Housekeeping
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Thanks to our partners, who make the best products in their categories.
Momentous Nutrition: The company that made me feel good about supplements again. My picks: Essential Plant Protein + Multivitamin. Discount code EASTER.
GORUCK: Maker of the best rucking gear (not stuff). In honor of this month’s Burn the Ships, GORUCK is offering a bigger discount on their sandbags (the best out). EASTERSB gets you 15% off.
Maui Nui Venison: Provider of the world’s healthiest meat (the research, linked here, is insane). My picks: 90/10 Organ Blend + Sugar Free Venison Pepper Jerky Sticks. Discount code EASTER.
Audio/Podcast version
The post
It’s the first Friday of the month. Which means it’s time to Burn the Ships.
Fall is my favorite season. It’s when I head into the mountains to hunt, hike, and run trails.
And you should, too. Go outside. Get off the asphalt and onto the Earth. As Edward Abbey put it:
May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view.
To help us perform our best on crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous trails, we partnered with MTNTOUGH for this month’s Burn the Ships workout.
MTNTOUGH is a fitness lab in Bozeman, Montana, specializing in fitness for backcountry hunters, mountain search and rescue teams, and all other mountain athletes.
P.S. Readers of Two Percent can get 40% off a year of MTNTOUGH with code MICHAEL40 (I get no kickback, it all goes to you).
To develop this workout, I gave Sarah Maschino, MTNTOUGH’s Head Trainer, a few parameters and let her rip. And the result is epic.
The workout makes you better outdoors. But it also burns a lot of calories and makes you a more well-rounded human who’ll live longer and better. Read why I think outdoor exercise is a great unlock for human health and wellbeing here.
If you’re a regular participant in Burn the Ships and know why we do this workout, scroll down to “This Month’s Workout” to get the details.
If you’re new (or want a refresher), start here so you understand the origins of Burn the Ships and the case for doing one tough workout a week.
The case for one tough weekly workout
I started doing one tough workout every Friday after my time reporting inside Gym Jones roughly 12 years ago. I’ve maintained the practice.
There’s magic in pushing it once a week.
First, there are the brain benefits. The practice makes me less insane.
Scientists at King’s College in London analyzed 53 studies on how intense exercise impacts mental health.
They found that it led to “improvements in mental wellbeing, depression severity, and perceived stress compared to non-active controls, and small improvements in mental wellbeing compared to active controls.”
In other words, intense exercise has a mental edge compared not only to not exercising (duh), but also to regular-paced exercise.
Intense exercise also—obviously!—comes with physical upsides.
It has a slight edge over less intense exercise for increasing VO2 max, which is associated with all sorts of good physical outcomes. A rule of thumb: the higher your VO2 max, the farther you are from death and disease.
TL;DR: All exercise helps. But it makes sense to go hard sometimes.
What’s “sometimes?”
The smartest trainers I regularly speak with suggest that one tough workout a week is the sweet spot for health and performance (more info on that here).
More than that, and we tend to get burned out and beat down. Less than that, and we miss out on some health and performance upsides.
Enter Burn the Ships.
Burn the Ships: How it works
On the first Friday of every month, we publish a new workout for Members only.
Members of the Two Percent community do the workout every weekend—a bunch of us satellites, all sweating and improving together as one extensive network.
Burn the Ships workouts are safe and effective. They improve your strength, cardio, movement quality, and—in turn—your life.
We’ve provided scaled versions and exercise swaps, so anyone and everyone can do them.
In other words, we’re pushing edges and improving safely. It’s easy to be hard but hard to be smart.
This month's workout: Salty Summit
Why the name?
The workout builds the strength and endurance you need to reach summits and cover ground faster outdoors.
It builds legs like pistons and a solid core.
It also improves your endurance—especially when you’re carrying weight like a backpack (or child!).
That is to say, it’ll help you reach summits—and also improve your overall wellness and longevity, helping you reach SUPERMEDIUM status.
It’s also salty, i.e., tough and not necessarily kind. It’s got some attitude. It’ll toss some salt right into your eyes.
Where to do this workout
Anywhere. Ideally outside.
Equipment needed
A sandbag or sand medicine ball.
Don’t have one? We have swaps below. Or you can just buy one—GORUCK has offered an extra discount on sandbags all month in honor of this Burn the Ships.
Use code EASTERSB.
Time commitment
~1 hour
What I’m listening to while doing this workout
I once went on a hunting trip where, whenever we were in the truck, we listened to the Turnpike Troubadours.
Now I find myself listening to them every fall when I’m prepping for hunts.
How to do it
Here’s the standard version of Salty Summit.
Note: The video above walks you through the workout and shows you how to do the exercises.
We’ve also included swaps if you face fitness or gear constraints. See “Questions and substitutes” below. Remember: Anyone can Burn the Ships.
The warmup
The Two Percent Warmup is perfect for this.
The workout
Start a timer and do the following.
