VOL. 5 · JUNE 6, 2026

First Saturday of June. Summer's here. As always — coffee first.

THE RESEARCH — Grip Strength Predicts Death. But Not the Way You Think.

In 2015, the PURE study (Leong et al., The Lancet) measured grip strength in nearly 140,000 adults across 17 countries and tracked them for years. Every 5 kg drop in grip strength came with a 16% higher risk of death from any cause — a stronger signal than systolic blood pressure.

Here's where almost everyone reads it wrong. Grip strength itself isn't keeping anyone alive. It's a tell. Men who are genuinely strong — men who lift — happen to have strong hands as a byproduct, and they also carry the muscle mass, the metabolic health, and the training habits that actually move the needle. The grip is the smoke. The lifting and lifestyle are the fire.

You can prove the truth of this yourself. Picture the airplane mechanic or the career carpenter with a vise for a handshake — and high cholesterol, high blood pressure, a Marlboro Red in his mouth, and a beer belly. His hands are strong because his job is hard, not because he trains. The crusher grip didn't save him, because grip was never the thing.

The takeaway: Don't go train your grip to live longer — that's chasing the symptom. Go lift. Put weight on a barbell or grab some dumbbells twice a week (at least) and let the strong hands come along for the ride. Lifting is the intervention. Grip just happens to be the easiest part of it to measure.

Leong et al., 2015 (The Lancet, 386(9990), 266–273)

WORTH REMEMBERING

We swear we don't have enough time. Then we scroll for an hour before bed, leave the TV running through three episodes we won't remember, sleep in past the alarm, and let the day get nibbled to death by a hundred small distractions. The time was always there. It's just being stolen in increments small enough that we never notice the theft.

This week, hunt the thieves. The app, the channel, the habit, the half-hour that gives nothing back. Name them honestly — then delete them. Not "use less." Delete. You'll be stunned how much life was hiding inside the time you swore you didn't have. I am the poster boy for this. Every time I have been truly successful — in business or in life — it has been when I cut out the unnecessary distractions.

If you need some help — especially with apps or social media — I cannot recommend The Brick enough.

TRY THIS WEEK — An Honest Look at Your Hard Minutes

Time to take some inventory. Over the last seven days, how many minutes did you actually spend with your heart rate up in zones 4 through 5 (about 80-100% of max heart rate)? The range where you're breathing hard, where talking gets difficult, where it becomes truly uncomfortable.

Not the walk with the dog. Not the easy spin to the coffee shop. Real work: the hard run, the rower until your lungs burn, the hill repeats, the HIIT and Hills Peloton ride, the Norwegian 4x4s on the Air Bike (death), the circuit that puts you on your hands and knees, or even all that landscaping your wife has been bugging you about. Any activity that breaks the 80%-of-max-heart-rate barrier counts.

For most men the honest number is close to zero. We've been sold "just get your steps in" and "zone 2 alone is everything." Easy work has its place and can build your capacity — but, alone, it can't build the optimal engine. The heart only adapts when it's asked for more. If nothing this week pushed you closer to the red a couple of times, that's your answer, and it is time to start adjusting your programming to get some more Hard conditioning in.

Not every man should jump into zone 4/5 work. If you have been doing jack squat for years, start with simple walking and 30-60 minutes of zone 2 (60-70% max heart rate) training. If you are man who has been doing plenty of Easy cardio... time to put your big boy pants on buttercup.

FROM THE BOOKSHELF — The Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

This should be required reading for most men. Solzhenitsyn survived eight years in Stalin's labor camps and then spent the rest of his life smuggling out the truth of them — a vast, harrowing account of the machinery built to grind millions of human beings into nothing. It is not the most comfortable read you will ever have, but it sure is an honest one.

What you take from it isn't despair, though — it's the opposite. Out of eight years in hell, Solzhenitsyn carried back one line worth keeping where you can see it: "The line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being." Not between nations, not between classes — through the individual's heart.

This is one of my many books that reset my sense of what a "hard" week actually is, and reminded me that the most important battle we'll ever fight is the one happening inside of us.

CLOSING THOUGHT

A lesson from my writing desk.

For years I sat on work because it wasn't perfect yet. There are a multitude of unfinished ideas on my computer. The chapter wasn't clean enough, the argument wasn't airtight, the timing wasn't right, that idea couldn't possibly work. So it sat. And sat. I learned the hard way that perfect isn't the opposite of bad — it's the enemy of done. The finished thing that's merely good beats the masterpiece still trapped in your head, every single time.

It's the same with training. You don't need the perfect program, the perfect gym, the ideal macros, or the right shoes. You need to pick up the barbell or dumbbells, hop on the Air Bike, and drive your heart toward the red a couple of times this week. Imperfectly. Badly, even. The strong, fit, alive version of you isn't built by the flawless plan you're still designing. He's built by the good-enough one you actually start.

Start ugly lads. And start this week.

See you next Saturday.

If this meant something to you — or you know a man who'd benefit from it — please share this link with them: The Saturday Standard​