost overall fitness and cardiorespiratory function, and promote better sleep (obviously), and you’ve got one of the most potent fitness cocktails ever.

Also, it doesn’t just feel good to win things — because in today’s day and age of running, which I’ll get to in a second, it’s far too saturated to come first in anything — but it feels good to come close to winning.

Competitive psychology will tell us that some who feel the pressure to perform enjoy not only the thrill of winning, but the competitive dopaminergic steps it takes to get there, like meal and nutrient timing, the split seconds it’ll take to hit your goal time, and managing fatigue via the mental conversation you have with yourself.

Not everyone enjoys these things outright, but people can develop a passion for seeking them out with more racing.

Now, chronologically, how did we get here?

Going back to our timeline of running popularity, we left off in the 2000’s, just after social media boomed and runners started to gravitate more toward the sport in a communal kind of way.

Let’s jump to 2020 - the COVID-19 Pandemic.

I don’t have to recap much.

The world was shut down. And so were gyms. Most people took fitness into their own hands. Runners who were already running were mostly unaffected.

But those who usually relied on the routine of gym equipment and a workout split went a little nuts. Many needed some other form of fitness to bottle their exercise energy into. And a large, undetermined share of lifetime lifters took up running (myself included).

Well, technically I started hiking more since I had the luxury of escaping to Colorado, but I definitely had more time on my feet during COVID than I did with the weights:

Anyway, those people quickly found a new obsession with jogging, running, and racing. Many of them likely still go to the gym now that the world is back to normal and weren’t full converts, but I’d wager running is more of a cardio staple in most people’s routines now because of COVID than ever before.

It drove many more millions to sign up for the first race, because let’s be honest;

Running recreationally without putting your fitness to the test can be a bit dull sometimes. I’ve never known anyone who runs without signing up for a race, channeling the adrenaline that comes with toeing a starting line, and seeing what their legs and lungs are really made of.*

*If you find one of these people, please refer them to me for research.

What running from 2020-2026 has also become is a new wave of challenges for achievers and over-achievers alike.

Not everyone who starts running keeps going. Not everyone who starts starts hot.

It can take years for running to become enjoyable for some, and even longer for others to get quick enough to even be competitive in a race or their age group.

For many who enjoy trying to maximize their potential, this can become a lifelong game or challenge.

Longevity studies show that people who aspire to more things, keep themselves busy with routines, and consistently challenge their brain and mind muscles with these types of endeavors fare better neurologically over the long term.

Also, epidemiologically, it’s just badass to be fast.

I always tell my clients that no one is out-strengthening the zombie apocalypse (half-joking). We gotta be able to run.

What about the future?

My operating theory about the race styles that have dovetailed out of traditional running — Triathlons, Ironmans, Hyrox, Ultras, et cetera — is that normal running is still not enough for some.

Regular running is now so accessible to everyone that some people need new domains to carve out their legacies in their “Hero’s Journeys.”

Anyone who wants to feel like someone wants to be a high-achiever in their individual domain. So switching to one of these sub-divisions of running, so to speak, is a great way to become notable.

Again, taking it back to Darwinian theory, most people want to be accepted. Acceptance has historically come from competence and success in a given field, which leads to recognition, praise, and so on.

If we can use a sport like running or racing to carve out a name for ourselves (or even a second name, since many competitive athletes are high achievers elsewhere), why wouldn’t we?

I’ll never quite understand why people make a mockery of running or racing, or why there’s infighting amongst the subdivisions of it, as if one is better than the other (spoiler: none are).

What feels incredibly promising for me is the idea that everyone has a race.

Metaphorically, figuratively, literally.

People have an incredible amount of options to compete in a variety of races where they can feel seen, accepted, praised, and lauded.

They have even more opportunities to use those races as races against themselves; that is, to be able to improve upon their previous time or performance.

And we’re all in a race against time.

Time, unfortunately, waits for no one. But we can stave it off by racing. Because in racing, whether it's five minutes or five hours, time disappears in the traditional sense.

All that matters during a race is the conversation you’re having with yourself, the course, and enjoying it. Oh, and winning, if you can.

And “winning” looks different for everyone. But that laser focus on those facets of a race slows time down in a way. It makes you forget there is a clock ticking on the day.

Forget that there is a clock ticking on our lives. And yes, it might even slow that clock down by adding some more time back to our lives.

While (I hope) no one thinks about racing solely for the benefit of living longer, I think racing exists just as any advancement in society does:

To help us find our potential. To test us in a domain that can, at times, be very uncomfortable and foreign. And, for just a moment, make us feel like we’re an Ancient Greek at the Stadion.

Happy Thursday, folks.

The HYROX season kicked off in North America in Washington, D.C.; Beijing happened; and more recently, many participants in Beijing were refunded fully for their tickets.

Deadly Dozen, another hybrid competition with 12 events and 400m runs, also recently hosted its World Championships, where hefty prize money was doled out to the winners.

There’s real growth in the arena of competitive, structured lifting and running. And it’s STILL not too late to join the party.

People are now looking to sports like Hyrox to reinvigorate their inner athlete, change their lifestyles, build healthier habits, and add some spice to their training routine.

But what usually gets thrown to the top of the news feed are the professionals finishing the Hyrox races in ridiculous times, with incredible physiques, and looking like they can still run a full marathon afterwards.

While Hyrox and hybrid sports aim to be more welcoming environments, they can still be intimidating.

So today, I wanted to share my conversation with my good friends Tiffany and Silvia, who ran Hyrox NYC as Doubles partners in May this past year.

Some highlights from our conversation:

• What it felt like to prepare for their first race as fitness-oriented first-timers

• What it felt like after finishing

• What Hyrox is doing well as a brand to draw more racers

• Why you shouldn’t go into the race expecting to crush it on your first attempt

• How Type-A people can both help the sport and be humbled by it

• Who Hyrox is for and why someone should do one

To me, it’s no mystery that people who run are drawn to the sport.

But that doesn’t mean it’s exclusively for runners, either. If you have a “foot in the door in fitness,” as Silvia, a group fitness instructor herself, says, then you can try it.

Full disclosure: Tiffany and Silvia are constant challenge-seekers. They look for things like hybrid racing to help them learn more about themselves.

I hope you listen to our conversation to get some perspective about what racing for the first time can be like!

What happened last Friday at Hyrox Beijing has almost the whole internet talking.

At least 20 people (no joke, it’s why I’m writing my longer thoughts here) have asked me what I think of what happened. I’m not necessarily the Hyrox expert, nor do I know much about public relations fiascoes.

But as someone who’s ra…

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I’ve thought long and hard about whether or not AI has a place in the world of health and fitness.

My (maybe underwhelming) conclusion is that it should be a relatively limited one. It’s not perfect at creating comprehensive workout plans — which I’ll delve into later in this piece — or at getting super specific and granular unless you tell it to.

And at that point, I’d argue whether or not you’re wasting time. Why?

Because the specificity and results you could derive from working with a human could be attained, at least for now, far more easily than prompting a chatbot to death about the exact weights, reps, sets, and cardio splits you want in your 3-day-a-week plan.

In trying to keep up with the latest and greatest in the world of AI, I started demoing ChatGPT Health, which is now available to U.S. ChatGPT users, both free and paid.

Paid users, as you might expect, will enjoy a bit more processing power and more comprehensive answers, and I won’t be subscribing anytime soon (unless a few free subscribers consider upgrading their HPH subscriptions to help fund my research project!), but I don’t think there’s much more to the paid version than the free.

Anyway, let’s have at it. I’ll give you the rundown in case you care to toy around if you haven’t already.

My ChatGPT Health Review

ChatGPT Health pairs nicely with Apple Health, so all iPhone users can almost immediately enjoy a dashboard of a few metrics that sync with OpenAI’s platform.

Steps, kcals burned, flights climbed, synced workouts from certain wearable devices, and some sleep metrics all populate in Chat’s initial readout, but it’s nothing you don’t already have on your phone.

The prompts it offers work as good starting points for people who are confused about their health, but here’s where that becomes an issue.

With all the data we have available to us now, is anyone really that confused about their health?

The “take action today” prompt is the silliest to me, because I’d like to believe most people who need to improve some aspect of their health already know what it is without asking Chat.

Still, I asked it that question anyway just to see what it would spit out:

Again, nothing I didn’t already know.

Would I disagree with this recommendation? Not really.

But with the NYC Marathon looming, I actually am thinking about incorporating harder training very soon. I think that’s where these Health AIs will eventually hit a wall.

Lots of Type A people are also very Type A about their health. That means they’ll want to push even on days when Chat, their doctor, and even their loved ones will tell them not to.

Redundancies aside, it’s a step in the right direction for health knowledge, because it might allow a pretty well-thought-out second opinion for blood work faster than booking a second doctor’s appointment at an office that’ll take who-knows-how-long to book you in.

But here is a more fleshed-out list of the pros and cons I think you should consider before completely outsourcing your health thinking to the platform (Please, don’t actually do that).

Pros of ChatGPT Health

• Pairs with a fairly large (but not complete) list of health systems to link lab results — I was able to connect Mount Sinai health data from past physicals to the platform, which gave it some preliminary data to work with. The more data from your lab results it has to work with, the better I anticipate its recommendations will be. However, this hinges on something that is a HUGE con for me, which I’ll bring up later.

• Does well to ease nerves about lab results being out of range — Whereas the pre-AI Google flow was usually Search Query > “What does (insert lab reading here) mean?” > WebMD or Cleveland Clinic article about how you might die of some ailment; ChatGPT Health actually does well to offer actionable suggestions about how you can manage the blood test results that are out of range. It can be scary to see something not clicking, especially if you’re as neurotic as I am, and one can spiral if they feel healthy, but the labs say otherwise. I actually got some pretty nice feedback when I expressed some concern about kidney readings:

With this data, I could reasonably go back to my doctor and order more specific labs if I wanted to check on my kidneys. But I’ve known for a while that my kidneys are okay. This was more of a test to see how well it did at quelling anxiety.

• It offers good structure - something most people lack - in creating a weekly plan — When I asked it to structure an exercise plan for me, I enjoyed the way it distributed my weekly workload, even if it wasn’t quite enough total work for my liking. There were timeframes I was recommended to train every day that were fairly reasonable, even when I hadn’t given it a realistic understanding of my daily schedule. This could very easily be a con if someone worked 50-60 hours a week and wanted to be as active as me, though that’s not many people.

Cons of ChatGPT Health

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Last week I talked about how Wearable Technology has a few gaps to address in how it assesses our health.

After doing more research, I realized the rabbit hole goes deeper.

Much deeper.

Not only is there a race to get data from your watch, wrist, ring, or band to doctors faster — there’s also a question from doctors about whether more data is good for us from a psychological perspective.

Dr. Rachael Bedard sat down with David Wallace-Wells to analyze this question in a podcast-style interview.

At the beginning of the conversation, the question from Peter Attia’s podcast was asked:

“How far are we from technology and machine learning that can tell us, twenty years down the road, whether or not we might have a neurological disease, and potentially reverse it?”

At first listen, this sounds promising.

Why wouldn’t someone want to know if they have the potential to contract a disease or metabolic disorder far in advance?

The science behind it might surprise you. Dr. Bedard cited a “cautionary tale” in South Korea, where they implemented universal screening for thyroid cancer in Korean citizens.

What scientists found in these screenings was a 15x increase in cancer findings, but despite these findings, it had no impact on the mortality rate of South Koreans.

In other words, small, clinically insignificant cancers that were found were not “killing” the population any faster. These cancers did not need treatment, and one might argue they didn’t even need a diagnosis.

Newsletter Summary:

• How too much data could hurt us, and when to tune out

• What data actually matters and how to quantify it

• A lesson in avoiding overthinking

Keeping a “Watch”ful eye on your health

There is certainly a benefit to knowing some things about your health because of the widespread knowledge we have now about health.

• A lower resting heart rate — a measurement most smartwatches and wearables will give you today — is almost always a sign of good cardiovascular health

• More movement and calories burned throughout the day will likely speed up your metabolism and keep you lean

• A more regulated body temperature means your immune system is functioning as it should, and your body is not actively fighting any sort of illness

But what about the other metrics modern tech provides? Sleep scores and sleep choronotypes are not commonly understood metrics because they don’t explain how someone can feel great one day on six hours of sleep, but terrible from seven the next (see the highly agreed-upon meme below).

Many people who don’t train or track it daily can’t reasonably deduce what their HRV calculations (or fluctuations in them) mean, so being told they’re “under recovered” could lead them to falsely believe they’re not living a productively healthy life.

The truth is that our subjective feelings on a given day about how we feel might actually matter more than what the data tells us.

A few days of elevated resting heart rate is not going to kill us. Going for that long run on five and a half hours of sleep might feel absolutely euphoric.

That 7pm strength training session might feel amazing, even if your watch says you’re “stressed” and “sleep may be affected” afterwards.

I’m not saying you can’t take rest days.

There are meaningful signals — prolonged soreness/fatigue, trouble focusing, ravenous appetite — that you can deduce from to decide when it’s time to ease back.

But that’s what we as an aspiringly health-inclined society need to get back to: listening to our bodies instead of the scores these little machines give us.

And I would wager that more and more, the inclination to want to train despite being feeling a bit “off” is the one we should listen to, not the blanket advice from optimization tools.

While I hesitate to use scientific studies to prove my point, mainly because I know opposing studies that point to evidence in the other direction likely exist, there’s one study I don’t think we should overlook.

A large cohort study of almost 300,000 participants looked at the effects of sleep, physical activity, and mortality back in 2022.

In it, researchers found that short sleep was not necessarily correlated with higher mortality (sorry, Oura Ring, you’re not guilt tripping me today!).

It was, however, associated with higher mortality in the least active participants group.

In other words, the study might suggest that choosing to take an off day because you’re tired might not necessarily pay off in the long run for you.

In the physically active participants, exercise actually seemed to reduce the mortality associations with bad sleep.

This group’s mortality findings were essentially indifferent from the well-slept, active group.

Now, we can’t exactly use this as a license to skip sleep hours, either. Recovery should still be a priority at the forefront of our health journey, just not one we need to obsess over like the current culture has taught us to.

But creating conditions where exercise is habitual and becomes ingrained in your routine should ultimately trump feelings of fatigue (and even current wearable recommendations to ease up), because it very well could help you live longer.

The data that DOES matter

I want to clarify that I don’t think all data is misleading or not useful.

There are a few big rocks I think should take precedent above the storm of other numbers that are being thrown at us now with all this new technology.

We have an obligation to at least keep quarterly tabs on some of these data points not just for our own health, but for the people around us, especially us with families who rely on us.

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Your Watch, Wristband, Wearable, or whatever it is that tracks your fitness and biometrics might seem like it is a worthwhile investment.

For about 90% of users who track and care about the data and insights it tracks, it probably is.

Fitness and its progress are a numbers game. You simply cannot make reasonable gains in any field by just winging it for too long.

Sure, newbies can make significant progress when trying out something new and tracking almost nothing, but if you want to lock in on a particular facet of fitness, tracking is imperative.

Recognizing this, companies have swooped in to control the tracking narrative.

From Whoop to Oura, to Garmin, Apple, and Samsung alike, these fitness tech behemoths are on a mission not only to help improve your personal health but to improve the care connection you can have to the medical system, as recently reported by The New York Times.

Each of these companies has a noble mission that, at face value, is empowering to their users: to encourage better health habits by giving actionable data in a user-friendly, streak-provoking way.

But… the data is imperfect, in a way.

Most of the metrics have flaws that make some of the readings non-absolute, to say the least.

Consider the Apple Watch, which uses “rings” to determine a wearer’s movement progress throughout the day.

The calorie-tracking ring (which has been disputed by many users as overestimating total calorie burn) uses only photoplethysmography, a light-flicker technology tracking blood volume changes in wrist veins, and heart rate as its north stars for calorie expense guesstimation.

This misguided understanding of calorie output can stall weight loss goals for some, leaving them to wonder why they’ve plateaued when, in reality, their watch isn’t accurately gauging their calorie burn.

And that’s not the only flaw in Apple’s design — some sedentary users have even reported logging miles of steps despite being seated throughout the day, simply because Apple’s tech measures the slightest arm movements as a “step.”

Where other trackers make up for accuracy in steps, heart rate and calories, they might lack in providing accurate, real-time feedback about performance.

Garmin, for example, is regarded as the gold standard for endurance athletes like runners, cyclists, and the like because of its many settings catered toward dynamic athletic performance.

But many users talk about how, after a subjectively impressive workout, Garmin’s feedback is that their workout was “unproductive,” or that performance “decreased,” and no significant gains in fitness were made.

What the Wearable Industry Still Has Yet To Address

I stumbled across this post from Jordan Feigenbaum yesterday, which addresses the exact problem I’m talking about:

The type of user that wearable device brands attract — performance-driven, high-achieving, maybe even slightly neurotic people — might have heightened anxiety from their wearable device feedback that could do more harm than good.

Feigenbaum mentioned a research paper that asked 10 of the 14 large wearable makers what in their proprietary algorithms determined certain “scores” like Sleep, Training Readiness, and Activity Balances.

Beyond deducing these scores from baseline measurements of resting heart rate (RHR), HRV, sleep depth, and daily activity, they wouldn’t reveal the exact calculations.

This might trouble some people in the health and wellness/medical fields who understand that human biometrics are incredibly dynamic, and what is “good” and “bad” will vary extensively from person to person.

It’s probably not a good idea to let the outcome of your day be determined by a device that might imperfectly read your body’s signals, especially if you subjectively feel fine.

For competitive achievers (like myself) who want to make the most of their body’s output, it’s possible to leave progress on the table by opting not to train on a day when their sleep score is off by a few points.

More studies need to be done on the impact of training through fatigue and tiredness, but here are a couple of examples of why it might not matter as much as the wearables say:

Steve Prefontaine reportedly only slept for ONE HOUR the night before ripping an 8-minute and 28-second two-mile race.

Prefontaine had more than one such instance of sleepless nights before heroic performances and may be an outlier in human capability, but one hour is diabolical.

US Olympic Shotputter Chase Ealey is no stranger to bad nights of sleep:

I’m also at the point where I know how to prepare for a bad sleep. I’ve had a bad sleep before a training session, told my coach I didn’t sleep well before showing up, and felt super anxious. But sometimes, practicing after a bad night of sleep is the reassurance I need. It shows me that I’m capable of showing up when things don’t go as I’d like. As someone who otherwise prefers 10 hours of sleep, it’s good to know that I can respond to the uncontrollable.”

You could say I’m making a false equivalency by citing world-class athletes in these examples.

But the other side of the argument is this:

Have all world-class athletes enjoyed perfect sleep, no alcohol or drugs, or completely stress-free days in their rise to world-class level? Absolutely not.

Even those who are most acutely aware of those stressors are likely able to stave off the anxiety that comes with stress as it relates to performance impact.

What I’m Building In the Hopes That Wearable Devices Can Improve

Since we are not far from a world where wearables help determine our most crucial health outcomes — like whether we need something as serious asopen-heart surgery or something as simple as routine blood work — I think it’s important that every facet of the wearable experience is tightened up before we start letting it book our doctor’s visits before us.

And that includes the performance side of things.

I’ll be damned if I let a small device on my finger tell me I’m exercising “too hard” or that a workout didn’t help me gain any fitness (and you should be, too).

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The Game Changers documentary, which features notable figures like Arnold Schwarzenegger, Ultramarathoner Scott Jurek, and ex-NFL player Brian Orakpo came out 8 years ago now.

Still, the question remains about how much of the documentary is based in truth and how much of the studies have been cherry-picked to support vegan…

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Somewhere in your health and wellness routine, you probably have a gap that needs filling.

It could be adding more movement. It could be sleeping better. It could be as simple as relaxing more.

For many, nutrient deficiencies stem from our current diet and require better, more strategic eating, even if it means sacrificing taste for those nutrients.

Enter supplements.

As most of you who’ve been subscribed for some time know, I’ve written about supplements more than once:

• Here’s a basic list of the simplest, most high-yield ones

• Here are a few that fall into the “peptide” category that I’m still skeptical about for the general population

• A bit of a gut check (no pun intended) for verifying ingredients in supplements

My stance on supplements throughout most of my newsletter has remained the same — take them only if your blood work shows deficiencies or your doctor has given the recommendation or thumbs up, or if you’ve done enough research and self-testing to justify the recurring costs of them.

The industry of supplements, though, has grown massively since all of those posts.

Supplements are no longer just for making up nutrients missing from food.

Nootropics are gaining popularity in the age of low focus (just quit the doomscrolling, guys).

Fertility supplement lines seek to bolster reproductive health in an age where birth rates are declining, and people are nervous about having children (and where a simpler solution might be just ditching the polyester clothing).

People are even taking supplements to aid in sleep, which again, I find a bit excessive. (Have a nighttime routine, turn off the phone notifications, cool your room down, drink some chamomile tea).

Whatever the need is, there seems to be a supplement for it.

I’m here to challenge you whether or not you need all of them if you’re taking a bunch so that you’re not spending money unnecessarily.

And if you’ve stayed away from Big Supp up until this point, this may comfort you.

Are you taking too many supplements?

One thing that we can still be certain about regardless of where your supplement routine is — Americans are not that healthy.

It’s interesting that while we’re still one of the most obese and unhealthy developed countries, supplement use in the U.S. has gone up over the last quarter century by a non-trivial amount in men and women, with a large portion of those users being older adults.

The JAMA study cited above tracking 100k participants says that only 1 in 4 supplement users started because they were advised to by a physician.

Which means 75% of supplement protocols are most likely word-of-mouth, hearsay, and marketing-driven.

This should come as no surprise. If you’ve browsed a CVS, Duane Reade/Walgreens, or other pharmacy, the aisles have grown. The influencer marketing around supplements borders on toxic. And the $250 billion industry seeks only to make them easier to consume by turning them into gummies, chews, and textures that are easier to blend into our day.

But do we need to be adding all these pills and potions to our routine?

The most recent research says maybe NOT.

I’m going to guess it’s been a little while since any readers have had their blood drawn, and even longer since any of you got flagged for nutrient deficiencies.

So, without telling you “go to your doctor,” here are a few quick ways to check yourself before you wreck yourself (and your wallet) with supplements.

There might be a simple way: just eating better food, if you’re willing to expand your palate.

The CDC tracks a list of biomarkers it deems necessary for “healthy growth and development,” and measure in a yearly nutrition report that is tracked in blood and urine samples instead of self-reported dietary intake.

In their 2026 report, they accounted for the spike in supplement use we’ve seen since 2000 and noted a few key points we should be aware of.

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There’s a meme going around that says, “Men used to go to war.”

The crux of the joke is that the even the most arduous of demands were not even a second thought a few decades ago.

Now, there is a culture of hyper-fixating on small, inconsequential things that some might argue are softening us — and I don’t think it applies only to men, either.

Optimization Culture, which focuses on maximizing everything about your day, from the morning routine to the very last flickers of your eyelids before you go to sleep, has gotten out of control.

At first, the goal was admirable — to improve “healthmaxxing,” or maximizing your health’s potential — but the niches formed around each piece of optimizing have become too much to handle.

Quitting alcohol was a great start. Recent alcohol industry numbers show sales and general interest in drinking and nightlife are way down, which I think led many to believe that a movement could form from advocating for subtracting vices.

Some optimizers pushed for cancelling subscriptions, quitting smoking, scrolling and other bad habits to help improve stress levels, sleep, and relationships.

I think the practice of subtracting was where the trend should’ve halted. Taking things away allows for clarity and better understanding.

But whoever pioneered these trends ushered in a wave of new salespeople to take the hull.

A common understanding of human psychology reminds us that those who have bad habits (or are addicted to something) often don’t eliminate the habits or addictions altogether — they replace them with something else.

Whether or not the replacement is a healthy one is what I’m focusing on this evening.

Where Optimizing Went Wrong

What came into the fold of health optimization after the abstinence movement — a personal favorite highlight was “Raw Dogging Flights” — was a host of substitute activities that achieved the inverse of optimization.

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The New York Knicks just won their first title in 53 years.

Hey guys, it’s Fran. It’s been way too long, and I’ve had this one in drafts for two weeks.

Last night was the kick-in-the-ass reminder that I have almost 400 subscribers who read this newsletter and could benefit from an article that reminds us to fight against th…

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Multitasking seems to be all the rage these days.

Having Claude CoWork write your schedule for you to start the day while you’re having your coffee, in the shower, all while scrolling through your social feed in the morning.

Okay, maybe it’s not that extreme. Or is it?

The productivity obsession naturally leads most …

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You may remember that about a month ago, my wife and I left our apartment after finding out we had a pretty bad case of MARCoNS due to some mold exposure.

Since then, we’ve been on a pretty strict detoxification protocol, and I went over it (along with general detox ideas) with Olivia on this episode of the High Performance Health Podcast

Expect to learn about:

- What protocols are best for detoxifying your body

- The frequency of daily poops, Olivia thinks, is the gold standard

- What supplements are best for detoxifying your body

- What bodily processes/organs are responsible for detox

- How often should anyone be detoxing

I really enjoyed this one, and it helped color in my experience, and I hope it helps you rethink the way you’re constantly refreshing your body.

Link to the Amazon Body Roller here.

Link to the Shake Plate I mentioned here!

Enjoy!

Saying that “abs are built in the kitchen” is about 75% true.

A proper diet is going to ensure that bellies stay lean, but the abs need to be trained, too.

This newsletter was published in partnership with Form50 Fitness, a reformer strength and conditioning studio in New York City and Florida.

A big prerequisite for a …

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I’ve had a chance to reflect on some of the most important things that have moved the needle forward for me physically over the past two years.

Unfortunately, the answers aren’t all that sexy.

And that’s the point.

Two years is both a long time and a short time depending on how you look at it. And the headline of this new…

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“Nothing’s wrong, you’re perfectly healthy.”

That’s what many doctors told my wife over the past year after we went from specialist to specialist to try and figure out why she wasn’t feeling herself.

The last month has been a hectic one — it’s no excuses for not having written something for you all. I strive to write…

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Since my 30th birthday,

Everyone’s always asked me a question on my birthday that they never asked me in the first 29 years of my life:

How does it feel?

To which I always respond, “not much different.”

It’s a peculiar question, one that always makes me feel like the answer that someone was rhetorically expecting was, “old…

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What has always frustrated me about working in fitness are the stark differences between thought processes

Between how medical doctors (and even physical therapists!) understand the realm of exercise.

I’m sharing opinions and anecdotes of my experience in eight years as a trainer in today’s newsletter, so I w…

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I have to admit,

When I’d heard Lindsey Vonn tore her ACL on January 30th and saw videos of her strength training like nothing had happened, I felt polarized.

Maybe at first, the athlete and we felt some level of hope that injury specialists had finally turned the corner on ACL science.

Videos of NBA players returning to…

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