Welcome back to the Daily Dumbbell, a special Saturday edition of Friday Finds! Why? Because we never want to get too predictable. Predictability breeds complacency and we want CONSTANT VIGILANCE!

At least that’s what our good friend Alastor always said.

We have a jam packed one for you today. So without further ado….

Let’s dive in!

A Great Exercise

The Pallof Press

An excellent core exercise to add to your routine.

Using cables or bands, this move challenges you to stabilize your core while you press the weight out in front of you.

The resistance is pulling you to the side here so your job is to keep your core strong and push straight out in front of you in a slow and controlled manner.

Name: Pallof Press
Category: Core Work
Sub Category: Anti Rotation

Progressions and regressions are fairly easy as you can just add or reduce weight. If you get to the point where you can’t add any more weight you can drop to one knee which will remove some stabilization and make the movement more difficult again.

A Tweet

Autophagy has been a popular buzz word for a while now but what is it?

Well, you might be disappointed to find out it isn’t some magic thing. It’s just a normal bodily function.

You don’t go into “autophagy mode” when you fast. It’s just increased. As it is any time you’re in a calorie deficit.

When your body has excess materials it uses them to build (fat, muscle, etc). When your body doesn’t have enough it breaks down structures (fat, muscle, etc) for energy. Both completely normal bodily functions. Neither is necessarily better than the other.

Imagine a city. Maybe your city.

There is likely construction & demolition happening at the same time in different parts of town. There are renewal projects going on while other areas have been condemned.

These ideas often get presented to us as one or the other. We’re either anabolic or catabolic. Either in autophagy or cells are proliferating in a dangerous way. No. That isn’t how any of it works.

Don’t get taken by jabroni’s on social media who tell you it’s the secret to health. It’s not & they don’t understand the first thing about it.

A Number

• 200

The number of grams of sugar in a bottle of ketchup.

Morons continue to churn out content on social media.

What are they fear mongering about today? Ketchup and the amount of sugar in it.

We’re going to spoil this one for you early: Tomatoes contain sugar. Crazy we know. But all fruits and vegetables contain sugar. It’s quite normal. Ketchup has some added sugar to make it taste better sure.

So if you’re drinking a bottle of ketchup per day we’d recommend you cut back. But if you eat ketchup like a normal person and have a couple tablespoons here and there with your food… we’re not sure why you’d care.

Unless of course you think sugar is the root of all evil. Then you probably would care. But you probably wouldn’t be reading this newsletter.

Unless you’re into all the jokes at your expense…

Foodie Friday:

3 Pasta Recipes you should have in your wheelhouse

1. Lazy Pasta Night

This garlic, butter, & parmesan pasta recipe is perfect for a night when you don’t want to cut anything or put much work in. We get it.

You can be as lazy or as fancy as you’d like. Capers, parsley, & a protein of your choice all being fine additions if you want to exceed expectations.

1. Cherry Tomato Sauce

We’d recommend cutting the tomatoes in half for this one but you can of course just toss em in.

The key, as with all these recipes is adding some pasta water back into the sauce.

1. Hide the Veg

This is technically an Italian “Salsa Verde” recipe. This sauce is incredible on chicken or steak or really anything you want to use it with.

However, you can also turn it into a pasta sauce! Blitz some spinach with it to hid those dreaded veg from your kids or ur wife. We don’t know ur life.

This is the best recipe we could find for this one but do yourself a favor and skip the gherkins. No idea wtf those are doing in there. Also the chili flakes aren’t optional. Don’t make boring shit.

You can also blanch asparagus, broccoli, or any of your preferred green vegetables (probably not brussell sprouts) and throw em in the blender too!

Think of this sauce as a base that you can build from. These ingredients don’t change. But you can add things based on preference.

Except for gherkins. Who TF thought that was a good idea??

We hope you had a great week! And a fantastic start to the weekend. Summer is sprinting toward the finish line so make sure you’re soaking up the last of those rays!

We’ll see you back here on Monday for more science and motivation!