FITTER HUMANS Episode 2

Newsletter Fam -

So excited to welcome over 150 new subscribers that have joined us since the last edition of FITTER HUMANS! Beyond thankful to have all of you here with us on this journey and cannot wait for us all to become FITTER HUMANS together.

My story: I spent the first decade of my professional life working on the front lines of professional soccer as a Strength & Conditioning Coach for the Los Angeles Galaxy, United States Men’s National Team and most recently Los Angeles Football Club. I spent 10,000 hours testing and experimenting the best protocols to improve human performance. And I became pretty damn good at it.

After 10 years, I left. I wanted to take my career to another level. I was looking for a way to upgrade myself.

I fell into the world of genetics and now I am on a mission to lead the applied sports genetics space.

All that has led me to this newsletter with 1 simple goal: the pursuit of a FITTER you.

I want to lead people to live a fitter life than they currently are. That starts with making decisions that will positively impact your health. And to make better decisions, you need high quality information that you can trust.

So the formula is simple. Each week I’m going to bring high quality information that I trust, that develops FITTER HUMANS. 

If enhancing your physical performance or mental acuteness aren’t on your agenda, then this newsletter is not for you.

However, if envisioning yourself a year from now, declaring, “I am FITTER than I was last year,” resonates with you, then grab a seat and become a part of the FH tribe.

Thanks again for opening this email. A quick reminder which helps this newsletter so so much:

• Please reply to this message! I love hearing from all of you, but even if you send a simple 'yes.' it tells google (and other email providers) you actually want to get this.

• If this email landed in your promotions folder, move it to primary to make sure you actually see the next edition!

Thank you for joining the process and I can’t wait for us all to become FITTER HUMANS 👊

FITTER Genes 🧬: Caffeine & CYP1A2

One of the most popular genetic insights people ask me about is caffeine. Caffeine is a stimulant to the nervous system and can improve cognitive performance and alertness. Most people know the negative effects of too much caffeine from symptoms like anxiety, restlessness or insomnia if consumed in high quantities.

The genes that are associated with caffeine metabolism are COMT, CYP1A2, NAT2. The CYP1A2 gene accounts for approximately 95% of caffeine metabolism. This gene determines if you are a slow or fast metabolizer of caffeine (check out this research).

So why is this important and how can we use this information practically?

Let’s think about using caffeine as a performance enhancing supplement. Take a soccer player who plays a 90 minute match and they want to use caffeine for all its cognitive enhancements. Imagine this athlete is a slow metabolizer of caffeine, but oh no, they do not know their genetics! They end up consuming their caffeine minutes before the match.

Unfortunately, they could miss out on all the benefits caffeine has to offer for the entire game. But wait, there is more! Their caffeine hits them right as the match ends and now they have a caffeine stimulant in a phase where they want to do the exact opposite and relax. This disrupts sleep which effects recovery and puts the athlete at further harm for the following days. Not ideal.

Now, if you know your genetics, you can not only make wise decisions with your supplement timing, but you can also plan proactively for the entire week, month or season. Remember, high performance is about precision and the best accuracy comes from making high quality decisions with high quality data.

Shouldn’t your data start with you, your personal genetic code?

Now, I want you to try to understand that every decision you make is interacting with how your genetic code responds to those decisions, for better or worse. As soon as I understood this, I stopped guessing with my athletes and got the full picture, started with the right data to make the most optimal health and performance decisions.

FITTER Gyms

FITTER Ideas

Here’s some awesome content I was motivated by this week:

Been putting out tons of content on my Instagram, but here are a few of my favorites:

danielpguzman

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danielpguzman

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FITTER Newsletters

Special shoutout this week to another FITTER newsletter that I have been following for quite some time and that is Robert Hester who runs the Threshold Performance Club.

I am a huge fan of the TPC newsletter and I know that all of you FITTER HUMANS will be as well because:

• I look forward to waking up to this high-performance newsletter every Sunday morning. Can’t tell you the last time I didn’t have an email from Robert on Sunday at 9am

• He constantly dives deep into training concepts that directly tie into performance 💪

• I found his last issue incredibly insightful brain power and neuroplasticity which was a fascinating read.

POLL: Always striving to make this the best possible newsletter so looking for your feedback:

P.s. please reply to this email with any/all feedback. I love hearing from you all!

Another rainy day on the West Coast but that means we’re due for some clean clear air later this week. Still finding ways to be creative and get a workout done inside.

Hope to see all of you FITTER HUMANS next week ❤️

-Daniel Guzman