insidehook.com
Last year, we spoke to an urban planner about Barcelona’s superillas concept, the city’s network of three-block by three-block sections, where car traffic is all but banned. “Superblocks create space for people,” Jackson Chabot said, invoking American grid cities like New York City, Chicago, Salt Lake City and Savannah, GA, where the design could theoretically be repeated. “The superblocks concept embodies the future all cities should aspire to, and precisely the type of city where I want to liv…
3 months ago
insidehook.com
Though I’ve banged the drum on cold-water therapy for years, I’ve never been able to make it a consistent part of my fitness routine. The issue is access. I habitually partake in ice-cold Scottish rinses at the end of a shower, and whenever I’m on vacation near a coast, I make sure to jump into the surf after each morning run. Still, neither practice is as productive or as permanent as I’d like it to be. (And as we outline here, cold showers can’t really compete with cold plunges.) Blame New…
3 months ago
insidehook.com
The folks behind the U.S. Steinholding Association have a pretty clear mission statement. In their words, the sport is for any fellow “maniac who wants to experience the thrill of holding a beer stein further from your mouth and for a longer amount of time than nature ever intended.” How long would that be? The founder himself, Jim Banko, once held a stein for 17 minutes, 11 seconds. In 2018, a man named Michael Tyler set the national record, lasting 21 minutes, 17 seconds. Steinholding,…
3 months ago
insidehook.com
An old coach of mine used to say that our most hated exercises are simply the ones where we stand most to improve. It’s a frustratingly accurate observation. If you’re dreading a specific type of machine or move, it’s likely because you know that it hurts, and it’s going to get more painful before it gets any easier. Which is why, left to our own druthers, most of us are really good at pretending the exercise never existed in the first place. Planks are my fitness boogeyman. I despise t…
3 months ago
insidehook.com
Over a quarter of American health clubs closed in the first 18 months of the pandemic, including Butchered Bodies, a gym run by Taylor Metzger in Dallas, Texas. There was a second where it looked all over — and then Metzger’s entrepreneurial spirit kicked in. A personal trainer with a background in interior design, who’d once crafted and sold pottery out of the back of his truck, Metzger adapted. “I moved my training sessions to my backyard,” he says, “where I crafted imaginative workouts.”…
3 months ago
insidehook.com
In a recent appearance on The Tim Ferris Show, a tech CEO named Sam Corcos claimed that he has been “fully news sober” for nearly a decade. What does that mean? No news, no television, no articles, no social media. “No current events in any form,” he told an astonished Ferris. “I read Ryan Holiday’s book, Trust Me, I’m Lying, which really frightened me about the state of the media...[It was] originally a one-month experiment...[I decided] I’m just going to try a one-to-one replacement of rea…
3 months ago
insidehook.com
If you worked out at the beach this summer, you probably owe a few hundred people an apology. They sat in traffic for hours just to sit on the sand for two, and your sweaty lunges blocked their view of the horizon. And yet — we don’t blame you. The beach is an incomparable arena for exercise, and anyone who’s out there bettering themselves deserves a pat on the back. We just recommend delaying your beach workouts a couple months later in the year. Fall beach workouts might sound unorthod…
3 months ago
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I did a big shop at Trader Joe’s the other day, and drew the dreaded three-bag-walk-home. I must’ve stopped 15 times on the trip back. When I finally made it to my apartment, I collapsed on the couch, heaving. My carton of eggs had survived the struggle, but my heart rate was through the roof. The entire experience was humbling for a millennial currently in the midst of marathon training. It was also an eye-opening reminder that everyday tasks are difficult for anyone...but especially for ad…
3 months ago
insidehook.com
The popular “10-3-2-1 rule” for better sleep urges us to cut out caffeine 10 hours before bed, food three hours before, work two hours before and screens of any kind one hour before. According to one report online, the average American bedtime is 11:45 p.m. So, in actual practice, the 10-3-2-1 approach would look something like this: Last call for coffee: 1:45 p.m. Last meal (or snack/dessert): 8:45 p.m. Last email read/replied to: 9:45 p.m. Last moments with a TV, phone or tablet: 10:45 p.m…
3 months ago
insidehook.com
The sun’s soon going to be setting at around 4:30 in the afternoon. For some of us — like one of my colleagues, who waits all year to put on a fisherman’s sweater and sit in the darkest booth of a pub — this is cause for celebration. Shorter days are a time to hunker down and hamper expectations. These months represent an opportunity to cook more, light candles and fall asleep next to a fireplace with a book on one’s lap. You know: cozy shit. But “lane-shifting” seasonal habits don’t come ea…
3 months ago
insidehook.com
Richard Maher tried everything: weight machines at discount gyms, treadmills, ellipticals, even fitness video games. “The list was long, and the time spent [attempting each] was short,” he tells InsideHook. He could never get a new workout routine off the ground. Even a stint with a personal trainer petered out. What was the issue? Maybe it started back in high school. Growing up, Maher was the only openly gay student in a conservative town. His classmates reminded him time and time again th…
2 months ago
