Welcome to your modern fitness daily news report! Every weekday, we break down the trending fitness news, tips, and insider scoops to keep you informed. Each read will be under 3 minutes so that you can stay shredded and thumb through no-nonsense fit-quips. Thanks for reading!
TODAY’S LEVEL UP:
Pro Tip: Loaded Carries: The Simplest Exercise That Builds Real-World Strength
Supplement Spotlight: Beetroot — A Natural Way to Support Your Workout
Did You Know?: How far you can carry your own bodyweight tracks with how well you age
Myth or Real: "Carries are just a finisher — they don't really build anything."
Fit Trivia: Which bodybuilder played the green-skinned alter ego on TV's The Incredible Hulk?
Loaded Carries — The Simplest Exercise That Builds Real-World Strength
Pick up something heavy. Walk with it. Put it down. That's the entire exercise — and it may be the most underrated movement available to a man over 40.
Carries are what strength actually looks like outside a gym. Groceries, luggage, a bag of mulch, a toddler on one hip. And unlike most lifts, they train your grip, core, shoulders, hips, and posture simultaneously, under load, while you're upright and moving — which is exactly how you use your body in real life. There's no eccentric pounding, no deep joint angle to grind through, and almost no technique to get wrong. For achy shoulders and knees, that's a rare combination.
Three versions worth knowing:
Farmer's carry: A heavy dumbbell or kettlebell in each hand, arms at your sides. Walk tall. 3–4 rounds of 30–40 yards or 30–45 seconds. Start with something you can hold for a full round without your grip failing at 10 seconds.
Suitcase carry: Weight in one hand only. Your core has to fight sideways bending the whole way. This is the one that exposes weaknesses. Use about half the farmer's weight, and match the distance on both sides.
Front-rack or goblet carry: A kettlebell held at chest height. Brutal on the upper back and bracing — great if you sit all day.
How to use them: two or three rounds at the end of a lifting session, twice a week. That's it. They cost almost no recovery, so they're easy to add without wrecking the rest of your program.
The cues that matter: ribs down, shoulders back and packed, and take short, deliberate steps rather than long strides. If you start leaning, listing, or shrugging up toward your ears, the weight is too heavy — drop it and finish the round clean. Posture is the whole point.
No other movement gives you this much for this little complexity. Pick it up, walk, repeat.
Supplement Spotlight: Beetroot — A Natural Way to Support Your Workout
Looking for a way to get more out of your training without reaching for another stimulant? Beetroot might be worth a look. It's naturally high in nitrates, which your body can convert into nitric oxide. That can help widen blood vessels and improve blood flow, making beetroot an interesting option for men who want to keep their workouts strong as they get older.
Here's what it does: The nitrates in beetroot can increase nitric oxide production, which helps improve blood flow and the delivery of oxygen to working muscles. Research suggests beetroot juice may improve exercise endurance and performance, particularly in recreationally active people doing activities like running, cycling, swimming, or rowing. The research is less detailed when it comes to traditional weight training, so think of it as a performance tool rather than a muscle-building supplement.
How to take it: A common approach used in research is around 2 cups of beetroot juice, approximately 2 to 3 hours before exercise. Beetroot concentrates and powders are also available, but the amount of nitrate can vary considerably between products, so check the label rather than assuming every product provides the same amount.
We recommend giving beetroot a try before longer or more demanding training sessions if you're looking for a natural way to support endurance and blood flow. It's not going to replace hard work, but when you're already putting in the effort, getting a little more out of your training can go a long way.
FROM RYAN’S DESK
The plan won't always go perfectly. Life changes, obstacles appear, and setbacks happen. Don't let an imperfect situation become an excuse to stop. Adjust the plan without abandoning the mission. Rigidity creates frustration; adaptability keeps you moving. Be the guy who finds another way. That's where resilience is built.
Did You Know?: How Far You Can Carry Your Own Bodyweight Tracks With How Well You Age
Grip strength — the thing that carries train hardest — turns out to be one of the more reliable predictors of healthy aging that researchers have found. In large population studies, grip strength tracks with cardiovascular health, mobility, and all-cause mortality risk, often more strongly than blood pressure does.
The likely explanation isn't that your hands are magic. Grip is a convenient stand-in for total-body muscle mass and neuromuscular function — it's just easy to measure with a dynamometer. But the practical takeaway holds either way: men who keep their hands, forearms, and shoulders strong tend to keep everything else too. Carrying heavy things regularly is one of the simplest ways to defend that.
Myth or Real: "Carries are just a finisher — they don't really build anything."
Myth. Carries are commonly used as a finisher, which is why they get treated as filler — but the training stimulus is real. Loading your body and walking under it builds grip and forearm strength directly, trains the deep core muscles that stabilize your spine, hammers the upper back and traps isometrically, and demands hip stability with every step.
There's a conditioning effect too: a few heavy rounds will spike your heart rate more than most men expect, without any of the joint impact of running. Where carries genuinely fall short is as a primary hypertrophy driver for big muscle groups — they won't replace your squats, presses, and rows. Treat them as a strength and resilience tool that happens to be easy to program, not as filler you tack on when the clock runs out.
Our Picks: Supps We Actually Use
Some of our coach’s favorite supplements:
Creatine (Travel Packs) - $36
Add this to your water in the morning or in your post-workout shake. Creatine is one of the few supplements that has a mountain of data proving its benefits. Don’t miss out on it!
A great way to hit your protein goals. Don’t rely on a protein powder alone, but add it as a post-workout shake or midday shake to increase your protein intake and hit your protein goals. Remember, high protein equals higher muscle and higher satiety.
Replenishes essential electrolytes. Use this if you sweat a lot, do intermittent fasting, or go on long-distance walks, hikes, or runs.
We are a proud partner of Thorne Supplements! We are affiliated and use these products. We may receive commission from your purchase.
Fit Trivia: Which bodybuilder — the first man to win the IFBB Mr. Universe title at age 21 and a co-star of the 1977 documentary Pumping Iron — played the green-skinned alter ego opposite Bill Bixby on TV's The Incredible Hulk from 1977 to 1982?
Answer: Lou Ferrigno! He performed the role with almost no dialogue, relying entirely on physical presence — and remains one of the sport's great examples of what serious, decades-long training discipline looks like.
Ryan Engel, Intl. Fat Loss Coach
Ryan is a leading fitness coach and one of the most known professionals in the space.
He specializes in Body Recomposition and visual body aesthetics and has reached millions worldwide with his powerful messaging. He brings a unique, non-nonsense, yet sophisticated approach to body change.
Publisher: Ryan Engel
Editor: Michael Pender
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