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Today’s Health Upgrade

• Monday Motivation

• A Good Reason For Bad Breath

• Workout of the Week

Arnold’s Corner: Monday Motivation

I’ve started my media tour for my book, Be Useful, which comes out on October 10th.

One of the wildest parts for me has been the opportunity to see how much the world has changed since I wrote my last book a decade ago.

Back then, the “How to Sell a Book” playbook was: go on 60 Minutes, go to New York and do a late show and a morning show, and do some other interviews with journalists for magazines, newspapers, and websites.

Today, you still do the morning shows and interviews with journalists. But the big new change is podcasts. They’ve exploded since 2012, and each podcast has its own dedicated audience, hungry for new information and interviews.

I have to admit, when Daniel shared a list of 10 podcasts that wanted to talk about the book, and they were all one or even two-hour interviews, I thought, “Who has the patience to sit and listen to an hour or two hours of Schnitzel or anyone being interviewed?”

Well, now that I’ve sat down for a few of them (all of the podcasts will come out in October, so don’t worry, you haven’t missed anything, and I’ll share them here for you), I get it.

Every podcast, whether it’s with someone I’m meeting for the first time or an old friend like Tim Ferriss, is a lesson in something I always share with the village: be curious. Listen, ask questions — don’t just talk.

They’re deep dives, and I have to say that I’ve been impressed with every podcast host so far. They ask questions I’ve never thought about. They all have their own unique focus. They feel more like a deep conversation than an interview.

They’re real.

And instead of something like 60 Minutes, where you sit for 2 hours of interviews, and they air 20 minutes that they choose, and the rest ends up on the cutting floor, these podcasts all air the full, unedited, unfiltered conversation.

These podcasters give me hope. Their success is based on a lot of things I talk about in the book — they have a clear vision, they’ve worked their asses off, they’ve sold the hell out of themselves and their podcasts. But even with all of that, none of them would be successful if it weren’t for their curiosity, their open minds, and their hunger for knowledge.

That’s one of my rules, too. Because if you don’t realize that you will always have something to learn, you can never be truly successful or live a full life. As much as people might expect me to tell them to be the Terminator and be relentless, what I’m really telling them is to be like Julius from Twins — constantly learning from the world around him with his big, open mind.

I can’t wait for all of you to hear these conversations. And I hope they inspire you to go out into the world and try to learn every day.

And now that I’ve found a love of podcasts, I want to find a few to subscribe to. Tweet me some of your favorites so I can check them out. Use #ArnoldsPumpClub so everybody can find your recommendations.

Stay hungry, my friends.

A Good Reason For Bad Breath

Cold season is just around the corner. Between back-to-school crowding, colder air, and everyone staying indoors together more often, upper respiratory infections tend to tick up during the fall and winter. Although there’s no cure for the common cold, scientists are always looking for an edge in preventing infections.

Good news: a recent study showed that supplementing a combination of garlic powder and onion extract decreased the risk of upper respiratory tract infections, namely the common cold and the flu. 

More research is needed to understand why onion and garlic supplements could help ward off the common cold, but their effects on the immune system could be the reason. Onions and garlic are rich in sulfur-containing compounds (like alliin, in garlic), which may improve the ability of white blood cells to fight off unwanted germs.

Workout of the Week

Adam here. Many of you might be familiar with “the terrible twos.” It’s that stage as a parent when your child turns two, and suddenly everything becomes more difficult.

This workout is called the “terrible twos” because I developed it when I became a dad and realized that — as Daniel mentioned last week — you need to get creative with your workouts. I still wanted to train hard but didn’t have the same time. So, most of my workouts became 15 to 30-minute sessions that felt harder than what I was doing when I spent an hour in the gym. That was the backbone of my Fit Father approach, which I’ve followed for the last 8 years.

This “terrible twos” workout might cause you to develop a love-hate relationship with just two reps. You’ll love the results you see but might hate how hard it feels.

Here’s how it works: The following sequence is a circuit, which means you’ll do 1 set of each exercise listed, cycle through the exercises, and repeat.

Start by performing two warm-up sets with about 50 percent of the weight you’ll use.

Then, perform two reps of each exercise using a weight you can lift for approximately 5 to 6 reps.

Set a timer for anywhere from 10 to 30 minutes. If you’re a beginner, do 10 minutes. If you’re advanced, go for 30 minutes. Or, you can do a longer or shorter workout based on the time you’ll have.

There’s not much rest in this program. You’ll only take breaks when you need them, which means you’ll be doing a lot of reps with a relatively heavy weight. If you’re doing a bodyweight version, the same rules apply. Keep doing two reps for each movement, and don’t rest unless you need it. Once the time is up, the workout is over.

Exercise 1: Dumbbell/Barbell Romanian Deadlift or bodyweight good morning: 2 reps

Exercise 2: Dumbell/Barbell Row or inverted row: 2 reps

Exercise 3: Dumbbell/Barbell or bodyweight rear-foot elevated split squat: 2 reps

Exercise 4: Dumbbell/Barbell Overhead press or pushups: 2 reps*

Exercise 5: Dumbbell/Barbell Front squat or bodyweight squat: 2 reps

Give it a try, and let us know what you think! We hope you all have a great week ahead!

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Publisher: Arnold Schwarzenegger​

Editors-in-chief: Adam Bornstein and Daniel Ketchell