July Wrap-Up

What Worked, What Didn’t, and What I’m Doubling Down On

Every month, I’m doing something new—whether it’s self-experimentation, training breakthroughs, supplement tweaks, or uncovering patterns in my bloodwork.

This new monthly series is your inside look.

If you want to stay up to date with everything I’m doing (what’s working, what’s not, what’s worth replicating), this is where I’ll break it all down. No fluff. Just the real-world stuff that’s moving the needle for me in performance, hormones, recovery, and life.

Let’s get into July.

Gym Gains

Bent-Arm Planche

Three weeks into training this, and I can now hold a bent-arm straddle planche (legs open) for 10–15 seconds.

The next step is to bring the legs together (way harder) and eventually move into doing planche pushups from that position.

Big goal. Making progress fast.

Exaggerated ROM Handstand Shoulder Press

The goal here is wild: start in a handstand, lower all the way to a German hang (fully upside down), and press back up.

It’s a full upper-body transformer move.

My shoulders are strong enough for the range—I just need the arm strength to curl my bodyweight (97kg) back up.

I’m able to do about a 1/3 of the German hang so far.

Insane? Yes. But not impossible. I’m working toward it.

Handstands for Shoulder Size

I recently added simple wall-supported handstand holds to my routine. No fancy stuff, just max holds, rest 3 mins, repeat for 4–8 sets.

After a few weeks, my shoulders are looking fuller, more striated, and traps are thicker.

Handstands are underrated for building that “capped” delt look—especially when you’re stacking them with other vertical pressing.

Reverse V-Dip Bars

Years ago I had a custom V-dip bar made. One of the best pieces of gear I own.

Until now, I’ve always dipped facing the narrow end. But this year I started getting ulnar-side pain in my left arm, which made heavy dips uncomfortable.

So I flipped around: reverse orientation.

Zero pain. In fact, it felt amazing.

I'm a little weaker in this position, but it's mostly skill-based. Strength is catching up fast. I’ll probably alternate between forward and reverse weekly moving forward.

Whenever I’ve dealt with injuries, reverse grip exercises have almost always let me keep training pain-free—front lever raises, skullcrushers, curls, dips, military press, bench—you name it.

Don’t sleep on reverse grip training. It exposes weak links and builds resilience.

Gut Protocol

Thinking back, I’ve likely had some form of gut issue my whole life. Never had a quick drop, ghost wipe bowel movement. And as I got more into health, I realized it wasn’t normal and I realized a lot of my symptoms were gut-related. Certain foods triggered dandruff, blurry vision, bacne, and nasal congestion.

As my health improved, most of those went away, except the dandruff (although it’s far less now). At one point, topical coconut oil and oral cardamom completely cleared it up, but it came back after eating something that aggravated my gut again.

I was able to muffle these symptoms by sticking to the TestoDiet. My health was great on paper, but a few lab markers stayed stubborn:

• Elevated LDL and triglycerides

• Slightly high cortisol

• Slightly high liver enzymes

• Suboptimal T:E2 ratio

Even when everything else was dialed in, these stuck around.

So I did a stool test (GI Map with SCFA and bile acid addon).

Boom—10+ pathogenic bacterial overgrowths, including Candida.

All of them producing inflammatory endotoxin.

That alone explained so much: liver stress, higher cholesterol, and the stubborn estrogen metabolism.

The Die-Off Phase

I started my gut protocol and the die-off was real:

• Inflamed bacne

• Stinky feet

• Bad nasal congestion

• Sleep disruptions (deep sleep swinging between 1h and 2h30m)

But two weeks in, those symptoms cleared. Since finishing the protocol, my deep sleep is now consistently above 2 hours per night.

I haven’t redone the stool test yet. My liver enzymes and triglycerides are still slightly high, so I’m waiting for those to normalize before retesting.

But if you’re stuck, even with a great diet and lifestyle, get your gut tested. It might reveal what you can’t see anywhere else.

I’ve also tweaked my TestoShake to be able to deal with endotoxin better and since doing that, I’ve also experienced better mood and faster recovery in the gym. Recipe here.

And, how to lower endotoxin here.

White Button Mushroom Experiment

For two weeks, I consumed 420g of canned white button mushrooms daily.

Canned = precooked = zero prep time. But if I were to do this longer-term, I’d buy fresh and fry them in coconut oil.

Within 1–2 days, I looked noticeably leaner, harder, and more vascular.

More importantly, labs improved significantly—especially testosterone to estradiol ratio, which jumped from 23:1 to 32:1.

That’s huge.

This was one of the most effective food-based experiments I’ve ever run.

More on this here.

L. Reuteri Yogurt

I restarted L. reuteri yogurt just 4 days ago, and the results were immediate.

I’ve used Toniiq’s L. reuteri in capsule form before (up to 200B CFUs/day), which improved recovery and mood. But yogurt supercharges it.

My previous attempts at making it didn’t go well—one was too sour, another didn’t separate properly.

But this new batch hit the sweet spot and the results are far superior to any of the probiotic pills I ever took.

Results (Day 1–4)

• Day 1: Felt amazing—dopaminergic, joyful for no reason. Kept telling Anya how good the day felt, even though it was just a normal day.

• Day 2: Sat outside in the sun feeling deeply at peace.

• Day 3: HRV jumped 10–15 points overnight. Skin looked smoother and more evenly pigmented. Hair looked shinier.

• Day 4: Hit 3 new PRs in the gym. Coincidence? I don’t think so.

Even verbal fluency improved—I noticed it during voice notes and a 2.5-hour convo with my accountant that flowed like butter.

It feels like this yogurt is dialing in neurotransmitters, resilience, and recovery at the same time.

I’ll be sharing the recipe and method in tomorrow’s article.

Final Thoughts

That’s it for July—or at least what I can remember. Every month is a chance to test something, learn something, and get sharper across all domains.

Thanks for being here and following along the journey.

See you in the August wrap-up—with new wins, new data, and new insights.