🥩 20 high-protein, low-calorie foods for muscle

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Welcome to The BarBend Newsletter! Here's what's happening in this edition:

• How to pick the right high-protein, low-calorie foods for muscle growth

• Learn to craft a strong body with simple calisthenics

• The top mini massage guns to aid recovery

Nutrition

High and Low

Protein is one of three macronutrients that make up all of human food (fats and carbohydrates being the others). You know you're supposed to eat more protein, but you also know you're supposed to eat fewer total calories. Since protein contains calories… what gives?

Eating foods high in protein and low in fats and overall calories lets you tick off a positive result in both boxes. You can see 20 such foods by clicking the link to an article about this very thing below.

It should be no surprise that various lean meats take up many of the top spots (animal protein long being the gold standard). Science can also help in the form of bars and powders if your access to meat is limited or if your moral code of conduct forbids it. 

Plenty of people have cracked this high/low code, so stand on the backs of these lean, shredded giants and see farther than before.

A Message From Hydrow

Set Aside 20 Minutes for Hyrdow 🚣‍♂️

Your day is full. You've got meetings, school drop-off, meal prep, and (hopefully) carving out some quality time with friends and family.

Somewhere in that chaos, you’ve got 20 minutes.

With Hydrow, that’s all it takes to get a full-body workout. And it’s not just cardio—it’s strength training, mindfulness, and adventure rolled into one beautifully designed machine.

And you’re not stuck rowing alone in your basement, grinding through 500-meter sprints.

Hydrow delivers immersive, instructor-led workouts straight to your home—hosted by Olympians and elite athletes. One session, and you could be rowing across a Scandinavian fjord or powering through a 10-minute core blast in Ireland’s County Wicklow.

For a limited time, save up to $1150 and use code "BarBend" for an extra $50 off.

Get rowing 🚣

Strength Training

No Weights, No Problem

While using big weights to get jacked is an awesome use of your time, some of the biggest, strongest, meanest-looking physiques in the world were built without Smith machines and eight-plate deadlifts. How did they do it? Simple: calesthenics. 

Calisthenics doesn't sound like an overtly aggressive word, but it encompasses a lot more than a spandex-heavy step aerobics class has to offer. Using just your body weight, you can master these bodyweight exercises to build a muscular physique worthy of a Greek statue or even a federal penitentiary.

Removing external weights doesn't mean removing the intensity; quite the opposite, actually. Blasting your legs with jumping lunges combined with step-ups is just about enough to make anyone question the choices they have made in their life. And, remember, you haven’t felt a true burn until you’ve mastered the Bulgarian split squat. 

You can join a huge list of elite athletes who built their bodies with simple calisthenics, but you'll need to prepare for some tough training days ahead to achieve the same results.

Recovery

A Message About Massages

Message guns have lasted long enough to move from “fad” to “staple” in the spot in your oversized gym bag reserved for recovery tools.

One of the annoying downsides has always been their awkward size and bulk, but the mini massage gun aims to solve that while still bringing a strong muscle-thumping right cross to the party. We here at BarBend have taken time out of our busy lives as a fitness periodical to find the six best mini massage guns for your minimalist lifestyle.

Whether you want to get through TSA with a minimum of stress, downgrade to a smaller travel bag, or just reach hard-to-get spots on your body more easily, you'll be spoiled for choice when it comes to these invaluable compact muscle relaxation devices.

Quick Hits

🐮 Drink This: The new ready-to-drink, grass-fed protein shake from Transparent Labs touts 30 grams of protein and leaves all the junk ingredients behind. Learn more about this high-quality, low-calorie option for your muscle-building needs.

🏀 Slam This: Medicine balls both look cool and give you the chance to train your core in an explosive manner. Learn the simple joys of throwing @#$% around the gym as hard as possible by investigating the relative merits of the medicine ball slam. 

👨 Head’s Up: Is your deadlift lagging because of your head position? Learn all about the mistake you might be making and how you can fix it.

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