Mirum Mane · the protocol
The Mirum Mane
Protocol
An ongoing, ruthlessly hand-crafted system to maximise one life — body first, then mind, craft, spirit, and the social and emotional. Built from the best of modern performance science and the hardest people alive, tuned to a single body, and measured without mercy. Not optimisation. Maximisation. And never finished.
The dossiers
The protocol below is the what. These are the why — the research it is built on, kept current and written at the level things actually work: crossbridges, receptor binding, chromatin, thermodynamics. Every claim carries an evidence tier and a source tier, and the two are held separate on purpose.
The Brut Protocol
80% of the result for 20% of the effort — the full protocol stripped to only the levers whose removal you would actually notice. Nine things, about an hour a day.
Dossier · the maximumThe NAST Protocol
Brut's opposite — every lever that clears the evidence bar, run at once, with the real cost stated. About four hours a day and three to four times the money.
Dossier · maximisedThe Hypertrophy Protocol
If the gym were the only thing that mattered — full training system, exercise selection by resistance profile, nutrition, and bulk / cut / lean-gain plans with the arithmetic done.
Dossier · first principlesThe Mechanism Ledger
Every lever in the protocol, explained at the level it actually operates — crossbridges, receptor binding, chromatin, thermodynamics. No pop-science glosses.
Dossier · goal-specificPrograms
Four goals that need genuinely different training — sprint speed, marathon endurance, vertical jump, and mobility — each from the researchers who study that specific quality.
Dossier · the scoreboardRanges & Targets
Every metric that matters with three numbers: what's 'normal', what's actually optimal, and the elite score to beat — blood, body, performance, and sleep.
Dossier · the reference protocolThe Reference Protocol
The most instrumented public longevity protocol in existence, torn down lever by lever — every dose, every mechanism, every reversal, and the four researcher-grade critiques that land.
Dossier · tracked quarterlyThe Frontier
Longevity science, moonshots and the standing watchlist — mechanism-level, with real status separated from capital-market noise.
Dossier · cognition, meaning, connectionThe Mind
Cognitive performance tiered by real evidence, philosophy that reframes how you think, and what relationship science actually says — mechanism-first throughout.
Dossier · the filterSource Tiers
Who to read and why, per domain — researchers and verifiable operators over popularisers and course-sellers, with the reasoning for each placement.
Dossier · the append-only ledgerDiscontinued
Everything removed, retracted or gotten wrong — kept permanently. What the page used to say, why it was wrong, and what replaced it.
The seven pillars
Ordered on purpose. The body is primary — it is the instrument every other pillar runs on.
The Day
The protocol is a day, repeated — and a day ruled rather than received.
- 05:00
Wake, fixed
Same time, seven days. Sunlight or 10,000-lux lamp in the eyes within minutes, 500ml water + electrolytes, no phone for the first hour.
- 05:15
The Attunement
20–30 min meditation, breathwork, cold exposure, and the day's single intention. Make before you take — the first act belongs to the Work.
- 05:45
Train — block one
Lift on the odd day, run the engine on the even one. Every-other-day lifting is not a concession to recovery — it is what buys the frequency the mechanism actually rewards.
- 07:30
Light, cold & mobility
Outdoor sunlight, a cold finish, 10–15 min mobility. The circadian clock set by hand.
- 08:00
Meal 1 — break the fast
~60–70g protein, whole-food, slow carbs. First of the day's ~3,000 kcal / 300g protein.
- 09:00
Deep work — block one
The highest-leverage business block: building, shipping, the Great Work. Phone in another room.
- 12:30
Meal 2 + walk
Protein-led lunch, then a 20–30 min Zone-2 walk in daylight and a 10-min midday meditation.
- 14:00
Deep work — block two
Second focused block; comms and meetings batched to the edges, never the middle.
- 17:00
Train — block two
Conditioning, VO₂max intervals, or the reverse-order Ironman base, per the day's plan.
- 18:30
Sauna / contrast
Heat (and contrast cold) on most days — cardiovascular and recovery dividend, and it earns the evening calm.
- 19:00
Meal 3 — last, early
Final meal ~3h before sleep. Remaining protein, carbs timed to training, vegetables, omega-3.
- 20:30
Wind-down + the Ledger
Reading, journaling, gratitude, and the daily examen — arts pursued, vows kept, forfeits owed. Screens off, lights warm and low.
- 21:30
Sleep
Dark, cold (~18°C), quiet, 8–9h. The single highest-return block of the entire protocol.
Sleep
the lever everything else is built on
- 8–9h, fixedSame wake and sleep time, seven days. Consistency beats duration and buys both; the schedule is protected before anything else on the calendar.
- The roomBlackout dark, ~18°C, silent. No screens 60 min before, no food 3h before, morning light within minutes of waking to anchor the rhythm.
- Measured nightlySleep stages, HRV, resting heart rate, and respiratory rate tracked; intensity the next day is gated by what the night gave back.
Training
every other day · 2 hard sets × 5–8 reps · each muscle 3× a week
- The structureLift EOD — roughly 3 sessions a week, each muscle hit ~3× weekly, 2 working sets of 5–8 reps per muscle per session, taken to or within one rep of failure. Six high-quality exposures a week per muscle, every one of them delivered in a recovered state.
- Why 2 sets and not 5A fibre only grows on reps that are both fully recruited and slow enough to load each fibre hard — roughly the last five before failure. Set one delivers those. By set four, peripheral fatigue has cut per-fibre force and central fatigue has cut achievable recruitment, so you are performing the movement without delivering either half of the stimulus. Meta-analytically, the first set of a session does about as much as the next five combined.
- Why frequency beats volumeTrained lifters need >4 days to recover from 6–8 sets to failure, but ~48h from 1–2. Low volume per session is not a compromise — it is what pays for the frequency. Three sets across three sessions beat the same three sets stacked into one.
- Bias to long lengthsLoad the stretched position wherever the exercise allows — lengthened partials match or beat full ROM for growth, via passive titin tension and sarcomerogenesis in series. Overhead triceps over pushdowns; seated leg curls over lying; deficits where they're safe.
- Tendons, mobility, deloadDaily 10–15 min keeping joints and tendons ahead of the load. Deload every 4–6 weeks; intensity follows sleep and HRV, never ego. Held benchmark: a 125kg bench, next targets logged and chased.
Conditioning & VO₂max
VO₂max 50 today → 60+; the aerobic base for everything
- Zone 2 — the base, not the stimulus4–6h weekly of easy aerobic work for capillarisation, fat oxidation, and recoverable volume that doesn't tax the lifting. The popular claim that it is uniquely optimal for mitochondrial biogenesis is wrong: it produces only modest AMP accumulation and therefore modest AMPK/PGC-1α signalling.
- VO₂max intervals — where the ceiling moves1–2× weekly of 4×4 or 30/15 near max. Mitochondrial and VO₂max adaptations are essentially confined to work above ~65% of peak power. Each 1-MET gain associates with a 13–15% drop in all-cause mortality, with no observed upper limit — a bigger signal than smoking or hypertension in the same dataset.
- The reverse IronmanYear-build toward a reverse-order ultra: the marathon first, then the bike, then the swim. The Misogi the engine is for.
- Daily floor10,000+ steps, mostly outdoors and in daylight — movement is the cheapest, most-skipped longevity input.
Nutrition
1kg steak · 1L milk · berries · yoghurt — short list, run hard
- The base1kg steak, 1 litre of whole milk, frozen raspberries and strawberries, and often 1kg of Greek yoghurt. Roughly 3,000 kcal and 300g+ protein from four items — a deliberately short list, which is the reason it gets executed instead of admired.
- Why it worksBeef and dairy are the two highest-leucine protein sources available: ~2.5–3g leucine per feeding is the threshold that saturates Sestrin2 and releases GATOR2 to switch on mTORC1, and this hits it four to five times a day without effort. Beef also carries heme iron, B12, zinc and creatine; whole milk carries ~1,200mg calcium per litre and a slow casein fraction that keeps aminoacidaemia elevated for hours.
- The berries earn their placeFrozen, not fresh — flash-freezing at harvest preserves anthocyanins better than a week in transit. They supply the polyphenols and fermentable fibre the animal foods have none of, and their vitamin C also improves non-heme iron absorption at the same meal.
- The honest gapsAlmost no fibre diversity, no folate, no vitamin K1, no long-chain omega-3, and high saturated fat against a family lipid history that should be checked, not assumed. Fixed by: a large daily salad or cruciferous portion, oily fish twice weekly or an EPA/DHA supplement, and an ApoB panel every quarter rather than a guess.
- Hydration & timing4 litres of water plus electrolytes (sodium, potassium, magnesium). 8–10h eating window, last meal ~3h before sleep, protein spread across 4–5 feeds. No alcohol, near-zero added sugar, no caffeine after ~13:00.
Recovery
the adaptation happens here — engineer it
- SaunaHeat exposure most days — cardiovascular conditioning and a reliable down-regulator into the evening.
- ColdCold exposure for resilience and dopamine — used for the mind as much as the body (see Hardening).
- Active recoveryWalks, mobility, breathwork, and at least one fully easy day each week. Stress is only useful if it is recovered from.
Presence & Aesthetics
looks are discipline made visible — maximise the controllables
- Body compositionLean, muscular, ~10% BF held year-round — the single biggest driver of how the body reads. Earned in the gym and the kitchen.
- SkinDaily SPF, a simple evidence-based routine (cleanse, retinoid, moisturiser), sleep, hydration, and low sugar. A dermatologist for anything real.
- Grooming & postureSharp grooming, dialled wardrobe, trained posture, and the breathing/jaw mechanics that come free with conditioning and discipline.
- The basics winNo gimmicks. Sleep, training, body fat, sun protection, and grooming out-perform every shortcut — and carry zero risk.
Mind & Meditation
attention is the muscle under every other lift
- Meditation ×2A long morning sit and a short midday reset, daily. The trained ability to hold attention is the highest-leverage skill there is.
- BreathworkDown-regulation before sleep, up-regulation before training — the nervous system steered on purpose.
- Learning30–60 min deliberate reading and study daily; the rule of the Great Work — no year closes without a new art made your own.
- Digital disciplineNo phone the first or last hour, notifications off, the feed never sets the agenda. Attention defended like capital.
Mental Hardening
borrowed from the hardest — Goggins and the rest
- Do the hard thing dailyOne deliberately uncomfortable thing every day — the cold, the last rep, the call you're avoiding. The mind is callused by use.
- The 40% ruleWhen you think you're done, you're at ~40%. Train the governor, not just the muscle — finish what others abandon at the threshold.
- AccountabilityAn honest daily reckoning — the mirror, the Ledger — facing what was dodged rather than narrating a flattering story.
- Voluntary sufferingScheduled hard efforts (the Misogi, the fast finish, the long cold) so resilience is built before it's needed, not improvised.
Business & the Great Work
maximise output, not just input
- Deep work firstTwo protected, phone-free building blocks daily, on the highest-leverage thing — before email, before anyone else's agenda.
- Ship cadenceBias to finishing and shipping; a made thing is an argument the world can't interrupt. Done beats perfect, then iterate.
- Mastery stackCompounding skills across far-apart domains — the synthesis between them is where the edge is. Breadth wed to depth.
- ReviewWeekly and quarterly reviews against written goals; the calendar audited so the hours actually match the priorities.
Spirit, Social & Emotional
maximisation is not isolation
- SpiritThe faith kept — the Attunement at dawn, the Ledger at dusk, the Forfeit paid from ease and never flesh. Meaning, deliberately built.
- SocialScheduled real contact and full presence; generosity carried outward. A fire is meant to be among the living, not kept in a locked room.
- EmotionalJournaling, gratitude, and naming the shadows rather than numbing them. Coaching and reflection treated as tools, not afterthoughts.
Supplements
evidence-led, blood-test-guided, generally-safe — ✎ personalise with a doctor
- Daily baseCreatine monohydrate 5g, omega-3 (EPA/DHA ~2–3g), vitamin D3 + K2, magnesium glycinate, and a quality multivitamin to close gaps.
- PerformanceWhole-food protein to hit ~300g, electrolytes around training, and caffeine + L-theanine used deliberately, early, and never late.
- The ruleNothing added blind. Every supplement earns its place against bloodwork and a real effect — or it gets cut. More is not better.
Measurement
what is not measured is not mastered
- DailyWearable: sleep, HRV, resting heart rate, recovery, VO₂max trend, steps, and bodyweight at a fixed time.
- QuarterlyFull bloodwork — lipids, hormones, inflammation, metabolic and micronutrient panels — plus a DEXA scan and a measured VO₂max test.
- The LedgerLifts, times, macros, arts mastered, vows kept. The protocol is steered by numbers and a doctor, never by mood.
Peptides, hormones & advanced nootropics
The frontier — GLP-1s like retatrutide, peptides like Semax, Selank, and BPC-157, growth-hormone secretagogues and HGH, and racetam-class “advanced” nootropics — is deliberately not written here as a regimen. Most are prescription or outright experimental, several are unapproved and unregulated, and dosing them off a webpage is how people get hurt. HGH and GLP-1s in particular are not appropriate while the body is still developing.
The honest protocol here is: a real doctor, real bloodwork, and adulthood — a sports-medicine physician or endocrinologist who tests, prescribes, and monitors, not a forum and not a guess. And the part worth hearing twice: the foundation — sleep, training, food, sun, and discipline — delivers the overwhelming majority of the result with none of the risk. Earn the ceiling of the basics first; it is far higher than most people ever reach.
The Rules
- 01Sleep is non-negotiable; protect 8–9 hours before anything else on the calendar.
- 02Make before you take — the first hour belongs to the Work, not the feed.
- 03Train hard, recover harder — the body is the only instrument and it is never spent.
- 04Hit the numbers: ~3,000 kcal, ~300g protein, 4 litres of water, every day.
- 05Do one deliberately hard thing daily; callus the mind on purpose.
- 06Measure, don't guess; adjust on data and bloodwork, not on how you feel.
- 07Meditate twice — attention is the muscle under every other lift.
- 08Maximise the controllables; chase no shortcut that carries a risk the basics don't.
- 09Compound everything; let no year close without a new art made your own.
- 10Stay a fire among the living — never optimise yourself into a recluse.
- 11Nothing prescription or experimental without a doctor — the foundation wins 95% with none of the risk.
- 12Iterate forever. A finished protocol is a dead one.
This is a personal protocol, not medical advice. It is tuned to one body and steered by that body’s bloodwork and a doctor — start from your own data and a physician, not from someone else’s regimen. Nothing here is a recommendation to take any prescription drug, hormone, or experimental compound, and several named categories should never be self-administered.