Hey kids! How’s 2025 so far? We good? Thanks to those who reached out with kind words about my new single. Y’all are sweet. Pretty sure it’s gonna top the charts. I just got fitted for a tux for the Grammys. Is that weird?
Welcome to the 101st edition of The Junction. It’s a new century in Junctionville.
Longtime readers may recall that this rag used to be called The Sabbateur. It was a portmanteau of Sabbath + Saboteur, a certain sabotaging of the sabbath, if you will. Rather than pausing to pray every Friday as my ancestors might’ve expected of me, I paused to reflect and write.
But the portmanteau, like so many of my efforts to be clever, fell flat on its face. Then my Friday schedule changed, making it impossible to write on the sabbath of my ancestors. So last spring, I sabotaged The Sabbateur, renaming it The Junction. I'm not sure I explained the name. This space strives to be the intersection, the nexus, the Junction, if you will, of things I'm passionate about. But in 100 posts, I've never written about working out, even though working out has been a big part of my life since I won the greasy battle against childhood obesity in 1989. 35 years into my fitness journey, I still exercise six days a week. I’m a legit workout junkie. I push too hard and take too little rest. It’s my best addiction.
I’m in killer shape. There. I said it. I eat and drink too much. I love love love putting stuff in my facehole. Fat kid gonna do fat kid stuff. But I’m resilient and mobile and strong AF. I’m not bragging. It is what it is. I’m old and crusty, but I’m fit and I’m fierce.
The dawn of the new year brings with it our collective resolution to get fit(ter). I’ve been talking workouts and wellness with my people over the past weeks, spewing my dogma, as I do. My friends and I are not alone in our focus. The gym in January is jampacked with folks resolved to get it right. I don’t begrudge the crowded gym in January, I’m not that cynical. Really, I’m not. I welcome the lost sheep back to the flock and I wish the new folks well.
Indeed, I welcome all y’all who are seizing the opportunity of a New Year to tend to your vessels. In fact, I will, in this edition of The Junction, welcome you with my hard-earned health and wellness wisdom.
You can stop reading now. I get it.
But! I’m pushing 50 and feel like I’m at the peak of my powers. What follows is a carefully curated list of the stuff that keeps my engine revving.
Look, I don’t want to be a wellness influencer. But I do hope the following influences you well.
Everyone will tell you to do pilates and yoga. They might even thrust yogalates at you. I’ll admit that yogalates is a better portmanteau than sabbateur. I’ll also admit that Joe Pilates’ German-American story is hitherto more interesting than mine. Hell, I’ll even admit that we should all commit to some version of a yogalates practice. Fine folks foist yogalates for good reason.
But I want to use this space to share some wellness ideas that fine folks probably aren’t foisting on you. These are my practices that I honestly (and dogmatically!) believe everyone should do. Yes, you. I share hoping to help. Take it or leave it. I hope you take it. It’s been good to me. Okay. Here we go…
Reinvent your mornings!
Wake up. Visit the porcelain palace. Splash cold water on your face. Splash more cold water on your face. Now do mobility work. 5 minutes is fine, 15 is better. Every single day is decidedly better when it starts with mobility work. You should probably focus on hips and shoulders, both bedeviled by modern life. But soften, lengthen, and strengthen whatever your body calls for. Do it slowly. Do it every morning. Don't even question it. Breathe like a yogi. Smile as you go. Seven mornings per week, every week.
When it comes to mobility routines, there are fascia roller evangelists who will insist you're a fool to not use a foam roller. I am one such evangelist. Buy one. Use it. Don’t be a fool.
Sick a lacrosse ball in your ass. I could make an awesome Mr. T meme for this too. Okay, not in your ass, there are other toys for that. But in your ass, like your piriformis...then your shoulders and your hammies. Foam rollers (for large muscle groups) and lacrosse balls (targeting small, tight areas) promote self-myofascial release. If this is all news to you, please read about your fascial system. It’s wild. The body keeps the score indeed. Roll it out!
Now that your mobility routine is done, go chug a liter of water. It’s not an option. One liter.
I hope I just made your mornings, thus your days, better. I want you to feel better in 2025. Don’t judge my intentions; judge my wretched grammar and my evident inability to use commas consistently.
Alright. That’s the morning. Now go make coffee, grab your phone, doomscroll, gawk at everyone’s perfect life on Insta, and suffer through work emails. I usually do. Ugh. I’m working on it, I promise.
Now. Here are some guiding principles I have about workouts.
Everyone should lift weights. All genders, all ages, everyone. This means you. If you lift, you know this to be true. You might associate weightlifting with numbskulls, now go pick up the dumbbells. Get to work. The jury is in. You must move weight.
Generally speaking, you are the weight you should move. Bodyweight exercises should be the focus. Do push ups! In fact, do push-ups really slowly until they hurt real bad and you think you can’t do any more. Then lay on your face, panting, defeated, only to realize that you can do more. Then do more. Set a goal: promise that you will do X pull-ups by March 1. Google a plan to get there, the interweb is teeming with push up plans. Pick one and go. You’ll improve rapidly. It’ll feel so good! Incremental improvements spark joy. Wanna be happier in 2025? Work your push up game. Push ups are essential and they’re easy.
Pull-ups are hard. They’re also essential. Like, I actually believe pull-ups are essential to our well-being. We are advanced apes, some of us more advanced than others. You don’t have to throw poop, but you have to hang out and pull up. Start by hanging, if you must. Hanging is important. Now get one. One becomes two pretty quickly. Get a band to assist you if you need it. But make a clear, targeted plan towards pull-ups. I’m telling ya!
I have a lot to say about actual weightlifting. It’s been a big part of my life for a long time. Admittedly, it began with my adolescent boy's drive to feel powerful (to feel less disempowered if that sound less “toxic” to you) and it was also wrapped up in my vanity project born of being a fat kid. Most adults who were once fat kids feel like there is still a fat kid in them, fighting to bulge out. That fear kept me doing bicep curls longer than advisable. In my 30’s, I pivoted from beach muscle training, to a more sustainable program of strength-training. I still read and think a lot about strength training. Becoming a Supple Leopard is a bible I keep next to my bed (incidentally written by an American raised in Germany). Check it out! I can go on ad nauseum about weightlifting and no one would or should come here to read it.
But I’ll say this: weightlifting has done as much for my mental wellness as anything else I do (and I do a lot). The sheer amount of single-minded focus and determination it takes to move weight with expert efficiency provides me a perfect, albeit momentary, escape from all the anxieties in the world. That moment matters. When I have 100 kilos on my chest, all I think about is moving it off my chest. In that moment, I am one. I am focused. I have a singular purpose. For this reason, I can’t quit weight training until or unless I find a functional equivalent.
I’ll also say this: deadlifts are king and if you can deadlift properly every single time, then you should deadlift. If you can’t, you should learn how and you should deadlift every week. However, despite arguments to the contrary, you probably shouldn’t do barbell squats because you're probably doing it at least partially wrong part of the time and the risks aren’t worth the rewards IMHO. Goblet squats and split squats are awesome. Wall sits are great. Do that.
Baby, We Were Born to Run. Springsteen knows the score. I’m bad at metaphors. I didn’t become a runner until my kid was born, giving me something to run from. I have since come to believe that whether we are running from something or for something, we’re all runners. We’re built for it. All of us. The literature supporting this claim is ubiquitous. It is also sometimes mendacious and annoying.
Here’s the straight dope on running, as I see it: we should ignore most of the hype around running—the marathoners that dreadfully drone on, the new watch that does the thing, the next trend in running footwear, all that superfluity—then we should lace up and run.
I’ll go further. I think our physical and mental well-being demands that we run. I know, I know. You don’t like it. Sorry, but I can’t run from this conclusion. I tried.
WTF. I’ll go yet further. We should sprint! Heart-pumping, chest-thumping, 180 BPM sprinting. Sprint like your life depends on it. A lion is chasing you! Yes, you! Dude, the cops! I sometimes pretend I'm being chased by Nazis. Berlin facilitates this dystopian vision for me.
If you can sprint for 20 meters, just do it. 20 becomes 50 becomes 100m. If you can sprint a 200, then bless your soul, you’re Sprintzilla and I bow to you. Walk, jog, sprint. Listen to your body and you do you. But lace ‘em up and hit it.
They say that no one likes writing, but we like having written. I’d say the same about running, sprinting in particular. I dread sprinting. But the dread I feel about sprinting is proportionate to the catharsis I feel after having sprinted. Sprinting might be about as alive as I get.
My case for sprinting is analogous to my case for bench pressing or other anaerobic exercises (I do mountain climbers and burpees religiously and for religious reasons). I am firmly of the position that we need to do exceedingly difficult things. We need to pump our hearts. Rev the engine. We need to get wide-eyed. Bright-eyed. Ruthless in our determination.
I’ve concluded that if I want to be mentally healthy, I need to exercise like a prize fighter. I don’t push, I lose. But if I push, if I grunt, if I fight through it, I might even sleep well. And if I sleep well…
Scheiße! This is embarrassing. Embarrassing not because I’m playing wellness influencer for a day, I leaned into that. Embarrassing not because this is the most TL;DR edition of The Junction ever, even though it must be. Dude. I sat down to write something substantially different and ended up with this. But I mean it and I stand by it!
Oof. Lazar! Okay. I’ll be back soon with the thing I had meant to write.
‘Til then, get on it y’all!
Love,
DL
Loved this one. I have been doing 15 minute morning stuff for ever. Always on the lookout for new tricks, so thanks for providing a few I will use. More importantly, your words will stick in my mind making the mundane feel sacred. Keep pumpin.