🏋️ Build a Cold Plunge for Around $100

Cold plunging is heating up in the fitness world right now—even TikTok agrees—but it’s not a trendy, new practice. It’s been around for thousands of years. You might even say cold plunging is our Roman Empire.

We tested and reviewed an ultra-budget DIY cold plunge using the Tuff Stuff Stock Tank, and we think you’ll be intrigued. Scroll down and dive in.

What else is in today’s newsletter:

• Beef up your back day with our favorite back exercises

• Can you find high-protein fast food options?

• Our honest review of RAW’s CBum Thavage Pre-Workout

DIY

Build a Budget Cold Plunge

Interested in trying the cold plunge tub recovery trend but freezing up when you see some of those price tags? Well, we have an ultra-budget DIY solution. The Tuff Stuff Super-Duty Oval Stock Tank: a 110-gallon tank that’ll fit just about anyone — including Olympic Games Superheavyweight weightlifter Caine Wilkes!

Wilkes, who is also a GGR staff writer, has tried a lot of different recovery methods and is an avid user of cold plunges (tanks in particular), so we asked him to climb on into the Tuff Stuff stock tank and see if it lives up to his Olympic gold standards. Click the button below to read his honest assessment.

Train

Get Back to Basics

Strong back muscles encourage good posture, enhance physical fitness, and simplify daily life by facilitating everyday tasks and staving off those pesky back-related aches and pains.

Today, we’re celebrating your all-important posterior muscles by giving you a crash course in back muscle anatomy, sharing our favorite back exercises, and bringing it all together with a back workout to help you construct the cobra back of your dreams.

Fuel Up!

High-Protein Fast Food

Need to hit your protein macros in a pinch? High-protein fast food is totally a thing. Just read the nutrition facts on the menus at your favorite spots, and you may be surprised at what you find. Be sharp, though; the most loudly promoted menu items are usually not the healthiest (and thus normally not super protein-rich).

It can take a bit of time to comb through the menus of your favorite cheat-day haunts to find more macro-friendly meals, so we tasked registered dietitian Destini Moody with doing the high-protein fast food research for you. Here’s what she found.

Supps Corner

CBum’s Thavage Pre-Workout

The only thing we love more than taking a pre-workout to get that dialed-in gym focus is trying all the new (and interesting) pre-workout products hitting the supplement market. So when we caught wind of Thavage, we were psyched to give it a go.

CBum Thavage Pre-Workout was personally designed by 5-time Mr. Olympia Classic Physique champion Chris Bumstead. It’s lovingly called Thavage, as a self-deprecating nod to CBum’s lisp.

Did Thavage motivate us to sign up for the next Olympia competition? Click to find out.

Quick Hits

It Only Takes One (Dumbbell)

• Here’s a list of our favorite single-dumbbell exercises to help you build muscle with limited equipment.

• Squat variation or medieval torture exercise? We explain how (and why) to do the Zercher squat.

• Check out our exclusive Gym Bro Fitness coupon code and save 10%.