Good morning (I hope), everyone! 

I’m writing and scheduling this on Monday night. I have no idea what we’ll wake up to Wednesday morning. But I didn’t think I’d be prepared to edit and publish after my ~16 hour shift as an Election Officer on Tuesday (🫡).

For those reasons, I also ask you to please excuse any typos (though I don’t think we’ve broken the typo-less streak yet, almost two years in!)

So however today finds you, just remember that you can always Move (exercise) to Improve (your mental and physical health)!

(I think I love parentheses too much!!)

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Crafting your “Winter Arc”

You may or may not have seen the TikTok bros posting about their “winter arc” in the past month or so. They’re gonna put their hoodies on, heads down, and emerge from a cocoon in the spring as a millionaire with a six-pack!

That may or may not be possible (or even likely), but I love the energy behind it.

So many people reach this time of year and say to themselves, “Ah, it’s time to chill. I’m just gonna take it easy for the holiday season and start taking care of myself again in January.” I actually wrote a bit about this back in September!

You can take it easy for the next few months. You can be sad that it’s dark when you get off work every day. Or you can buckle down and emerge from winter a majorly better, healthier person.

All it takes

Now that Daylight Saving (yes, there’s no “s” at the end) Time has ended, we’ve entered the four darkest months of the year. I know that you might just want to chill, celebrate the holidays, and cozy up every night. But let me tell you this much:

If you invest just 3-6 hours per week over the next four months into focused exercise and self-improvement, you can be an absolute beast by spring. That’s all it would take.

Much of this comes down to the habits and structures you set in place. Choose your own adventure and create your own winter arc. Here are some examples:

• Get 8 hours of sleep daily, but wake up early to workout, read, write, etc.

• Make 90% of your meals at home

• Lift heavy weights 3-5x per week

• Get 75—150 minutes of moderate-to-vigorous cardio in every week

• Read a book a month

• Spend an hour or two a week learning something new

If you’d like some insight into what I plan on doing, and perhaps a little inspiration, here’s the rough plan for my own winter arc this year:

• Run a half marathon on Nov. 16. Focus on strength work through then.

• Mid-Nov to mid-Feb:

  • Cardio: Work primarily on rowing. Get my 2k time down. Sprint once or twice per week and work on short-to-mid distance running.

  • Muscle: Bulking season! Focus on hypertrophy (high volume, high intensity, high frequency). Don’t worry about a little fat gain alongside it.

• Mid-Feb through May:

  • Cardio: Get competitive with my rowing. Train for PRs in my 400m, 1 mile, and 10k run times.

  • Muscle: Shift back from hypertrophy training to strength and power. Cut body fat until summer while maintaining muscle.

There are endless opportunities, and the cool part is that you get to choose your own arc. Be sure to pick something you can do consistently for the next four-ish months.

It’s also helpful that there’s a confined timeframe. Whether it’s March 1st, the first day of spring, a race date, or another marker, pick the end date that you’ll emerge from your winter arc a transformed person. Then work backwards for the steps, systems, and habits you’ll need in place to get there.

For example, many exercisers like to “bulk” through the winter months. It’s a time when we’re already likely to be eating more (around the holidays) and moving outside less (the whole dark at 5pm thing), so the timing works out pretty well to be in a caloric surplus, push the weights, and put on some muscle mass and strength. Four months or so is also a great time frame for a “hypertrophy block” of training. You can make or pick a program and stick to it for 16 weeks to create some real impressive results.

Get ittt

So what are you going to do? Coast on autopilot, drop the exercise routine, and put on several pounds of unwanted fat through winter, reaching March and wishing you’d been more intentional? Or are you ready to buckle down, put those headphones in, and get to work?

You have so much potential. Don’t leave it untapped. You can be a new person by the time we turn our clocks forward again in the spring. 🕐️ 

✅ Take Action

Every newsletter's Take Action section will invite you to take small steps to improve your health. Recognizing that we all have different capabilities, I'll offer three different levels of action you can choose to take.

Level 1: Make a plan to just stick to one habit or behavior change until spring.

Level 2: Pick an end goal, or a version of yourself you want to be. Work backwards and put systems in place to achieve it!

Level 3: Draft a holistic plan, not just for your health and fitness, but in your mental, emotional, financial, and social life too. You can make so much progress through the winter and still have plenty of time to enjoy the holidays!

This newsletter is brought to you by… me!

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✍️ Drew's Picks:

• 💩 well: Just one rec this time. Eat your fiber!

Sending you all peace and serenity! Catch ya next week. Hopefully you get a three-day weekend to enjoy. 🍂🇺🇸 

Keep moving,

Drew

The content in Move to Improve is meant to be informative in nature, but it should not be taken as medical advice. It is always a good idea to consult with a trusted health professional before making any major lifestyle changes that could have a significant impact on your health. This is not a medical resource, and any opinions and articles are not intended for use as diagnosis, prevention, and/or treatment of health problems. They are not substitutes for consulting a qualified medical professional. Please think critically and take what I say with a grain of salt (aka don’t sue me).