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1, 2, 3, and to the 4,
It’s Friday and Coach J’s Newsletter’s at your door,
Ready to make an entrance, so back on up,
‘Cuz you know he’s ’bout to rip sh*t up…
Snoop Dogg (probably)
Happy Friday, Coach J here from Anyman Fitness – and welcome to the latest edition of The N.W.A. Newsletter.
Each Friday’s N.W.A. Newsletter will have 3 parts:
- A Nutritional Tip to help make your diet healthier and easier to stick to.
- A Workout Tip to help make your training sessions more effective and fun.
- An Attitude/Mindset tip to help you strengthen your greatest asset – your mental toughness.
I will also give you my single favorite piece of social media content from AF over the past week and link to it on either Instagram or Twitter.
Without any further ado… let’s get started, shall we?
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N.W.A. Nutrition Tip Of The Week:
Supplements often get a bad rap, and for good reason, honestly.
The space isn’t regulated by the FDA or the USDA, and as such, companies often fill their supplements with low-quality ingredients that don’t work as they try to turn a quick buck.
Nowhere is this more obvious than in the fish oil supplementation industry.
Fish oil has incredible health benefits, including:
- Improved cardiovascular health
- Improved cognitive function
- May aid in weight loss
- Inflammation reduction
- Healthier skin
- Bone density improvement
- Improvement of mild anxiety and/or depression
I firmly recommend you supplement your diet with the proper, daily dose of fish oil, unless you eat fatty fish on a regular basis (at least 3-4 times per week).
Which brings up the question: What is the proper dosage for fish oil to have a positive effect on our health?
That’s an excellent question – and the answer will surprise you.
The proper, daily dosage of fish oil is:
“2 grams of EPA and 1.5 grams of DHA per day”
(EPA stands for ‘eicosapentaenoic acid’ and DHA stands for ‘docosahexaenoic acid’ if you’re curious.)
That’s a fair amount of fish oil to consume.
So, how much EPA and/or DHA do most fish oils have in them?
The answer to this is definitely ‘it depends’.
Some bottles of fish oil you find in stores simply say “300 g of fish oil” in the ingredients.
Avoid – we need to do much better than that.
That bottle probably doesn’t have much, if any, of the actual stuff that’s going to help you.
Some bottles of fish oil say “300 g of proprietary blend of EPA and DHA” per pill.
That’s a bit better, but it still isn’t telling us exactly what we need – specific amounts of EPA and DHA to ensure we’re not wasting our hard earned money.
You want to search for a fish oil brand whose label tells you *exact* amounts of EPA and DHA right there in the label.
Lucky for you, I’ve already done the grunt work for you.
For years, I’ve taken “Mega EPA/DHA” from Life Extension.
The ingredients are top notch and these are the most potent EPA/DHA containing fish oil pills I’ve found.
They’re also a solid price as well… and check out the label:
Just beautiful. Exact amounts of EPA + DHA listed, so you know exactly what you’re getting.
Please note – 2 grams is 2,000 milligrams (and 1.5 grams is 1500 milligrams).
Also please note the serving size is 2 softgels (not one).
These are a few of the little details you’ll need to understand to read a label properly.
3 ‘servings’ of these fish oil pills will work well in this case.
That would end up being 2.16 grams of EPA (we needed 2) and 1.44 grams of DHA (we needed 1.5, but 1.44 is close enough).
And since each serving is 2 pills, you’ll be taking 6 pills per day in order to hit the recommended daily dose.
See what I mean when I say supplement companies prey on people who don’t know what they’re doing?
These are the highest potency fish oil pills I’ve found anywhere, and you still need to take 6 of them to hit your numbers!
There’s a good chance you’ve been spending money for years on ineffective fish oil supplements.
Don’t worry if that’s you – I’ve made the same mistake in the past, no worries.
From here on out, if you’re having this issue, save this link to purchase your fish oil.
I’m not an affiliate – I’m just a dude trying to help (I get no kickbacks if you click through and purchase).
Life Extension also has an Amazon store, which may have an option that costs even less.
Fish oil is on the top-shelf tier of supplements.
Nearly everyone can benefit from it, it’s not overly expensive, and it greatly improves your body’s functions.
Just be sure you’re not getting taken by shady supplement companies trying to sell you a crappy, inferior product.
N.W.A. Training Tip Of The Week:
While training for strength and longevity is important, we definitely shouldn’t overlook the role of aesthetics.
Somehow, over the years, training to look good has gotten a bad rap.
It’s often considered narcissistic to admit we want to look awesome, which I truly don’t understand.
It’s a basic, human wish to be desired – we all want to be able to take off our clothes and be satisfied with the view of our naked selves.
One of the quickest ways to improve your aesthetic appearance is to work daily on isolation exercises which can give the ‘illusion’ of better body proportions).
(Always focus on strength and compound movements first. Your deadlifts, squats, pushes, and pulls are much more important for your overall fitness level than isolation exercises. But after you tackle the ‘meat and potatoes’ of your training sessions, be sure to eat some ‘dessert’ in the form of isolation work – you’ll be glad you did.)
4 of my favorite isolation movements are:
- Bicep curls
- Tricep extensions
- Lateral raises
- Bodyweight calf raises
Improving your arms with the curls and tricep movements will stretch out your shirt sleeves and make you smirk with confidence as you enter the room.
Lateral raises help thicken up the deltoids (the outer shoulders), which gives your upper body a wider appearance (which will give your waist a slimmer appearance by proxy).
And simple, bodyweight calf raises performed daily helped my own calves explode after doing them consistently during my basement-quarantine workouts.
I like doing 3-4 sets of these 4 exercises as a big superset at the end of each workout in a circuit.
I affectionately call it the “Chad Dad Superset”.
(“Chad” is a tongue-in-cheek nickname for a man who lifts weights and is muscular – but trust me, this superset can be used for men and women alike.)
I perform 15-20 reps of each movement back-to-back-to-back-to-back and then I wait 90 seconds before I go again.
It’s a fun, fast-paced way to end each training session, and nothing beats the feeling of ending your workout with an awesome arm pump!
Start mixing the ‘Chad Dad Superset’ into your training programs immediately and watch your aesthetics take shape quickly over the next few months.
N.W.A. Attitude/Mindset Tip Of The Week:
Everything that happens to you is your fault.
Now, obviously, the above sentence isn’t true – but I have to ask, how did it make you feel to read?
Were you taken aback a little bit? Were you in agreement with the sentence?
Did it make you angry to read that everything is your fault? Or disbelieving?
There are often times where something happens we have no control over – it’s a fact of life.
But at the same time, it’s our own choice whether we dwell on what’s happened to us and wallow in our own misery, or we brush ourselves off and move on quickly.
There’s no use crying over spilled milk – what’s done is done and stewing over something that’s in the past is a great way to never truly get what you want out of life.
Although not everything in our lives is due to something we’ve done, it can be helpful mentally to pretend like everything *is* our fault.
It can also help us let go of anger/resentment, and grow as a person.
Let me give you an example – imagine you’re a middle school teacher who’s struggling to pay their bills (been there before…).
It’s time for your school board to re-up the district contract, and after the negotiations are complete, you realize instead of getting the pay increase you were hoping for, you’re getting a 5% reduction in salary.
On top of that, you’ll have to pay more into your family’s health insurance costs, as they’ve risen yet again.
Your bi-weekly paychecks this year will be $300 LESS than they were last year – and you’ve got smoke coming out of your ears you’re so irate by this news.
So, whose fault is your new, lower paycheck?
Is it the school board’s fault for cutting costs so drastically?
Is it your union’s fault for caving to the school board?
Is it your principal’s fault for not standing up for you?
Is it your state government’s fault for not funding teachers’ salaries properly?
Is it the health insurance company’s fault for raising prices again?
Perhaps it’s your city’s fault, as dwindling tax bases are leaving schools underfunded.
In reality, it’s likely a mixture of all of the above.
But… what would happen to your mindset if… instead of finding and assessing blame to others… you decided it was entirely your fault for having a smaller paycheck this year?
I mean… in reality, you were the one who chose to be a teacher, correct?
And teachers are notoriously underpaid – you knew that going into it, right?
And teachers are also exposed to a load of public sector administrative red tape, making it nearly impossible for individual raises and/or bonuses.
It’s not like you thought you were going to be living lavishly if you entered the profession of education, that’s for sure… so it’s your fault.
Right?!
Was that last section tough to read?
I’ll be honest – I felt like a bit of a jerk even writing it… it’s clearly not your fault if you’re a teacher and you’re finding your paycheck getting smaller every year.
But how you respond to the news of your pay decrease will determine whether you correct the problem or not.
If you choose to believe it’s not your fault, you might be finding yourself on the picket lines, complaining to your union reps, or emailing your local senator or even your state’s governor.
Perhaps you’ll make some social media posts about how it’s “not fair” and how “teachers deserve more money” (both true, by the way).
You’ll be spending lots of energy pleading your case and demanding you be treated with the respect you deserve, and rightfully so.
But will that actually help you get some extra scratch so you don’t have to eat Ramen noodles for dinner again?
Nope, of course not.
For the first few years I was teaching, I would spend all kinds of time yelling at the clouds, telling them I deserved more money and complaining that teachers were vastly underpaid.
It took me some time to realize although this was true, me playing the victim never helped me improve my situation.
Instead, I had to look at it differently – and realize I was the one who wanted to be a teacher – nobody was going to come save me or help me get out of the situation.
I hope you understand the underlying lesson in your Mindset Tip today.
Of course not every bad thing (or good thing) that happens to you is your fault.
But if you start *thinking* like it is, and taking ownership over all of your decisions, you’ll rapidly find yourself seeking ways to make your scenario better and improve your quality of life.
And isn’t that the whole point anyways? 🙂
One Favorite Social Media Post Of The Week:
Hard Truth:
If you couldn’t imagine going a day without your morning coffee fix, you’re a drug addict.
I hope you enjoyed this edition of the Anyman Fitness N.W.A. Newsletter.
I’ll be back next week.
Hope you have a wonderful weekend.
Best,
Snoop-A-Loop-Coach-J
Anyman Fitness
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When this song came out, I was in 7th grade and I was already 6’1″.
But 7th grade me still loved it anyways.