The Long Game 120: Increasing Your VO2max, Identity-Based Health Practices, Seeking Discomfort, Biographies Instea…
The Long Game 120: Increasing Your VO2max, Identity-Based Health Practices, Seeking Discomfort, Biographies Instead of Business Books📱 Dating Apps Burnout, Foreign Aid Doesn't Work, Superblocks, Learnings From New Social Apps, Squat Shoes, and Much More!Hi there, it’s Mehdi Yacoubi, co-founder at Vital, and this is The Long Game Newsletter. To receive it in your inbox each week, subscribe here: In this episode, we explore:
Let’s dive in! 🥑 Health🏃♀️ The Effects of Different Protocols of High-Intensity Interval Training for VO2max ImprovementsIf you care about longevity, you want to increase your VO2 Max as high as possible. Here’s why. In short, it significantly improves your survival probability. This paper is a meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials and gives the best way to improve your VO2 Max. The abstract:
More on finding fitness benchmarks here. 🌱 Wellness👤 Identity-Based Health & Wellness PracticesIt’s not new that most of what we think and do comes from our identity or the identity of the person we aspire to become. This leads to polarization in society because people stop thinking rationally about things and approach everything through the lens of their identity, and downstream of that, you get a culture war. Unfortunately, health & wellness isn’t spared. It's funny to see that health & fitness trends are now following clear political lines.
Some practices are overwhelmingly right-wing, while others are left-wing.
Unfortunate that political & identity-based discussions follow us to that point. For example:
These are just examples, and you’ll, of course, find a lot of counter-examples, but I think it’s fair to characterize the two buckets of practices like this. It’s unfortunate because if there were one thing that could bring people together, it would really be health & wellness practices. This article gives a funny perspective on exercising and social classes:
Everything is about signaling—unfortunately(?)! Pair with: Saagar Enjeti: MSNBC Says FITNESS Is Fascist 🧠 Better Thinking📚 Drop the Business Books and Pick Up Biographies InsteadI came across this great quote on the merit of reading biographies:
I wanted to send this message to myself: Drop the business books, and read biographies instead David Senra @FoundersPodcast Marc Andreessen on why he has read hundreds of biographies: https://t.co/i7IoJY7cqu⚡️ Startup Stuff🔨🔨🔨 Seek DiscomfortNew month, and it was time for a new personal challenge. If you want to progress and push things forward, this might help you: New personal challenge: every day, do something that makes me feel very uncomfortable (work-related). I’ll share some examples in the following editions of The Long Game. Pair with: Relentlessly Resourceful & Endure. 📚 What I Read👨⚕️ Trauma: The Invisible Epidemic: How Trauma Works and How We Can Heal From ItFirst, a definition:
I started reading Trauma, and I like it so far. I found particularly interesting the characterization of trauma as a virus because, if left untreated, it spreads itself to more and more people. A short description of the book:
📖 Learnings from the New Wave of Social AppsBeReal and Clubhouse are big inspirations for what we’re building at Vital. On the problem of innovating on the format vs. the network structure:
🍭 Brain Food📱 Dating Apps & the Sexual RevolutionAs dating apps take evergrowing importance in society, I found two interesting articles on this topic this week. ‘A Decade of Fruitless Searching’: The Toll of Dating App Burnout
I think, on balance, we are worst off with dating apps.
As a complement, I found this piece on the sexual revolution thought-provoking:
Pair with: Modern Feminism Has Failed Everyone - Louise Perry I’ll soon be reading Louise Perry’s book The Case Against the Sexual Revolution and sharing the learning here. 🎥 What I’m Watching🏥 Why Foreign Aid Doesn’t WorkIt’s always more complicated than it seems. 🌇 Why Superblocks Are Peak UrbanismOne of the reasons it’s so good to live in Barcelona. It’s crazy the impact on your wellbeing that a city can have. Walkable, green, small streets, beautiful architecture, terraces everywhere… This is powerful.
Chose your city accordingly Before I get too far away from it, I wanted to share a bit about how amazing yet simple Barcelona's Superblocks are. 🔧 The Tool of the Week👟 Squat ShoesIf you’re into weightlifting, I recommend getting a pair of real squat shoes. These have been a game-changer for me and made me enjoy squatting ass-to-grass like never before. 🪐 Quote I’m Pondering
— Marc Andreessen 👋 EndNoteThanks for reading! If you like The Long Game, please share it on social media or forward this email to someone who might enjoy it. You can also “like” this newsletter by clicking the ❤️ just below, which helps me get visibility on Substack. Until next week, Mehdi Yacoubi If you liked this post from The Long Game by Mehdi Yacoubi, why not share it? |
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The Long Game 119: Alcohol Consumption, Artificial Sweeteners, Marriage, The Midwit Trap, Hard Feedback
Monday, August 29, 2022
✨ Effective Altruism, News, Superiority Seeking, Squat, The Life of an Influencer, Fat Gripz, and Much More!
The Long Game 118: Lengthening a Woman's Fertility, Location & Wellbeing, How to Future, Most Stuff Won't Work
Monday, August 22, 2022
💤 What if you Don't need 8 Hours of Sleep, Emotion Perception, Rucking, Stop Trying, The Age of Algorithmic Anxiety, Instagram, TikTok and the Three Trends, and Much More!
The Long Game 117: A Benchmark of Fitness, Authenticity, Reality Catches Up, Consistent Hard Work
Monday, August 8, 2022
🛸 Down the UFO Rabbit Hole, Useless Supplements, Milk, Sneakers, Designing for Trust, and Much More!
The Long Game 116: Electrolytes & Hydration, Digital Sabbath, Productivity Tools, Being Positive
Wednesday, August 3, 2022
🤖 Reject the Algorithm, The Nova Effect, LMNT, Reading Ourselves to Death, Homework, and Much More!
The Long Game 115: 27 Lessons for 27 Years, Hard Work, Bad Week for Science, Booktubers
Monday, July 25, 2022
👔 A Day In the Life of Brunello Cucinelli, Dating, Did People Used to Look Older, IQ & Intelligence, Vinted, and Much More!
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