The altitude broke my routine (good)

Hey {{first name | reader}},

It’s Tuesday. Your weekly fitness check-in. Week 12.

I’m back from Colorado—another music camp tucked into the mountains.¹ Long days of playing, listening, and being reminded how humbling it is to try to play fast fiddle tunes on a mandolin.

The altitude wrecked my gym routine.

So instead of long sessions, I did what I could—20-minute workouts, walks, pushups in the cabin, some squats, some stretching. Lower intensity. Lower volume.

Which, inconveniently for my ego, might actually be better.

There’s a growing body of research suggesting that short bursts of exercise—“exercise snacks”—deliver meaningful health benefits.²

Not a compromise. A different tool.

Getting to Allenspark is not simple.³

SFO → Denver (plane, 3 hours)
Denver → Boulder (bus, 1 hour)
Boulder → mountains (car, 45 minutes)

And somewhere between 5,280 feet and 8,200 feet, my body tapped out.

Headache. Nausea. No appetite. No interest in lifting anything heavier than a coffee cup.

So I had a choice: force workouts, or focus on music—the reason I was there.

I chose music.

And in doing less, something interesting happened.

For the past eight weeks, I’ve been consistent: 5:30 AM gym sessions, four days a week.

Some days felt great. Some didn’t.

Progress stalled. Everything felt… heavy. Not just the weights.

I started wondering if I’d hit a ceiling.

Colorado interrupted that.

Less volume. Less intensity. More movement, less training.

And when I got back to the gym?

Everything felt better.

So I pulled back to ~90% of my previous working weights.

And suddenly—room to grow again.

Training harder isn’t always the answer.

Sometimes the move is:

Do slightly less → recover → come back stronger

Not sexy. Not marketable. Very effective.

I change my workouts every 6–8 weeks.

Not because of “muscle confusion.” That’s mostly nonsense.

I change them because:

This is not science fiction.

This is problem-solving.

I track every lift.

Not because I love spreadsheets.⁴ Because progress requires evidence.

You’re getting stronger if you’re doing more than before:

That’s it.

You don’t need novelty. You need progression.

Switch exercises every week and you reset the clock every week.

Feels like progress. Isn’t.

Variety has a role. Just not the one Instagram thinks.

Still not muscle confusion.

Still just smart training.

Then repeat.

The only twist: I program for myself and my sister.

I can tolerate repetition. She can’t.

So we change every six weeks.

Not optimal.

Effective.

Week 1: Back squats
Week 2: Front squats
Week 3: Bulgarian split squats
Week 4: Goblet squats

Are you stronger?

No idea.

You’ve just done four different things.

“How do I know when to change my program?”

You already know.

Change it if:

Otherwise:

Don’t touch it.

Myth: You need constant variety to make progress
Reality: You need progressive overload

The industry sells novelty.

Because novelty sells.

Progress is quieter.

Pick a few lifts.
Do them for weeks.
Add weight or reps.

Then—and only then—change something.

The Boring Consistency List

Things I do every day:

Things my sister does:

Same results. Different systems.

There is no perfect routine.

Only one that survives your life.

3 Minutes Counts — JAMA Oncology (“Vigorous Intermittent Lifestyle Physical Activity and Cancer Incidence Among Nonexercising Adults”)

A study of ~22,000 people who don’t exercise found something both encouraging and slightly annoying:

Just 3–4 minutes a day of hard effort—stairs, hills, brief sprints—was associated with a meaningful reduction in cancer risk.

At around 4.5 minutes per day:

Not workouts. Not gym sessions.

Minutes.

Scattered throughout the day.

The researchers call this “vigorous intermittent lifestyle physical activity.”

You could call it:
moving quickly, on purpose, when life gives you the chance.

Track Your Progress

Write it down:

I built you a spread sheet to make it easy to keep track.

Next week: do slightly more.

That’s the whole game.

Stay strong, {{first name | reader}}

P.S. New programs feel like a reset button. If you’re starting one, I want to hear about it. Sometimes the fastest way forward is to back off.