The Power Of Arnold’s “Work Works” Rule

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Today’s Health Upgrade

Arnold’s Corner
Monday Motivation: Work Works

Every week, people write in to this newsletter to tell me they're confused. Even last week, after I said to stop waiting, hundreds of people immediately wrote back, “What do I do?” or “Where do I start?”

The real answer is: Just do something. Just start.

But no matter how many times I say that, people tell me I need to keep saying it in different ways, because the world of fitness confuses and freezes them.

Too many programs. Too many diets. Too many experts on the internet screaming different things at you.

One says lift heavy. One says never lift heavy. One says eat six times a day. One says don't eat until noon. One says cardio is everything. One says cardio kills your gains.

So they keep waiting.

They wait for the perfect plan, the perfect week, the perfect moment.

Monday becomes next Monday. Next Monday becomes January.

And they never start.

I understand why. They want the big win. The one program or diet or trick that solves everything at once.

I have some bad news. It doesn't exist.

I have been training for more than 60 years, and I have never seen it. Not once.

I have seen a million easy solutions, and I’ve outlived every single one.

What I have seen, over and over, is the secret everyone looks right past because it seems too small to matter.

It's one tiny win after another, stacking on top of each other until you've created a monster.

The first workout. The extra protein at breakfast. The walk after dinner. The night you went to bed instead of scrolling.

The little stuff.

More and more, I'm realizing the whole secret to fitness is everyone learning that it's all about the little stuff.

Work works.

Let me be clear. This is not a "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" speech.

I know life is hard right now. You have kids, a job, a bad knee, no sleep, and bills that keep going up. Those challenges are real, and I'm not going to pretend they aren't.

I'm not telling you to grit your teeth and fix your whole life by Friday.

This isn't a bootstraps thing. It's a do something instead of nothing thing.

Not perfect work. Not the best program ever written. Not big work.

Just work.

When I came to America, I barely spoke English and had no money. I didn't have all the answers. I didn't have a plan for every step.

What I had was the gym, and I showed up.

Then I showed up again the next day. And the day after that.

Every big thing in my life was built that way. One rep, one day, one small win at a time. You see the trophies and the documentaries. You don’t see how many days it was just simple work.

I love seeing people learn to just stop thinking and do the work. Right now, someone in our Pump Club app finishes a workout every 20 seconds.

Every 20 seconds!

They didn't find some magic secret. They found work.

That workout won't pay their bills. It won't fix everything that's going wrong.

But it gives them one thing every day that they control.

It gives them a win.

And when you stack those wins day after day, you very slowly become a different person.

Stronger. More confident. Harder to knock down.

People are always surprised at how something as simple as showing up for 30 minutes makes them better at their jobs. Better at parenting. Better with the people they love.

They can't believe how much better they feel mentally. It's not mental work, they tell me. It's physical work!

But it is mental work.

Every rep is proof.

Proof to yourself that you are the person you want to be. Proof that you are stronger than you think. Proof that you do hard things.

And here's the part most people miss.

When you are the person who does hard things by choice, the hard things you don't choose feel easier.

The bad day at work. The sick kid at 3 in the morning. The news you didn't want to hear.

You can't control when those show up. You can control whether you've been training yourself, rep by rep, to handle hard things.

That's why I don't care how big your workout is.

The perfect workout you never do loses every single time to the imperfect one you actually finish.

One pushup beats zero.

A walk around the block beats the plan sitting in your phone.

Ten minutes beats the hour you keep saying you'll find.

Last week I told you that ugly action beats pretty waiting.

So this week, don't try to figure it all out.

Don't read three more articles about the best program. Don't wait for the perfect Monday. Do something.

Go for a walk. Do one set of pushups. Add protein to breakfast. Finish one workout.

Then do something again tomorrow.

You keep waiting for the vision to show up before you start.

But clarity comes from action, not the other way around.

Work works.

Together With Momentous
The Cholesterol Fighter

The term “watch your diet” is common advice for endless health concerns. It’s accurate, but not exactly helpful. And usually that’s because “watching your diet” means changing many things. 

If cholesterol is a concern, one shift won’t fix everything. But adding one food in particular will almost undoubtedly make a significant change. 

Researchers found that adding fiber to your diet might be your best line of defense against high cholesterol and related diseases. 

Every extra 10 grams of daily fiber was associated with a 21% lower risk of dying from any cause and a 23% lower risk of dying from heart disease.

Researchers tracked more than 13,000 adults for about eight years. The highest-fiber group ate more than about 18 grams daily and had a 31% lower risk of death than those eating under about 11 grams. And that’s saying a lot when you consider that 18 grams is still far below the recommended 25 to 38 grams per day. 

And it’s not the first study to find this outcome. A separate review of 17 studies found about a 10% lower mortality risk per additional 10 grams. 

Fiber works because it’s designed to help your body prevent the buildup of cholesterol. 

Certain soluble fibers help carry bile acids out of your gut. Your liver then uses cholesterol from your blood to replace them. Randomized trials find that soluble fiber can lower LDL and produce small reductions in blood pressure.

If you need a place to start, you could add cooked lentils, beans, oats, apples, pears, raspberries, avocado, or even popcorn. Two of these options can easily put you past the additional 10 grams that makes a difference.  

And we also understand that knowing what to eat and actually eating it every day are two different things. Most of us plan on lentils and end up with something far different.

That’s why we formulated Fiber+ with Momentous. Each scoop adds 6 grams of fiber from three sources. 

Psyllium is one of the most studied soluble fibers for LDL cholesterol and works through the same bile-acid process described above. Rice bran adds insoluble fiber for regularity. Solnul® resistant starch feeds your gut bacteria and is easy on digestion. That means you get all the benefits of fiber without the gas, bloating, or discomfort of adding a new habit.  

Fiber+ mixes into water, coffee, oats, yogurt, or a smoothie, and it’s NSF Certified for Sport, meaning that you can rest safely knowing that you’re getting a high-quality product with nothing hiding beyond the label.

APC readers get 35% off a subscription and 14% off a one-time purchase with code PUMPCLUB. 

Most supplements are backed by research. Fiber+ offers the type of standard that delivers quality, purity, and results. 

Start Your Week Right
How To Rewire Your Mind For More Self-Control

If you want to learn self-control from someone who’s good at it, you might ask how they talk themselves out of doing something they’ll regret. You’d probably learn more by asking how often they have to.

When researchers had adults report their desires throughout the day, people with the highest self-control scores weren’t winning more battles with temptation. They were fighting fewer of them. 

Their urges were weaker, they felt less torn, and they tried to resist less often.

Another study took it a step further. Researchers tracked college students’ temptations for a week, then checked in on their personal goals months later. How hard students fought temptation didn't connect to whether they reached their goals. 

What mattered was how often temptation showed up in the first place. More temptation meant feeling more drained, and less progress.

People who appear more disciplined tend to step in earlier to anchor situations and environments in their favor. 

Psychologists describe self-control as a timeline. You end up in a situation, something catches your attention, you start to want it, and only then do you have to fight the urge. Like a snowball rolling downhill, an impulse gets bigger the longer it goes. 

Deciding not to walk past the bakery takes almost no effort. Standing at the counter, smelling the croissants, and saying no takes a lot. Gritting your teeth at the last second is the final step, and the hardest one.

It also helps to have habits in place that help you make better decisions without wasting energy or willpower. 

The best decisions are often the ones you don’t have to make. 

A review of 102 studies found that self-control is more strongly linked to automatic, habitual behaviors than to choices that take conscious effort. 

A set of six studies found that people with more self-control tended to have stronger routines for exercise, sleep, and studying. Those routines helped explain why they made more progress while reporting less struggle.

The person who works out every morning usually isn’t deciding to go each day. They made that decision long ago.

That’s almost the reverse of the lesson many of us took from the famous “marshmallow test.” In those famous experiments from decades ago, preschoolers were offered one treat now or two if they could wait. The popular takeaway was that you could spot a future success by watching which kid held out.

But a 2024 study followed children who took a version of the test at about age 4. By 26, the kids who’d waited longer were no less impulsive and took no fewer risks. They’d gone a little further in school and had slightly lower body mass indexes, but those links mostly faded once researchers accounted for family background and home life.

That’s not to say self-control doesn’t matter. It’s more about building it the right way. Science suggests the following methods can help you rewire your mind. 

Make the decision while it’s still easy
Say you want to get to sleep earlier, but you keep scrolling in bed. Tonight, while you’re still wide awake, plug your phone in across the hall. You make the decision once, before you’re tired and there’s something on the screen you’d like to keep reading. The same logic applies to keeping chips out of the pantry or laying out your workout clothes the night before.

Write an if-then plan
Instead of “I’ll walk more,” try “If it’s 7 a.m. and I’ve had my coffee, then I put on my shoes and walk.” This kind of plan helps people follow through. The effect is modest but reliable, because the cue does the deciding for you.

Repeat it in the same place, at the same time. Habits form when the same cue keeps leading to the same action. 

The goal isn’t to become someone who wins every fight with temptation. It’s to set up your life so you have fewer fights, and let repetition handle the rest.

Fitness
Workout of the Week

Last week, we gave you a look at the first workout from the “Short on Time Foundation” program in the Pump Club app.

Ketch just had his third child. To account for the added craziness at home, he’s starting a new program that lets him prioritize his health and fitness while doing 3 workouts per week, each about 30 minutes. 

All app members can follow along with Ketch three times per week (Monday, Wednesday, and Friday).

But in the spirit of the holiday session, you can join in, or just watch as he guides you through the program. Here’s a link to join on Wednesday (we’ll send a reminder that morning) at 5 am PST/8 am EST. This is free for any newsletter subscriber. 

The Wednesday workout is also this week’s “Workout of the Week.” Enjoy!

Warmup 

Hip raise: 1 set x 8 reps
Inchworm: 1 set x 8 reps
Pushups: 1 set x 8 reps
Bodyweight squat: 1 set x 8 reps

The Workout

Perform work-up sets for each of the main movements. In general, you’ll do 8 reps at 50% of the weight you’ll use, 5 reps at 60%, and 2-3 reps at 70-80%. The stronger you are, the more work-up sets you might need. But the goal of the work-up sets is to prepare your body, the movement, and your muscles, not to fatigue them. 

The sets listed are your working sets only. So if you see “3 sets x 8 reps,” that means you’ll complete the work-up sets and then perform 3 sets x 8 reps, where the last 2-3 reps of each set should be extremely challenging. That’s how you know you’re at the correct weight. 

1. Barbell clean and press: 3 sets x 8 reps
2. Barbell stiff-leg deadlift: 3 sets x 12 reps

Superset
3A. Cable biceps curls: 2 sets x 15 reps
3B. Cable triceps pressdowns: 2 sets x 15 reps

Give it a try, and start your week strong!

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Publisher: Arnold Schwarzenegger​

Editors-in-chief: Adam Bornstein and Daniel Ketchell