OS 20: MARATHON MAN; seed oil-free viral slice; Disney World for skin, magnesium hack
Plus group workout info SUNDAY NYC
Friday. Week is over, May has begun, the first round of Stanley Cup playoffs is kind of done honestly, a guy ran a marathon in two hours, the bodega has started selling soy free pasture raised eggs. I saw Straight Ahead last week (old man band; invented grindcore in the mid 1980s) and they played for the first time in like 40 years. Tommy Carroll the singer was for a long time well regarded as a Golden Gloves boxer. The Snake Super Health group workout last weekend was held at Columbus Park, in Chinatown, Manhattan, and was concurrent with a handful of elite calisthenics doing their thing on the bars and the grounds. Both workouts went well and unimpeded; everyone vibed. Most of Brooklyn was shut down that day for the Brooklyn Half; I am still on a cut but in a couple of weeks I’m going to return to my 200 lunges a day workout. I think it’s a better use of time than what this guy did to his kitchen. Crazy, but I respect it a bit. Open Secrets. The ONLY health aggregation email that surfs between the lines of full health psychosis and being completely normal.
What we cover here, for those new to the program: peptides, CASEIN powder, other (animal) protein (powders, yeast?), running, SPRINTING, gelatin/sugar, linoleic-acid removal mechanisms (for health), two kiwi a day diets, delicious eye of round (marinated), maybe citrus peel and water, skincare as diet (Vit. E/lycopene/sat. fat/X-factors), nicotine patches (not for me), nicotine tabs and the people that love them, nerve flossing AKA reverse Tai Chi aka high-level band work aka TOE WORK; thoracic spine strength, lower back mobility (super strength), Roman chair work, post-DHT/blood=flow theories of hair growth, post-calories in/out models of fat loss, severe macros mastery, sunlight titration, dead hangs, understanding written coverage of obscure and basic fitness and dark wellness concepts in the news, EMOM workouts (look it up), pleasant-looking zero-drop shoes, vibratory therapy (movement), cotton head to toe, strength, curly hair, German hangs, eye color lightening and more. Where the obscure meets the basic and melds. Nobody who understands these topics writes about this. Snake Super Health Open Secrets.
Today’s newsletter features: the London marathon breaks two hours; a rarely discussed and new baldness cure (written up now in smaller trades)’ a biohacker intervention that’s more effective and has more of a study/testing history than peptides; modeling and GLP-1s; a new set of Merino training equipment; how to make thousands of dollars of District Vision’s new shoe (it looks good); the connection between nonagenarians and bodybuilders, and how this might shake out in American culture; a replicable three-supplement skincare hack (done through food or supps); Elizabeth Smart becomes a bodybuilder; a new viral pizza spot and its seed oil-free alternative; a dispatch from the “Disney World for beauty products”, an elbow pain hack; a based snack food goes full Unliver and one of these dark wellness influencer nerds goes full cope/180 and the best barefoot shoe no one’s seen. Plus: pumpkin seeds for skin.
But first:
GROUP WORKOUT INFO:
Sunday’s workout will be at Columbus Park in Chinatown Manhattan at noon/12 PM. May 3. All levels welcome. Last week was awesome, all these pro lifters were there and we all had a good time.
Onto it.
Running Like…
This week’s A story is definitely Sabastian Sawe running the London Marathon in under two hours—1:59:30 in fact. The guy who came in second ran 11 secons slower than him, also under 2 hours. Sawe is considered relatively unheralded and won last year’s London Marathon and Berlin. He’s 31; he routinely gets tested for blood doping (as do many other elite runners) and ran the race in 3.4 oz Adidas shoes.
The context: Running has been chasing a sub-two marathon for eons, but as mentioned in the (great) Atlantic piece above, it was considered unrealistic as recently as 11 years ago. This changed in 2017 when Nike tracked heralded running demi-god Eliud Kipchoge on a private course with drafters, as a launch for their ZoomX Vaporfly shoe. He cracked just over two hours; it wasn’t a real record, but once that happened, it was a matter of time. This one’s different; it’s a real race; London’s considered a fast marathon course—flat—Berlin is usually faster. The best read on the subject is the above, you can pair that with this Adidas short vid on Sawe’s accomplishment. To me what’s neat: in a post-race interview Sawe said he chowed down on carbs: specifically bread, honey, tea. It’s at this point that I note: at the elite level, gear and training becomes more technical, but food never does. This is normal food. This tells you something. Just keep the food normal. These are the shoes; they’re sold out.
Fun story from Japan, if a bit thin: Bodybuilders and MMA fighters are getting hired in long-term care facilities for senior help. This is a good idea; having “healthy” people around probably helps the mental state of individuals in a home (very tenuous), and, more concretely, these guys are a font of bio-kinetic knowledge. A normal bodybuilder, constrained through the responsibilities of holding onto their employment, would be a great trainer for any very old beginner lifter. They know how to regress exercises. What works for a bodybuilder works for a nonagenarian, or anyone in the middle: time under tension, recovery, strain, rest. Bodybuilders have always known this, but until recently no one has listened:
What’s wild in the story: two things. One, one of the homes is owned by a retired sumo wrestler. Good plot for a movie. Two, the fighters and lifters get to work out at the gyms there, where they live. Half of me thinks this is a scrip token scenario; half knows some aides live with old folks. Either way, probably the future of America.
New to Snake Super Health? Here’s what you may have missed:
Catch up on the Open Secrets news update archive; last week’s update covered a long-pro finasteride piece, Nike’s newest calisthenics influencer, peak creatine and the toxicity study no one’s talking about, sugar for health, sleep in the NBA, how dead hangs help aging and CostCo’s Fairlife killer..
My morning routine explainer/data-based essay.
Essays on beating seasonal sickness, artificial probiotics, raw milk and replacing protein powders.
Newest podcast, cohosted by Josh Feola, covers fiber-maxxing and a vegetable-first diet. Listen to it here or on streaming services; archive here.
More news:
Elizabeth Smart (the kidnap victim; for a second I confused her with the girl from Road Trip (2002)) is a bodybuilder, competing at shows in Utah. Man, good for her. So cool. One, after what she went through, dieting down for a cut has to be easy work. Two, the discipline and focus and self-attention (and dissociation) involved in bodybuilding can be for some people better than therapy.
This Vogue story on GLP-1s affecting the modeling industry (everyone’s skinnier; shape models OTW out) has a lot to it. Thorough, got a lot of people (models, scouts) on the record. The main takeaway from me is body positivity was a blip on the radar, for cash, and that all types of shapes end up being pushed, either by this industry or something bigger, into thin-ness. (Some shape models are taking GLP-1s and losing weight.) The piece is best coupled against this Reuters story on Eli Lilly raising their profit forecast in the wake of growing demand for these drugs. This stuff is never going away, bro.
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Food news, Skin, magnesium, pizza, New Balance, ankle work:
Prince St. Pizza opened on Smith Street, in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn. It’s a popular slice shop in Manhattan (pics of Leo, David Blaine on the wall with the owner) that I think invented the cup-shaped pepperoni slice. Until recently I confused it with Ben’s Pizza, actually on Spring Street; but in fact Ben’s never went viral. Sad. In any event, Prince opened here last week (I live in CG) and there were lines the first day but not after. Long ones. In fact the first day mad old heads from the neighborhood were standing around smoking cigars looking at all the attention. They have a Sergio Tacchini slice. I like a slice now and then; I wanted to see if they were seed-oil free—the premise being I occasionally succumb to seed oils when eating out:
but really prefer not to have any when I am eating alone. In the company of other people, and when chased with the secret anti-veg. oil chaser mentioned in the piece above, probably fine, or not very damaging. We can argue there’s a hormesis element. But alone? Why bother? Anyways, did some digging. Prince St. is not vegetable oil-free, whatsoever, but there is one in the neighborhood that is and which uses EVOO on their slices and takeaway pies. It’s well-regarded/nice. It’s
