Welcome back to another episode of Arnold's Pump Club. I heard from a few of you on Twitter and in our email replies who have read the studies we've shared about the dangers of loneliness. You said making friends as an adult is nearly impossible for you and you're struggling. First of all, I want you to know that nothing is wrong with you and you shouldn't beat yourself up about it. Remember, we never beat ourselves up. We always get to work. I've seen articles talking about how
this is a problem. I have to admit, I'm not an expert in it. As an adult, I met my best friend, Franco, at a competition and then in the gym where I trained in Munich. I met my friend Albert at the competitions where he was a photographer. I met people at the train station, I met people at the beer halls and I met people at the beach playing soccer and volleyball. I met people everywhere. Later in life I found friends everywhere. Movie sets at stores where I shopped
often at my favorite restaurants and at charity events. I said, I'm not an expert, but you can tell, I met my friends by going out to places in the real world. From what I can see, a lot of people today don't do that as much. I feel like they've made their phones their friends and they spend a lot more time at home. Besides going into the world, I think something that has always helped me attract people is my curiosity. If you listen and want to learn, people are drawn to you. They want
to talk to you because you don't just want to talk at them. Open-mindedness is a trait that will never hurt you. I was open to people, so I met lots of them and some of the people I met became friends. If you aren't open to people or closed off because you spend seven hours a day staring at your phone like the average person, you won't meet people and you'll have fewer opportunities for friendship. Once you meet someone, the work doesn't stop. My friend, the former secretary of state,
George Schultz once told me friendship is like a garden. You can have a garden that is full of weeds and withering away or a garden that is full of beautiful flowers and vegetables, but that takes daily work. You have to be constantly tending your garden, planting, watering, pulling weeds. To build friendship, you have to make phone calls and facetimes. You have to check in. You have to
invite them to your house. You have to visit their house. You have to make an effort. I bring this up because the research I'm about to share will make you think about your friendships and how they are so important to your health. Social connections are like muscles. If you don't use them, you tend to lose them. New research found that loneliness peaks later in life unless you work to maintain your social connections. The study found that loneliness follows a UA shaped curve. It declines
through young adulthood and middle age. Rises again after 60 and peaks into your 80s. The scientist examined people over four decades and found a consistent trend toward disconnection. Paying attention to this life cycle might be essential to slowing aging and improving longevity. Studies have found that loneliness is a threat to your health and is linked to everything from
heart disease and dementia to depression and weakened physical fitness. While it's not a competition research suggests that approximately four to six deep meaningful relationships are enough to maintain your social fitness and fight off loneliness. While aging and death contribute to loneliness research suggests that disconnection might start earlier because of technology and
mobile devices. Studies have found the more you use social media and spend less time interacting with people, the stronger the association with poor mental health. If you feel your relationship slipping, the study authors have a few practical tips that anyone
can pull off to help jumpstart your social life. Random acts of kindness such as taking a friend out for a meal can help maintain and strengthen your friendships or you can help your friends with a project such as something they've wanted to do around their home or taking a class with them to learn a new hobby as a way to bond. By supporting someone else's goals you will improve your
relationship and get an added mental health boost from helping others. Now I want to share a study that Adam showed me that might really make you think twice about how you take your favorite pre-workout drink. Have you ever seen how somebody had taste wine? They take a sip, swirl it around their palate and then spit it out. Turns out you might be able to do the same thing with your pre-workout and still see the benefits. Researchers found that rinsing your mouth with a
cop-based drink before sets can improve workout performance. The scientists tested the effectiveness of the unique pre-workout approach by having each participant test the sip, swirl, and spit method on both a cop-based drink and a placebo before performing deadlifts. The cop drink helped increase power and how much total weight people could lift during their workout without increasing their perceived exertion. Meaning they didn't feel more exhausted even though they worked harder.
This isn't the first time researchers have found a result from a pre-workout carb rinser. Prior research found that they pre-workout carb rins also improve cycling performance. What's interesting is the research suggests you don't even need to consume carbs to see a performance benefit. Studies suggest that receptors in your mouth send a signal to your brain
that affects motor unit activation, motivation, and reward. As we've discussed many times in the exclusive content inside the pump app, motor unit recruitment is one of the most important variables of muscle growth. What does it mean? For starters, you don't need to bring a spit bucket to the gym. But it might explain why so many people benefit from an inter workout drink such as sipping on something during your training, even though many ingredients repeatedly fail to show a benefit
for muscle growth, strength, or endurance. Even flavored water during your workout might be enough to help activate the sensors in your mouth. Based on what we know right now, the swirling method doesn't appear to help maximum strength, but it can assist with muscular and cardiovascular endurance and power. That's it for today's episode. I created this podcast because I believe that fitness is for everyone. I'm using the power of machines to help me deliver news,
information, and support that will make you healthier. I am not a seven-netic organism, but I do have an important mission to build the positive corner of the internet and lift up the world. There's too much negativity online, and I want this podcast to give you the support you need to become a little bit better. I want to thank our editors in chief Adam Bornstein and Daniel Ketchall, who helped me with this podcast in our daily newsletter, as well as our producer's pen name
consulting. We value all your feedback and the three of us are here to support you. If you enjoyed this podcast, please leave a review. We love hearing from you. Together, we have the strength to lift up the world.