Celebrating Wins 🏆Life is a Team Sport 🤝🏽(PAID) Secret Weight-Lifting Tips Pt.2 🏋🏾♂️

Hello Friends! 👋🏾The gratitude party continues. This week, we’re celebrating. Celebrating what, you ask? Greatness. Perseverance. Badass attitudes and sheer resilience. Man, I can just smell football season in the air.Then, we’ll watch a video of an awesome old dude with a wicked Southern accent musing on the importance of species-wide teamwork. You ready to play?? Paid subscribers will learn my latest exercise hack, which involves, yes, a popsicle stick.

See you at the bottom!

Celebrating Wins 🏆

All across the globe, I’m friends with people who are doing things I’m proud of.

Part of being a good friend is networking for them and introducing their accomplishments to others who can learn and be inspired by their stories. That’s why I’ll be using this platform to celebrate their achievements. Meanwhile, it’s a great opportunity for you readers to get a better idea of who I am by understanding the people most important to my story.

Malik Fisher, Houston Texans Defensive End 🏈

Malik Fisher is a Brooklyn kid with a heart as giant as his game. I’ll never forget the first day of football camp in 2014 when young Malik, a rising sophomore, joined the varsity squad to much acclaim.

“Kid’s gonna be a beast,” you’d hear from our teammates. “Who’s gonna block him in drills?” They’d worry aloud. The coaching staff could hardly conceal their excited grins.

They saw a sleeping giant – I saw the warm cheerfulness of a prodigy eager to learn from the big kids.

And learn he did. Having played football for several years before high school, Malik was no stranger to crashing pads. But that wouldn’t be enough to earn his place on the team.

At a notoriously rigorous academic gamut like Xavier High School, obsession with detail and excellence was the standard. You needed the brains to get by, the discipline to stay afloat, and the charm to make it look good. The varsity football team demanded a similar mastery of method.

Employing a technique-heavy defense and an elaborate single-wing offense, training under Xavier’s system was an uphill battle for all of us. Since we played the same positions, (Defensive End, Tight End) Malik and I jumped into 100 straight days of action, adversity, and brotherhood.

Malik endured the struggle with an insatiable thirst to keep learning and growing, marked by his signature grin. The kinship of Black boys in a predominantly white school can’t be understated, either. Sharing similar backgrounds further strengthened our bond within the team. Our group was always cracking jokes, observing and making light of the absurd situations we found ourselves in. Others just wouldn’t understand.

Like a runaway train, Malik found his footing and never looked back. He dominated both sides of the ball throughout high school, doing the same at nearby Villanova, where he impressed pro teams enough to secure a spot on the UFL’s Defenders.

Though it wasn’t the NFL dreams he longed for, Malik’s instincts are to make the best of the opportunities he’s presented with.

Whether it was countless hours of training for the season, all while taking graduate classes and co-founding a tech company, slowing down wasn’t an option for Malik. “Whenever I struggled,” he says, “I thought about this quote by Theodore Roosevelt:

“Nothing in the world is worth having. Or worth doing unless it means effort, pain, difficulty”

Embodying that spirit, Malik wasted no time making a name for himself in the UFL. During the league’s inaugural season, Malik notched 7 sacks, 33 tackles (18 solo/7 for loss), and forced enough fumbles to get the Houston Texans calling. On the heels of a dominant season, his self-made dream was coming true.

Malik posted this image to his IG story on his signing with Houston. It’s a powerful testament to the stoic resilience he embodies; a mantra to keep going, keep believing, and trust the process. It hits especially hard when you’ve seen the guy go from gangly 15-year-old to an unstoppable force of sheer will.

Throughout Malik’s career, he and I have consistently exchanged words of praise and encouragement. It’s easy to believe in someone who so clearly believes in themselves and ensures it with the proof of hard work. Being the kids from New York that we are, greatness is just how we rock.

As sons of Xavier, we recognize that sacrifice through service is our word, motivated by the promise of greater glory.

Congratulations, Malik. You’ve got a whole city proudly behind you. Come back again next week for another friendly celebration 🎉

Life Is A Team Sport 🏀

How can’t you love this ‘Unc?

Whenever I come across a wildly popular video online, I’m hesitant. Too often, it’s something negative or inflammatory. Something I just don’t need to see, or straight-up brain rot. When something appeals to the lowest common denominator, that’s usually a sign that it’s tapping into our ugliest impulses.

Usually. In other cases, sincerely popular videos often convey messages of hope, triumph, and togetherness. Or, cute animals.In any event, this video promotes the brand of practical optimism that I love to convey through my newsletter, media content, and general conversation. Yes, come together. Coexist. Sing kumbaya. But there’s something bigger out there than our feelings, and it requires us to take collective action.

100+ years of humanist messaging have pushed these ideals of self-sacrifice for the sake of fellow man, and it hasn’t exactly worked out. We are at a critical inflection point in the species’ history, perhaps more polarized than ever.

It’s a me-first society, making the compassionate alternatives feel like a losing game.

But life is a game, sure. We’re playing on the same team of humanity, competing against misery and loneliness.

The prize is the game itself. Communal love is the motivation. The mission is to make the best of who we have right now, on Earth as it is in Heaven.

It can feel like we’re the only ones anointed for some higher purpose, whereas every piece of the grand puzzle requires us to play our part.

When we realize we’re all on the same team, we can find purpose in our roles, just as those who came before us did. It isn’t golf or tennis we’re playing, it’s football. An all-out war where victory is precisely formulated around the fulfillment of tiny successful executions.

It’s a thought-provoking approach to the “can’t we all get along” plea, prompting us to get in the game while we’re still in it.

Tips For Lifting More Weight Pt.2 🏋🏾‍♂️

Over the years, I’ve compiled a list of various hacks and tricks I’ve found that make my athleticism more intense and efficient. I’ll share these along with the science behind why they work so well, even if I only halfway understand the mechanisms.

WARNING! SERIOUS BRO SCIENCE INBOUND 🚨

Did you know that something as simple as a popsicle stick can enhance your training? Similar to mouthguards, using popsicle sticks during workouts offers unexpected benefits for strength, power, agility, and quickness.

In the first week of this series, I offered you guys a lesson in the importance of core strength and stability. I likened the core or trunk of the body to a box, with the four sides, top and bottom as the flaps of any cardboard box.

With stronger breath and engagement of core muscles come improvements in athletic and strength-based performance. Bolster the box, and all else follows. It’s a nice way to shortcut strength, mobility, and overall function.

Naturally, I set out to find more optimization tricks to enhance your fitness journey.

This week’s tip is tangentially related to last week's core-bulletproofing chronicle. It involves jaw clenching for strength, specifically utilizing a tool like a mouthguard or a wooden popsicle stick.

Clenching your jaw can help activate neck and upper body muscles, creating a more stable and rigid torso. Think of the clench as a reinforcement of the box’s walls. This stability translates to better form and more power during lifts.

The way I channel this power is through a popsicle stick. If you’ve ever seen me lifting, writing, or concentrating, you’ve wondered why one of these things is jutting out from my face.

Although it may look like I’m harboring a sincere addiction to firecracker popsicles, I’m really just trying to extract every bit of strength from my lifts as possible.

I did some digging and found science to back up why the benefits of jaw clenching work so well for strength and performance.

1. Neuromuscular Activation: Clenching your jaw can stimulate the brain’s motor cortex, helping you perform specific movements with ease. It’s like giving the factory director in a power plant a louder megaphone, allowing them to give clearer and more precise orders to the workers.
2. Spinal Motor Neuron Excitability:  Clenching your jaw increases the activity of the spinal neurons that control muscle movements, making your muscles perform better.

1. Lower Limb Power: Jaw clenching enhances jump ability and knee extension strength.
2. Hoffman Reflex (H-reflex): When you clench your jaw strongly, it enhances the H-reflex, which boosts the force levels of muscle groups.

That info may be a little overwhelming, so don’t get lost in the weeds. All you need to know is that the clenching of the jaw is like a power switch that signals go time to your muscles.

Now that you know why it works, let’s talk about how it’s worked for me.

For context, I’ve always been a jaw-clencher. Constantly chewing gum, biting the insides of my mouth, and more grit-related habits. I’ve grinded my teeth since I was young, asleep or awake. All of these have surmounted to TMJ-related issues, the joint combining the lower jaw bone to your face.

Chronic clenching comes with a host of issues like jaw pain and immobility.

Surprisingly, popsicle stick chewing has helped alleviate this issue. The more I clench during lifts, the more relaxed my jaw is later in the day. It seems like the intense output teaches my jaw that the weight room is for clenching, and other times are for relaxing. The sticks work wonders for my strength. I’m currently the strongest I’ve ever been, and it really isn’t close. I’ve improved my diet and sleep, but the way I’m throwing weight must be attributed in part to the sticks. It feels like the final piece of the puzzle is locked into place when I’m gnawing on one, making hundreds of pounds easy-pressing.

The sticks also give me something to do between sets. I’m against phone use during a workout — I keep mine in the lockers. It’s distracting and takes away from the workout.

Isn’t it annoying when you’re waiting for a machine at the gym, and the person ahead is curled into the shape of a ‘C’ on their phone?

What I suggest instead is a good rest between sets. This is when I get my breathing regulated, stretch a bit, or gnaw on the stick to keep the intensity going.

The trick is as unconventional as they come. It’s bizarre, yes, and I haven’t seen anyone else do it, but it works like a charm, and it looks badass to boot.

Old Westerners, ranchers, cowboys, and tough guys alike have all seemed to find strength in holding something between the teeth. You can now add yourself to this list, eager weightlifter.

The reason I’m propping popsicle sticks as opposed to mouthguards for weightlifting is sheer practicality. You can buy 1000 popsicle sticks for 15 bucks on Amazon, whereas a decent mouthguard can run you $30. There are also the extra steps of molding the mouthguard, carrying it around, cleaning it, and being the guy who wears a mouthguard in the gym. No judgment, it’s just that popsicle sticks make the whole ordeal a lot more slick.

You may recall mention of these sticks from a previous Down to Earth issue, where I tout the focus-based benefits of having something to bite down on. I find value in having modest distractions while I’m doing stuff. It keeps my mind focused, while my body is kept busy. I may have the mind of a 27-year-old, but my nervous system enjoys grabbing, chewing, and twirling things like an infant.

I’m the type of guy who likes to minimize the habits that harm me and maximize those that benefit me. I question whether the tradeoff is worth it. Often, they are not. Think of pre-workout caffeine boosts for example — the impacts on sleep, jitters, and shoddy ingredients aren’t worth the strength I get in return. Instead, a popsicle stick proves effective, with little-to-no side effects.

The key to success is to know thy self, and thus, thy weaknesses. Encourage every little boost that comes your way, and see how/if it can fit into your regimen.

See you next week!

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