Recommended resources
Below is a collection of some of the best resources for building your knowledge on physical and mental fitness.
This will be updated regularly. For recommendations on Substack, head over to somf.substack.com
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A great place to start learning about the ancient philosophy of Stoicism. Ryan Holiday has emerged as perhaps the pre-eminent writer on the Stoics and there is lots of great content here.
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Tim Urban's site, Wait, but why, is excellent for thought-provoking articles about the human condition and cognition. It's also pretty funny. His book, What's Our Problem? is highly recommended as a way to think about how to think.
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The author of the best-selling 4,000 Weeks, Oliver Burkeman writes thought-provoking articles on productivity, procrastination and more.
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Gurwinder's substack, The Prism, is an excellent source of simple heuristics for psychological phenomena. He also writes very thought-provoking long-form articles.
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Dan John is probably the single biggest influence on my approach to physical training. He is the author of multiple books and countless articles, has been a strength coach for several decades and is a nice guy to boot.
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Mark Rippetoe is an old school strength coach with a very blunt and no-nonsense style. His books on barbell training are excellent.
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SbS is part of the 'growing evidence-based fitness' movement. They have some very well researched articles but the focus is almost entirely on strength training (as the name suggests).
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Layne is an excellent resource if you are trying to cut through the noise of what the evidence says and what it means. He is the masters powerlifting world champion and practises what he preaches.
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Maybe he doesn't need an introduction any more, given he hosts the no.1 health podcast in the world. Andrew Huberman is a neuroscientist and on his podcast digs into the details of health-related research.
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Peter is a doctor, the author of Outlive (a great book) and the host of The Drive podcast. He is very good at making complex science understandable to the layperson.
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Rhonda Patrick is a doctor and podcast host. She delves into the detail of scientific research and makes it digestible to the layperson.
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Mark's Youtube videos are the best resource for learning how to execute kettlebell exercises correctly (including some paid-for resources I have used). If you want to know about kettlebells, he's your man.
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Pavel is 'Mr Kettlebell' and widely credited with bringing the kettlebell to the West. He is the author of several books and is now the CEO of StrongFirst.
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Andy Galpin focuses on sports performance and cutting-edge research. He distils this into easy-to-understand content on his website.
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Ever wanted to know what the evidence is for the claims made by supplement companies? Or what the benefits and downsides are of certain food substances? This is the place to go to.