Ben Greenfield’s Weekly Roundup: October 23

Welcome to Ben Greenfield’s Weekly Roundup!

In this weekly post, I share with you my most interesting discoveries of the week, including the latest news on the fronts of fitness, nutrition, health, wellness, biohacking, and anti-aging research. I also recap my upcoming events and special announcements so you can keep up with opportunities to learn, giveaways, discounts, and more!

New Discoveries

New Research Says Training in the Heat Helps You Build *MORE Muscle* 🔥

Most people want their workouts to be cool and comfortable. But what if turning up the heat could help you build more muscle, perform better, and recover faster?

A new review in the Strength & Conditioning Journal pushes back on the old idea that lifting in the heat works against you.

For years, researchers assumed heat just piled on stress. Workouts got harder, and muscle growth might suffer. But newer research from cell, animal, and human studies points the other way, suggesting that heating your muscles strategically might actually boost some of the processes behind muscle growth and performance.

Here’s how it breaks down:

• Before and during training: Warm muscles may fire better, which can boost strength and performance while switching on pathways tied to muscle growth.
• After training: Heat can support recovery and hypertrophy by increasing blood flow, delivering more nutrients, and kicking anabolic signaling into gear.
• Over time: Pairing heat with lifting could amplify some training adaptations, though researchers are still working out the best temperatures, timing, and protocols.

That doesn’t mean you should crank the thermostat and grind through a brutal session in extreme heat, since too much heat strains your heart, dehydrates you, and wears you out faster, meaning your training quality takes a hit.

Aim for smart heat exposure, not cooking yourself.

Personally, I’ve kept my gym hot during the summer for years, and when I have time, I’ll hit the sauna after a workout (more about the benefits and how I like to use heat exposure here, here, and here). This research gives me one more reason to keep experimenting with how heat and lifting work together.

5 Supplements With *Research* Behind Them for Muscle Gain and Fat Loss 💪

Which supplements actually work for building muscle, burning fat, and improving performance?

According to a review in Strength & Conditioning Journal, these are the TOP five that have research supporting their benefits:

• Creatine (3–5 g/day): Boosts muscle creatine stores to fuel high-intensity exercise, improve strength, and support muscle growth.
• Caffeine (3–6 mg/kg, 30–60 minutes before training): Enhances focus, energy, and workout performance while potentially supporting fat burning and appetite control.
• Protein powder (20–40 g per serving, spread across 3–5 meals): Helps stimulate muscle protein synthesis, improve recovery, and preserve lean muscle.
• Essential amino acids (15–18 g): Provide the building blocks needed to stimulate muscle protein synthesis and support muscle growth.
• Beta-alanine (3.2–6.4 g/day): Increases muscle carnosine to help delay fatigue during intense exercise.

Instead of stocking a cabinet full of supplements, focus on the ones supported by evidence. These five are a good place to start.

Interested in learning more about which supplements are worth your money and how to use them for maximum results? Check out my related articles, podcasts, and resources below:

• Ben Greenfield’s Ultimate Supplement Guide: My Top 13 Must-Take Supplements, Supplement Timing, Dosing & More!
• The Most Proven Supplements For Performance & Recovery, Cold Water Immersion vs. Cryotherapy, The New Science of Athletic Performance & Much More!
• How to Biohack Your Muscle Recovery: Increase Your Circulating Stem Cells to Crush Soreness, Recover From Injuries, and Build Muscle Faster—WITHOUT Expensive Injections.
• Ben Greenfield’s Ultimate Peptide “Power Plays” — Transformational Stacks for Rapid Recovery, Supercharged Fat Burning, Explosive Muscle Gains & More.
• How to Target & Clear Out “Zombie Cells” From Your Body to Boost Your Energy, Immunity & Longevity.
• The *Actual* Data Behind the “Miracle Mineral” That Claims to Slow Aging, Fuel Your Cells, and Protect Your DNA.

The Book I Wrote for My Sons—20 Years of Hard-won Wisdom, And Now I’m Sharing It With You 📖 

Everyone has wisdom worth sharing. The problem is, it usually dies with them.

I’ve spent decades collecting lessons about productivity, faith, purpose, physical health, and how to actually live well. Most of it was scattered across journals, sticky notes, and the margins of books.

Then I thought: if I never came back, what would be left unsaid?

I wrote Precepts for my twin sons. A hundred lessons. Ten minutes a day. Designed to deliver you focus, purpose, and motivation in life. 

Each daily lesson includes:

• A short personal essay grounded in real moments that inspired my writing
• Scripture passages, inspirational quotes, and outside citations for deeper reflection
• Closing, probing, vulnerable questions with ample space to journal your own answer
• QR code for each day that links to a companion video reflection from me

You don’t have to repeat the mistakes others have already made. That’s the whole point.

Whether you read it on your own, with your spouse, or as a family, Precepts gives you 100 days of short daily lessons, about 10 minutes each, for building wisdom and leaving a legacy. Each day pairs a lesson on faith, health, purpose, and intentional living, along with a video reflection from me and space to record your own insights.

These are the same lessons I wanted to leave for my sons, and now I’m excited to share them with you.

Precepts releases on November 5. You can pre-order your Kindle copy on Amazon now.

One Coach and a Plan Built Around Your Life: Work With a TRIUMPH Coach One-on-One 💪

You can know a lot about health and still feel stuck. Podcasts, apps, and protocols often contradict each other, and it gets harder to stay consistent when life gets busy.

TRIUMPH Coaching is built on my Boundless method and delivered by my coaching team. 

You work with one coach who knows you from your first call through the duration of your program, starting with a focus on foundations like sleep, strength, and real food, then adding smarter tools once the basics are in place.

Each month, you get two 1:1 video calls with your coach to review your progress, work through obstacles, and adjust your plan. 

Between calls, you get weekly training, nutrition, and lifestyle programming, weekday messaging with your coach, and a quarterly deep health check to make sure you’re on track.

To start, fill out a short assessment (about 10 minutes), then talk with the coach who would work with you. They’ll tell you honestly whether TRIUMPH is a good fit.

If you want a coach who knows what matters to you and a plan built around the life you have, apply for TRIUMPH Coaching here.

It’s Official: Boundless Is HERE & Ready to Stream 🔥 🎬

After years in the making, Boundless: The Man Who Became Human is officially available to stream on Apple TV and Amazon.

For two decades, I measured nearly everything I could about my body and performance. I built my life around optimization, longevity, better biomarkers, and pushing the limits of what a human being could do.

And a lot of it worked.

But Boundless is about what none of those numbers could measure, and what that relentless pursuit nearly cost me.

The film follows my journey from extreme self-optimization and physical mastery to a much deeper reckoning with my family, relationships, faith, purpose, and what a life well-lived actually looks like. 

Losing my father and nearly losing my family forced me to confront a question no protocol, wearable, blood test, or biohack could answer: What are you optimizing for in the first place?

So if you know me for biohacking, fitness, or longevity, you may be surprised by this film. It’s ultimately less about mastering your body and more about everything that mastery can’t reach.

Watch Boundless: The Man Who Became Human now on Apple TV or Amazon.

This Week in Health & Performance: What the Latest Research Says

☀️🫀 Can Sunshine Help Lower Your Blood Pressure? Nitric Oxide May Be the Secret: A recent review found that ultraviolet (UV) light can release nitric oxide stored in your skin, helping blood vessels relax and potentially lowering blood pressure. Of course, UV exposure also carries skin damage and cancer risks, so aim for sensible exposure, never burning. Indoor light technologies from companies like Solius and EMRTek are also worth exploring, although their effects depend on the wavelengths they deliver (full study here).

👁️🌅 Could Sunlight Improve Your Vision Without Even Entering Your Eyes? Here’s something pretty wild: New research suggests that longer wavelengths of sunlight, especially red and near-infrared light, can actually pass through your body and potentially benefit your vision. These wavelengths may help your cells produce energy more efficiently, including cells involved in eye health. So, some of sunlight’s benefits for your eyes might come from exposing your BODY to light, not just your eyes. Pretty fascinating stuff, although there’s still more to learn about exactly how this works (read the study here).

🔴💪 Back Pain? Just 20 Minutes of Red Light Therapy May Help: If you’re dealing with persistent back pain, just 20 minutes of red light therapy may help ease your backaches. Photobiomodulation uses red or near-infrared light to influence cellular activity, inflammation, and tissue recovery. And yes, you can even buy wearable red light therapy “belts” designed specifically for your back, although results will depend on the device and how you use it (full study here).

🧠🌿 Migraines? These Supplements May Help Prevent Them: If migraines are regularly knocking you out of commission, a new meta-analysis offers some options that may help. Researchers found that probiotics, CoQ10, certain vitamins, and vitamin D combined with probiotics helped reduce how often migraines occurred. Probiotics came out looking especially promising, while magnesium was the only supplement shown to significantly reduce migraine severity (full study here).

Key Takeaway: Light exposure can influence more than your sleep-wake cycle, from nitric oxide production and blood pressure to vision and pain management. Meanwhile, supplements like probiotics, CoQ10, and magnesium may offer relief for people with migraines. As always, the details matter, including the type of light, treatment protocol, and supplement formulation.

Want to dive deeper? Click the links above to explore the research, and click here to follow me on X for all the latest health and performance news hot off the press!

Product Of The Week

::: Lab-Tested Mānuka Honey You Can Scan and Verify (Save Up to 31% + $75 in Free Gifts) 🍯 :::

I’m selective about what goes in my body, so very few sweeteners have a place in my kitchen. 

Mānuka honey from Manukora is one of the rare exceptions.

Most honey is valued for its sweetness and flavor, but Mānuka honey is unique because of its nutritional content. It comes from the mānuka tree, which flowers for just a few weeks a year in remote New Zealand, and that nectar gives the honey a naturally occurring compound called MGO (methylglyoxal), which most other honeys carry only in trace amounts.

MGO can be measured, so with mānuka it pays to check the label. That’s why I trust Manukora, since every batch is third-party tested, and you can scan the QR code on the jar to see where it came from and the lab results. An 850+ jar means at least 850 mg of MGO per kg, making it the #1 high-grade Mānuka available in the U.S.

It has a thick, creamy texture and a caramel-rich flavor, with an earthy finish that’s all its own. You can stir it into tea or yogurt, or take it straight off the spoon once you’re hooked.

The easiest way to start is with the Superhoney Starter Kit, which includes:

• A jar of MGO 850+ Mānuka honey
• Travel sticks for your bag, desk, or gym kit
• A dose spoon
• A guidebook
• An optional 1:1 call with a nutritionist

The kit is a subscription starting from $64, delivered on a schedule so you don’t run out, and you can cancel anytime.

Head to Manukora’s site here for up to 31% off, plus $75 in free gifts.

Podcasts I Recorded This Week:

Why Fitness, Anti-Aging, Money & Sex Won’t Make You Happy (& The Routine That Builds True Fulfillment), with Vince Del Monte

The Ultimate Biohacker’s Guide To Pre & Post-Surgical Prep: Technologies, Peptides, Stem Cells, Nutrition, What NOT To Do & Much More, With Dr. Reza Jazayeri