Savage / Zen Newsletter No. 86
April 2024
"Experience is the hardest kind of teacher. It gives you the test first and the lesson afterward."
~ Oscar Wilde
There have been a lot of changes in my life this month, and a lot of new directions and opportunities to look forward to. That’s both exciting and frightening; to have all the excuses for why you haven’t done the thing(s) you love to do violently removed. Of course, more on this later…
Premium downloads (previously hosted on Canva) are now available via Google Slides and featured on a Downloads page which is able to be accessed with a free subscription. However, you’ll still need a paid / premium membership to access that content once it’s been archived — which has been decreased from one year to 6 months. I’m a little behind, so the next micro-course will come out in May.
As a reminder, all paid / premium posts, including weekly training logs include a free preview and you can always access premium content with a 7-day free trial.
Lastly, I’ve created a Tags page so that readers can sort and see content based on category. This has always existed on the backend, but Substack doesn’t present it user-facing out of the box.
New Free Articles:
What I Eat in a Day: 2024, Part 2
Part 1 of this series looked at cost-effective and calorie-effective sources of nutrients. Based on that information, I made some changes to test a new model for one week to see if “super” foods are really a thing and if / what supplements are worth your hard earned money (and calories).
Lessons from Climbers and the Arndt-Schultz Law
Ah, the allure of minimalism and (bio/life)hacking. I’m as guilty as anyone of wanting to distill the world down to “shark habits.” The trouble is, the same kind of vigor and tenacity tends towards “missing the forest for the trees” or “majoring in the minors;” a “horseshoe effect” of health and fitness if you will.
Unplug and Grab a Beer
A lifetime ago I was running against the wind, and almost 10 years later, not too much has changed. The photo above was taken shortly after I signed a lease for a room in a friend’s house after two years living on the road. Everything I owned in the world at the time fit into a 5-foot truck bed. So, a shower, toilet, and refrigerator mo…
New Premium Content:
Do Humans Have a Metabolic Exercise Limit?
Calories-In-Calories-Out (CICO) is the tried and true recipe for weight loss, right? You need to “burn” more than you consume, right? You’re either at a deficit or a surplus, anabolic or catabolic, right?! It turns out that “The available evidence indicates that in many scenarios, the effect of increasing physical activity on TEE will be mostly additive although some energy appears to “go missing” and is currently unaccounted for. The degree of energy balance could moderate this effect even further.” (
Training Week 2024-03-25: This week could be categorized as “active recovery.” There was a lot of movement exploration in order to detach from outcome measures. Sometimes a mobility session doesn’t “feel hard” until the next day, and almost always finding a creative way to break a sweat beats sitting on the couch.
Training Week 2024-04-01: Lung rippers, leg lock pins, and endurance shake outs were the theme this week. As always, an attentiveness to recovery (need / debt) is of the upmost importance; but it’s something I’m reminded of perpetually.
Training Week 2024-04-08: This week included an aerobic (capacity / endurance) test and some novel approaches to mobility. That is, using load, breathing, and time under tension to broaden ranges of movement.
Training Week 2024-04-15: Sometimes you give what you can. Sometimes you tell the truth you can afford to tell. Sometimes it’s not enough. Sometimes you knew, from the time you began, it never would be. Chalk up. Dig in. Get some blood on the barbell. Your demons will learn to swim if you drink and they’ll get stronger too if you bury them in the weight room.
Training Week 2024-04-22: We are nearing the end. In fact, as is most often the case with enduring intervals, the last 10% is the hardest because you know you’ve already done enough, more than most; it is this last 5 - 10% where you have the most to learn.
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