MFAU - August 2016

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34 Add cardio and up your lifting game

101 Make meat your mate and reap the rewards

94 Breakthroughs

Game Changers

21 News

32 Talk it up

HIIT it hard for one minute and see results.

Girls dig guys who can spin a good yarn.

22 Upgrade

34 Training

The bench-press twist that’ll make you huge.

The hidden benefits of aerobic exercise.

24 Health

36 Inspiration

More evidence aspirin is the king of drugs.

Law student who lost 45kg in six months.

26 Fitness

38 Strength

Pool your talents with underwater training.

Stand and deliver with this lifting technique.

28 Nutrition

40 Train like a girl

Butter is back in the game, baby!

Michelle Kimberlee’s hot bikini body.

30 Brain

42 Mix it up

It’s time to bin your dumb-blonde jokes.

Get ready for Rio with some top local tipples.

44 Wellness How to up your testosterone levels.

All roads lead to virtual reality fitness

Features Cover guy per-star tough guy rman Reedus.

Break the rules

48 Hot wheels Rev it up with four beaut motorbikes.

50 Muscle food Power lunches in six minutes or less.

52 Performance Coffee as a kickarse training aid.

Downed 22 beers last night? We’re here to help.

87 Life cycle

bust 15 training ths that might be ding you back.

The essential MF guide to cycling.

The keto way

The brave new world of virtual reality fitness.

46 Adventure Ride into the sunset on a motorcycle trek.

81 Beat a hangover

mash the 21-day, bodyfat diet.

94 The real deal

101 Beef up Dinner is served and meat’s on the menu.

aug.

115 Sweet sangas that are as healthy as they are yum

21 Speed up your gains with high-intensity interval training

The Body Book

12 View from the top

Fix your upper body in just 60 seconds.

14 Ask Men’s Fitness

110 Hybrid training

18 Hotshot

CrossFit + bodybuilding = one helluva physique.

54 Burn It!

115 Eat lean

58 Road to Rio

118 Weight loss One man’s plan to shift 4% bodyfat in 7 days.

Turns out you could literally talk her pants off

Regulars

109 Minute to win it

Stellar sandwiches for muscle-bound blokes.

32

16 Training diary

56 Learn It! 126 Scoreboard 129 Subscriptions 130 The cooldown

ON THE COVER

Norman Reedus P H O T O G R A P H Y:

Ben Watts

120 DIY workout Supercharge your core with sandbag training.

122 Full-body blast Got a kettlebell and half an hour? It’s go time!

124 Muscle expert Control the arms race with five top tweaks.

122 JUST DON’T DROP THE KETTLEBELL ON YOUR HEAD...

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V IE W FRO M T HE T O P

A ritual sacriice

’

EDITORIAL

Editor Todd Cole todd@mensfitnessmagazine.com.au Associate Editor Ashley Gray

ART Art Director Tania Simanowsky

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he power of regular training is often eclipsed by the results it yields. Train for, say, a half marathon, and it’s the PB you remember, not the consistent effort that got you there. Lose 20 kay-gees of lard and everyone will comment on the result, not the good dietary decisions you made every day for the last six months.

Regular training creates a sacred, private ritual of sorts. Sure, you’ve got a job, kids, responsibilities, things to do, but when you’re training it’s your time and space.

It’s your time to work on building a better, happier, healthier you. Appreciate it as such and you’ll have no trouble hitting any goal, be that getting to 7% body fat (page 72) or riding your first Gran Fondo (page 87).

Because when you ritualise training, making it an integral part of your life, it becomes automatic. The repetition of the act, the tap, tap, tap, every day, every week becomes enjoyable.

Same with diet. You eat well every damn day (page 101), because that’s just what you do, not what you have to do. It’ll take a few weeks to build a new ritual but once you do it, it will become a sanctuary, a place that you want to be. This is when training and good diet stops becoming a chore and becomes a cherished ritual. Get to this headspace, and you can achieve any goal. And you’ll enjoy it.

Stay strong.

TODD F. COLE, EDITOR todd@mensitnessmagazine.com.au

Follow me on twitter @toddfcole

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AUGUST 2016

SUBSCRIPTIONS Subscriptions Manager Julie Hughes (02) 9439 1955; subs@mensfitnessmagazine.com.au

PUBLISHERS Todd Cole, Ian Brooks ADVERTISING Advertising Director David Lee david@mensfitnessmagazine.com.au; 0410 485 700 Advertising Executive Tim Fernandes tim@mensfitnessmagazine.com.au; 0405 983 707 ODYSSEUS PUBLISHING PTY LIMITED ABN 39 122 001 665 Level 2, 174 Willoughby Road, Crows Nest, NSW 2065 PO Box 81, St Leonards, NSW 1590 Tel: (02) 9439 1955 / Fax: (02) 9439 1977 www.mensfitnessmagazine.com.au Men’s Fitness is published 12 times a year. Printed by Offset Alpine. Australian and New Zealand distribution by Network Services. Tel: 1300 131 169. Copyright © 2016 Odysseus Publishing Pty Ltd and Weider Publications, LLC. Australian Men’s Fitness is published under licence from Weider Publications, LLC. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated or converted into machine-readable form or language without the written consent of the publisher. Men’s Fitness is a trademark of Weider Publications, LLC and is used under licence from Weider Publications, LLC and may not be used or reproduced without permission from Weider Publications, LLC. Articles express the opinions of the authors and are not necessarily those of the Publisher, Editor or Odysseus Publishing Pty Limited. ISSN 1836-0114.

WEIDER PUBLICATIONS, LLC A SUBSIDIARY OF AMERICAN MEDIA, INC. Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer David Pecker Executive Vice President/Chief Marketing Officer Kevin Hyson Executive Vice President, Consumer Marketing David W. Leckey Executive Vice President/Chief Financial Officer, Treasurer Chris Polimeni President/CEO, Distribution Services Inc John D. Swider Executive Vice President/Chief Digital Officer Joseph M. Bilman Executive Vice President, Digital Media Operations/CIO David Thompson General Manager, AMI International & Syndication Laurence A. Bornstein Director, International Licensing Branding Marianna Gapanovich Director, Rights & Permissions Fiona Maynard Syndication Manager Maribel Dato Production Assistant Paul Miller

Founding Chairman Joe Weider (1919-2013) Founding IFBB Chairman Ben Weider (1923-2008)

The exercise instructions and advice in this magazine are designed for people who are in good health and physically fit. They are not intended to substitute for medical counselling. The creators, producers, participants and distributors of Men’s Fitness disclaim any liability for loss or injury in connection with the exercises shown orinstruction and advice expressed herein.

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● Wise up

Send your questions to askMF@mensfitnessmagazine.com.au

Ask Men’s Fitness I heard any carbs eaten before bed will just be Q stored as fat. Is this true?

A home treadmill means you can save money by binning the gym membership.

“The number of calories you eat over 24 hours has a far greater impact than when you consume them,” says doctor and bodybuilder Emil Hodzovic.

The idea that evening carbs are stored as fat is as unfounded as thinking training on an empty stomach is the only way to torch calories. “The body can balance how it uses fat, protein and carbs through the day. As long as you’re in a calorie deficit you’ll burn calories.”

OK, I think I’ve finally done too many pullups: Q my elbows hurt all the time.

What’s the fix?

Firstly, if you’re genuinely concerned, see a doctor or physio. Secondly, learn to juggle. No, really. “Juggling is a great way to mobilise — or ‘floss’ — the median nerve,” says recovery specialist Dr Brian Abelson. “Start with two balls in one hand, then switch to three balls.” Too much?

Bouncing a ball of the wall and catching it in the same hand has similar benefits. And when you’re ready to return to pullups, get some gymnastics rings. They’ll let your arms move more freely, keeping them out of the unnatural plane of motion that caused the problem.

Clean up your house. In a recent study, researchers split 100 participants into two groups. One group was taken to a clean kitchen and told to write about being in control. The others were left in a dirty kitchen and told to write about being out of control. When both groups were ofered biscuits, the “chaotic” group ate more than twice as many as the “clean” ones. So, clean the spaces you eat in — office, home, kitchen or car — and you’ll find it easier to make sensible choices.

SUBSCRIBE TO MEN’S FITNESS You’ll get 24 issues for just $130 — that’s 36% of the cover price!

For more details, see p129 or call 02 9439 1955

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MEN’S FITNESS

AUGUST 2016

Home treadmills have a number of advantages, but the most compelling is that in the time it takes you to get to a gym and back, you could have completed a thorough workout and more. MF recommends the Matrix T5x treadmill which features an intuitive LED console that provides a complete workout selection to challenge advanced exercisers.

■

GET IN TOUCH

New 21-Day Plan!

Post your fitness questions.

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I can’t stick to it. Any suggestions?

Q Do you think it’s a good idea to own a treadmill or will it just clog up my living space ?

Me s

I’m struggling to eat clean. I know what Q I should be eating, but

AUSTRALIANMENSFITNESS @MENSFITNESSAU using the hashtag #askMF

●

Training diary

2

3

RUNS

August 7 Brisbane Marathon Where: Brisbane, QLD What: Lace up for gruelling marathon, half marathon, 10km or 5km runs alongside the scenic, sub-tropical Brisbane River.

Contact: brisbanemarathon.com

September 18 Blackmores Sydney Running Festival Where: Sydney, NSW What: With a 3.9km fun run, 9km bridge run, a half marathon and the Sydney Marathon itself, this festival ofers a scenic challenge for every runner.

Contact: sydney runningfestival.com.au

October 16 Medibank Melbourne Marathon Festival Where: Melbourne What: Run for fun over 5.7km or 10km or get real and enter the half or full marathon, which finishes with a victory lap at the MCG. Contact: melbourne marathon.com.au

RIDES

August 13-14 Coffs Coast Challenge Where: Cofs Harbour, NSW What: Choose from 10km, 20km, 40km, 60km and 100km rides or a tough-on-the-quads 13km hillclimb.

Contact: cofscoast cyclechallenge.com

September 11 Amy’s Gran Fondo Where: Lorne, VIC What: Cycle the Great Ocean Road — minus the cars — over 14km, 45km or 120km. The Gran Fondo is also a qualifier for the 2017 UCI Gran Fondo World Series in Albi, France.

Contact: amysgranfondo.org.au

October 16 Spring Cycle Where: Sydney What: Cruise over the iconic Sydney Harbour Bridge and go like the clappers to Olympic Park on the 50km Classic Ride or feel the pain on the 105km Challenge Ride.

Contact: springcycle.com.au

TRIATHLONS

MONTHS AWAY

August 28 Airlie Beach Triathlon Where: Airlie Beach, QLD What: Have a go at either the Sprint (750m swim, 20km cycle and 5km run), or the Enticer (350m swim, 10km cycle and 2.5km run).

Contact: whitsundaytriclub.com

September 25 Mackay Triathlon Fesitval Where: Mackay, QLD What: A growing event with a challenging run on Mackay Harbour breakwater. There’s good prize money and a random prize draw.

Good for all skill levels.

Contact: mackay triclub.com.au

October 23 Nepean Triathlon Where: Penrith, NSW What: The famous Nepean Triathlon, Australia’s oldest tri, began way back in 1982 and consists of a challenging 1km swim, 30km cycle and 10km run.

Contact: nepean triathlon.com.au

SWIMS

MONTHS AWAY

August 6 North Shore Challenge Where: Oahu, Hawaii What: Want an excuse to holiday in Hawaii?

This 3.7km swim from Pipeline to Waimea is a great way to turn your vacation into something more memorable.

Contact: northshore swimseries.com

September 11 Green Island Ocean Swim Where: Cairns, QLD What: Choose from a 1.5km or 3km course, as well as the new 500m dash, as you swim in the warm waters of the Great Barrier Reef.

Contact: green-island. com.au/oceanswim

October 30 Breaka Burleigh Ocean Swim Where: Burleigh Heads, QLD What: Test your stroke over 1km or 2km distances, or smash the Dash for Cash if you really fancy your chances.

Contact: oceanswims.com.au

ADVENTURE

1

MONTH AWAY

August 6 Winter Warrior Challenge Where: Marysville, VIC What: With 30 obstacles to cover in the winter snow around Lake Mountain, this is one of the toughest courses on the circuit.

Contact: warriorchallenge. com.au

September 2-4 Lake Argyle Adventure Race Where: Lake Argyle via Kununurra, WA What: Battle it out in the Remote East Kimberley — swim 2km, paddle 13km, adventure run 6km, mountain bike 21km.

Contact: lakeargyle adventurerace.com.au

October 8 The Great Adventure Challenge Where: Brisbane What: Charity team event featuring MTB, trail running, kayaking, coasteering and mystery tasks.

Contact: great adventurechallenge. com.au

Got an event in your state that MF readers can train for in 2016? Email details to ashley@mensfitnessmagazine.com.au with a couple of good action photos.

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MEN’S FITNESS

AUGUST 2016

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Hot shot

Fall guy What happens next? Does 25-year-old Canadian freerider Brandon Semenuk pick the right line and scoot across this jarring precipice of doom to safety or does he become gravity’s bitch and plunge head-first into the jagged, skin-slashing Utah rock below. You’ll be relieved to know young Brandon laughed in the face of bloody, bonecrunching death to ride another day. What else would you expect from a three-time FMB World Tour gold medallist…

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MEN’S FITNESS

AUGUST 2016

Red Bull content pool

AUGUST 2016

MEN’S FITNESS

19

Hard-hitting news from the cutting edge of modern research

Edited by Nina Combs

Breakthroughs Going balls-to-the-wall for just three brief HIIT intervals may rival a much longer session — but there’s a big “but”.

Few discoveries in fitness will likely ever match this for sheer excitement: the recent finding that three 20-second intervals of all-out exertion offer the same health benefits as 45 minutes of moderate exercise. In a 12-week study at Canada’s McMasters Uni, 27 sedentary men performed three weekly training sessions, one group doing three intense 20-second cycle sprints, the other, 45 minutes of moderate cycling. Yet both groups showed a 19% rise in cardio ability and better insulin sensitivity. Sounds like a brilliant way to get fit in no time flat, right? Not so fast. Though the untrained subjects did benefit from the short HIIT bursts, untrained people will always benefit from increased activity; chances are fit guys won’t see the same gains. And studies show that 20–30 minutes of HIIT helps athletes boost oxygen intake; so consider combining the two.

Some good interval apps to get started: Seconds (iOS, Android; free) and Tabatach (iOS; $4.49). — A D A M B I B L E

F

Isfantastic fitness justaminute away?

AUGUST 2016

MEN’S FITNESS

21

Br

A

B

Rock the bells

How to do it

■ Lie back on a bench

Want a better chest? Ditch the trad bench press.

What do you bench, bro? Sorry, trick question: if you’d rather score a big chest than bragging rights, it barely matters.

The trouble with the traditional bench press is that, unless you’re careful, your triceps and shoulders can take

DOUBLE HEADER

over. Bad news if you want to fill a T-shirt, and worse if you’re juggling any sort of shoulder injury.

The fix? Add a twist. According to a study in the Journal Of Strength And Conditioning Research, when lifters used a

reverse grip during an isometric hold of the flat bench press, it resulted in increased activity for the upper portion of the pectoralis major compared with a normal grip. So try the twisting chest press for unprecedented muscle growth.

Your chest is made up of the clavicular head and the sternocostal one. You want to train both. Here’s how

HIT THE INCLINE Doing your bench press at a slight incline — 30° or less — hits your upper chest (clavicular) more than flat benching. Use a narrow grip — hands just outside shoulderwidth gives the best results.

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MEN’S FITNESS

set at 30° holding two dumbbells in a standard grip by your shoulders.

Press them up, rotating them 180° as you do, until your arms are straight. Hold in the “reverse” position at the top of the move for two seconds, then lower, twisting the weights back to the start position.

Sets 3 Reps 8

AUGUST 2016

GRAB A BAND Research shows that pushups can match benching for muscle gains if muscular activation is high enough. To add resistance, wrap a band around your back and loop the ends under your hands.

ALL OF THE ABOVE For best results, do all three of these moves in the same workout, either as single moves (with serious resistance) or as a three-way tri-set. Try five incline bench presses, ten twisting presses and 15 banded pushups, four times.

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Health Breakthroughs

Aspirin a day keeps Grim Reaper away Ancient peoples made the first “aspirin” using acetylsalicylic acid, an ingredient found in plants like willow trees. Over the centuries, salicylic concoctions became known as the most effective antiinflammatories and pain relievers.

Now aspirin’s reputation as a wonder drug is getting another good polishing: Government health authorities in the northern hemisphere have declared that a daily dose of the little white pill can cut the risk for heart attacks, stroke, and colon cancer for people over 50.

Taking aspirin regularly also lessened the likelihood of tumours in 4,000 brain cancer patients, according to a study presented to an annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research.

The drug is thought to block a body compound linked to inflammation and tumours.

Study scientists also checked to see if other common pain relievers like ibuprofen and naproxen had the same effect, but found no evidence of that. The aspirin dosage used in studies is 75mg a day; talk to your doc about how much you should take.

A

A DAILY ASPIRIN CUTS HEART ATTACK AND STROKE RISKS.

Choc milk’s a workout wonder

THE MORE YOU EARN, THE LONGER YOU LIVE

■ Tired of having the same thing after training?

The chop ain’t so bad ■ A study of 67 circumcised and uncircumcised men found there were “no differences” in sensations when their penises were subjected to pain, warmth and other stimulants, the Journal of Urology reports.

24

MEN’S FITNESS

AUGUST 2016

■ We like to think

Recovery drink .

Flavoured milk ticks all the right boxes.

That’s rich. Money can add 15 years to your life.

the secret to living longer is reading Men’s Fitness every month. But, it turns out, it also doesn’t hurt to make tons and tons of money, say US researchers at Stanford and Harvard’s Health Inequality Project.

In fact, the richest strata of society lives 15 years longer than the poorest, they found. More shocking, from 2001 to 2014, the wealthy gained three years of longevity, while poorer folks’ life spans stagnated.

Aspirin Over the Centuries 400 > B.C.

Hippocrates gives willow bark tea to women to ease childbirth pains.

1899 >

Bayer dubs acetylsalicylic acid “Aspirin”.

1974 >

Aspirin found to reduce/prevent heart attacks.

1986 >

Aspirin linked to Reye’s syndrome (liver and brain swelling), contraindicating it in kids with flu symptoms.

1997 >

Stroke damage found to be limited if aspirin is taken early after the event.

2016 >

Docs approve daily aspirin for preventing heart attacks, cancer and strokes.

Ben Alsop / Prop st yling by Angela Campos

Try flavoured milk instead. AIS dietitian Michelle Minehan says the tasty dairy drink can help with refuelling, rehydrating and repairing muscle, making it an excellent recovery beverage. As part of a balanced diet, flavoured milk contains carbohydrates, electrolytes and protein to help satisfy the body’s requirements post strenuous exercise. “You need 20-25g of protein after a workout,” Minehan says, “and 600ml of flavoured milk contains about 20g of protein so it hits the target.” A study in the International Journal of Sport Nutrition and Exercise Metabolism also showed the high-carb and protein content in flavoured milk made it ideal for athletes and fitness. Best of all though, it tastes good and can be transported easily around sporting fields or gyms. MF recommends Masters Chocolate flavoured milk for a smooth and smart post-workout refreshment.

Fitness Breakthroughs

Jointhe underwater resistance We reckon it’s only a of time before W matter Aussie footballers start enhancing their strength workouts with underwater training. Surfing great Kelly Slater and Orlando Magic basketballer Aaron Gordon are already converts in the US where it is a booming smart exercise trend. Water is 800 times denser than air, so resisting it as you raise weights or do squats gives you a super-intense workout without stressing your joints.

Slater runs on the ocean floor carrying rocks to boost lung power and muscle strength; Gordon became a high-leaping dunk king by carrying a huge kettlebell across the bottom of a deep pool.

For a great H2O workout, get some kettlebells or dumbbells and hop in.

Speedo gear

comfortable and effective for land-dwellers, Speedo has unveiled a new line called Speedo Fit, which consists of specially designed goggles, hand paddles, compression swimwear, fins and sneakers, like these men’s Upswell water shoes, which have S-Trac outsoles to maximise traction and FluidFlow technology that lets water flow freely through the midsole to increase water resistance and drag. From $58.30, amazon.com 26

MEN’S FITNESS

AUGUST 2016

This Blackbird flies — and folds!

■ Bring on the hassle-

Tern heads.

The X22 rides like a dream but folds in just 10 seconds.

free bike commute!

Sleek and sturdy, the Tern Eclipse X22 “Blackbird” is a roadracing–inspired commuter/light tourer that rides like a full-size bike yet folds down in 10 seconds so it can be carried neatly onto an elevator and cosied up right next to your desk.

With its sleek design and stealth black paint

job, the bike not only looks cool — when we rode it for testing, we were asked about it twice in the first five minutes — but has the tech to match: hand-built 26-inch wheels with race-tuned frame geometry as well as Shimano’s 22-speed drivetrain and hydraulic disc brakes to make it tight and responsive.

From $2,500, ternbicycles.com

GRAB A TOILET SEAT AND DO A FEW SETS ■ We call them dumbbells, treadmills and spin bikes. What do billions of bacteria call them?

We’re guessing “carnival rides”.

Fitness reviewer FitRated recently swabbed 27 pieces of equipment at three gyms and found they were crawling with a million-plus potentially harmful bacteria per square inch. Worst offender: free weights, with 362 times more germs than a toilet seat.

To stay safe, avoid touching your eyes/mouth during a workout, and be sure to wash your hands afterward.

F r o m t o p : C o u r t e s y o f S p e e d o ; C o u r t e s y o f Te r n B i c y c l e s

■ To make underwater training more

AND YOU THOUGHT AQUAMAN GOT SUPERHUMAN STRENGTH RESISTING MERE AIR?

Nutrition

Breakthroughs

Butter beats veg oil, low-fat dairy THE PRODIGAL STICK: BUTTER IS FINALLY COMING HOME, FULLY FORGIVEN.

Fast-food takeaway: deadly chemicals ■ As if you needed another reason to avoid drive-

Going high-fat? Eat grapes, too ■ As you transition from vegetable oils and lowfat dairy to butter and other whole-fat dairy products (see story, far right), consider this, too: Adding grapes to a high-butter-fat diet (that is, a diet with 33–44% of its calories from fat) boosts the amount of polyphenols you get — a good thing, since polyphenols cut overall body fat and increase good gut bacteria, according to two new US studies from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Aim for a cup of red grapes a day.

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FRUCTOSE F’S YOU UP ■ Fructose, the sugar found in high-fructose corn syrup (the bane of soft drinks and processed foods) as well as natural foods like fruit and honey, can alter brain genes and up the risk of diseases such as diabetes, heart disease and Alzheimer’s, California Uni reports. But relax: The study also found DHA, an omega-3 fatty acid in foods like fatty fish and eggs, can repair the damage.

It’s a real drag.

Fructose can alter genes (and not for the better).

Melt yourself a better butter ■ To easily step up your butter game — especially when using it for cooking — make clarified butter (aka “ghee”), a clear, pure butter thought to be healthier (one study found it lowers LDL cholesterol); it keeps longer and has a higher smoke point, so you can sear foods without setting off smoke alarms.

Just melt a cut-up stick of grass-fed, unsalted butter in a pan; it’ll bubble (that’s the water boiling out of it) and the milk fat solids will foam. Simmer till the bubbling almost stops, then set a coffee filter in a strainer and pour the liquid through into a jar.

shut terstock / The Licensing Project; Jarren Vink

thru windows: A new study out of America of almost 9,000 subjects found that fast-food eaters had phthalate (“THAL-ate”) levels up to 40% higher than non-fast-food eaters. Phthalates, harmful industrial chemicals used in food packaging, are linked to birth defects, asthma, obesity, and braindevelopment problems in babies, as well as, from now on, fast-food fiends.

Yet another nail in vegetable oils’ coffin: A Y recent study in the BMJ confirmed that not only is vegetable oil not healthier to eat than butter, it may be worse.

Researchers focused on the cholesterol levels of more than 9,500 seniors and found that those who used oils high in linoleic acid — like corn, soybean and sunflower oil — died at an earlier age than those who stuck with butter. They also found that switching from butter to vegie oil did nothing to reduce heart disease or overall mortality.

To add even more, uh, fat to the fire, a newly released 15-year study on 3,000-plus adults who ate higher levels of full-fat dairy products came to the happy conclusion that full-fat dairy is even healthier than low-fat dairy, as subjects ended up with a 46% lower risk of developing diabetes, the journal Circulation reports.

THE ORIGINAL RECOVERY DRINK

PROTEIN TO REPAIR AND ENERGY TO REFUEL As part of a balanced diet, Masters CHOC provides protein for muscle repair & energy to refuel.

Brain

Breakthroughs

Sleep on it, Baby, Baby (and give them an answer in the morning ) ■ Meat Loaf had the right idea: Next time you’ve got a big decision to make, go to bed — odds are, you’ll have a better answer when you wake up.

Scientists at Bristol University implanted electrodes in the brains of male rats.

After recovering from the surgery, they (the rats, not the scientists) alternated sleeping, resting and roaming free while scientists tracked what info they’d kept or

Blondes win IQ contest by a hair How many blondes does it take to change a lightbulb? Just one — and she’s smart enough to know she doesn’t have to spin the ladder or the house to do it. Oregon State Uni researcher Dr Jay Zagorsky compared data on more than 10,000 14–21-year-olds who’d been included in a Longitudinal Survey and had also taken the Armed Forces Qualification Test, which measures IQ and lists race and hair colour.

What he found: Among Caucasian women, blondes’ average IQ was the highest, at 103.2; brunettes followed at 102.7, with redheads next at 101.2, and raven-haired women at 100.5. This doesn’t mean that blonde women, with their 0.5-point lead, are actually smarter than non-blondes, says Zagorsky, just that they’re certainly not dumb.

And in case you’re wondering, blond Caucasian men lost to brown-haired men 103.9 to 104.4 — which, we feel compelled to point out, proves just one thing: The guys’ IQs were still all higher than the women’s.

—J A M E S R O S E N T H A L

A BLONDE’S FAVOURITE NEW JOKE: WHY DID THE REDHEAD KEEP STARING AT THE OJ? IT SAID “CONCENTRATE”.

H

Three (Proven!)

Ways to Beat Depression

dumped while asleep.

They (again — and much to their chagrin — the rats, not the scientists) were then euthanised and their brains probed.

The takeaway: During sleep, the brain swiftly sorts the day’s experiences and files the meaningful ones to the memory, essentially “decluttering” the mind and allowing it to focus better on what’s important — like making crucial decisions.

Cover your eyes.

To make better decisions, go to bed.

Narcissists Take More “Reality” Trips ■ Surprise! The

Selfie idolatry.

Egocentric people love reality TV.

most narcissistic people watch the most television — and, particularly, the most reality shows, say US researchers who monitored the TV-viewing habits of 565 students, then gave each the Narcissistic Personality Inventory.

The study was

unable to conclude whether pre-existing narcissism caused the self-absorbed students to watch and identify with the narcissists on reality TV, or watching so much narcissistic behaviour caused them to become narcissistic.

Either way, everyone in the Kardashian family wants a copy.

Don’t despair: Though things may seem bleak, there’s powerfully effective help out there — and some of it’s even free, fun and right outside your door. A new batch of studies confirm you can successfully fight depression with: 1) Strenuous aerobic exercise. As Cognition and Emotion reports, 80 subjects took a psychological survey after watching a sad scene from the ’79 film The Champ (“Wake up, Champ! Don’t sleep now; we gotta go home!”), then half did 30 minutes of vigorous aerobics while the other half just sat and (we assume) sobbed. Afterward, the exercisers had less of an emotional hangover and felt happier than the idlers. So, when you’re down, go run — or bike, or swim — it off. And for God’s sake, no tearjerkers!

3) Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT). If you’re glum, using a combo of cognitive (thinking-related) therapy and mindfulness training can lift the depression and make it 31% less likely you’ll relapse for a year, says JAMA Psychiatry.

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shutterstock

2) Again, exercise. DNA research on 396 adult subjects at the University of Florida revealed that those who had a gene predisposing them to depression usually also had a gene that allowed exercise to help or even prevent that depression.

EVERY THING YOU NEED TO MAKE LIFE WORK FOR YOU

GameChangers

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Gift of the gab grabs the gals

Sure, having a ripped rig will help you score S attractive ladies like the hotty in this picture, but new US research shows that a guy’s ability to spin a good yarn is just as important. Apparently, ladyfolk considered a man’s storytelling capacities significant in their choice of partner — probably, researchers suggest, because they place more value on communication than guys do. The research, conducted at the University of North Carolina, focused on male and female graduates, who were asked to rate a potential boyfriend/girlfriend based on biographies they wrote and read.

So... next time you’re at a party, make sure you don’t get so mulleted you can’t tell a top tale.

AUGUST 2016

MEN’S FITNESS

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Game Changers

Training

Cardio your way Believe it or not, the latest research will have you rethinking your weight-training sessions — and adding aerobic exercise.

By Sean Hyson Photograph by Jorg Badura

■

The fitness world has always been split down the middle between those who love to lift and those who love doing cardio. Most people who seek to get in shape choose to either build muscle by lifting weights and training with short, intense workouts, or burn fat by hitting the treadmill and exercising at a moderate intensity for longer workouts.

Obviously, for well-rounded fitness, you need a blend of both approaches; but past research had shown that aerobic exercise can lessen muscle and strength gains — a heartbreaking compromise for lifters, and fuel for grizzled gym veterans who like to warn skinny newbies that doing any cardio will keep them small forever.

But, good news: Recent studies indicate that the so-called “interference effect” that aerobics has on muscle isn’t what we thought.

And that means a lifter can have his weights and his treadmill, too. Here’s how to do it.

Why Cardio Got a Bad Rep ■ When you do steady-state cardio (ie, aerobic training, including long runs, cycling, etc), you run down your body’s energy reserves. That causes the activation of a compound called AMPK. In vitro and rodent studies over the past 20 years have shown that, in an efort to protect your body by preserving its energy stores, AMPK inhibits a protein called mTOR, which is the body’s main driver of muscle growth.

Add to that the findings of a study that showed leg-press strength was reduced more in a group that lifted and did aerobic training than in guys who only lifted, and you can see how the anti-aerobics movement gained steam.

In other words, it would seem that at least slow cardio (as opposed to highintensity interval training, or HIIT, which is cardio but anaerobic in nature) would sabotage your ability to make strength gains.

Right?

What the New Science Says ■ Wrong — at least according to longterm human studies.

A recent review in Sports Medicine found evidence to suggest that, while the interference efect does damage muscle signalling within

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the body, there’s practically no proof it harms actual muscle gains over time.

It’s the diference between smelling smoke and seeing fire.

Another study in PLOS ONE this year pitted a resistance training–only group against subjects who lifted and did steadystate cycling for 30 to 60 minutes. Not only did both groups improve their max leg press by about the same amount, but the lifting-plus-cardio guys actually gained much more muscle than the lifting-only guys — and of course that’s in addition to improved aerobic capacity. Why they gained more muscle isn’t clear, but it may be because aerobic training activates type I endurance

HARD FACTS OUR TRAINING DIRECTOR, SEAN HYSON, SOLVES YOUR WORKOUT CONUNDRUMS

muscle fibres, while heavy lifting works mainly type II fibres.

And how does HIIT afect lifters? The Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research found not only that it didn’t hinder gains in strength or muscle mass, but that it also actually led to improved body composition.

How You Can Strike a Balance ■ “The idea that 30 minutes of cardio is going to eat up muscle makes me laugh,” says Don Saladino, a trainer to celebrities and athletes. “The body is more resilient than we think.”

He does, however, caution that overtraining is a possibility with any exercise, and that

“I want to test myself and max out my lifts.

What’s the best way to do that?”

■ I like the system used by Ed Coan, who’s widely regarded as the greatest powerlifter of all time.

It’s simple to follow and works great.

Give yourself 10 weeks and focus on one major lift — the squat, bench press, or deadlift — per workout.

For the first two weeks, work up to the heaviest load you can handle for two sets of 10 reps — each should be explosive and done with perfect technique.

Spend the next two weeks doing sets of eight reps. Then go to fives for four weeks.

if you mix cardio and lifting, you should consider how much you can recover from.

Ask yourself how active you are out of the gym — eg, do you work at a desk, or do manual labour? — and how much your diet and sleep are on point.

But one to two HIIT sessions and two or more low-intensity aerobic workouts on top of three to four lifting days per week should work well for most people.

Sceptical?

Consider this: Any given week, Saladino uses various aerobic and anaerobic cardio methods ranging from walking to battling ropes — and he looks like a Roman gladiator.

In Week 9, work up to a three-rep max, and then in Week 10 go for one set of one rep.

By gradually working your way down in reps and up in weight, you prepare your body to handle the heaviest load safely.

Feel free to repeat the cycle for another 10 weeks afterwards when you will have a significantly better idea of what you can lift and can set specific goals. That’s what Coan did, and he ultimately deadlifted 408kg at a bodyweight of 100kg.

Sean Hyson is the Men’s Fitness training director and author of 101 Best Workouts of All Time, 101bestworkouts.com.

to muscle Cardio and lifting don’t need to be mutually exclusive anymore.

Game Changers

Inspiration

TALE OF THE SCALE DANIEL TAHA “I still study a lot but now my comfort eating is a half-hour gym session.”

AGE: 23 LIVES: SYDNEY HEIGHT: 186CM WAS: 126KG NOW: 81KG LOST: 45KG

Killing the killer kilos Warned his life was in danger, student Daniel Taha lost 45kg in six months thanks to a brave lifestyle change and the support of family.

■

“If you don’t change, you’ll die,” doctors told Daniel as late as last year. But the young Sydney law student, who’d ballooned to 126kg and was sufering from high blood pressure and cholesterol, was not in the right frame of mind to grasp the seriousness of his condition.

Despite growing up in a sporting family — his dad played rugby league and his brother second-tier pro soccer — Daniel was always the “tubby one with brains”. He wanted a normal physique but because he funnelled

all his energies into school and uni found himself caught up in a vicious cycle of study, physical inactivity and comfort eating.

“I’d eat a packet of Tim Tams in a night,” Daniel says. “That was my way of relieving the stress of study and the huge amount of pressure I’d put on myself to succeed.”

He was subsequently diagnosed with anxiety and OCD but it was a scary incident at home that finally made him heed those doctors’ warnings. “I was sitting at my desk preparing for an exam when I got chest pains.

I eventually went to hospital and they did six hours of tests. I realised then there was the prospect of a heart attack.

“I’d eaten 100 chicken McNuggets, two large fries, a large Coke and a McFlurry one night at McDonald’s the week before, and even though that didn’t cause the chest pains, I could now see there was a correlation between my diet and my health.”

Becoming aware of an obesity problem is one thing; knowing how to fix it is another. Daniel was lucky his mum spotted a weight-loss competition at the local Anytime Fitness gym, which ofered a TV as prize. It was enough to lure him in. “I did it for the TV,”

he laughs. “I’m very competitive — I can’t lose. It was the challenge I needed.”

With the support of the crew at Anytime Fitness and his family, he changed his diet, dialing down on fats and sugar and ramping up the lean meat and vegies quota.

For breakfast, he’d eat a boiled egg and wholemeal toast with avocado, lunch consisted of 150g chicken breast and salad, while dinner was chicken/fish/beef with steamed vegies.

Daniel found the transition from his previous diet difficult, but he was bolstered by his support team.

“They kept me accountable — having them there was probably the key to my transformation.”

He complemented his new diet with a cardio and high intensity workout regime, smashing two one-hour sessions every day. The weight began to drop of him; after four weeks he’d dumped 12kg, but when he hit 101kg he began to plateau. His frustration almost

destroyed all the good work he’d done: “I was tempted to eat junk food again,” he says.

“But once again my accountability support network helped me get me through it.”

In six months, Daniel would shed an amazing 45kg — down to 81kg; along the way reducing his waist size from 46 to 32 and dropping his resting heartrate from a dangerous 106bpm to a healthy 59bpm. He also won the Anytime Fitness competition.

Daniel says the benefits of his dramatic makeover have been huge: better interaction with friends due to improved mobility, restored confidence and a coveted regular wardrobe. “I had the fashion sense of a 50-year-old because I only bought from Lowes,” he laughs.

“Now I buy of the rack.”

He is also managing his anxiety and OCD better. “I still study a lot,” he says, “but now my comfort eating is a half-hour session at the gym.”

He is now enjoying swimming and running with friends, something he couldn’t do in his previous condition. His goal is to compete in a triathlon — a sport he sees as the ultimate test: “I’ve never been sporty but this is a big challenge.

I’ve been training hard.

It’s great to be able to do these things.”

If you’ve a story like Daniel’s you’d like to share, send an email to ashley@mensfitnessmagazine.com.au with clear before and after photos (photos must be at least 1MB each).

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Game Changers

Strength H O L LY W O O D MUSCLE

A chest like Terry Crews’ Build muscle with isometric training

■ Sometimes you don’t have to actually lift weights to get bigger — you can just hold them.

Isometric training, in which you typically hold a rep at the midpoint or bottom for a few seconds, is a valid technique. “I use it to stimulate muscle growth and strengthen connective tissues,” says Latreal Mitchell, a Hollywood trainer who works with movie star Terry Crews.

For example, “If it’s a leg day, I may have him hold a squat with heavy dumbbells for 10 seconds in the bottom.”

Chest Workout with Isometrics Alternate sets of A and B. Rest only after sets of isometric pushups.

A SMITH MACHINE BENCH PRESS Sets: 3 Reps: 15, 8, as many as possible Rest: 0 sec.

B ISOMETRIC PUSHUP Sets: 3 Reps: 10 Rest: 90–120 sec.

Hold the midpoint of each rep for five seconds.

Twisting your feet activates more muscle.

LIES WE LIVE BY

Get strong from the ground up by imagining you’re twisting your feet into the floor before a set.

By Sean Hyson Photographs by James Michelfelder

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MEN’S FITNESS

You can’t just stand there and expect to build muscle — not even when you’re Y lifting. Before you begin a set of any standing exercise, place your feet flat on the floor and imagine you’re using your soles to tighten screws — your toes seemingly pushing outward and your heels straining to come inward.

Here’s the trick, though: You don’t want to actually move your feet. Just actively drive them downward and externally so they root into the floor and nothing can move them. If you do it right, the arches of your feet will become more pronounced and your glutes will tighten up immediately, which prepares your body for the lift. It also all but ensures that your knees will line up with your toes when you squat or deadlift.

Keep this tension in your feet throughout the whole set. The more you practise it, the more natural it will become and the more weight you’ll pile up on the bar.

AUGUST 2016

■ This idea began in the sport of bodybuilding, where competitors traditionally lifted heavy weights to put on size, then switched Hang tough. The combo of building muscle and burning fat gets you cut.

to lighter, higher-rep training when trying to get defined before a show.

While the bodybuilders typically took this to mean that sets of 10 or more reps “burned cuts” into their muscles, the credit should really have gone to the fat-shedding diet they followed simultaneously.

True, high-rep sets do burn more calories than low-rep ones, but the difference is nominal.

And research suggests that high reps are at least as effective for putting on muscle as heavy training — in fact, the Public Library of Science reported that subjects who did 24-rep sets made better gains than those who did fiverep sets. In short: Any kind of weight training can build muscle.

S t y l i n g b y C h r i s t i n a S i m o n e t t i ; G r o o m i n g b y C a s e y G e r e n / B e r n s t e i n & A n d r i u i u s i n g Av è n e ; Crews: Jim Wright

Want to lift more? Screw it!

Myth: “Low reps build muscle, high reps define it.”

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Game Changers

Train like a girl The Numbers Game Michelle Kimberlee

Age: 23 Lives: Melbourne Height: 170cm Weight: 58kg Achievements: WWF Kahma Classic Overall Bikini Winner (March 2016), WFF Pro Bikini Asia Pacific Winner (May 2016), magazine cover model, Next Generation Supplements ambassador

muscle just falls off me. It takes a lot for me to build muscle.

“I HAVE TO EXERCISE 3-5 TIMES A WEEK, OTHERWISE MUSCLE FALLS OFF ME.”

A fine body of work How does a hot chick get taut and toned enough to win the WFF Pro Bikini Model title?

Melburnian Michelle Kimberlee, 23, did just that recently. The Next Generation Supplements ambassador and iconic fitness model reveals her workout secrets and how guys can benefit from them.

What are judges looking for in a bikini model?

They want a feminine figure. Less of the strength poses.

You are judged on stage presence, confidence, propor tion, obliques and the line of your leg.

Which par t of your body do you work on most?

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Definitely legs.

They’re the most impor tant thing for a girl. I do lots of deadlifts, cable work and single leg raises.

How do you diet before an event?

A month out, I eat lots of chicken, broccoli, rice cakes and oats, plus carbs. Then two weeks in, to get the shape I want, I reduce carbs and increase

protein. I also take Next Generations Supplements’ Achieva Powder which is good post-workout and helps me put on muscle. ZMA Active helps with recovery too, so I don’t get aches and pains.

How often do you hit the gym?

I have to work out three to five times a week, otherwise

What can guys learn from girls in the gym?

A lot of guys only lift really heavy weights and do few reps in order to build mass.

This is good, but they might want to add exercises with moderate weight and higher reps to shape the muscle better. It makes you more in propor tion.

What’s the key to getting fit?

It’s all about the mindset and creating a routine. You have to change your mindset so that even when you’re tired the routine clicks in and you do the workout. I am always conscious of what I eat and not missing a workout.

How do guys react when they find out you’re a bikini model? They’re impressed because they know I go to the gym, so I can understand what they do and why they do it.

It gives me respect. ■

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Game Changers

Mix it up Pisco

Your new favourite Games drink… the pineapple caipirinha INGREDIENTS

4

4cm pineapple chunks, rind removed 2–3 mint leaves ½ lime, cut into wedges 30ml sugar syrup 60ml cachaça TO MAKE

Muddle the pineapple, mint, lime and sugar syrup in a shaker. Fill the shaker with ice.

Add the cachaça.

Shake vigorously.

Strain and serve in a rocks glass filled with ice (crushed or cubes). Optional: Garnish with a wedge of lime or pineapple or a sprig of mint.

Cachaça

Olympic spirits Dive into the Games with some of South America’s finest local drinks.

BY BRIAN GOOD PHOTOGRAPH BY JARREN VINK

W H A T I T I S : The national drink of Brazil, it's a spirit made from fresh-pressed sugarcane juice.

“It’s similar to rum, which is made with molasses,” says Mix. “But since cachaça comes from fresh ingredients, it has a funkier, fruitier taste.”

Salud! Give a toast to the Games and sample a bit of South America’s finest: cachaça, zhumir, pisco and fernet.

Zhumir Think moonshine from Ecuador and you’ll have a good idea what to expect from this high-proof party drink.

W H AT I T I S :

W H Y YO U ’ L L L I K E I T:

Even if you aren’t among the estimated 500,000 men and women trekking to Rio in August for the Olympics, that doesn’t mean you can’t get a taste of the South American experience. One easy way to do it? Buy a bottle of one of the region’s most popular local spirits. According to celebrated bartender and bar-owner Ivy Mix, it’s a golden time for South American spirits. “There are so many great drinks from the region that people here have never experienced.

It’s really fun to try them out, learn about them and see what you like,” she says. Our primer to get you started:

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“It's been in production since 1780 with minimal changes,” says head bartender Topher Taylor. Avoid flavoured brands and look for Aguardiente — aka Fire Water .

H O W T O U S E I T : Swap Zhumir for the rum in a daiquiri. Add some jalapeño and blend.

W H Y YO U ’ L L L I K E I T:

Cachaça can be sold unaged or aged. Both are good — but the aged versions are more interesting.

“There are around 30 diferent indigenous Brazilian woods that cachaça can be stored in, and each changes the flavour," Mix explains. Check out cachaça aged in amburana for a spirit with a warmer, more savoury flavour, or balmwood, for a clove and anise taste.

H O W T O U S E I T : The classic cachaça drink is a caipirinha. All you need to do is shake together sugar syrup, lime juice, cachaça and ice. Muddle in mango, papaya or berries for a twist.

A type of brandy, pisco is produced in the winemaking regions of Peru and Chile. It was first created in the 1600s by Spanish settlers to use up the region’s abundant grape crop.

W H AT I T I S :

WHY YOU’LL LIKE I T : “Since it’s made with grapes, every blend and variety the distillers use can change its flavour,” says Mix. “There are floral varieties, sweet brands, dry — as with cachaça, there’s a lot to explore.”

H O W T O U S E I T : “I try to wean people of vodka and get them to try something as simple as a pisco and soda,” says Mix. “It’s a great option.”

Taylor likes to swap it for the brandy in cocktails. “It works really well with pineapple and sage flavours,” he says.

Fernet W H A T I T I S : A type of digestif said to help you process food after a meal, fernet gets its dark colour and tart, black-licorice flavour by combining herbs (myrrh, cardamom and safron) with rhubarb and aloe, then adding that to a base of grape juice and letting it ferment.

W H Y YO U ’ L L L I K E I T:

“I love fernet,” says Mix. You can pair it with everything.

Just remember it’s bitter, so it’s not an entry-level drink.

Ease into it.”

H O W T O U S E I T:

“Fernet and Coke is no joke," says Mix. “It’s really good and very popular in Argentina.

I’d buy soft drinks and experiment with any diferent combinations you can think of.”

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Game Changers

Wellness

Getaninstant testosteroneboost Bad news, man. Testosterone levels are falling fast and our lifestyles are to blame. Average levels are 15% lower than B they were 15 years ago, according to research published in the Journal Of Clinical Endocrinology And Metabolism. If you want to build lean muscle and strip away fat then you need to stop the slide.

Chase the sun ■ You don’t only make hay when the sun shines — you also make vitamin D when your skin’s exposed to the sun’s rays. Men with adequate levels of vitamin D have higher testosterone levels and are stronger, leaner and healthier than those who were deficient, according to the European Journal Of Endocrinology. If you have a deficiency, try to get ten to 15 minutes of sun exposure on your forearms and legs daily, and eat more oily fish, meat and eggs, which are among the few foods that contain vitamin D.

Sleep on it

INCREASE YOUR LEVELS OF “T” AND WATCH YOUR LIBIDO SURGE.

■ Stave of the “manopause” by getting more shuteye. Men who got only four hours’ sleep a night had 60% less testosterone in their blood than those subjects who got a solid eight hours, according to the Journal Of Andrology.

Improve sleep duration and quality by keeping your bedroom dark and cool, and turn your tablet and mobile to night-time mode to shift the display settings away from short-wave blue — numerous studies have shown this

light can suppress the sleep-inducing hormone melatonin.

Train harder ■ Exercise can increase levels of free testosterone, and the more you have the greater the muscle-building and fat-burning benefit.

To get the biggest boost keep training sessions short and the intensity high.

A study comparing 45 minutes of high-intensity with steady-state training found a significantly higher increase in free T levels in the HIIT group, according to the Journal Of Endocrinological Investigation.

Slim down now ■ One reliable way to increase testosterone production is to reduce your waistline. Multiple studies have shown a link between obesity and low testosterone levels in men at all ages, including teenagers.

In one study, published by the Endocrine Society, 900 men with low testosterone followed a training program comprising 150 minutes of exercise a week as well as a calorie-controlled diet. After a year the average weight loss was 7.8kg, while testosterone levels doubled.

What is testosterone?

Levels of T, the primary male sex hormone responsible for making you look, feel and perform like a man, peak in your late 20s, then start to decline. Low levels are linked to a loss of muscle mass, increased body fat, lower energy levels and low libido. The recent trend for plummeting average levels is down to our sedentary lifestyles and poor diet.

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Game Changers

Adventure

Get your motor running Experience all the thrills — and hopefully no spills — with our handy guide to the world’s most incredible motorcycle treks.

Rainforest rumble LO C AT I O N : A U S T R A L I A

■ Cape York Motorcycle Adventures (CYMCA) is the longest running motorcycle riding tour operator in Australia, so you know you’re in good hands. Specialising in the Northern Peninsula, between Cairns and the Tip, CYMCA offers ride options ranging from a one-day bush bash along mountain trails and heavily forested tracks to an eight-day trophy tour that includes the latest motorcycles, riding gear, fuel, all meals, accommodation and flights to or from Cape York. And if you’re worried you’ll be ruining the pristine environment by tearing it up on two wheels, don’t be — CYMCA was the world’s first motorcycle tour company to be ECO Certified. As a result, they have access to National Parks, as well as private properties, secluded swimming holes, secret fishing spots and much more. capeyorkmotorcycles.com.au 46

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Rock on. Get your leg over on a thrilling bike tour of Cape York.

Snow joke. Ladakh, India is absolutely breathtaking — no surprise since it’s at an altitude of 3,524m.

High times

Euro star

Kiwi cracker

LO C AT I O N : I N D I A

LO C AT I O N : E U R O P E

■ Delhi belly be

■ Yes, we know you

LO C AT I O N , NEW ZEALAND

damned! For the true adventurer, there is nothing like India.

Blazing Trails has been running motorbike tours continuously since 1999 and cater for riders of all abilities.

Their Leh, Zanskar & Around — To The Edge Of Beyond tour is our pick of the crop.

Saddling up on a 500cc Royal Enfield Bullet, this Himalayan odyssey takes in the world’s two highest motorable passes. Along the way, you’ll encounter highaltitude deserts, the amazing Nubra Valley, stunning Pangong Tso Lake and the incomparable beauty of Zanskar, with its 7,315m snowcaps and roadside glaciers. As the roads are often as rough as guts, it’s recommended you have at least two years’ riding experience before taking on this challenge.

enjoyed that Contiki tour of Europe when you were 19, but we reckon this would be even better. Starting in Innsbruck, Austria, Edelweiss Bike Travel’s Alps Extreme tour is easily one of the most spectacular rides on the planet. Travelling on small hidden roads through the heart of the Alps, the route meanders south to Tyrol in Italy before taking you east and back to Innsbruck. If you’re not quite ready for an eight-day slog, Edelweiss has plenty of other options, too, including rider training in Austria and their Breweries and Castles jaunt through Belgium, France, Germany and Luxembourg, which is just as awesome as it sounds. Hey, remember Naughty Stacy from the Contiki tour? Wonder what she’s doing now...

■ The Land of the

blazingtrailstours.com

edelweissbike.com

motorbiketours.co.nz

Long White Cloud is a bloody beaut place to tool around on two wheels. South Pacific Motorcycle Tours provides a real boutique experience. Group numbers are limited to around ten bikes per tour guide motorcyclist and your luggage is carried by support vehicles. After riding an average of five hours per day, you’ll end up at a hand-picked hotel, inn or motor lodge, where you can recount the day’s adventures over a local vino or two.

There are plenty of exciting routes on offer, but we reckon the mega 23-day Ultimate Twin Island Tour is where it’s at. Starting out in Christchurch on the South Island, you’ll ride over the Southern Alps and cross Cook Strait to the North Island, finishing up in Auckland.

The hills are alive. It may resemble a scene from The Sound Of Music, but the Alps Extreme tour is more about revving engines than musical numbers.

Ride on

Game Changers

Adventure highway Nothing beats the thrill of steering hundreds of kilos of throbbing motorcycle over the bitumen.

Here are MF’s ultimate tarmac titans.

Motorbikes mean freedom. Ever since movies such as Easy Rider and the Aussie classic Stone roared into M the public imagination, hitting the road has become the absolute expression of a man’s occasional need to flip his middle finger at the craziness of it all. That’s why we’ve put together a host of the best bikes for your riding pleasure, the kind of metallic wunder-beasts that will blast you across this wide brown land, far, far away from the maddening crowd. It’s time to get your freedom — and your sanity — back.

PERFECT FOR LEISURECRUISING ON THE WEEKENDS.

HONDA GROM ■ It looks like a streetfighter and goes like a rocket.

The GROM’s simple lightweight design is perfect for zipping in and out of the urban jungle and leisure-cruising on the weekends. It comes in a nifty selection of colours: “Matte Axis Grey”, “Metallic Pearl Valentine Red” and “Lemon Ice Yellow”, which means you’ll stand out from the ever-so-drab pack.

This is the coolest mini-sport bike on the market.

1 2 5 cc 1-cylinder, 4-stroke

ENGINE

DUCATI MULTISTADA 1200 ENDURO ■ This Bologna-built icon has been developed to handle the stress and strain of of-road riding. Thanks to spoked wheels — 19 inches at the front and 17 inches at the rear — it’s the business for long-distance treks.

It’s got electronic semiactive Sachs suspension

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(front and rear) and a 30-litre fuel tank. Plus, a 450km range means you can nip away for a naughty weekend with your new girlfriend without ever having to visit a servo.

ENGINE

1,1 98c c

4 - cy lin de r POWER

11 8k W

WEIGHT

225kg

BASE PRICE

$2 9,990

AUGUST 2016

BMW S 1000 XR ■ Quickshift Pro, ABS Pro, Dynamic Traction Control, Electronic Suspension Adjustment, Cruise Control, heated grips and a relaxed riding position... these are some of the reasons why this bad boy is a critics’ favourite.

It’s a high-performance real-world roadbike:

the 999cc, liquidcooled, DOHC, inline-four, 4 cylinder engine will be your faithful companion as you circumnavigate the planet via the world’s great motorways.

ENGINE

999cc

4 - cyl i n d e r POWER

11 8 kW

WEIGHT

228kg

BASE PRICE

$2 2,1 9 0

YAMAHA XSR700 ■ If you need a set of wheels that will perform in both the city and country, this is your monster.

Its taut handling and punchy parallel twin makes it easy to negotiate the busiest of traffic, but it still has more than enough grunt for your weekend forays

POWER

7 kW

WEIGHT

104kg

BASE PRICE

$ 3,9 9 9

into the unknown.

Bike connoisseurs will enjoy its retro feel: the two-texture leather seat, old schoolstyle headlight and fastening stay set of a cool aluminium tank.

ENGINE

655cc

2 - cyl i n d er POWER

5 5 kW

WEIGHT

186kg

BASE PRICE

$1 0,9 9 0

OUR HOME – OUR PASSION • Fully guided and catered, off road motorcycle tours • Operating since 1990 – Varied range of tours to suit any time frame budget

• Experienced Cape York professionals • Certified Company with multiple awards and accreditations

P: (07) 4055 0050 M: 0427 590 221

WWW.CAPEYORKMOTORCYCLES.COM.AU WWW.FACEBOOK.COM/CAPEYORKMOTORCYCLEADVENTURES

Game Changers

Muscle food

Powerlunches For your next lunch, whip up one of these 6-minute muscle-friendly meals to go.

BOMB-PROOF GRAIN BOWL

1) Quinoa with Prawns ■ “It’s super filling” says Lentzke, “but the fibre comes from quinoa instead of rice and beans, the protein from the prawns and the healthy fats from the avocado.”

M A K E I T : Cook a cup of quinoa. Add in diced grilled prawns, half a sliced avocado and a dollop of your favourite salsa to flavour the quinoa.

Then mix everything together and enjoy as your workmates drool with envy.

By Shawn Donnelly

Packing meals P for lunch isn’t as easy as it sounds: pre-packaged meals are often heavy on empty calories, fat and preservatives; and that hodgepodge of foods you grab from the fridge often ends up a mess by the time you open your lunch box to eat. Solve both problems by pre-making meals that are filled with superfoods and easily stowed.

“Once you know how to cook and stow your own meals, you’ll stop grabbing nutritionally empty snacks when you’re on the go,” says elite-level duathlete and sports dietitian Jennifer Lentzke.

“It’s all about packing a meal that’s satisfying, but also getting the right balance of protein, fibre and healthy fats.”

Have a steak out.

Keep steak salad cool with bottles of frozen water you can drink afterward.

Go Nuts. Carried in a zip-close plastic bag, peanut butter and strawberry sandwiches make a healthy lunch treat.

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Ben Alsop / Food st yling by Miche e Gat ton/Stock and Mar te ; Prop st y ing by Ange a Campos/Stock and M a r t e l ; Ya k i m a C a m p B l a n k e t c o u r t e s y o f P e n d l e t o n

1

50

P A C K I T : As long as you eat it the same day you pack it, this bowl doesn’t need to be refrigerated.

Good ole Tupperware is perfect because no amount of jostling of these hearty ingredients (prawns are even more durable than salmon; and quinoa, unlike rice, stays slightly crunchy no matter how moist it gets) will change their taste or texture. In fact, it may even add flavour, as the quinoa marinates in the prawns and salsa.

Pro Tip! Carb-Free Sugar

2

■ “Foods that are on the lower end of the glycemic index provide a slower release of sugar into the bloodstream so you don’t get a temporary energy high followed by a big crash,” explains Lentzke. “It’s that crash that causes you to go looking for artificial energy in the form of caffeine or sugar.”

TORTILLA TORPEDO

Chicken and Avocado Wrap ■ Wraps are far superior to bread when it comes to staving off sogginess, says Lentzke, so they’re built for loading up on vegies. Here, you get your healthy fats from almonds and avocado, protein from chicken and fibre from the tortilla, hummus and spinach. Top off with your favorite vegies.

M A K E I T : Take a large whole-wheat tortilla, line with hummus, layer in raw spinach. Add sliced grilled chicken breast and top with sliced avocado and a few slivered almonds.

4

3

LIQUID LUNCH

Black Bean Turkey Chilli ■ Meat and beans are what make chilli such a protein powerhouse — use ground turkey to keep it lean and black beans for extra iron.

Hot and hearty, chilli goes great on a highaltitude hike, ride or climb.

Rolled in a couple layers of aluminum foil, a wrap is indestructible and can even be easily eaten on the move — just unwrap it as you go.

For extra protection, the right-size thermos or insulated coffee mug works as a “wrap canister”.

P A C K I T:

3 PROTEIN POUCH

Loaded Chicken Sweet Potato ■ Compared with regular potatoes, sweet potatoes — which are full of vitamin A for stronger bones and better immune function — pack more of a nutritional punch and are equally as filling.

But the skin is the best part, not because it’s full of fibre but because it acts as a natural carrying case.

M A K E I T : In a pan, sauté 450g of lean ground turkey in a pan, until brown. Add a chopped onion, three cloves of chopped garlic, and cook for two more minutes, stirring occasionally. Add a can of black beans, two tablespoons of chilli powder, one tablespoon each of ground cumin, sea salt and hot sauce, two cans of diced tomatoes, a can of tomato sauce, and a cup of water. Simmer on low for 30 minutes.

2 M A K E I T : Bake a sweet potato for 45 minutes (or nuke it for five), and scoop out some of the potato from the skin.

Grill some chicken and chop it up small. As soon as the potato is done, drop in the chicken and some shredded cheese and close up the potato so it melts. Open back up and layer with sautéed kale, sea salt and a dollop of salsa. Close it up again. Wrap in foil.

Foil and a plastic bag are plenty to keep a sweet potato safe. “It’s so hearty, and it doesn’t matter if it gets smashed,” says Lentzke.

“It’s like an indestructible nutrition bomb that works warm or cold.”

A good thermos will keep chilli or soup hot for up to 12 hours. A 500ml model or smaller stashes easily inside any backpack or shoulder bag, or in your bike’s water-bottle cage (maybe even in a large coat pocket). Eat with a spoon or simply drink it!

P A C K I T:

4

P A C K I T:

A potato’s skin is full of fibre and acts as a carrying case for everything you load inside.

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Game Changers

Performance

Drink cofee, smash your PBs Caffeine can help super-charge your gym and athletic output.

We’ve all seen terrifying looking tubs of pre-workout supp with names like Workout Annihilator and Furious Gains, and these typically use cafeine to fire you up. They’re basically middlemen that you can cut out by drinking a shot of espresso before you train.

Cafeine does more than just give you a short-lived buzz though. A study published in the BritishJournalOf SportsScience showed that after drinking just 3g of cofee, subjects ran 1,500m 4.2sec faster than those who were given decaf.

It’ll help you deal with the pain in your muscles when you’re gurning your way

■

through those last few reps too.

Research at Illinois University found that cafeine actually reduces the perception of pain during exercise. The study suggested that it afects the adenosine neuromodulatory system (the bit of your brain which deals with pain) and blocks it from working fully.

Even if you’re not in the gym cofee has serious benefits.

There’s evidence for it reducing the risk of diabetes, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, plus a ten-year study in California found that the risk of suicide decreased by 13% for every additional cup of cofee consumed per day.

CAFFEINE REDUCES THE PERCEPTION OF PAIN DURING EXERCISE.

as the cofee cools.

TIP NO. 1

Learn what the pros look for ■ Believe it or not, cofee tasting isn’t just a spectrum that goes from “that’s quite nice” to “a bit muddy”. The Speciality Cofee Association of America (SCAA) has a scoring system buyers use to objectively evaluate cofees called “cupping”. Stop giggling.

Cofees achieving a score of 85 or higher, from a maximum possible score of 100, are regarded as “speciality” grade because they have no defects and a pleasant flavour profile. Here, George Sabados, owner and roaster of Mongrel Joes cofee, gives his expert guide to cupping.

1) 8.25g of coarsely ground cofee is measured into a specially made shallow cup.

2) 150ml of water heated to 92° is added, and left for four minutes.

3) A spoon is used to break and remove the “crust”, which provides the first opportunity to sample the cofee’s aroma.

4) After a further six minutes, the cupper begins to taste the cofee. Diferent attributes are evaluated at intervals

70° Flavour and aftertaste Flavour The cofee’s principal flavour — what are your taste buds telling you?

Aftertaste The length of positive flavour qualities after the cofee has been swallowed.

70-60° Acidity and body Acidity Bright for positive acidity, sour for negative. Positive acidity adds to the cofee’s sweetness.

Body Is it heavy like a good Bordeaux, or light and refined like a sauvignon blanc?

40° Sweetness and cleanliness Sweetness Is the cofee sweet and pleasing?

Cleanliness When no defects are found, the cup is clean.

And finally, there’s also overall balance.

Cofee is greater than the sum of its parts.

Flavour, aftertaste, acidity and body all work together to achieve balance.

TIP NO. 2

You’re only as good as your grind A hand grinder will have a dramatic efect on your cofee. “You have to use a burr grinder,” says Sabados.

“Its cutting discs can

mill the cofee to a specific size. “The other option is whirly blades, but they create a mixture of pieces that are too big (hard to get flavour out of) and way too small (adding bitterness).”

Remember cofee oxidises within minutes of grinding.

“If I don’t hear the grinder when I’m waiting in a cofee shop, I walk

TIP NO.4

Know what makes good coffee “When buying coffee, make sure it has the date of roasting on it —

that means something under six weeks’ old,” says Sabados.

“Make sure you know where it comes from: if it doesn’t come from a single estate or collective of farmers, it isn’t the best you can buy.”

Where the coffee is grown has a huge effect on taste, so paying attention to what

areas you like will be a big assistance when buying down the track.

And if you’re serious, there’s no more discounted tubs of freeze-dried from the supermarket or dodgy 7-Eleven.

Men’s Fitness has tried and recommends Mongrel Joes premium roasting coffee. mongreljoes.com.au

Get a real lift.

A caffeine hit enables you to go harder for longer.

out,” says Scott Bentley, founder of Cafeine magazine (caffeinemag.com).

“That means they’ve pre-ground in advance, so that cofee is going of as you wait, giving you a flat and uninteresting drink.”

TIP NO.3

Try roasting at home If you drink cofee all the time, it could be worth roasting your own cofee beans for improved freshness and flavour — but even if it’s a less frequent treat, you can try it without breaking the bank. While commercial roasters are expensive, you don’t need to drop hundreds on specialist gear.

“You can use an old popcorn popper,” says Bentley. “Just don’t put in too many at once — you need to make

AUGUST 2016

MF top pick. DéLonghi PrimaDonna Elite Fully Automatic Coffee Machine. delonghi.com.au, $3,599

sure the beans can move with the hot air.”

The beans should be roasted at around 215°. A light roast will take around six minutes, darker roasts a minute or two longer. If you do use a popper, keep an eye on it — it can catch alight if left too long. Roasting puts quite a strain on a popcorn maker and will almost certainly reduce its lifespan, so pick up a secondhand one on eBay.

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Burn It! In a world of self-driving cars and smartphones with thumbprint scans, it shouldn’t come as a shock to see marketers selling things like backyard “telegardens” tended to by green-thumbed robots, dog collars that alert you when your Labrador’s running a fever and toothbrushes that collect “hygiene data”. But welcome to “the Internet of Things,” or “IoT”— which, as silly and brazenly Jetsons-esque as it sounds, is the catch-all term for all the new, internet-enabled products that early adopters promise will populate our homes and ultimately make our lives easier. It’s a movement that sprang to life with the 2011 arrival of Nest, the smart thermostat gobbled up by Google.

“This is what happens when computers get so cheap you can literally put a chip in just about anything,” says inluential IoT designer Alexandra DeschampsSonsino. But, ever the sceptic with my wallet — especially when it comes to new tech — I decided to dive deep into the IoT wormhole, talking to experts and trying out new products, to see which futuristic items actually live up to the hype. What I discovered is that you don’t strike gold with every gizmo — but if you sift through enough of these (sometimes gimmicky) products, you do ind a few nuggets.

I

E N T RY- L E V E L I o T

Lock (and unlock) your house, even when you’re gone

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Nick Ferrari

Morning to night, simplify, streamline and soup up your daily life with these revolutionary new home products from “the Internet of Things”.

Countless IoT products purport to improve home security — chiely remote cameras and alarms. Frankly, I’m no fan of any of them, because they seem to fuel paranoia more than anything else. (Sure, you can see your apartment’s being robbed, but what good is that unless the camera alerts the authorities immediately?) So, instead of buying into one of the many CCTV systems out there, I’d suggest shelling out for the August SmartLock (august.com). The SmartLock replaces your conventional deadbolt with a device that lets you lock or unlock your door using a smartphone, whether you’re on the doorstep or 10 kays away. This is especially useful if you’re renting your apartment out on Airbnb and want a temporary digital key for a guest, or need to unlock the door so your friendly FedEx guy can deliver a package when you’re not home. Best of all,

by Mark Ellwood

August has a bona ide pedigree: it (along with other great items) was conceived

by Yves Béhar, the renowned industrial designer behind the Jambox speaker and Jawbone headset, and has been successfully sold for two years. It looks good and is truly easy to install in about 15 minutes using just a standard screwdriver. The SmartLock also operates on standard batteries that need replacing only once a year. Plus, it has nifty features like Auto-Unlock, which geolocates you via your phone and opens the door when you approach. And if you’re dead set on keeping a watchful eye on your house, shell out for August’s Wi-Fi-enabled Doorbell Cam and Connect box as well.

Never lose (or use) your house keys again. The August SmartLock can let anyone — including you — in remotely.

NEXT-LEVEL IoT

Give your pad some Vegas flash The Philips Hue lighting starter system (meethue.com) lets you turn ordinary lamps and lights into a light show worthy of the Vegas Strip. It comes with a control bridge and three smart LED multicolour bulbs; additional bulbs are available for about $60 each. (Pricey, but if it helps to know, they’re made to last around 15,000 hours, or more than a year and a half.) Each bulb is individually controlled by the Hue app on your smartphone (free on iOS and Android), so you can turn it any colour with just a swipe. You can pre-program the app to tweak the lighting at a certain time of day, or even to slowly brighten in the morning for a gentler “alarm” using the built-in Sunrise program. And if you’re going away, you can set the bulbs to switch on or of to suggest someone’s home. You’re not limited by built-in settings, either: With a few clicks you can create and store a custom “scene”, so you can use your favourite team’s colours to ramp up the spirit before a big game, or strike the right mood with sexy lighting after a successful date.

SENIOR-LEVEL IoT

Cut cooking time and scare thieves At irst glance, the Drop Scale (getdrop. com), which pairs a weighing scale with an app on your Apple device, might seem like a gimmick. Look closer, though, and you’ll ind a clever kitchen gizmo that makes cooking such a no-brainer you’ll have no excuse for blowing your eating regimen on lazy take-out. Here’s how it works: choose a recipe from the hundreds available on the Drop app. (The company’s also working

on app tweaks to allow users to add their own.) As you add each ingredient to a bowl you place on top of the scale, the app will signal you when the right quantity has been reached — no measuring spoons or cups required. It can even suggest a simple substitution if you’re out of an ingredient or, if you have less of something than the recipe calls for, recalibrate all the measurements to go with it. It’s programmable, too, so you can cook one meal or an entire week’s without iddling with calculations. Bonus: the irm just added cocktail recipes — so once dinner’s in the oven, use Drop to mix the perfect aperitif, then sip, smugly, as you wait.

The other intriguing IoT gizmo is one of those rare Kickstarter success stories you hear about. Sammy Screamer Motion Alarm (bleepbleeps.com) is a tiny, triangular motion sensor that’s Bluetooth enabled and has a magnetised back and hanging loop.

Attach it to an object, and if it’s moved, it’ll emit a high-pitched scream (at whatever volume you set) and send an alert to its Android or iOS app up to 30m away.

It’s designed to be a parenting tool (think booby-trapped lolly jars), but I think it’s the perfect theft-prooing device hidden in the frame of a pricey bike, or stashed in the backpack hanging on your chair in a cafe.

EXPERT-LEVEL IoT

Internet-enabled products (which can drag your Wi-Fi down to dial-up slow) and even time them to work together, you’re going to need a hub. To make sure you can operate all your IoT devices seamlessly together, buy only products lagged as using Z-Wave. Put simply, there are countless competing IoT systems — nerd back-end technology that’s involved in internet connectivity but is mutually incompatible — and in my experience, Z-Wave is the most commonplace and possibly the best of them.

You can also opt for Yonomi (free on iOS and Android, yonomi.co), an app that subs for this hardware, detecting and controlling smart devices from almost every major IoT brand from your phone. But, if you do see yourself enthusiastically buying into the IoT movement, here’s one last piece of advice: Be cautious with crowdfunded gizmos.

“About a third of the projects never see the light of day — the failure rate is very high,” says designer Deschamps-Sonsino.

“If you see something you like, put a reminder in your calendar for six months from now, to see if they delivered or not.”

You’ll want to put that same patience to use when trying out any new product. This tech is pioneering, and it’s prone to hiccups.

Think of it as the price of impressing your mates with your cutting-edge tech. That “world of tomorrow”? It’s already here. ■

Calm the tech riot with a central hub If you’re just dabbling in IoT products, you can skip this section. But if you plan to go of the rails with a dozen or more

Mark Ellwood is the author of Bargain Fever: How to Shop in a Discounted World.

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Earn It!

Whattodoabout a bad boss You’re working for the bastard child of Kim Jong-un and Clive Palmer, with a little David Brent DNA thrown in.

Here’s how to succeed anyway.

Horrible bosses.

Don’t let the David Brents of this world hold you back.

I attended a business conference — the type of corporate gathering any road warrior knows will invariably end with a motivational speech culminating in some over-the-top, lifechanging conclusion: “Everything you’ve been told is wrong!” “Diet and exercise don’t work!” “Micromanaging is good!”

This time, however, the keynote speaker, a deeply respected university professor, shocked 800 of the nation’s top inancial pros with some news that was as revolutionary as it was (refreshingly) boring: That decades of real-world research had proven that everything they knew about good management practices — that, to get the best out of employees, you need to promote from within, invest in training, reward good performance with bonus pay and decentralise decision-making — was basically correct. Happy employees, he went on, make for kick-arse companies, which is what bosses everywhere have been told... well, forever.

So how come your boss always overlooks you for promotions, keeps you toiling in the dark and reneges on every yearly bonus? The problem, the professor said, is that few managers actually follow these wisdoms, as conventional as they are.

NOT LONG AGO,

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He then detailed some stomach-turning indings: That employee engagement in corporate Australia is horrible and job satisfaction is tanking and businesses are sufering as a result. Big companies are loaded with loathsome executives whose inertia, fear and refusal to share power are sucking the life out of their workers.

It got me thinking: If your company is run by an incompetent corporate cabal, does that mean you have to pay the price? Hardly. So I took the professor’s best management practices and lipped them to come up with the “best employee commandments”. Use them and you can bypass an awful boss and excel even in a workplace designed to quash success.

by Jack Otter

(IGNORED) MANAGEMENT RULE NO. 1

“Don’t select new employees on the basis of skills that can be learnt relatively quickly; use qualities that are important and more permanent in your hiring decisions.”

B E S T E M P LOY E E TA C T I C

Always Look at the Bigger Picture The last person I hired was without question the least qualiied of all the applicants I interviewed. On paper.

But what really makes a great employee isn’t the ability to handle the day-to-day duties. I needed someone who could get his head around exactly how we’re diferent, who could understand the bigger goal, then learn what was necessary to nail it. And guess what? He nails it. Routinely.

Yes, you need to complete all the tasks your job requires. But that’s just the start. Every day, think about the bigger problems facing your unit, your boss, your company, your industry. Come up with ways to solve those problems.

I’m not suggesting you pepper your boss’s boss with ideas for changing procedures. No-one likes that guy.

Instead, when roadblocks get in the way of business, come up with a solution before your boss even knows there’s an issue and give him that solution when you alert him to the problem.

(IGNORED) MANAGEMENT RULE NO. 2

“Decentralise decision-making and assign it to self-managing teams.”

B E S T E M P LOY E E TA C T I C

Make Every Decision You Can Yourself This is the classic business practice that everyone with an MBA knows and no-one ever follows. The logic is obvious: Small, nimble teams understand their niches better than far-removed managers and can react more quickly to a changing marketplace. Companies often even invest in training programs to equip the teams to make such calls.

But the guys at the top of the corporate pecking order didn’t get there by letting other people make decisions, and they’re sure as hell not going to let go now.

So what can you do about it? First, you have to become the guy who manages that team. Don’t have seniority? Fine, just choose one small project and ofer to take it of the bigger dog’s plate. Be aware that

when you ace it, he’ll probably take credit.

But look on the bright side: By making him look good, you just became a valuable ally. Keep it up and eventually you’ll get the credit you deserve.

Meanwhile, keep track of exactly what you do and describe each win for your boss in your next review.

When you do get charge of the team, what if it turns out to be not much of a “team” at all? According to my favourite management guru, Tribal Leadership author David Logan, groups are often made up of well-educated, competitive alpha males. Here’s his simple approach for turning these “me irst” types into team players.

“First, be curious about people’s motivations — ask lots of questions and really listen,” he says. Once you ind shared motivations, let the other team members know what you have in common and use the word ‘we’.

To close the deal, wait for a day when there’s some cheer in the air and call a few members of your team into a conference room. Logan writes the script for you:

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Clean up your online act ■ Be careful on Twitter and Facebook.

Credit-rating agencies, which

determine whether you’ll get a loan and how much interest you’ll pay, are experimenting with social media to evaluate your financial reliability.

It could hurt you if too many of your pals are deadbeats, or even if words like drunk appear in your posts too often.

Put a ring on it… soon!

■ If you’re thinking of popping the question, it’s worth knowing that diamond prices are falling hard. De Beers lowered prices on diamonds 15% last year and the numbers just keep falling.

“If we actually stopped competing with one another and started working together, we could land [this goal] in ive minutes.

Wouldn’t that be cool? In fact, if we land it for anything, no matter how small, drinks are on me.”

Notice what happened there. You just became the leader. Congrats.

(IGNORED) MANAGEMENT RULE NO. 3

“Share information: Engage in open-book management because employees need data to make decisions.”

B E S T E M P LOY E E TA C T I C

Take Advantage of Areas Where You’re Smarter Than Your Boss If you’re 30 or under, you’re basically a digital native. There’s a good chance you speak Internet better than the greybeards running your company.

So even if you hit a dead end trying to get your managers to share information, you have access to data your boss’s boss probably doesn’t even know is out there.

Learn how to use that data to make decisions. It’ll make your boss look smart when he includes your spreadsheet in his next PowerPoint deck and give him a feeling of safety when he executes ideas based on that data.

It’ll also shield you if you’re wrong — you’re better of showing that a failure was based on good data than admitting you pulled an idea out of your arse.

(IGNORED) MANAGEMENT RULE NO. 4

“Don’t answer ‘Why?’ with: ‘Because that’s the way it’s always been done.’ ” B E S T E M P LOY E E TA C T I C

Always Be Ready to Do Things Diferently If you remember only one thing from this article, let it be this: Never, ever, explain anything by saying, “That’s the way we’ve always done it.”

On the contrary, be vigilant for stale practices and never pass up the chance to change them. You’ll be amazed at how many colleagues will say they hated the old way but never got around to changing it.

Prove that millennials can improve things rather than just drive their older peers crazy and the promotions will start lowing. ■

● Road to Rio The Numbers Game Ken Wallace

“In those first strokes we can be pulling 70-80kg/ stroke and the stroke rate is just over 2/second.”

Age: 32 Lives: Gold Coast Height: 190cm Weight: 90kg Olympic honours: 2008 — gold medal K1 500m, bronze medal K1 1000m; 2012 — 4th, K2 100m

a gamble — you risk everything to be the best. The only reason you feel sadness is because once you cross that finish line, that particular journey you took to achieve your ultimate goal is over.

■ Whereisyourgold medalnow?

Hardkayakka!

■

There’s no faster man with a paddle in his hand than Gold Coast lifesaver Ken Wallace. Uber-fit and focused, he’s training his butt off for a tilt at a third straight Olympics.

Ifyouwanttogetfrom AtoBinakayakasfast ashumanlypossible, hitcharideonKen Wallace’strustycanoe.

The190cmpower paddlercanslash through500mofthe bluestufin97seconds; that’saspeedofjust under19km/h.Healso hastwoOlympic medalstoprovehow damnquickheis—a goldintheK1500and bronzeintheK11000.

The32-year-old’sK2 andK41000mteamare Australia’sbigmedal hopesatRio.Here, WallacetellsMFhow he’splanningtoown thepodiumagain.

■ How’syourprep going?

Thiswillconsistofvery race-specificdistance andstrokeratepieces intraining.Iwouldbe workingonmystarts, nailingthatfirststroke andrefiningmy finishingspeed.Inmy sport,mykayakwillhit topspeedtowardsthe startoftheraceand thenafterthatitisjust amatterofwhodies theleasttowardsthe endoftherace.

■ Whatkindof bodydoesasprint kayakerneed?

Ihaveseenalot ofkayakers,all shapesandsizes,be verycompetitive althoughastrong upperbody,longlimbs andastablecoreare anadvantage.

Intheweeksleading intotheOlympicswe are,youmightsay, “sharpeningthetools”.

■ Whatdoesyour trainingregimeentail?

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Pullingexercises— benchpull,cablepull andchinupsarealways ontheprogram.Plus, corestabilityexercises —situps,legraisesand swissballwork.Let’s notforgetIsitinatiny kayakaswideasmy hips,pullmypaddleas hardasIcanthrough thewaterwhile maintainingbalance.

Inthosefirstfew strokeswecanbe pullinganywhere between70-80kg/ strokeandthestroke rateisjustover2 strokes/second.Once wegetgoingitcomes downto30kg/stroke andjustunder2 strokes/second.

■ Doyoufollow astrictdiet?

IfIputjunkfoodinto mybodybefore training or racing, then

Iamgoingtotrainor racelikejunk.I try to stick to plain simple foods, meat and lots of vegetables.

I avoid excess softdrink due to the sugar content. If I want to lose a quick kilo, it’s the sugar I cut down on. Luckily for me with the amount of training I do, I tend to stay fairly lean.

■ Do you use supps?

When my training volume is huge or when the food I am eating in certain places throughout the world isn’t giving me the nutrition I need I always turn to supps.

■ Describe what winning gold is like.

There are so many emotions all at once: you feel ecstatic, happy, relieved and sad at the same time. Ecstatic, because you have finally achieved that moment you have dreamt of.

Happy, because you have made your parents and family so proud. Relief, because, competing at that level in sport is such

Iactuallyhaveitinan Oakleysoftsunniescase —aredcaseforthegold medalandabrowncase forthebronzemedal.But itisn’tsomethingIkeep outonthecofeetableor anything.Plus,itwould havegonemissing withmythree-year-old hidingeverything!

■ Whowillbeyour toughestrivalsonthe Riocourse?

ThemostconsistentK2 teamistheGermansof MarcusGrossandMax Rendschmidt—they’re definitelytheonesto beat.However,the Serbians,Hungarians, Slovakiansand Portuguesearealso goingtobeupthere.

IntheK4racethe Hungariansand Germansarealso strongcontenders.

■ Canyoubringhome thegoldagain?

Idobelievewehavea chanceoftakinghome twogoldmedals.Our 1000mcrewheading toRioareareallystrong teamandtherehave beensomeconsistent resultsforthepast fewyears.■ Wallaceisanambassador forOakley’sGreenFade eyewearcollection availablein-storefrom JulyatOakleyO Stores, oakley.com.au

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How did you find the second half of season six of The Walking Dead? It looked like it would have been gruelling to work on.

It was so hardcore. It was sort of like the irst half was the pulling back of an arrow with a bow, and the arrow has gained momentum. The second half was the really emotionally draining release. We’ve had so many scenes where our crew was crying because they were feeling so emotional and heavy.

After six seasons, are you used to those draining scenes yet?

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Speaking of the morning, what does Norman Reedus eat for breakfast?

I love huevos rancheros [Mexican-style, tomato and chilli sauce with eggs], but my favourite thing is probably eggs Benedict. I tried to make it once, and it was a disaster.

The hollandaise sauce? You have to be a scientist to make it. Fuck that shit.

Spoken like Daryl himself! He’s clearly the most interesting character on the show, and he wasn’t even in the graphic novels that inspired the series. Now plenty of Walking Dead purists probably can’t imagine that world without Daryl anymore.

He’s such a no-bullshit kind of guy and a great judge of character. He’s had a hard life and is becoming a better person before our very eyes. People like that. He’s becoming a man he wouldn’t have been if all this hadn’t gone down. This apocalypse has beneited him. He’s inding a sense of self-worth with these people he’s ighting to protect.

As an actor, do you worry about your character getting killed off?

I’m not worried at all. If it happens, it happens.

If it’s the story they’re trying to tell, great. Do I want it to happen? Not yet. There are certain things I want to do, certain things I want to see happen. I remember especially during the second season we’d all lip through the scripts and get to the end and go, “Phew!”

But there are certain things my character needs to do to be complete. I’ve talked to [showrunner] Scott [Gimple], and I have thoughts. I can’t tell you, but I’ve spent a lot of time on the show introducing new characters. It’s basically me listening to them so the audience can igure out who that new character is. I end up tossing that ball in an alley-oop so they can slam-dunk it.

Grooming by Joanna Pensinger Ford/E xclusive Ar tists using Dermalogica

steps out of a vintage Mercedes convertible and onto a quiet street where an angled sun casts a pale glow across the neighbourhood’s famous cobblestones. Though only a handful of pedestrians stroll and mingle about, Reedus hasn’t even shut the door behind him when a crush of bodies almost magically appears. Men, women, tourists, residents, college students and even a few pensioners all stand frozen, staring at the svelte tough guy in the black leather jacket, that unmistakable jagged hair dangling down to his collar.

“My teacher always talks about The Walking Dead,” says a bystander, before an overexcited fan cuts him of.

“Are you…I mean, you’re…I’m John. It’s my birthday. Can I take a picture with you?” he says. An onlooker from across the street takes a less subtle approach.

“DARRRYL!” he shouts at the top of his lungs.

“All day, every day,” says Reedus, turning to me and lashing a smile that appears part genuine gratitude and part WTF? with a whif of resignation.

The latter is understandable. Just days before, Reedus — the former ’90s heartthrob turned B-movie actor who, as crossbowwielding bad-guy-gone-good Daryl Dixon on The Walking Dead, would emerge as the most popular character on the most popular show on television — was pulling all-nighters on the show’s sweltering Atlanta set. And when he wasn’t dispatching zombies this past year, he was working elsewhere: starring opposite Diane Kruger in the drama Sky, saving humanity in the sci-i thriller Air, and logging a hilarious cameo in the reboot of the comedy National Lampoon’s Vacation. He even managed to launch his own motorcycle road-trip show called Ride with Norman Reedus. “Sometime in between all of this,” he tells me later, “I’ll take a nap.”

But that won’t be tonight. Right now, Reedus’ vacation has just begun, and before he heads to New Jersey for a zombie convention (where, I learn later, one over-zealous fan actually bit him), then to Hawaii to surf with his son, Mingus (with his ex, model Helena Christensen), he wants to relax and let of some steam. And that involves downing as much bread, booze and red meat as he can.

So once the commotion dies down, we hit a nearby restaurant, where I ind out how someone a famous director once called “not good-looking at all” became the buf, crossbow-wielding sex symbol men want to emulate, ilmmakers want to hire and women want to ink all over their bodies.

Some days you wake up and you know what you’re about to do at work, and you’re like, “Fuck, I don’t even want to do this today.” So maybe you make your favourite breakfast and you pat yourself on the head because you know you’re gearing up to have a fucked-up day. Sometimes I pet my cat a little longer in the morning.

You’ve done more movies than usual in the past year. There’s the relationship drama Sky and Triple 9, about a group of criminals, in which you play Aaron Paul’s brother. And, of course, you had a nice cameo in the reboot of National Lampoon’s Vacation. Are you trying to get out there more in the film world?

No, I had a little bit of time here and there to do things. With Vacation, I went to visit my friend Christina [Applegate]. Comedy is rough. For me, it’s so hard to do. With Triple 9, their set was right across from ours.

I’d change out of my Walking Dead wardrobe to go over there and then change back into my wardrobe.

Do you have any desire to play a superhero in a Marvel movie?

I’m always open to the right project at the right time. I just saw the Marlon Brando documentary, Listen to Me Marlon. It’s one of the best things I’ve ever seen, about the choices he made [including playing Jor-El in the original Superman]. I’d like to pick things that coincidentally fall into a category where my life is at that moment. I did Floating when my dad was dying. And there was a scene in that involving a son and his father, and it felt right. It felt like one of those things you have a hard time talking about. But somehow you’re working through it, and it’s your job at the same time.

Do you get offered Daryl-esque characters a lot?

I don’t think it would interest me to play a Daryl type in a movie. Why

would I do that? I do see a lot of casting stuf that says “a Norman Reedus type.” I’m like, “What the hell does that mean? What the fuck are they talking about?”

What are they talking about?

I have no fucking clue. I remember one of my earliest auditions, the casting director goes, “Can you do that a little more good-looking next time?” Here I think I’m killing it.

And I’m like, “What do you mean?”

And they say, “Like the blond guy on Lost.” And I was like, “What the fuck is that?” Then I left the audition, looked up the guy, and knew there was no fucking way I was going to get that job. There’s no way I could be that good-looking.

Is there a performance you’ve seen recently that’s blown you away?

I thought Sicario [with Emily Blunt, Josh Brolin, and Benicio Del Toro] was a perfect movie. I’m also blown away by things I’d never do but have so much respect for people who did them. I remember going to a ilm festival when I irst started acting. I was in Six Ways to Sunday there, and it was this cool indie thing. I was at the airport and Brendan Fraser was next to me, and he told me he was there for George of the Jungle. He was so cool I went to see it later. He got fucking ripped to play George of the Jungle. That’s super-admirable to me.

Was it a cool guy movie like Six Ways?

No. But that level of commitment was super-cool.

You need great delts and greasy hair to play Daryl Dixon.

How often do you work out?

I have a trainer in New York I use every so often when I’m getting ready to go back on the show.

Nothing too speciic. I just try to shed any holiday kilos and get my mind right. When I’m down there [in Atlanta], I have a gym in my house, so I try to work out when I can, but sometimes when you work so many hours all you can do is get home and fall on your face. I’m also running through the woods in 40° heat and my crossbow weighs a ton, and I’m always riding bikes and building things, so the kilos melt of. But, you know, it would be silly if Daryl took of his shirt and had a six-pack. Plus, if I saw an actor on our show do that and I were a viewer, I’d think that was pretty vain and pretty sellout.

You kind of want Daryl to be more cheetah, less gorilla.

What else do you do?

I tried yoga and I really liked it. I really want to get into transcendental meditation. People keep telling me I’d love it. I know Howard Stern does it. He says he closes his eyes in his closet for a few minutes, and it’s like he’s slept for three hours.

You mentioned Atlanta. It sounds to me like your life there must be fairly idyllic.

It’s awesome out there. It’s way, way out in the country and super-private.

It’s all organic, the food is locally farmed and grown, so it’s just a very healthy way to live. Even on holiday, I eat pretty minimal. I eat a lot of fruit and vegetables. Our catering department is super-high-end; they make us things like lobster for lunch.

You kind of shove it in your backpack and take it home for later. I try not to eat a lot of sugar. I’ve never been a “sit on the couch and shove food in my mouth” guy. I like chocolate, but could never gorge on it.

How does it feel being a sex symbol?

I don’t know. The irst time I ever saw my name in print was for 8MM, and it was a quote from [director] Joel Schumacher that said, “You know, Norman’s not good-looking. He’s really interesting looking, but he’s not good-looking at all.” And I was like, “Thanks, jerk.” So I’m that guy. I’m not People’s sexiest guy.

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Never, ever going to be that guy.

Come on. You can’t deny that people view you that way.

I go to these things like Comic-Con, and I’m tattooed on people’s arms.

I’ve seen hundreds. Some are of Daryl and some are of me. I don’t know what that’s all about. I don’t think about it too much. It doesn’t power my next move. I never look in the mirror. Look at my sweater — it’s full of holes. I have comfort clothes.

I don’t shop. Ever. Even at photo shoots, they don’t do anything. They just move my hair out of my face.

Your hair is quite a star in its own right.

I’m on a TV show. There aren’t a lot of Just Cuts in the zombie apocalypse, so my hair is part of the character I’m playing on the show.

So when it gets cut, it has to be for a reason. Or for a story line. When my bosses and the writers say, “We’re going to cut your hair in this scene,” I’ll cut it.

When you have people watching every hair on your head and tattooing you on their limbs, it must present challenges for potential girlfriends.

I’m one of those people who, you look at me for 30 minutes and you’re nice to me, and I’m like, “Move in!”

And then three years later I’m like, “Wait. What are we doing? What’s your name again?” I’m an easy dude, but, yes, it’s hard. Maybe harder for them than it is for me. I’ll end up with somebody who has a social media account, and they get bashed.

Girls will just bash them. They’re super-mean, or they threaten them.

So how do you cope with being a star in Hollywood during the realm of Comic-Con?

Let me show you this. [Reedus takes out his wallet and shows me a picture of a young girl he met through the Make-A-Wish Foundation.] This is a girl I know who’s sick who comes to Comic-Cons, and whenever I see her she gets dressed up like a zombie and plays with Silly String. We started this game: Whenever someone comes up to me and starts freaking out, I tell her, “Squirt them!” and she squirts them in the face with Silly String. Now, how do you not get into something like that? Q

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(and 14 other training myths busted) N O T E V E R Y T H I N G Y O U S E E O N A M O T I VA T I O N A L P O S T E R M A K E S S E N S E . R E T H I N K T H E T R A D I T I O N A L R U L E S O F T R A I N I N G — A N D YO U ’ L L R E V O LU T I O N I S E YO U R FAT LO S S A N D M U S C L E G R O W T H .

SHUTTERSTOCK

■ No pain, no gain may rhyme pleasingly, but that doesn’t mean it makes sense. “There are dozens of ways to make progress without pain,” says strength and conditioning coach Rannoch Donald. “Greasing the groove is one. Pick a number of reps of a bodyweight move you can do without even breathing hard — five pushups, say, or two pullups — and then aim to do 20 or 30 sets throughout the day. You’ll fit in a ton of training volume without even breaking a sweat.” No grimacing required.

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MF MYTHBUSTING

Dynamic stretching, mobility work, foam rolling, muscle activation: in recent years, warm-up creep has seen the traditional “two minutes on a treadmill and some arm swings” turn into a laborious 20-minute ordeal. Your new warm-up? Five pushups, ten kettlebell swings and ten goblet squats. Start with a 12kg kettlebell and keep moving up the weights until it starts to feel hard.

03 FEA OK, IT’S A CONCERN I , FOR THE NORMAL MAN, IT’S OVERRATED. FEAR UNDER-RECOVERY MORE: DOWNLOAD THE SLEEPGENIUS APP TO MAKE SURE YOU’RE RESTED ENOUGH, AND AIM TO GET AT LEAST 150G OF PROTEIN A DAY.

05 Cardio is best for health

06 Failure is not an option

■ ModernPTsscorn themanwhouses hisentirebodytodo abarbellbicepscurl —andyetthey’ll oftensportarms thatputyoursto shame.Whatgives?

Thetruth:“cheating” movescanbeavalid waytobuildmuscle.

Forbestresults, incorporateacheat intoatechnicaldrop set.Doasetofcurls tofailurekeeping strictform,then —whenyourarms havegivenup—use momentumto crankoutmorereps beforeyoudropthe weights.You’llpush yourmusclespast failure,causing moremicro-tears anduppinggains.

■ Sciencehasyour backonthisone.Not onlywillbuilding muscleand strengthbenefit yourbonedensity —safeguarding youagainst osteoporosisand arthritis—there’s evidencethatit offersprotective effectsagainst everythingfrom Alzheimer’sto cardiovascular disease.Forbest results,mixboth: twodaysaweek ofliftingandthe occasionallong walkorslow run will do it.

■ Failure is always an option. “If everything has to be a success, then there’s no room for, well, anything,” says strength coach Chet Morjaria. “It leaves no room for failing, reassessing and doing something better. It leaves no room for learning valuable mental and physical lessons when something goes wrong. It leaves lots of room for disaster from trying to save a rep, session or program that is beyond saving.” Embrace failure and you’ll be set for success.

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SQUATS FIX EVERYTHING

“Shut up and squat!”

“If in doubt, squat!”

It’s the mantra of the biggest men in your gym, but it only makes sense if you’ve got the mobility to do it right. If squeezing yourself into a back squat means folding yourself in half like an accordion, then switch to the goblet version — a dumbbell held in front of your chest — instead. shutterstock

04 Don’t cheat

08 Box jumps build explosiveness ■ True… sort of.

Done properly, box jumps for maximum height will make you more explosive, but they’re also a good opportunity to face-plant yourself unconscious.

Instead, do the standing long jump (two-footed takeoff for maximum distance) and get all the rewards with less of the risk.

A standing long jump will increase explosiveness and reduce injury risk.

09 Always go full ROM ■ Yes, in theory using a full range of motion will challenge your muscles more. No, there’s no excuse for half-repping your back squats just to sneak an extra plate or two on the bar. But if you’re stuck on a gains plateau — strength or muscle — then selectively using partial ROM might help. Instead of deadlifting, for instance, set the bar up just above knee height in a power rack and pull from there — you’ll be able to handle more weight, for a better challenge to your grip and back. Stuck on the dumbbell bench? Do the move while lying on the floor: you’ll safeguard your shoulders while making things (slightly) easier.

Selectively use partial ROM to break through plateaus.

MF MYTHBUSTING

False. Of course, everyone has a set of rectus abdominis muscles lurking under their belly fat, and yes, once you drop below 10% body fat, you’ll see hem. But that doesn’t mean they’re created equal. Train your abs for hypertrophy like you would any other body part: with sets of eight to ten reps, using weight if necessary, and they’ll grow like anything else. So when you eveal them via health eating, you’ll have something worth showing off.

11 DON’T TRAIN THE SAME BODY PART

shutterstock

BODYBUILDING DOGMA, OFTEN MISINTERPRETED. UNLESS YOU’RE DESTROYING YOUR AR WORKOUT FROM HELL, IT’S FINE TO DO CHINUPS TWO DAYS IN A ROW.

12 Slow cardio is pointless

13 Lower it slowly

14 Winners never quit

■ Some runners have moved away from long-slog volume in favour of sprints. Those runners tend to lose.

“By doing slow continuous training you’re stretching the left ventricle of your heart, allowing it to pump more blood per beat,” says coach Aaron Jahn.

“During HIIT training, the heart is pumping blood in and out as fast as possible to supply you with oxygen, which thickens the walls but doesn’t have the same effect. Long, slow training improves cardiac output, which makes you more efficient.”

■ Tempo-focused coaches state the eccentric phase — the lowering part — of any exercise is the most important.

But it’s not always the case. “By eliminating the eccentric bit of your training — for instance, by doing moves that don’t have a lowering part, like power cleans or rope climbs where you jump off at the top — you’ll cause morphological adaptations,” says coach Ross Edgley.

“You’ll increase strength while limiting the higher stress and tension caused during the eccentric phase.”

■ Wrong. “Winners quit the right things,” says productivity coach Oliver Emberton. “If anything, they quit more often than other people. We mistake a burning desire within us for certainty that we’ll get it. But willpower can’t rewrite the laws of the universe.

“Everyone knows it takes hard work to become successful, but that’s only half the story. It also takes courage and insight to pick the right things.”

The moral in the gym? Pick a few key moves to improve, and throw out everything else for a few weeks.

WHEN IN DOUBT, ADD WEIGHT

Sure, if you want to fast-track an injury.

Your alternative: create more tension with the weight you’ve got. “If muscle’s the goal, lifting to a strict tempo works better than simply ‘cheating’ the weight up,” says trainer Martin Sutcliffe.

“Lower the weight for four seconds, pause at the bottom, then reverse directions. It works for almost any move.”

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Leading biohackers, Special Forces, NASA and the most accomplished exercise physiologist on the planet all agree on one thing: that a strict low-carb, high-fat “ketogenic diet” won’t just help you lose weight, exercise more efficiently, feel better and generally improve your life (and even your chances of getting to Mars!)

— it may also fight cancer and wipe out diabetes forever. The only wrinkle?

It’s not for the faint of heart.

BY TYLER GRAHAM PHOTOGRAPHS BY LEVI BROWN

HOWTHE KETODIET CHANGES EVERYTHING

Timothy Noakes is an emeritus

T

professor in the Division of Exercise Science and Sports Medicine at the University of Cape Town. While his name may not ring a bell here in Australia, he’s a full-blown celebrity in his native South Africa and one of

the most accomplished exercise physiologists on the planet.

You can’t walk by a restaurant in Cape Town that doesn’t offer a “Noakes option” — say, an avocado stuffed with breakfast sausage and eggs, or a double cheeseburger with lettuce sans bun — and evidence of his teachings seems to be everywhere, mostly in the form of the nation’s best-known athletes, including ageless goling legend Gary Player and eight-time Ironman World Champion Paula Newby-Fraser.

In fact, Noakes’ celebrity these days is such that he’s even been pulled into South African presidential politics: To echo the country’s papers of record, “Is President Jacob Zuma’s and his wife’s dramatic weight loss a result of the Noakes Diet?” No one is sure about the president, but his wife, deinitely: She’s lost 30kg following the Noakes plan.

The idea of ketosis is to burn fat as a primary fuel source.

To high-performing athletes, Noakes preaches that the bedrock tenet of endurance athletic nutrition — that winning performance is best fuelled by eating lots of carbohydrates — is simply wrong.

Instead, he believes athletes can alter their bodies so that their metabolism burns fat as a primary fuel source, a physiological process known as ketosis, either from stored body fat or from the foods they eat every day.

For non-athletes and anyone trying to lose weight or keep it of, Noakes’ advice is that eating a high-fat diet, with few if any reined carbs and as little sugar as possible, will switch on the same fat-burning system and keep your body lean and your weight stable without making you hungry. According to Noakes and a growing number of nutritionists, physiologists and biohackers, when you’re in a state of ketosis — best attained through a strict “ketogenic diet” — good things happen.

Sometimes, amazingly good things.

Two years ago, LeBron James famously lost 11kg and upped his late-game endurance by cutting carbs and sugars from his diet. Tim Ferriss, the author of the Four-Hour self-improvement book series, followed a strict keto diet to cure his Lyme disease, and performs a long multi-day fast every four months as a means, he says, of pushing ketosis further and starving incipient pre-cancerous cells of sugar (more on that later). Last winter, real estate guru Sami Inkinen rowed with his wife from California to Hawaii in record time on a keto diet, to promote high-fat eating and raise awareness about the dangers of too much sugar. The Keto Diet, say its ardent supporters, is a natural way to literally reprogram your metabolism and transition to an upgraded operating system. You’ll ultimately feel better and perform better, and your body fat will plummet.

But this sort of “low-carbohydrate, high-fat” (LCHF) diet, as Noakes calls it, is still far from mainstream. It takes serious

The Eat This, Not That!

Guide to the Ketogenic Diet No carbs, no sugars, no fruits. And all proteins aren’t created equal.

Confused? Read on.

BY ADAM BIBLE

The ketogenic diet can be dizzyingly complicated. You want to load up on fats and protein and keep your carb intake low— but all fats and proteins aren’t alike, and there are some vegies higher in carbohydrates than others. Oh, and fruit (fruit!) is pretty much banned. But don’t worry: We’ve put together the best and worst of each category so you can go Keto with confidence.

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FATS EAT THIS! Saturated fats including coconut oil, ghee, grassfed butter, duck fat, dripping and lard, all essential for a healthy immune system, dense bones, and proper testosterone levels; monounsaturated fats like olive, avocado, macadamia and almond oils, which boost heart health and provide vitamin E, important for vision and a strong immune system; polyunsaturated omega-3s, such as wild-caught salmon, sardines and sustainably harvested seafood, to prevent heart disease and stroke and reduce blood pressure; and mediumchain triglycerides (MCTs), fatty acids that are easily absorbed and

used for energy. Linked to weight loss, MCTs increase satiety and rev up metabolism. Some are found in coconut oil, but you can buy a concentrated form of MCT oil.

NOT THAT! Refined fats and oils like sunflower, canola, soybean, grapeseed and corn oils, which have been processed at high temperatures, creating free radicals that can damage cells; and trans fats, such as margarine and other spreads, which contribute to weight gain, increase stroke risk.

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PROTEINS EAT THIS! Meat and offal (eg, tongue, liver, heart) from grass-fed or pasture-raised animals — it’s low in calories and contains vitamins

hormone insulin. It’s linked to genetics, but also to diet — particularly sugar and reined carbs — as well as obesity and inactivity. Diabetes experts estimate that the disease speeds up the ageing process by roughly a third, damaging the body from the inside out. Too much blood sugar slowly destroys blood vessels, with results ranging from mild — early wrinkling of skin — to catastrophic: heart disease, blindness, stroke, amputations due to poor circulation and even Alzheimer’s disease (more on that later).

Noakes’ father eventually died from type-2, but because Noakes himself followed a low-fat diet, exercised regularly (he’s run upward of 70 marathons, as well as a handful of ultras) and didn’t smoke, he igured he’d be spared. To be sure, as he got older he put on some weight and his energy sagged, but he was in good shape.

Regardless, in 2010, Noakes was diagnosed with type-2 diabetes.

Though he didn’t know it yet, a lifetime of well-intentioned carbo-loading for his athletic endeavors had set him up for a fall.

Not long after he got the news, he happened to receive an email about a book title The New Atkins for a New You, and realised he recognised many of the authors’ names on the cover, which belonged to respected exercise experts Stephen Phinney, Jef Volek and Eric Westman. They argued that the late Dr Robert Atkins, who famously promoted a low-carb, high-fat diet in the 1980s — and was routinely lampooned for promoting eggs, bacon and cheese as healthy foods that worked great Carb killer. When South African exercise physiologist Tim Noakes for weight loss — had been right all along. went keto, he dropped from 100kg The professors backed up their position to 80kg — his highschool weight.

dedication to drop your daily total carb intake to below 50g (or 20–30g of net carbs, which are sans ibre), the equivalent of a single cup of brown rice. Government guidelines mention the need to limit intake of added sugars and reined carbs like bread, rice, pasta, biscuits and crackers, which spike blood sugar more rapidly than lollies. Check the label of nearly any sports drink, and it’s most likely loaded with natural or added sugar. Go to the supermarket today and the labels are awash with the message of “low fat”, “no fat”, or “zero fat”.

Meanwhile, Noakes continues preaching that the right kinds of fats — the ones our bodies evolved to process, like animal fat and butter, olive and coconut oil (but not vegetable oils like corn oil and soybean oil) — are extremely healthy. Noakes titled his 2012 autobiography Challenging Beliefs, and, at age 67, he’s publicly waging a war against carbs and sugar from his Twitter account, @ProfTimNoakes, where he chimes in every few hours and has churned out more than 27,000 tweets since 2012.

Noakes constantly retweets the latest nutrition stories and ofers his own food for thought: “Consumption of reined grains, sweets and desserts, sugared drinks and deep-fried foods = more heart disease” or “Truth wins in the end. But it takes time.”

The healthy ultramarathoner who defied the odds — by becoming diabetic

F o o d s t y l i n g b y B r e t t K u r z w e i l /A r t D e p a r t m e n t ; G r o o m i n g b y M a t t h e w Tu o z z o l i /A t e l i e r M a n a g e m e n t u s i n g D i o r H o m m e

Noakes’ war on sugar goes back a generation, to when his father developed type-2 diabetes. Type-2 is a disease in which the body gradually loses its ability to regulate blood sugar through the production of the

like A and E along with tons of antioxidants; wild-caught and sustainably harvested seafood, which is higher in omega-3 fatty acids and better for the environment than farmed fish; and free-range, organic eggs, which contain higher levels of vitamin A and E, beta carotene, and omega-3 fatty acids than the farmed variety.

NOT THAT! Factoryfarmed animal products and seafoods, which are lower in nutrients and often worse for the environment than their healthier counterparts; and processed sausages and hot dogs, which, more often than not, have preservatives called nitrates that have been linked to cancer.

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VEGETABLES

DAIRY

NUTS AND SEEDS

DRINKS

SWEETS

DRINK THIS! Water, sparkling water, soda water, black coffee, unsweetened and herbal teas, unsweetened nut milks, wine, light beer and liquor. Caffeine is fine for most people — just don't go pouring in sugar or milk; the same goes for tea and nut milk.

Lower-carb alcohol in moderation is OK.

EAT THIS! Sweeteners like stevia, erythritol, and xylitol can be made a part of your keto diet, but try to buy only the pure versions, as the powdered products usually have sugar added as a bulking agent; inulin is a sweet and starchy plant fibre that helps regulate blood sugar; monk fruit powder is 300 times sweeter than sugar and doesn't have a bitter aftertaste like stevia; and at least 70% cocoa dark chocolate and cocoa powder as they’re packed with antioxidants.

EAT THIS! Dark leafy greens, like Swiss chard, spinach, kale and lettuce; lowercarb veggies, like cucumber, celery, asparagus and zucchini; cruciferous vegies, like cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli and brussels sprouts; nightshades, like eggplant, tomatoes and capsicums; root vegetables, like onion, garlic, and radishes, and sea veggies, like nori and kombu. The guidelines are simple: Focus on dark, leafy greens, then the stuff that grows above the ground, then root vegetables.

NOT THAT! Starchy, high-carb vegetables, like potatoes, peas, corn, and yams, are poor for achieving ketosis.

EAT THIS! Full-fat dairy products, such as yoghurt, cottage cheese, cream, sour cream, goat cheese, and other cheeses. Note: Dairy should be eaten sparingly, but when you do eat it, stick with fullfat, as it’s more filling and nutritious.

NOT THAT! Milk — but not cheese — is off the list because it contains a lot of lactose, a form of sugar, which makes it high in carbohydrates.

When cheese is made, all the sugar is eaten by bacteria and turned into lactic acid, cutting the carb content way down.

Low- and reducedfat dairy products are to be avoided as they’re overly processed, which strips out nutritents like the fatty acids that make you feel full.

EAT THIS! Macadamia nuts, pecans, walnuts, almonds, flax seeds and sunflower seeds.

Be careful when eating nuts, as they’re caloriedense and can easily put you over your carb limit NOT THAT! Cashews, pistachios and chestnuts are on the higher end for carbs in nuts.

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FRUITS EAT THIS! Avocados are low in carbs and have great fat and fibre content; berries are OK since their carb content is negligible; and 1 cup of tomatoes has just 6g of carbs.

NOT THAT! Fruits, dried or otherwise, are often too high in sugar.

NOT THAT! Soft drinks, fruit juices, sweet wines, craft beers and flavoured liquor are filled with too much sugar and/ or carbs to be allowed if you’re serious about keto. Some people drink diet or “zero” soft drinks, but avoid them if you can because the citric acid and aspartame often found in them may derail your trip to ketosis.

J U LY 2 0 1 6

NOT THAT! Sugar, high-fructose corn syrup, honey and agave nectar need to be ditched. Even if honey and agave are healthy whole foods, sugar is still sugar.

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The Road to 7% Body Fat

What it feels like to go Keto

Putting your body into ketosis — causing it to switch from burning carbs to burning fat for fuel — is a major metabolic change. Some people don’t react well, while others thrive on it and feel more energy. “Low-carb and ketogenic diets aren’t for everyone, so it’s important to listen to your body,” says nutritionist Alissa Rumsey. “If after a few weeks you still feel worse than you did before you started, you should stop and reconsider if it’s the right diet for you.” Here’s what she says you should expect when going keto:

FIRST WEEK

SECOND WEEK

3–4 WEEKS OUT

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You may feel low on energy, lethargic and dizzy. Some people suffer from headaches or flulike symptoms during the first few days or weeks due to the depletion of muscle glycogen and the lack of glucose. This is the hard part, because you have to avoid eating carbohydrates to halt the cycle of glucose-based metabolism, even though your glycogen stores are dwindling and your cravings are probably increasing. Your body is used to burning glucose, not fat, for fuel, which is why — for the first few weeks, while your body adapts — your energy levels may be down.

You’ll likely see a pretty rapid weight loss in the first week, though this will be from water depletion. Glycogen is attached to water in our bodies, so when you lose glycogen, you also lose water — as much as 2kg of just fluid.

Your workouts may also suffer during the first few weeks; many people report a loss of strength and endurance until their bodies become more efficient at using fats for fuel.

Your body will still be adapting to using fat for fuel, but towards the end of the second week and into the third week, you may start to see increasing energy levels.

As glycogen becomes depleted, your body will start producing ketones — some of which are excreted in the urine, so you can now start measuring the levels with keto test strips (available at most pharmacies) to see if you’re at a low enough level of carbohydrate restriction.

At this point, if you’ve been keeping your total carbs to less than 50g per day, you should be in ketosis. Getting down to 10% body fat, or even 7% — a truly shredded physique — is totally doable, depending on your starting percentage. Your energy levels should start to improve, though it can take several months for your body to fully adapt to using fat for fuel. The desire to eat regularly throughout the day to sustain mental clarity will have faded, and your muscles will have access to a near-limitless supply of energy.

Prop st yling by Sarah Guido/Halley Resources / D ylan Coulter

FIRST FEW DAYS

with more than 50 new dietary studies and an action plan for getting lean and maintaining weight loss. Noakes says he learnt more about nutrition that year than in his previous 42 years as a doctor. “I was 100kg when I picked up that book,” he tells me. “Today, I’m 80kg. I’ve achieved my highschool weight and my old running times.”

His new way of eating, he says, also cured his migraines and acid relux. On top of that, it eliminated spikes in blood sugar, kept his appetite in check and allowed his body to burn its own fat as fuel. After Noakes’ diabetes had reversed course, he wrote about it for Discovery Health News; that triggered a national debate across South Africa, a country plagued by an epidemic of diabetes and its associated conditions. (Blacks and ethnic Indians, who make up much of South Africa’s population, are especially prone to the disease.)

Last year, Noakes published his fourth book, The Real Meal Revolution, which explains why high-fat diets work and how to incorporate them into everyday life. “It’s gone viral,” he says.

Cancer cells thrive in high-sugar environments.

On a Keto Diet, your body will be primed to fight back. Hard.

Prop st yling by Sarah Guido/Halley Resources / Jonathon Kambouris

How to eat in a post-“bonk” world Though higher-fat diets go by many names — most recently, the well-known Paleo Diet, as well as the Zone and the South Beach Diet, both of which restrict sugary foods and reined carbs — the Ketogenic Diet has taken the zero-carb and high-fat stance to a whole new level. It’s especially resonated in the biohacker community of Silicon Valley.

From an evolutionary standpoint, ketones — molecules formed by the breakdown of stored fat — are a very important fuel. And ketosis, the process by which the body uses those fuels, is essential for survival.

Here’s how it works: The body — even that of a very lean athlete — stores about 40,000 calories of fat compared with just 2,000 calories of the carbohydrate glycogen. When those carbs have been depleted, the body taps its fat stores for energy.

The same is true for athletes who “bonk” during exercise — it’s because they’ve used up all their stored carbs. To go on, they must either eat more carbs (to burn as sugar) or start burning fat. When marathoners break through the so-called “wall” late in a race, they’ve begun to burn fat.

Thanks to Noakes and other Keto Diet supporters, a growing number of athletes today prefer to be in that state at all times.

Once they make the switch, they say, not only are their race results and game-day performances better, they report sustained energy, better moods and clearer thinking.

Switching from foods that cause chronic illness and make you fat to foods that keep you permanently lean and energetic without getting hungry would seem like a no-brainer. But it’s diicult, and most of us don’t really know what ketosis is like.

The average Australian today is what nutritionists call “a sugar burner”. We ingest carbs for breakfast, so our blood sugar goes up quickly then comes crashing down before lunch, when we get our next carb ix. The process happens over and over again without our bodies entering ketosis.

But getting your body to enter full ketosis is no small feat.

Imagine forgoing all starchy vegetables, breads, sugary drinks (including fruit juice), pasta — essentially everything that isn’t meat or a non-starchy vegetable. It’s a tall order that only gets taller, because, once you’ve started the process, the body, feeling deprived, undergoes a transition phase often termed

Zucch-guini.

A spiralizer turns zucchini into tasty “linguini”.

Fourkiller ketodishes Ready to take the keto journey to a tight belly and rippling abs, but not so thrilled about having to stay away from your favourite carbo concoctions? Follow this handy guide from keto master chef Marie Emmerich, author of Quick and Easy Ketogenic Cooking, and fool your brain — and stomach — with these low-carb but satisfying replacement dishes.

If you’re craving chicken parm:

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■ Use a no-sugar marinara sauce and replace the carb-laden pasta noodles with thin-sliced chicken breast to cut way down on the carbs but still have a satisfying meal. And make sure you use grass-fed ground beef for the filling so you get more vitamins and omega-3s.

If you’re craving pasta:

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■ Spend a few bucks on a spiralizer — seriously, this thing is great for turning vegies into long noodlelike strands (check amazon.com ). To get your pasta fix without the carbs, make spaghetti out of a couple of zucchinis, then dress it with parmesan cheese — which is high in protein — and medium-chain triglyceride (MCT) oil.

If you’re craving mashed potatoes:

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■ Chop up a cauliflower head and cook it with organic broth and turnips for a few hours.

Then blend it with a handheld immersion blender or in a food processor until smooth. Add chives, salt, pepper and butter for guilt-free, low-carb gorging. You won’t be able to tell the difference.

If you’re craving rice:

4

■ Hit up the versatile cauliflower again to make a delicious “rice” that has only 5g of carbs per cup compared with cooked white rice’s 45g. To prepare, chop up the cauliflower head and put the pieces into a food processor; pulse until the bits are so tiny they resemble rice grains. Fry it all up with soy sauce and a dash of fish sauce for fried rice, or use it to make your own keto-friendly sushi rolls.

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the “low-carb lu”. For a few weeks, physical and mental performance — at work, in the gym — dips noticeably and uncomfortably as the body tries to tap its missing fuel source.

Not everyone sticks it out. (For more on what it’s like to go Keto, see “The Road to 7% Body Fat,” page 76.)

There’s a shortcut to ketosis, however: fasting. If you don’t eat for many hours, your body will naturally go into fat-burning mode.

There are many diferent fasting protocols to get into ketosis, but the most common is called intermittent fasting, which consists of not eating for 12 to 16 hours.

For instance, you can eat dinner at 8pm, skip breakfast the next morning and eat lunch at noon. Or, like Dr Matt Mattson, chief of the Laboratory of Neurosciences at the US National Institute on Aging, you can push it even further: Mattson regularly skips breakfast and lunch altogether. With no blood sugar spikes and crashes, just steady fat burning, he, like most intermittent fasters, feels mentally sharp and experiences little if any sense of deprivation.

Keto: the official diet of Mars But if all of this sounds like too much misery for you, consider another reason for going keto: Evidence shows that ketosis could not only help stave of Alzheimer’s but also help cure cancer.

A few years ago, Dr Dominic D’Agostino, associate professor at the University of San Francisco, was trying to solve a big problem for the Navy SEALs. Military divers, he learned, use a device called a rebreather, which is silent and allows for extra-long dives — but, for reasons that are not yet fully understood, makes divers prone to unpredictable, life-threatening oxygen toxicity seizures.

While looking for a way to treat these seizures, D’Agostino stumbled upon the Ketogenic Diet, which also happens to be a proven treatment for a possibly related malady: epileptic seizures in kids.

“There are a lot of treatments for epilepsy,” he says, “but the only

Good news: Bacon is keto-friendly.

(Bad news: You shouldn’t eat a lot of it.)

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“We do think the majority of cancers could be metabollically managed through nutritional ketosis.”

one we, board-certiied neurologists, can say cures the disease is the Ketogenic Diet.”

Why? D’Agostino believes the diet remedies a metabolism imbalance in which brain cells are starved of, or unable to process, glucose, causing the brain to go haywire. Live brain cells are extremely diicult to study (for obvious reasons), but researchers have been able to tease out some clues from the petri dish about why keto diets are good for the brain. Aside from being an energy source, ketones are also important neural signaling molecules and gene transcription facilitators. Ketones also seem to modulate the stress response in neurons and make them more resilient to excitatory nerve transmissions — the kind that can cause seizures.

D’Agostino also found that ketones can elevate levels of the calming neurotransmitter GABA. Theories aside, when he treated SEALs with a keto diet, their seizures stopped. But brain diseases aren’t the only illnesses doctors are beginning to think are metabolic rather than purely genetic in origin. Many common types of cancer — esophageal, pancreatic, colon, kidney, thyroid — are associated with obesity and diabetes, and D’Agostino believes he’s on the path to understanding why.

Cancer cells thrive in high-sugar environments because they rely on glycogen (sugar burned for energy) to survive; type-2 diabetes, especially, provides potential cancer cells with a high-sugar environment. (Interestingly, PET scans detect cancer by inding areas in the body with excess glucose compared with normal tissues.) This suggests not only that glycogen may contribute to cancer, but also that it may be cancer’s Achilles’ heel: If cancer cells become compromised when their host is in a ketogenic state, the body’s own immune responses may be able to efectively ight the disease.

“We do think the majority of cancers could be metabolically managed through nutritional ketosis, either as a stand-alone pill or an adjunct to standard care,” says D’Agostino, who has published research showing ketogenic diets can double the lifespan of mice with metastatic cancers. For a more emphatic take: Leading Boston College cancer researcher Thomas Seyfried believes a ketogenic diet is more valuable in ighting cancer than chemo.

Achieving a ketogenic state could get a lot easier in the coming years.

D’Agostino believes a ketone supplement will be the breakthrough, making the job of drastically cutting carbs from the diet much easier.

His latest creation is KetoCana, which loods the body with ketones and eliminates the symptoms of carbohydrate withdrawal.

Meanwhile, military researchers are focused on keto diets as well, believing soldiers could operate optimally on fewer, denser meals.

Currently, the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the Department of Defense and NASA are all running ketogenic experiments. NASA believes the diet will be important in manned missions to Mars because it protects against higher levels of radiation in space by increasing the brain’s resilience to stress. Plus, “the energy density of a ketogenic diet is higher, so you have to carry less weight,” says D’Agostino.

But for evidence of the Keto Diet’s more immediate efects, Noakes brings up South African athlete Bruce Fordyce, 60, who won the country’s biggest ultramarathon, the 90km Comrades, a record nine times. He ate high-carb his whole life, eventually putting on weight and becoming insulin resistant. Recently, though, he switched to a high-fat diet — and has regained his former waistline and dramatically improved his marathon times. Little by little, according to Noakes, we’re learning.

“This is the single most important health intervention we can make as doctors,” he says. “And as nations.”

Drinking plan.

We all end up pissed as a newt from time to time, but better pre-booze tactics can help reduce headaches.

HANGOVER

SURVIVAL GUIDE

HOW TO MAKE THE MORNING AFTER SUCK LESS

P R E PA R AT I O N I S E V E RY T H I N G

Beat the booze blues ■

Who hasn’t had a solid bender from time to time. Hell, getting trashed is fun.

The after efects, sadly, are not. No matter how epic your night was, the way you feel the next morning can be anything but.

The headache, the nausea, the “kill me now” feeling.

“Hangovers are caused by consuming more alcohol than your body can handle,” says alcohol metabolism expert Dr Jim Schaefer.

“And unfortunately, especially during certain times of the year, not everyone is willing to stick to their limit.”

When your body processes alcohol it produces a toxic chemical by-product called acetaldehyde, which is responsible for

those awful feelings that come with hangovers. Alcohol also dehydrates you, irritates the lining of your stomach and causes your blood sugar to drop and vessels to expand — all of which are guaranteed to make you wake up feeling like someone has illed your head with concrete and done a poo in your mouth.

While we can’t ofer you a “cure” for that hangover, we can ofer you some wise advice on how to lessen your pain, regret and the hours you might otherwise have spent driving that porcelain bus. So read on, and next time you head out to get shitfaced, raise a drink to us. You’ll thank us in the morning.

PREVENTION TIP #1

PREVENTION TIP #2

PREVENTION TIP #3

PREVENTION TIP #4

PREVENTION TIP #5

Green juice

Sweet potatoes

Chicken breast

Cucumber

Milk thistle

● Alcohol is a thief: it robs your body of electrolytes and nutrients. Juice will flood your body with vitamins and minerals, boosting your defences when you switch over to alcohol. Fit in as many greens, like spinach, kale, bok choy, celery and cucumber as you can.

To sweeten it, try apple or lemon.

● Don’t hit the turps without having had a good feed.

“Always drink on a full stomach. Eat a [balanced] meal with some low-glycaemic carbs, like sweet potato or brown rice,” says health coach Kerry Bajaj. A hearty meal before you go out will keep your blood sugar stable and give you energy.

● Protein is the drinker’s mate. When combined with low glycaemic-carbs, it helps keep your blood sugar steady.

When your blood sugar drops, “you have spikes and crashes, and you lose energy, feel jittery and can get really shaky, especially when you’re drinking alcohol,” explains Bajaj.

● Cucumbers are kind of boring, but they’re also 95% water, so munching on a few slices before you go out will not only hydrate you, but also help flush out toxins lingering in your body.

Cucumbers contain small amounts of sugar, B vitamins and electrolytes, which could help prevent later headaches.

● Don’t forget supps. “Certain supplements can be helpful,” says Bajaj. “A herb called milk thistle supports the liver, so taking it before you drink can help your body process alcohol better.” The longer it takes for the toxins from the alcohol to exit your body, the longer hangover symptoms will last.

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Top trick to smash hangovers

Great news! Fatty foods stick to the stomach lining longer, slowing down the absorption of alcohol into the bloodstream.

● Oil be right! Did you know that people in coastal countries such as Greece, Spain and Italy often take a spoonful of olive oil before boozing?

They swear that it guards against hangovers.

But there are more appetising ways to get the stomach-coating effect of olive oil.

“Always eat before drinking,” says dietitian Tammy Lakatos Shames.

“Fatty foods in particular stick to the stomach lining longer, slowing down the absorption of alcohol into the bloodstream.”

Shames says to incorporate hearthealthy good fats into your pre-party-time meal. Choices include: ● Salmon and sautéed veg cooked with olive oil ● Salad with chicken, olives, artichokes and tomatoes dressed in olive oil and lemon ● A chicken sandwich spread with avocado (bonus: one cup of avocado contains 20 per cent of your potassium RDI, so you can get a head-start on replacing the potassium that’s lost due to drinking) While these meals might mean it takes longer to feel the alcohol’s effects, it also gives the body more time to process the drink’s by-products, increasing your chances of feeling decent in the morning — and kicking on for round two.

No more splitting headaches

■ Sick of feeling like crap after a huge night out? You need to change your drinking partners. Neck Hydrodol capsules while you’re on the lash and you’ll find the next day is much more manageable. That’s because Hydrodol contains amino acids, B1 and B2 vitamins, minerals, an antioxidant and the traditional Chinese herb pueraria lobata, which has been used for centuries to alleviate hangovers. It comes in sleek, black designer packs that are easy to slip into the tightest of jeans pockets, ensuring real hangover relief is never too far from your grasp.

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Help for seriously sore heads Next time you get rat-arsed and wake up wishing you’d never gone out, try these products.

● The Hangover Clinic They offer four different hangover remedies depending on how dusty you are: Hydro ($95), Jump Start ($135), Energise ($165) and The Resurrection ($200).

Trained doctors administer a solution containing saline, vitamins, pain medication and oxygen into your body to help nullify the booze blues in less than an hour. hangover.clinic

● Revivol Get the nutritional support you need to prevent or minimise the effects of a fun night.

Each capsule contains milk thistle (used in herbal medicine as a liver tonic to support liver health), cacopa, which is used to power cognitive function and guarana, to target energy production. vitam8.com

Ripped dudes can take in more alcohol than fat, inactive guys because they have more water in their bodies.

N E X T - D AY R E G R E T S

Was I really a dickhead?

■

We won’t answer that question!

A better question might be: why do some people get all teary when they’re pissed, while others turn into complete arseholes? There are a lot of factors at play, says alcohol researcher Dr Joshua Gowin.

Factor #1: Your (not pissed) personality If you’re ordinarily a mean-spirited jerk, you’ll be an even bigger mean-spirited jerk when you’re plastered — or on the way. “Alcohol afects your behaviour, but it doesn’t introduce behaviours that aren’t

already present,” Dr Gowin says. Alcohol dulls the activity in your brain’s prefrontal cortex, which has been linked to self-control and self-relection, Dr Gowin explains. So the more wasted you get, the more impulsive and unaware you become.

Don’t be a cock.

When you start talking to chickens , it’s time to go home.

Factor #2: Your surrounds Where you get trollied is important. Dr Gowin says the way you react to external factors while drunk is exaggerated because you’ve lost a lot of your impulse control and awareness.

If your environment makes you feel nervous or threatened, that anxiety could make you act more aggressively or defensively than you normally would, he says.

The people you’re with can also trigger strong emotion, which alcohol supercharges. A biting remark from a partner or a friend could send your anger through the roof.

Factor #3: Your lived experience Your reaction to booze is often learnt. For example, several studies have found people tend to act somewhat intoxicated even if they

were secretly given nonalcoholic drinks. Another study indicates you adopt the drunk behaviours of your social cohorts. So if your crew gets shouty, you’ll get shouty, too.

Factor #4: Your brain’s condition Stress screws up your decision-making faculties and confuses your emotions, research from Yale University shows.

As a result, drinking while stressed further torpedoes your ability to make smart decisions and manage feelings, Dr Gowin says. The same goes for fatigue, he adds.

“Being sleep-deprived is kind of similar to being drunk in that both states afect those frontal parts of the brain that are important for self relection and impulse control.” So think of drinking while you’re tired as a doublewhammy. ■

HANGOVER HELPER #1

HANGOVER HELPER #2

HANGOVER HELPER #3

HANGOVER HELPER #4

HANGOVER HELPER #5

Ginger

Asparagus

Coconut water

Bananas

Eggs

● News flash: ginger ale isn’t completely useless. If you mum gave it to you when you had an upset stomach, she had the right idea — ginger has been a cure for nausea for ages. If the thought of chewing on raw ginger sparks your gag reflex, try adding grated ginger to fresh juice or hot water.

● Who’d have thought “sparrow’s guts” could ward off hangovers? Its chemical compounds help break down alcohol, enabling toxins to exit your system quickly.

Scientists have found that a product found in it shoots boosts levels of enzymes which help digest alcohol.

● It’s all the rage these days, and with good reason. Coconut water is naturally rich in electrolytes — one serving offers 569mg of potassium — which makes it incredibly hydrating.

An added bonus: coconut water has more flavour than regular H 0, which ² may make it easier to chug.

● Our fave bent fruit is tops for keeping your drunken body pain-free. If you wake up the next morning with sore or twitching muscles, this is a clear sign you’re craving potassium. Bananas are full of it, so if you can’t stomach solid food, break out the blender and make a delicious smoothie.

● Their protein feeds our huge muscles, but it’s not the only good thing eggs do. You may think the grease used to cook them is what’s easing your pain, but something else is at work. Eggs are rich in the amino acid cysteine that breaks down acetaldehyde, the toxin responsible for hangovers.

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THE MF MANUAL PART 3 CYCLING

W h e t h e r y o u ’ r e a s e a s o n e d Ly c r a c o n v e r t o r j u s t o u t o f t r a i n i n g w h e e l s , t h e s e a r e t h e e s s e n t i a l tips that’ll get you on your bike.

Why am I riding?

■ Your reasons are (probably) going to shift over time. Plenty of men start cycling as a way to save money on their commute and to get a bit more exercise, only to end up spending their weekends in far-flung coffee houses, debating the merits of Shimano gearsets over Campagnolo. But if all you’re after for now is fitness, then the benefits are myriad. Norwegian cyclist Oskar Svendsen has posted the highest ever VO2 max score — the maximum volume of oxygen your body can use, the truest test of fitness — with a quite ridiculous 97.5 ml/ kg/min. If muscle is what motivates you, Google Robert Forstermann (or his thighs) to find out what cycling can do for your quads.

You could spend $20k on a bike but the important thing is buying one to match your goals.

How much should I spend on my bike?

How can I hold my own in the bike shop?

■ Every cyclist has a different answer to this, depending on what sort of riding they’re doing and how deep their pockets are, but there are three main options. There’s the “bike to do the job” that’s suitable for weekend rides and commuting, has an alloy frame and entry-level components, and costs around $800.

For something a little more special, with a carbon frame and race-worthy components, expect to pay $2,000-$2,500.

Then there’s the Ferrari and McLaren club, which have topof-the-range everything, are better than the bikes the pros ride and can cost up to $20,000. Perhaps that’ll have to wait for the midlife crisis.

■ Try to sound like a bike rider — here’s your starter vocab.

Groupset Collective noun for gears and brakes Cassette Rear gears

ESSENTIAL GEAR

Chainrings / chainset Front gears

Scott Foil Team Issue Foil bikes have racked up stage wins in the Tour de France, Milan San Remo and Liege Bastogne Liege, so you know it’s the real deal. The all new Foil Team Issue is even more aerodynamic and comfortable than before. Plus, the HMX Carbon fibre frame has been completely redesigned to provide less drag, which will help you gain those extra precious seconds you need to beat your mates. scott-sports.com

Derailleur / mech Mechanism that changes gear Deep sections Wheels that have a deep rim Cadence Pedalling speed (revs per minute).

Pros average 90 rpm in a race Functional threshold power (FTP) Number of watts you can produce for an hour. To win the Tour de France, you’ll need to be able to produce six watts per kilo of bodyweight PRO TIP!

Bunch A group of riders (a “peloton” in a race scenario) Through and of When a group of riders take turns to ride in the wind Bidon Water bottle Bonk / knock Running out of energy due to not eating enough Brew stop A café stop on a long ride. Flat white?

Yes. Grande quad non-fat no-whip mocha?

On your bike

Will a helmet save my life?

Obviously if you wipe out hard and smash your head, you’re going to be better off if you’re wearing a helmet than not. However, Olympic gold medallist and cycling activist Chris Boardman thinks it’s the cycling infrastructure at large – basically, the roads and cycle lanes — that makes the most difference to safety, noting that the Dutch have the lowest rates of cycling head injuries, despite only 0.8% of them wearing helmets. Crucially, all helmets have to pass the same safety standards, so forking out more will result in better-looking and more aerodynamic headgear, but not necessarily safer.

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Don’t hit the tarmac until you’ve fully prepped and inspected your cycle.

Get into gear.

Do the “ABC Quick” check and you won’t end up like this.

How do I check my bike is ready to ride?

■ Do the “ABC Quick” check before you take go for a spin: (A)ir: Sounds obvious but many guys forget: make sure your tyres have air and are inflated to the correct PSI, which can be found on the side of the tyre.

Does my body type affect what I can do on a bike?

■ The way that you use your physical makeup will define your prowess as a cyclist.

If you’re an ectomorph and find it hard to put on weight — whether that’s muscle or fat — then you’re an ideal climber, where power-toweight ratios are key and (thanks to gravity) less weight equals more speed.

Endomorphs might want to take advantage of the weight that they can find hard to shift by turning it into powerful turns of speed, either in sprinting or short-distance time trials.

Because the bike gives total body support, these intense efforts rarely result in joint stresses and muscle pain.

MEN’S FITNESS

ESSENTIAL GEAR

Bianchi Infinito CV

(C)hain: Make sure it’s dirt-free and well lubricated.

There shouldn’t be any kinks or breaks either.

Bianchi is a famous old Italian brand, and the CV is an adaptation of the classic Infinito, which was designed for the rider who mixes it up on Saturday’s fast-tempo group ride and cranks out 100km the following day. “CV” stands for “counterveil” and was developed by a US aerospace company to incorporate vibration-cancelling properties into the carbon fibre layup process. That means less road vibration — maximising your endurance and output. bianchi.com

■ Just because Tour de France champ Chris Froome looks like he could do with an intravenous drip of protein shake doesn’t mean you have to. Being that skinny while also retaining optimal muscle mass is a task that his Team Sky nutritionists spend a lot of time and money on, and to replicate it would be unadvisable for most of us. But because cycling speed comes down to power-to-weight ratios, as long as you can increase both muscle and power output with positivecorrelation, bulk isn’t bad. A lot of training for the pros is gym-based, with bench presses and deadlifts forming important sessions.

(Quick) Release: This is very important. Lots of bikes have quickrelease levers on their wheels and seat post. If a wheel lever isn’t fully closed, you might lose a wheel when you roll over a pothole or gutter.

Should I shave my legs??

■ For the pros, shaved legs are more hygienic for massage and when treating crashinflicted abrasions.

For the less serious, the only “gain” is ribbing from your mates.

PRO TIPS!

Ride faster and further

Seat of comfort

Rhythm and cruise

It’s all about the legs

Form a peloton

Define your line

Make sure you’re sitting in the best position to maintain good posture.

Bad positioning — like sitting too far forward on the seat or leaning forward too far — can lead to poor energy transfer and ultimately injury.

Cadence is key. Riding with a proper cadence (80–100 cranks per minute) will help your muscles build endurance.

Shift to an easier gear up hill — we recommend a 90-95 cadence; muscles gas out quicker when you’re pushing a slow 65 or 70.

Stability on the bike is crucial. Try to keep your upper body as still as possible because the more you wobble about, the more energy you’re losing. Focus on gaining good balance and directing your intensity into pedal strokes.

There’s a reason pros ride in tightly packed units. You’ll go much further in a group — thanks to energy savings from drafting and good banter — than you would going it alone. Being in close quarters with a pack of 10–20 riders will also help your technique.

Pick the point you’re aiming for and go for it.

On a technical descent, look where you want to go and relax your torso.

Your bike “instinctively” follows the best line; if you relax, stay focused and trust your wheels — they’ll do what’s needed.

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(B)rakes: You don’t want to come a cropper. Be sure your brakes are in A1 nick. Try both levers to see that they’re able to stop your front and back wheels.

Is there room in my lycra for muscle?

Is the exercise bike dead to me now?

■ Exercise bikes are OK for a warm-up.

Wattbikes, which offer a wider variety of feedback on your performance, are better — but you can get a proper session in at home by simply attaching an indoor turbo trainer to your rear wheel. The Elite Magnetic is your best entry-level option ( elite-it.com/en ).

Turbo trainer goals Endurance and fat loss Warm up for ten minutes with a high cadence, to the point where you’re breathing heavily, then shift up a few gears while maintaining the same cadence (and therefore increasing effort). After two minutes, drop back down the gears and rest for the same time, then do the same again for five-, ten-, five- and finally two-minute intervals.

Power and muscle Follow the same pattern as above but drop the cadence and increase the resistance. The same formula can be used for the road.

Max anaerobic efforts The most painful kind.

You can’t beat the tried and tested method of full-effort hill reps for effectiveness, but to mimic it on a turbo trainer, max out the resistance and go full out for 30 seconds, then rest for 30 seconds.

Repeat five or ten times.

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cheese and tomato sandwiches and a coffee.

For racing, the pros need their carbs — usually around 70-75g of them every 30 minutes, which Shaw gets through energy bars or energy gels. He also quaffs electrolyte hydration drinks.

Post-ride nutrition is crucial, too. “I have a shake of IsoWhey Sports Refuel & Rebuild to kickstart my recovery as soon as possible,” says Shaw.

He says the main nutrients he focuses on are magnesium , beta-alanine, L-arginine and L-carnitine.

So... before a race load up on carbs, protein and some healthy fats, add fast-digesting carbs for on-thebike fuel, then recover with a whey-protein and magnesium shake.

Fuelled and focused.

Avanti-IsoWhey Sports team captain Pat Shaw.

OK, I’m committed.

Where’s my next cycling trip?

Should I eat like a pro?

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E N E R GY S AV E R

IsoWhey Sports Cafeine + D-Ribose Energy Chews Caffeine has been shown to ramp up performance in edurance sports such as cycling. This IsoWhey Sports product delivers a pure caffeine hit to help increase your staying power on the road.

D-ribose assists in energy recovery in muscles post-exercise, while coenzyme Q10 (CoQ10) contributes to the body’s energy production. isowheysports.com.au

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■ In essence, no.

Being highly trained, the pros are able to do extensive hours in the saddle on minimal food while training — sometimes with no carbs. In 2012, when he won the Tour de France, Bradley Wiggins said he would have days of only eating fruit, with a bit of skimmed milk for

protein, and could lose up to half a kilo a day doing so.

According to Pat Shaw, AvantiIsoWhey Sports team captain, energy is the main objective. “The night before a race I would have a pasta dish with a bit of protein, served with a salad and then watermelon or fruit salad as a dessert option.” Come race morning, he will tuck into two ham,

■ While riding a bike to work can give you a pretty decent endorphin boost, it can’t live up to the buzz of the open road. Routes like the US’s Pacific Coast Highway or the Himalayan Karakoram Highway are what riding dreams are made of, but the Tour de France climbs in the Alps and the Spanish island of Majorca (a training mecca for pros) are more attainable, either alone or with the help of cycle holiday operators.

If that’s still a stretch, clear your weekend and discover The Great Ocean Road or the High Country Brewery Trail in Victoria in search of the best craft beer. ■

PURE

Photo: matteocappe.com

UNDER

EVOLUTION: ULTRALIGHT

ULTRALIGHT At 780gr*, Bianchi’s Specialissima frame changes the game in the ultralight frame category thanks to the use of MSC’s patented Countervail® integrated vibration cancelling system for cycling, developed for NASA by Materials Sciences Corporation. The new Bianchi’s Countervail® ultralight carbon formula is specifically tuned to smooth out the inherent nervousness of ultralight frames.

MAXIMUM CONTROL Excellent traction and stability at high speeds makes Bianchi’s Specialissima ideal tackling diferent types of surfaces during fast accelerations and super high-speed corners when maximum power and control are essential.

TRADITIONAL CARBON FRAME CONTINUES TO VIBRATE

BIANCHI FRAME WITH COUNTERVAIL® IMMEDIATELY CANCELS VIBRATION ACCELERATION

®

Bianchi continues the Countervail® revolution with the introduction of another technological evolution to increase power transfer and ride control.

ACCELERATION

THE NEXT COUNTERVAIL

80 % INCREASED VIBRATION CANCELLING CAPACITY

FAST. ALWAYS Countervail® cancels vibrations that afect performance and transfers your full energy into power.

A super fast and reactive climbing machine with unparalleled control and precision in the descents.

Specialissima perfectly combines the historic Bianchi name together with the future of cutting-edge Countervail® technology. *Black version frame, 55 size, +/- 5%

DISTRIBUTED IN AUSTRALIA BY SOLA SPORT Pty Ltd To ind your nearset dealer contcat us on info@solasport.com.au

TIME

TIME

Real sweat,

Zoom in place.

The all-new VirZoom VR bike combined with a virtual-reality headset.

We introduced you to the brave new world of virtual reality fitness earlier this year. But things have progressed big-time since then. Silicon Valley wants to change your traditional workout forever — by transforming it into a totally immersive, wildly engaging and undeniably arse-kicking 3-D video game experience. We travelled to the US to get the lowdown.

BY SCOTT CHRISTIAN

virtualworlds

It’salittle disorienting at first,

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soaked in sweat. I can’t tell what I feel like more: a kid who just played Mario Kart or an adult who just had his arse kicked in some highoctane spin class. Honeyman shoots me a knowing look.

“Right now we’re at a crazy-weird intersection between itness, gaming and VR,” he says. “It’s something that’s actually fun and with the added result that you get a really badass workout.”

Sex with a Porn Star or a Run Through Bavaria: You Decide Take a peek at the latest Consumer Electronics Show — essentially the world’s biggest trade show for gadgets and cool new technology — or scroll through any tech-centric website and the two letters you’ll most likely run across are “VR”. If industry analysts are to be believed, the world will soon be awash in goggled users navigating realities previously thought unimaginable: lying through the air, ighting Orcs, having sex with porn stars. In the virtual world, literally anything is possible. Or so they say.

This year three tech giants, Facebook, Valve HTC and Sony, will release, respectively, the Oculus Rift, the Vive and the Playstation Morpheus. The Oculus and Vive headsets will plug into high-end gaming PCs and the Morpheus into the PS4 and drop the user into a 360-degree, fully immersive virtual world. “Think of all of the things we can do with movie special efects,” says Ken Perlin, professor of computer science at New York University and one of the leading experts on virtual reality. “Now VR puts you in the middle of it.”

But perhaps no industry is as bullish on the untapped possibilities of this technology than in-home itness. Companies like Sydney’s The Realm System, which is designing an accessory that will allow you to feel resistance while swinging swords in a video game, and Icaros, a German irm developing a machine to let you work out while lying through virtual worlds, ofer up a glimpse of what the future of VR could look like. The gaming company Virtuix Omni, which produces Tron-esque pedestals that allow users to roam through virtual war zones carrying a gun, has just released a treadmill. There’s also Suferfest, which we proiled earlier this year; it transports you into real-life races from the world’s greatest professional cycling rides.

Of course, ever since Jane Fonda irst squeezed into a leotard, we’ve been using visual technology — from Jazzercise VHS tapes to P90X DVDs to HIIT apps — to juice our workouts from the comfort of our own homes. (We’ve used several VR precursors in our gyms, too: If you’ve knocked out a few kilometres on just about any treadmill made in the last couple of years, like the widespread ones manufactured by Life Fitness, you’ve had the option of looking at a screen with bouncing views of a New Zealand beach or Bavarian forest, and the boutique gym IMAXShift ofers a spin class conducted

G r o o m i n g b y M a t t h e w Tu o z z o l i /A t e l i e r M a n a g e m e n t u s i n g D i o r H o m m e ; Opening image: Dan Patitucci

lying 1,500 feet in the air with nothing between me and the ground but a mythical winged horse. As we crest over a small rise I glance down past Shadow’s lapping wing — for the record, I’ve named my Pegasus “Shadow” — when suddenly the rocky hillside below gives way to a sheer, grass-covered canyon. A jolt of pure adrenaline lushes through me as I feel like I’m going to die. But then I feel free. It’s just Shadow and me now, soaring of into the bright blue sky. Peace out, Earth. Nice knowing you.

“Cool, right?” says a disembodied voice behind me.

For the past 10 minutes I’ve been huing away on a bike in a drab oice at VirZoom, a tech company based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. And the voice I hear behind me isn’t disembodied at all — it’s coming from VirZoom exec Spencer Honeyman. He’s actually standing just metres away, but I can’t see him because I’m wearing an HTC Vive virtual-reality headset, which works in conjunction with my present ride — the $400 VirZoom stationary VR bike that oicially went on sale last month.

After slaloming through some trees where Shadow and I chase after loating apples, I decide to let him rest his virtual wings and end the game. Honeyman, the company’s director of business development, then saddles up on a bike next to me and proceeds to lead me through a dizzying number of virtual worlds.

I ride along with seven prototype games in total, including a tank shooter, an Old West game in which you chase down and lasso bandits and a helicopter game similar to the Pegasus; but it’s a multiplayer race car game that inally makes me sweat. The reason is simple: The faster you pedal, the faster your car goes — and thanks to my competitive nature as a former bike racer, I’m on a mission to Your new spotter beat Honeyman.

The new VirZoom By the time we’re done, 20 minutes stationary VR bike offers several virtual have lown by and I haven’t even noticed. adventures, including When I inally remove the damp headset, one in which you ride a pegasus.

I look down and ind my shirt entirely

FOR

The Fitness Guy

DEVICE

The HTC Vive $1,217, htcvive.com/anz/

GameYourWorkout Whether you’re working out, soaring through the galaxy, or both, here’s the best new virtual-reality gear on the market right now.

■ The all-new Vive is a fully immersive VR headset that comes tethered to a gaming PC. With twin 360-degree motion-tracking sensors and room scale, not to mention two wireless motion controls, Vive captures your real-world movements so precisely that it’s unrivalled as a VR workout tool. It’s the preferred device of VR fitness company VirZoom.

FOR

DEVICE

The Total Virtual-Reality Neophyte

Zeiss VR One $220, zeissvrone.tumblr.com

■ While some VR headsets are geared for specific devices (such as the Samsung Gear VR, which is made specifically for the Samsung Galaxy smartphone), Zeiss VR One is a wireless headset that works with any smartphone between 4.7 and 5.2 inches. That means that just about anyone with a phone can use this rig to dip a toe into the VR world.

FOR

DEVICE

Walking on the Moon

The Oculus Rift $878, oculus.com

■ There’s a reason Facebook bought this company for $2 billion. It’s one of the biggest and most high-profile players in tethered VR (if not the biggest), and the new Oculus Rift VR headset, with its external constellation tracker, offers a fully immersive virtual experience. The high refresh rate and low-persistence display makes for arguably the best of the bunch.

FOR

The Mobile Video Gamer

DEVICE

The Samsung Gear VR $158.99, samsung.com/au

■ One of the industry-wide leaders in wireless VR, the all-new Gear VR works specifically with a Samsung Galaxy smartphone for games and movies in 360 degrees of augmented reality.

With the most mobile VR games to choose from, including shooters and sports games, it’s one of the lightest and most comfortable VR headsets on the market, thanks to its soft foam padding. This device will turn any Netflix binge into a movie theatre–quality viewing session.

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in front of a giant video screen that hauls you George Hincapie and Christian Vande Velde.

A virtual ride through mountain vistas or far-of solar systems.)

Originally launched as a Kickstarter campaign on “Shadow” is But what we’re seeing today with at-home in 2012, Peloton’s become a darling of both Silicon pretty cool — but spinning bikes — just about all VR tech is geared Valley and the itness world. Since its inception, it’s can it beat a real toward bikes for obvious, practical reasons (ie, raised $120 million in capital, $75 million of which ride across the the participant is stationary) — is reaching cultlike came late last year from Catterton, a consumerSydney Harbour devotion. And no single company has capitalised focused private-equity irm. And since January Bridge? I need on the virtual craze like Peloton.

2014, it’s sold nearly 20,000 bikes, primarily to to find out.

Peloton inhabits a sector of the itness industry affluent 40- to 50-year-olds who, thanks to kids and that can best be described as augmented reality work, can’t always get to the gym or summon up or “streaming itness”. When MF irst looked into this phenomenon enough motivation to work out alone in the basement. late last year, it was in its infancy. Though you aren’t lying on Which is why VR holds so much allure for the itness world — a winged Pegasus, you’re still on a bike, plugged into a reality that including less-gym-oriented young guys who’d rather be playing video exists mostly in a digital space — in this case, that digital space games than hitting the weights. By using virtual wizardry to ill the being a streaming spin class delivered to you on a 22-inch tablet dead cognitive space of a traditional workout, the hope is that exercise mounted on the handlebars. Every day you can plug into 10 livecan turn into an activity that’s as far from drudgery as possible. Which streaming workouts complete with real riders taking the same begs the question: Does it actually work? Or is Peloton the latest workout in a real studio in New York, a live instructor, and a itness fad, doomed to occupy the space in a dusty corner next to the huge digital leaderboard that shows how you stack up against old Chuck Norris Total Gym? anywhere between 100 and several thousand virtual and in-studio I interviewed several actual Peloton users and was surprised by how riders. (The app can be bought through iTunes.) There are dance positive the reviews were. “The digital leaderboard on the Peloton and Flywheel-style classes, metrics-based classes, classes based on screen, that competition, for me it just changes the workout,” says particular types of music, even classes taught by former pro cyclists John Bernstein, a 52-year-old investment banker. “If I’m in the top 10,

Virtually anything can happen (and does!)

So what’s it like to teach a class when no one is actually in the room? It can be really fun. I go into an imaginative space and play games with myself: Who am I talking to? What do I want them to feel or know?

There’s something to be said about looking through the camera and being able to speak to someone you’ve never met. Some of them have really funny leaderboard names, like Soggy Waffles and Magic Panties. There’s one whose name is Dude, and his location is “In My Basement.”

I’m always talking to the dude in his basement.

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What do we need to know to get a really good virtual workout?

Remain open. If you can immerse yourself by putting the headphones on or dimming the lights, changing the environment to match what you see on the screen, then it brings you in to what’s happening on our side of it. And honestly, just trust us.

What should someone look for in an instructor? I’d say to look for an instructor who not only engages you physically but who can keep your attention and captivate you. An experience that would AUGUST 2016

The spin queen.

Jessica King leads a virtual (and real) Peloton class in the company’s New York headquarters.

feel successful to me as a rider would be one in which the instructor had the ability to transport me out of whatever’s going on and into this 45-minute experience. I’d be able to lose myself.

Nine times out of 10, the reason people click on my ride is they think, “Wow, she’s hot,” or “I want to look like that.”

I get it. If all you have to go on is a photo to choose your workout, a hot body is it.

What’s it take to gain a following in the virtual space? I think leading by example is one of the most motivating things.

Walking the walk and having the aesthetic that complements that.

What should you never message to a virtual instructor? What really blows my mind is when people make comments on Facebook and think that I can’t see them. A woman

once commented, “No wonder my husband rides Jessica’s rides.

He can get lost in her cleavage.” And then a whole thread, 60 or 70 comments, goes on about my boobs. It’s like, Hello?! I can read this!

Try not to forget that we’re people. It’s a really vulnerable thing for us to be on the stage, sweating, half naked, baring our soul.

Sometimes feedback is welcome, but whatever you do, don’t talk shit.

This page: Isaac James. Opposite page, from top: Cour tesy of Phi ips Corporation; Brand X Pictures/Get t y; Cour tesy of Mor ton H e i l i g e s t a t e ; C o u r t e s y o f V P L ; C o u r t e s y o f V i r t u a l i t y C o r p . ; M a u r i c e S a v a g e /A l a m y ; L e v i B r o w n

Virtual spin classes are a whole new world, as we learnt from Peloton instructor and former Broadway dancer Jessica King.

let’s just say I try like crazy to stay there.” I heard similar ravings from less competitive users.

“For me, the addiction of Peloton was seeing my progress,” says Karen Holmes, a physician assistant, who credits the bike for getting her into itness. With the ability to measure herself against other riders, as well as her own metrics, she could see that each workout provided a baseline for improvement — a major win for any itness regimen. Both Bernstein and Holmes praised the virtual community that formed around them. “I’ve made a bunch of friends all over the country,” says Bernstein.

And all of the Peloton users I spoke to praised the variety of classes, which also include 1,500-plus on-demand workouts. This huge well of ever-changing content is a huge factor in motivating yourself to keep using it, says Richard Ryan, professor of psychology, psychiatry, and education at the University of Rochester, co-founder of SelfDetermination Theory, and an authority on human motivation.

“Where virtual reality can help is in making the exercise more gamelike and fun,” he says. Simply put, “a boring exercise program will kill anyone’s motivation.”

Still, as an old-school itness guy and weight-room junkie, I remain sceptical. I’ll admit that lying on Shadow is pretty cool, but any day of the week a Sydneysider, for example, can ride a bike across the Harbour Bridge, hovering 50m of the ground, with a fantastic view of the city. With motivation like that, who needs the world of Super Mario? Also, Peloton costs $2,000 for the bike and $39 for a monthly membership. Are we spinning our wheels to replace our real world with a virtual one simply because it looks cool?

With those questions in mind, I head to Peloton’s New York oices.

You Can’t See BigDaddy88 — But You Know He’s There As I tour Peloton’s gleaming facilities with the company’s PR director, Jaime Kinsley, I feel like I’ve entered some hybrid of an Equinox and a James Bond villain’s command centre. There’s a small café, a work area with Wi-Fi, crisp white locker rooms and a full-blown television studio with a panoply of screens. And then there’s the spin room, which right now is a darkened chamber of high-tech Peloton bikes all lined up as if they were robot soldiers readying for battle.

I hop on a home version of the bike and confess I’m immediately impressed by the design. I often have a hard time adjusting to the geometry of spin bikes, but the Peloton is modeled after a Pinarello road-racing bicycle, so once in the saddle I feel right at home.

Eventually I settle on a 30-minute on-demand metric class, essentially a spin version of HIIT, taught by Steven Little, one of Peloton’s lead instructors. On my 22-inch waterproof tablet screen I can see the class, the instructor and the metrics, such as average and maximum power output, pedal cadence, resistance and heart rate.

On the right-hand side is the most important tool: the leaderboard, on the bottom corner of the screen. Just as with other boutique workouts, your primary motivator with Peloton is the ability to measure yourself against others in the class.

The workout starts, and I gotta say: The virtual experience is surprisingly close to the live one. The music is thumping, Little clearly knows how to get your heart rate up, and the bike itself is comfortable. Unfortunately, the music and coaching don’t distract me at all from the pain. Nothing does. I feel just about every second of that class. So I concentrate on the leaderboard. My competitive streak pushes me to get as high on that thing as possible, and when I see that just a little more efort could get me ahead of BigDaddy88, I go for it.

Later, I ask Little over the phone whether he has any issues teaching a class that exists for him almost entirely in cyberspace, and he tells me that, aside from setup, it’s not much diferent — “Though I’d prefer to be there when I talk to new clients and be there to set them up.”

All I know is that I beat BigDaddy88 — I just wish he were here in person so I could see the look on his face.

A Short History of Virtual Reality

1938

The Stereoscope British scientist Sir Charles Wheatstone uses two photos and a pair of mirrors to create the world’s first 3-D viewer.

It fell out of fashion with the arrival of “talkies”.

Philco Corporation’s Headsight

1961

The first-ever head-mounted display, Headsight used a small video screen and magnetic tracking to show remote video images that correspond to head direction.

Sensorama

1962

Part of the “-orama” invasion of the ’50s and ’60s, Morton Heilig’s phone booth–like contraption elevated VR tech by incorporating smells, wind and sound.

VPL DataGlove

1987

Thomas Zimmerman invents the first glove that can manipulate virtual objects on a computer. With the virtual hand established, science has only 99.5% of the human body to go.

Virtuality Arcade Games

1990

British company Virtuality Group develops VR arcade machines with headsets and controls. Though relatively immersive, crude graphics dampen the experience. It fails.

Nintendo Virtual Boy

1995

A clunky red plastic eyepiece, 3-D graphics–induced headaches, and the fact that it isn’t technically VR sinks Nintendo’s foray into virtual gaming before it’s barely out of the gate.

The VR Explosion

2016

From high-end rigs like Oculus and HTC Vive to Google’s $16 mobile Cardboard, the next generation of VR is here. But is it doomed to become a fad as well?

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WHO E AT S ROO? SHE E AT S ROO. Kangaroo, th e su p er l e a n red meat.

Tiffiny Hall ELITE ATHLETE, TRAINER.

AVA I L A B L E N AT I O N A L LY AT INDEPENDENT SUPERMARKETS AND Cooking tips and recipes at iloveroo.com.au

#iloveroo

ME AT MADE EASY It’s time to fire up the oven and awaken the carnivore within. We’ve got the ultimate no-worries guide to cooking animal flesh.

CHEAT’S ROAST CHOOK WHAT YOU NEED

1

medium freerange chicken 1 large onion, chopped 1 bay leaf 3 sprigs fresh thyme 1 tsp black pepper 1 tsp white pepper 1 tbsp olive oil MAKE IT

1) Preheat oven to 200˚.

2) Place chicken in a large pot of salted water with onion, bay leaf, thyme and pepper.

Bring to the boil and simmer for one hour.

3) Drain the chicken and season with salt, freshly ground white pepper and olive oil. Roast in oven at 200˚ for 15-30 minutes.

SHUTTERSTOCK

4) Take out of the oven and leave to rest for 15 minutes before carving and serving.

Serve with roast veg of your choice, and lashings of gravy...

COOK YA CHOOK THE BEST WAY TO SEASON A CHOOK?

WHAT IS BRINING AND HOW DO I DO IT?

You can season the skin, under the skin and/or the cavity.

No matter what you choose, start by patting your chicken dry with paper towels — it’ll make the skin crispier. To season the skin, simply rub it with your favourite herbs and spices.

Rubbing some butter on will also help the skin brown. To season under the skin, use a sharp knife to trim away any excess skin and fat from around the cavity. Starting from the edge of the cavity, gently push the skin away from the breasts. Rub your seasonings in the space cleared under the skin. To season the cavity, rub the insides with seasoning, and stuff with herbs and an onion or lemon. If you can be arsed making stuffing, bung some of that in there, too.

Brining is basically soaking the chook in salt water. It helps keep your chicken moist — soaking it in water increases the moisture in the meat, while the salt prevents it from drying out when it cooks. It also really enhances the chicken’s flavour, as salt from the brine penetrates deep into the chicken flesh.

CHOO

K LOVE YOUR LEFTOVERS Cooked chook can safely be stored in the fridge for up to three or four days.

Frozen, it will last up to four months.

So make the most of it while you can.

HOW DO I KNOW WHEN IT’S DONE?

The only way to know for sure that your chook is done is by using a meat thermometer. Insert the thermometer into the inner thigh area near the breast of the chicken or turkey, but not touching bone. Your chook’s temp should be 75˚. No pink should be visible; juices should run clear.

Chicken tacos Shred your leftover chicken meat with a fork and warm it up in the microwave, sprinkling the meat with some warm water or stock (see “Make a stock”) to help keep it moist. Stir the meat together with some barbecue sauce and chilli powder and cumin. Serve meat mix on warm tortillas with some salad leaves and Greek yoghurt, or add some corn kernels and cherry tomatoes.

Make a stock Throw the chicken carcass into a big stock pot. Add some roughly chopped carrots, celery and onions, along with some fresh thyme and black pepper. Fill the pot with water until all ingredients are covered, pop on the lid and bring to a boil, then leave to simmer for around an hour. Dispose of all the veg and the carcass (unless there’s still some meat on the bones, which you can pick off and eat) and let the liquid cool. When it’s cold, you can easily skim off the excess fat that’s congealed at the top. You now have a delicious, low-salt stock to use in soups, risottos and stews.

FEATHER YOUR NEST

SHUTTERSTOCK

BARMAID’S CHOICE A roast chook goes well with pretty much anything, but we say opt for a white burgundy for white drinkers or a pinot noir for those who prefer a red. But chicken also goes well with champagne, cider and golden or blonde ales.

1. CARVE IT RIGHT

2. SIDES AHOY

3. DID YOU KNOW?

Place chook, breast side up, on a board. Remove leg by pulling it away to expose the hip joint; cut through joint. Hold drumstick firmly against board and cut through the knee joint.

Cutting this joint separates the leg and thigh. Remove a wing from the joint that attaches it to the body. Cut as close to the breast as possible. Carve the breast meat parallel to the centre bone, slicing towards the top of the breast.

You can go down the bog-standard roasted root veg route, or you could try something different, like steamed green beans, grilled corn and zucchini, crispy coleslaw, a rocket salad with cranberries and pistachios, roasted asparagus or a sweet potato and feta mash. Herbwise, chicken goes well with herbs like thyme and tarragon.

Tarragon works best if you also stuff the chook with a lemon.

More than 50 billion chickens are raised and slaughtered every year — probably mostly to satisfy bodybuilders’ insatiable appetite for chicken breasts. This means there are more chickens on Earth than people. (Should we be worried?) And as for that old chestnut – which came first, the chicken or the egg? Well, all vertebrates have eggs, but the hardshelled variety first appeared among reptiles.

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CLASSIC ROAST BEEF WHAT YOU NEED

1kg piece beef sirloin ½ bunch fresh thyme ½ bunch fresh rosemary ½ cup red wine ½ cup beef stock Roasted and green vegetables to serve MAKE IT

1) Preheat oven to 200˚.

2) Brush beef lightly with oil and brown on all sides in a frypan. Season beef with salt and pepper.

3) Place beef on a rack in a roasting dish. Combine herbs, place half under beef and half on top of beef. Roast 40 minutes for rare, 50 minutes for medium, 60 minutes for well done. For accuracy use a meat thermometer.

4) Remove beef, cover loosely with foil, rest for 20 minutes before carving.

SHUTTERSTOCK

5) While beef is resting remove any excess fat from roasting dish and place dish over a medium heat. Add wine and stock and scrape up any meat residue. Bring to boil and reduce by one third. To serve, slice beef and serve with vegetables and gravy.

BEEFY FAQs HOW LONG SHOULD I COOK MY BEEF FOR?

The suggested roasting times per 500g for rib eye/ scotch fillet, rump, sirloin, fillet/ tenderloin, standing rib roast, rolled rib beef roast — all cooked at 200° — are: rare, 15-20 minutes; medium, 20-25 minutes; well done, 25-30 minutes.

WHAT IF I DON’T HAVE A THERMOMETER?

You can also use tongs to test the roast’s doneness.

Gently prod or squeeze the roast — rare is very soft, medium rare is soft, medium is springy but soft, medium well is firm and well done is very firm.

SHOULD I REST MY BEEF? WHY?

Once your cooking time is done, rest your meat by loosely wrapping it in foil and

leaving it for around 20 minutes. This will allow the fibres to relax, releasing more meat juices and resulting in a tender piece of meat.

HOW DO I KNOW WHEN IT’S DONE?

The best way to judge your roast’s degree of doneness is by using a meat thermometer.

The internal temperature for rare is 55-60°, medium rare 6065°; medium 65-70°; medium well 70-75°; well done 75°.

BEEF LOVE YOUR LEFTOVERS One of the best parts of a roast is the leftovers. Instead of just tearing into it with your bare hands while standing in front of your fridge wearing nothing but your underpants, try these ideas.

SHOULD I BASTE MY BEEF?

Roast beef sambo

Use the juices in the roasting dish to baste the roast as it cooks. Two or three times during the cooking time is all that is needed.

Add a little stock to the roasting dish if there’s only a small amount of es.

Get some beef slices, bung them on a fresh baguette spread with blue cheese and top with roasted capsicum.

Or try roast beef slices on wheat bread, topped with caramelised onions and Swiss cheese, melted under the grill.

Or roast beef with pickles, barbecue sauce and sliced onion on a wholemeal bun. Leftover gravy also works a treat.

Beef pie Shred 500g meat. Chop potato, onion, celery, carrot and mushrooms, and soften in a pan with butter for 2-3 minutes. Add 3 tbsp plain flour and stir for 30 seconds, then add 500ml beef stock and stir. Next, stir in 1 tbsp gravy powder, 2 tbsp Worcestershire sauce, 2 tbsp tomato paste, peas, fresh thyme and salt and pepper. Bring to boil, then simmer until sauce thickens. Remove and cool for 30 minutes, then spoon into a pie pot and top with a sheet of puff pastry. Baste pastry with a beaten egg. Cook in a 180˚ oven for 25-30 minutes or until pastry is golden brown.

BEEF UP YOUR KNOWLEDGE

SHUTTERSTOCK

BARMAID’S CHOICE Roast beef is made to match with a full-bodied red Bordeaux or a good Aussie Shiraz.

If you’re more of a beer man, go for something bold and fullbodied to match your meat, like a brown ale or stout.

1. CARVE IT RIGHT

2. SIDES AHOY

3. GRASS OR GRAIN FED?

After resting your beef for 15 minutes, place the beef on a board with a dampened teatowel underneath it, to stop the board from slipping.

Steady the beef with a carving fork and begin to carve the roast with a slicing (not sawing) motion, using the full length of the blade. Carve across the grain of the beef at a consistent angle. Transfer slices to a warmed plate or serving dish.

A classic roast beef needs classic sides. Go with roast veg like potatoes, carrots, beetroot, parsnip, turnip, brussels sprouts and onion.

Get some green in there with braised peas or beans. And, of course, you can’t go past a Yorkshire pudding. Top it all off with condiments like gravy, horseradish, mustard and mushroom or red wine sauce. Go-to herbs are garlic, thyme and sage.

In Australia, the majority of beef, lamb and goat are grass-fed. Livestock grazed on grassy pastures absorb a pigment from the grass called carotene, which can result in fat that has a yellowish tone.

Grass-fed meat has a more complex flavour than grain-fed, thanks to a varied pastoral diet. Grain-fed beef tends to have more marbling in the meat than grass-fed beef resulting in a more buttery flavour.

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LEG OF LAMB WHAT YOU NEED

1kg leg of lamb, trimmed 1 tbsp olive oil 2 garlic cloves, crushed grated rind and juice 1 lemon and 1 orange 2 tsp rosemary leaves Potato and sweet potato, cut into chunks 10 brussels sprouts, shredded 1 cup frozen peas 3 sprigs mint, shredded MAKE IT

1) Marinate lamb with oil, garlic, rind, juice, rosemary.

Preheat oven to 180°.

2) Drain lamb from marinade, place in roasting dish.

Reserve marinade. Roast 50 mins for rare, 60 mins for medium, 70 mins for well done.

3) Baste lamb twice with marinade during cooking.

Add potato and sweet potato to roasting dish in the last 30 mins cooking time (brush lightly with oil).

CORB SHUTTERSTOCK TOCKS OOD / GETTY IMAGES

4) Remove lamb, cover, rest it for 15 mins. Cook sprouts in a non-stick frypan until just soft, add peas and mint, cook 1 min more. Serve lamb sliced, drizzled with pan juices and veg.

A LITTLE ON LAMB CAN I ONLY USE THE LEG FOR ROASTING?

No way. Although the leg is an old favourite which produces a lovely roast, you can roast with any of the following cuts: leg bone in; shoulder bone in; round; topside; knuckle; rump; boned and rolled loin; neck; belly; eye of loin or backstrap; and rack.

SHOULD I SEASON MY LAMB?

Lamb has enough flavour on its own, so it doesn’t need much seasoning if you can’t be bothered. But it’s also robust enough to match well with boldly flavoured seasonings, like rosemary, oregano, marjoram, thyme, lemon zest, cumin, coriander, mint and garlic. Before you season your lamb, trim some of the excess fat and any silver skin.

Chop and mix your chosen herbs and seasonings and rub the mixture evenly over the surface of the meat. Wrap the coated meat tightly in cling wrap and refrigerate overnight for the best flavour.

TIPS, TRICKS AND OTHER USEFUL INFO

Take the lamb out of the fridge about 15 minutes before cooking. This will help the lamb to cook evenly — if you like medium rare meat it’s especially good to do this. Use a roasting dish that’s as close to the size of the lamb you’re cooking as possible.

This way the pan juices won’t burn and spoil the roasty flavour of the meat.

Take larger roasts out of the oven just short of their doneness goal, as larger roasts and bone-in roasts tend to cook further and increase a little in temperature as they rest.

LAMB LOVE YOUR LEFTOVERS Because lamb is fattier than beef or chicken, leftovers don’t work so well cold, as the fat congeals. That means you’re better off cooking leftover lamb.

Lamb kebab Chop up some leftover lamb, and put it in a dish. Coat with dried oregano, olive oil, lemon juice, some finely sliced onions and a few slivers of garlic. Cover and leave it in the fridge to marinate for a few hours, or overnight if you have the time. Heat a grill to hot and cook the lamb until it’s all sizzling and browned.

Serve on warmed pita bread with some salad and chilli sauce.

Lamb stew Preheat oven to 150°. Place a casserole dish on a high heat, add 2 tbsp oil and brown 500g diced lamb. Add 2 chopped onions and cook for a few more minutes, then add 2 cloves garlic, 500ml lamb stock, 200g kidney beans, 400g cherry tomatoes, fresh thyme, a bay leaf and salt and pepper to taste. Transfer the casserole dish to the oven and cook for at least an hour — or up to three, depending on your taste. The longer you leave it in the oven, the more tender the meat will become, and the sauce will get thicker and richer and more delicious.

DON’T BE SHEEPISH

SHUTTERSTOCK

BARMAID’S CHOICE A classic, minty Cabernet Merlot works wonderfully with roast lamb, but really, any mediumbodied red will suffice. Beer-wise, try a pilsener or pale ale — their hoppy flavours go beautifully with a mint sauce.

1. CARVE IT RIGHT

2. SIDES AHOY

3. IT’S NOT BAA-AD

There are a few ways to carve a roast, depending on the cut you have and your preference for serving. To make carving a leg of lamb easier, ask your butcher to leave the shank bone attached to the leg (not sawn in half). Hold the shank with a clean cloth or thick paper towel. If the shank bone has been removed, secure the leg with a carving fork at the shank (skinny end). Serve on warm plates or platters.

There are so many options with lamb, depending on how it’s cooked, its cut and the cuisine, so don’t be scared to try something a bit out there.

Try roasted or sautéed peas, baby carrots, artichoke, asparagus or fennel. Lemon with a Greek-inspired roast is perfect. Topping-wise, try mint sauce or jelly, tzatziki or balsamic vinegar. The best herbs for lamb are mint, lemon, garlic, rosemary and oregano.

Lamb is a great alternative source of protein — containing about 23g per 85g serving — and iron. An 85g serving can provide 20 per cent of the recommended daily iron intake for men. Lamb is also a good source of immunity-boosting zinc, which can stop the onset of a cold by preventing the virus attaching itself to the lining of the nose. You have to eat the lamb, by the way. Don’t stuff it up your nostrils.

AUGUST 2016

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107

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Your better-body blueprint

Ed i t e d by S e a n H ys o n

Your60-second upper-bodyfix Don’t just learn the battle ropes — master them and wave hello to a lean upper body.

Muscle builder .

A great way to get forearms like Popeye’s.

■

Once only glimpsed in training montages and trend-setting boutique gyms, battle ropes are fast becoming as ubiquitous as kettlebells.

And they’re not just a gimmick — cardio-conditioning options that emphasise the upper body are thin on the ground, and using the ropes will increase your lactate threshold across your arms, shoulders and pecs, allowing you to work harder for longer. Here’s how to use them better.

1) Make waves ■ Your first challenge is simply generating enough power to make your “wave” travel all the way to the anchor point. Nailed that? Now try maintaining that power for 30-60 seconds, then up the intensity.

Aim for 50 waves with each arm in 60 seconds.

2) Change position ■ Once the wave part is easy, change your posture: kneeling, lying or assuming a plank will reduce the amount of muscle you can use to generate waves.

D a n n y B i r d M o d e l B e n Wa t t s @ WA t h l e t i c

3) Move In ■ The closer you are to the anchor, the more power you have to generate to keep the waves going. As you improve, aim for more speed and amplitude — one all-out minute will work your pecs, forearms, shoulders and biceps.

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● Body Book

Hybrid training

The über Cross fitter Turn yourself into an absolute specimen in just four weeks by combining CrossFit-style training with bodybuilding.

By Don Saladino and Robert Yang Photographs by James Michelfelder

■

Bodybuilding makes you big and strong. CrossFit builds power, agility, and endurance. Now, imagine what you would get if you combined the two, taking the multitude of CrossFit techniques used to maximise athleticism and added to them the old, reliable exercises bodybuilders employ to maximise aesthetics? The answer: This hybrid program, which promises to get you into the best condition of your life — big, lean and unbelievably powerful — in just four weeks flat.

1A SQUAT CLEAN

There are four workout days you will use to train six days per Directions week. Perform Day I’s workout on Monday and Thursday; Day II’s routine on Tuesday and Friday; Day III on Wednesday, and Day IV Saturday.

Complete Days I and II as written on Monday and Tuesday respectively. When you repeat them later in the week, make this change: Take no rest after each round of exercises and time the workout. Each time you repeat it on these days, try to beat that time. Perform exercises marked with a letter (“A”, “B” and so on) in sequence.

Sets: 5 Reps: 5 Rest: 0 sec.

Sets: 5 Reps: 6 Rest: 0 sec.

Kick up to a wall and lower your body until your head nearly touches the floor. If that’s too difficult or you don’t have a spotter, place your feet on a bench and pike your body by bending your hips 90 degrees so your head points to the floor.

Lower your body until your head is just above the floor and press up.

Hold a barbell with hands shoulder-width apart and stand with feet shoulder-width apart. Bend your knees and slightly at the hips, lowering the bar to just above your knees.

Now extend your hips and knees until the bar reaches pocket-level on your pants. From there, jump and shrug the bar explosively so it rises up your body and then pull yourself under the bar and catch it at shoulder level. Follow the momentum by descending into a squat.

Stand back up, lower the bar to your knees again, and begin the next rep.

MEN’S FITNESS

■ Four times a week you’ll train with mainly CrossFit moves, which make you faster, more explosive and more athletic overall. You’ll also time your workouts just like they’re CrossFit WODs. When you repeat the sessions, try to beat those times; that way, you’ll be competing with yourself for better gains, just as CrossFitters do (the aspect of CrossFit people seem to love most). In two other weekly workouts, you’ll do familiar exercises like bench presses and rows, which build muscle in a way CrossFit moves can’t, and round out your physique.

1B HANDSTAND PUSHUP/ PIKE PUSHUP

D AY I

110

How It Works

1C DOUBLE KETTLEBELL SQUAT TO CARRY Sets: 5 Reps: 10, 40 steps Rest: 0 sec.

Hold a pair of kettlebells just under your chin and stand with feet shoulderwidth apart and toes turned out about 45 degrees. Twist your feet into the floor firmly and squat down as low as you can without losing the arch in your lower back. Perform 10 reps, then come back up to standing and walk forward 40 steps.

AUGUST 2016

1D 1E PUSH PRESS HANGING Sets: 5 Reps: 8 Rest: KNEE-UP 0 sec.

Set a barbell on a rack at chest level. Grasp the bar with hands at shoulder width and nudge it off the rack. Step back and stand with feet shoulder-width apart.

Dip your knees and explosively press the weight overhead using the momentum.

Sets: 5 Reps: 10 Rest: 60 sec.

Hang from a pullup bar with hips and knees bent 90 degrees.

Contract your abs and crunch your knees to your chest.

D AY I I

1A POWER SNATCH FROM HANG Sets: 5 Reps: 6 Rest: 0 sec.

Set up as you did for the squat clean but grasp the bar with hands at double shoulder width.

Bend your knees and slightly at the hips, lowering the bar to just above your knees.

Now extend your hips and knees until the bar reaches pocket-level on your pants. From there, jump and shrug the bar explosively so it rises up your body and then pull yourself under the bar and catch it overhead with arms extended.

LET THE POWER COME FROM YOUR HIPS. DON’T SWING THE BAR OVERHEAD.

St yling by Christina Simonet ti; Grooming by Casey Geren/ B e rns te in & A n d riulli u sin g Kevin Murp hy

1B RENEGADE ROW

1C BROAD JUMP Sets: 5 Reps: 6 Rest: 0 sec.

Sets: 5 Reps: 10 (each side) Rest: 0 sec.

Stand with feet hipwidth apart. Bend your hips and knees and swing your arms behind you to gather momentum. Jump as high and as far forward as you can, landing softly by absorbing the force in a squat position.

Reset yourself and begin the next jump.

Hold a dumbbell in each hand and get into pushup position, balancing on the handles. Shift your body weight to your right side so your left arm feels light. Row the left-hand dumbbell to your hip. Repeat on the opposite side. Keep your body in a straight line and your abs braced throughout.

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● Body Book

Hybrid t

1D NEUTRALGRIP PULLUP

1E SINGLELEG HIP EXTENSION

Sets: 5 Reps: As many as possible Rest: 0 sec.

Sets: 5 Reps: 15 (each side) Rest: 60 sec.

Hang from a pullup bar with hands at shoulder width and palms facing each other. Pull yourself up until your chin is over the bar. Stop each set two reps shy of failure.

Rest your upper back on a bench and place your feet on the floor close to your butt. Brace your abs and raise one leg off the floor. Lower your hips until your butt nearly touches the floor and drive your heel into the floor to raise your hips up to level again.

D AY I I I

1A INCLINE DUMBBELL PRESS

1B DUMBBELL BENCH PRESS

Sets: 4 Reps: 8 Rest: 30 sec.

Sets: 4 Reps: 8 Rest: 30 sec.

Set an adjustable bench to a 30- to 45-degree angle. Hold a dumbbell in each hand and lie back against the bench.

Press the dumbbells from shoulder level to straight over your chest.

Lie back on a flat bench with a dumbbell in each hand at shoulder level. Press the weights straight over your chest.

1C DECLINE PUSHUP

2B LATERAL RAISE

Sets: 4 Reps: 8 Rest: 30 sec.

Sets: 3 Reps: 10 Rest: 30 sec.

Elevate your feet on a bench or box and place your hands on the floor.

Lower your chest to just above the floor and then press back up.

Hold a dumbbell in each hand and raise the weights out 90 degrees to your sides. Avoid swinging the dumbbells and lower each rep with control.

2A BENTOVER LATERAL RAISE Sets: 3 Reps: 10 Rest: 30 sec.

Hold a dumbbell in each hand and bend your hips back until your torso is parallel to the floor.

Keep your lower back flat. Raise the weights out 90 degrees, squeezing your shoulder blades together.

3A EZ-CURL SKULL CRUSHER Sets: 3 Reps: 10 Rest: 30 sec.

Hold an EZ-curl bar with hands at shoulder width and lie back on a bench.

Press the bar over your chest. Lower the bar to just above your forehead. Extend your elbows to lockout.

3B DIP Sets: 3 Reps: 10 Rest: 30 sec.

Suspend your body over parallel bars. Lower yourself until your upper arms are parallel to the floor and then press back up.

THIS PROGRAM FILLS THE GAPS IN BOTH CROSSFIT AND BODYBUILDING TRAINING. 112

MEN’S FITNESS

AUGUST 2016

D AY I V

1A CHESTSUPPORTED ROW

1B UNDERHANDGRIP PULLDOWN

Sets: 4 Reps: 10 Rest: 30 sec.

Sets: 4 Reps: 10 Rest: 30 sec.

Set an adjustable bench to a 45-degree angle and lie down with your chest against it and a dumbbell in each hand. Row the weights to your hips with your palms facing each other. Squeeze your shoulder blades together at the top.

Set up at a lat-pulldown station and grasp the bar at shoulder width with palms facing you.

Pull the bar to your collarbone.

1C STRAIGHTARM PULLDOWN Sets: 4 Reps: 10 Rest: 30 sec.

Stand behind a latpulldown station and grasp the bar with a shoulder-width grip.

Bend your hips back until your arms are stretched overhead. Pull the bar down to your hips with arms straight.

2 DEADLIFT Sets: 1 Reps: 20 Rest: 30 sec.

Stand with feet hipwidth apart and bend your hips back. Grasp the bar just outside your knees and, keeping your lower back in its natural arch, drive your heels into the floor to raise the weight up until you’re standing tall with hips locked out. Use 100kg if you can do 20 reps safely — this is what CrossFit competitors use. If not, choose a weight that you can do well.

3A STRAIGHTBAR CURL Sets: 4 Reps: 8 Rest: 30 sec.

Hold a barbell with hands shoulder-width apart and palms facing up. Without allowing your upper arms to move forward, curl the bar.

3B INCLINE HAMMER CURL Sets: 4 Reps: 8 Rest: 30 sec.

Set an adjustable bench to a 60-degree incline and hold a dumbbell in each hand. Without allowing your upper arms to move forward, curl both weights.

AUGUST 2016

BY TIMING YOUR WORKOUTS, YOU CAN MAKE EACH SESSION A GAME OF BEAT-THECLOCK.

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FREE

7 TRIAL

DAY*

*Offer valid for first time guests who are local residents or workers 18 years & older only, however, 16 & 17 year olds may trial an “Approved Club” - see anytimefitness.com. au/approved-clubs (photo ID required). Offer subject to satisfactory completion of pre-exercise screening & to standard temporary/guest membership terms. Not valid with any other offers. Not redeemable for cash. Not transferrable. Limit 1 offer per person. Where the trial pass permits use outside staffed hours, a refundable deposit may be payable for an access card. Further provisions may apply. See Club for details. Offer expires 31/12/16.

● Body Book

Eat lean

Mightygreat sandwiches

If she’d known how ripped these protein-packed combos could get you, Mum would have made them for you herself.

BY LIV L ANGDON PHOTOGR APHS BY WILLIAM AND SUSAN BRINSON

No Nutella sanga with the crusts cut off or cheddar cheese on raisin bread is going to get you strong or keep you lean.

So it’s time to leave all those childhood slabs of processed crap back where they belong — at the bottom of your sixth-class lunch box. In their place, put these healthy, protein-packed, stilldelicious sandwiches you can eat every day, any time of day, with a clear conscience. Your inner kid will thank you.

N

Protein hit: Bacon meets supermarket roast chicken, yoghurt, tomato and onion in this powerhouse pita (next page).

● Body Book

Eat lean Green beef.

Make sure you buy steak that’s grass-fed, not “grassfinished”, which means the cattle ate grass only part of the time.

Meal within .

Asparagus contains prebiotics, which act as food for the healthy bacteria in your gut.

Loaded Steak Sandwich MAKES: 1 SERVING

INGREDIENTS

1

tbsp olive oil

1

tbsp grass-fed butter

120g grass-fed lean steak Salt to taste Black pepper to taste 4

spears of asparagus

2

tbsp goat cheese

3

tbsp Greek yoghurt

½ tsp dried rosemary ½ tsp dried thyme 2

slices sprouted grain bread

DIRECTIONS

Not ba-a-a-d.

Goat cheese is lower in calories and fat than cheese from cows.

1) Place a medium saucepan on mediumhigh heat and add the olive oil and butter.

Season the steak with salt and pepper, then add to the pan.

Sear on each side and cook until desired doneness. Transfer from pan to a plate and let cool for 10 to 15 minutes before slicing diagonally against the grain.

2) While the steak cooks, boil a small pot of water. Add the asparagus and blanch for 3 to 4 minutes.

Pinch of salt

Honey-Mustard BLT ( P A G E 1 1 5 )

Pinch of black pepper 1

MAKES: 1 SERVING

INGREDIENTS

2

slices bacon

120g supermarket roast chicken breast,

large whole wheat pita

½ cup mixed baby greens ½ tomato, sliced DIRECTIONS

½ tsp garlic powder

1) Preheat the oven to 200°. Line a sheet pan with the bacon and bake 15 to 20 minutes until crispy.

(If you’re too impatient to wait for the bacon to bake, cook it in the

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J U LY 2 0 1 6

1

tbsp nonfat Greek yoghurt

2

tbsp Dijon mustard

2

tsp honey

¼ cup diced onion

MEN’S FITNESS

microwave by placing on a paper-towellined plate, then topping with another paper towel; cook for 6 to 8 minutes.)

2) Meanwhile, in a medium mixing bowl, add the shredded chicken, yoghurt, mustard, honey, red onion and seasonings.

Toss until well combined.

3) Lightly heat the pita in the microwave to soften. Cut it in half and stuff with

the honey-mustard chicken, baby greens and tomato slices, and add one bacon strip to each half.

N U T R I T I O N (PER SERVING)

615 calories, 46g protein, 56g carbs,23g fat

THE “SANDWICH” WAS INVENTED

BY THE EARL OF SANDWICH, AFTER HE REFUSED TO LEAVE A GAMING TABLE FOR A MEAL.

4) Add the steak slices on one half of bread, then top with the blanched asparagus and combine the halves to form a sandwich.

Lightly drizzle olive oil on the outside of each piece of bread.

Toast in a cast-iron fry pan or a sandwich maker grill.

N U T R I T I O N (PER SERVING)

512 calories, 41g protein, 40g carbs, 21g fat

F o o d s t y l i n g b y C y d M c D o w e l l ; P r o p s t y l i n g b y E m i l y R i c k a r d / Tr i c i a J o y c e

3) In a small mixing bowl, add the goat cheese, yoghurt, rosemary and thyme. Mix until a smooth paste forms.

Smear the herbed goat cheese mixture liberally on each piece of bread.

Double duty.

Avocados are a major source of healthy fat and fibre.

Smoked Salmon, Avocado and Egg Stack

Pimp juice.

Squeezing lemon on avocado keeps it fresh and green.

MAKES: 1 SERVING

INGREDIENTS

2

tsp white vinegar

1

tsp salt

2

large eggs

1

whole-grain English muffin Ripe avocado

½ lemon 100g smoked salmon Pinch of black pepper Diced shallots, for garnish DIRECTIONS

1) Fill a large saute pan with 5cm of water, the vinegar and salt. Bring to a boil, then reduce to medium-low heat. Crack each egg into its own small bowl and then slowly tip one egg at a time into the simmering water. Cook until the whites are firm and the yolk is soft but runny, about 3 to 4 minutes.

Remove each egg with a slotted spoon and rest on a plate.

2) While the eggs cook, halve and toast the muffin. Spread the avocado on each toasted half — it should be ripe enough to spread easily.

Squeeze fresh lemon juice on top.

3) Add two slices of smoked salmon to each muffin half. Top with a poached egg on each.

Sprinkle with salt and pepper and garnish with diced shallots if desired.

Crack down.

Adding vinegar to the water keeps boiling eggs from falling apart in the pot.

Tuna-Avocado Un-wich

2

tbsp unsweetened dried cranberries

2

tbsp toasted almond slivers

4

lettuce leaves

MAKES: 1 SERVING

INGREDIENTS

120g can tuna, packed in olive oil ½ avocado Juice from ½ lemon Garlic powder to taste Salt to taste White pepper to taste

DIRECTIONS

1) Rinse the tuna thoroughly. In a medium mixing bowl, add the tuna, avocado, lemon and seasonings. Mix and mash with a fork.

2) Add the dried

cranberries and toasted almonds to the bowl and gently fold in.

3) Divide a scoop of tuna mixture into each lettuce leaf, roll it up and add a small toothpick to hold in place for easier serving.

N U T R I T I O N (PER SERVING)

367 calories, 37g protein, 13g carbs, 19g fat

TUNA PACKED IN OIL IS MUCH MOISTER AND TASTIER THAN TUNA PACKED IN WATER.

N U T R I T I O N (PER SERVING)

583 calories, 45g protein, 38g carbs, 28g fat

PB&J Smoothie

1

scoop protein powder (preferably vanilla or berry flavoured)

6

ice cubes

MAKES: 1 SERVING

INGREDIENTS

1

cup unsweetened vanilla almond milk

1

tbsp peanut butter

2

tbsp peanut butter powder

1

tbsp chia seed

1

tbsp meal

¾ cup frozen strawberries J U LY 2 0 1 6

DIRECTIONS

Add all ingredients to a high-powered blender. Pulse until thick and creamy.

N U T R I T I O N (PER SERVING)

518 calories, 42g protein, 38g carbs, 22g fat MEN’S FITNESS

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● Body Book

Weight loss

The deadlift.

Essential for a strong posterior chain.

DRINK MORE WATER, CONSUME MORE CHLOROPHYLL TO ALKALISE YOUR BODY AND EAT FOR YOUR BLOOD TYPE.

power endurance, aka HIIT, on them. If you dive straight into it you’ll get hurt.”

4) The world needs more Versa Climbers “They only take up one square metre but they’re the ultimate cardio kit. If you find one, do this challenge: record how many metres you can climb in 60 seconds. 65m is fit, 80m is fit for an athlete, 95m+ is elite.”

Shift 4% of fat in 7 days Need to get shredded fast?

Coach Ruben Tabares can get you in shape quick with light weights and kale. No kidding!

Tabares, a 400m junior running champion, coached former WBA heavyweight champion David Haye and has been PT to the likes of rapper/ mogul P Diddy and Hollywood actor Mickey Rourke. He’s packed a wealth of proven nutrition knowledge and training tactics into his 37 years, and here he distills his five key philosophies that’ll make the difference to your fitness and health.

T

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MEN’S FITNESS

AUGUST 2016

1) Nutrition is number one “This is your first fix,” says Tabares. “Drink more water, consume more chlorophyll (from green veg) to alkalise your body and eat for your blood type. That means less pork and more fish for type A, less chicken and more red meat for type B. When I first worked with Haye he was struggling with cramp but switching from processed supplements to natural sources cured him overnight. Small tweaks to your diet like these can help you shift 4% body fat in just a week. Whatever

you do, make it fun.

Can’t stand kale? I blend it with frozen berries and almond milk and serve it as ice cream to my kids.”

2) Don’t get fanatical about food “All diets are valid but they do have flaws.

You miss crucial brainhealthy animal fat on a vegan diet, for example.

Read the science, trust your experience and adapt if your health is jeopardised.”

3) Earn your HIIT “I’m a longevity expert.

When I start training someone I put them through a process called “adaptation” to condition their

tendons, ligaments and joints using very light weights and high reps. That’ll last two months, then it’s strength training, then strength endurance and power work. Only then will I unleash

5) The deadlift is king “A strong posterior chain — hamstrings, glutes and back — makes everything easier, including HIIT. Deadlift every week. Never go above five reps.

Build up to your lifting weight slowly, stay there for three to five sets. Rest then recover.” ■

Climb to fitness The great thing about the Versa Climber is you can even use it in a small apartment. It’s the ultimate space-friendly kit: excellent for HIIT workouts and improving cardio output and health. It also has a voice guidance/ feedback module display. bodytastic.com.au

C4 RIPPED BEAR ABS P R E W O R KO U T

TO SUPPORT

NOW

B U R N I N G FAT AVA I L A B L E !

● Body Book

DIY workout

Rock the sandbag for rockhard abs Get a stronger, better-looking midsection with this supremely functional core plan.

Power bags

120

How it works

Directions

Use a stopwatch and do the prescribed reps at the start of each minute.

The faster you do them, the more time you have to recover before the next exercise. “As you get further into your session fatigue forces you to slow down, but then rest periods plummet and you have to work harder, meaning you churn through calories,” says Tracey. “It might feel easy at first but it catches up with you after ten minutes.”

At the start of the minute, do 12 reps of the move, then rest for the remainder of the 60 seconds. (Do six reps each side for the halo and woodchops.) Repeat the circuit three times for a total of 18 minutes’ action.

Alter the reps or weight to make it easier or harder but remember it should feel OK at first, punishing at the last.

MEN’S FITNESS AUGUST 2016

Build sandbag training into your week and earn real-world strength you’ll use every day.

Grip Unlike a perfectly weighted and knurled barbell, it’s awkward to grab, meaning your hands and forearms are working constantly.

Balance The contents shift as you move, forcing you to stabilise from the floor to your fingertips so your core is under pressure to keep you steady.

Cardio As a University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee study found, using a sandbag rather than dumbbells for a move causes your heart to beat 8bpm faster, meaning greater energy expenditure and more calories burned.

W o r d s S a m R i d e r P h o t o g r a p h y D a n n y B i r d M o d e l C a l l u m M e l l y @ v a n d e r l a m m i e . c o m K i t J o r d a n S a n d b a g X-Tr e m e M e d i u m ( 1 4 - 2 2 k g ) ,

■

How you get active plays a crucial supporting part in carving strong, defined muscles on your stomach’s surface and deep in your core.

Endless sit-ups and crunches will leave you cramped in unnecessary agony and do nothing about the belly fat that’s in the way.

Instead, this innovative sandbag routine from Andrew Tracey, serial T-shirt avoider and founder of gym-free fitness movement The Nomad Way, will work your muscles through every conceivable plane of movement for full development. Using the EMOM (every minute on the minute) method will melt away the fat concealing them. Match your effort with leaner eating and award-winning abs are all yours. Get into it!

For the full effect, keep your body as still as possible by squeezing your core hard.

Generate power by thrusting your hips forwards as you stand.

1 POWER SNATCH

2 FRONT SQUAT

3 HALO

■ Squat and grab the bag. Raise it,

■ Hold the bag across the front of your

■ Circle the bag around your head,

leading with your elbows until it’s chest-high, then drop below it and punch it up.

shoulders, keeping your elbows high.

Lower into a squat, keeping your knees wide and body upright, then stand.

alternating direction with each rep.

If your core is functioning, balance shouldn’t be an issue.

4 JUMP SQUAT

5 WOODCHOP WITH LUNGE

6 REVERSE WOODCHOP

■ Hold the bag across the back of your

■ Swing the bag across your body

■ Swing the bag across yourself from

shoulders. Lower into a quarter squat, then drive up to jump.

from high to low, lunging to the side with each rep. Do six reps to one side, then switch.

low to high. Lift quickly, then slow down towards the top to work your abs harder.

AUGUST 2016

MEN’S FITNESS

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● Body Book

Kettlebell workout

Full-body blast This 28-minute exercise program will help you sculpt super-lean muscle at warp speed.

How It Works ■ Kettlebells strengthen muscles and connective tissue. So whether you’re in a barebones home gym or a hotel gym while you’re travelling, you can use these training methods for great results. In this case, it’s good to do the exercises for time rather than reps, which makes training with whatever equipment you have more fun. Count up how many total reps you do for an exercise in the workout, then race the clock and try to beat it the next session.

1 GOBLET SQUAT

2 SIDE-TO-SIDE SWING

Hold a kettlebell (or a dumbbell by one of its ends) with both hands under your chin. Stand with feet at shoulder width and twist your feet into the floor so your toes turn out about 30 degrees. Squat, pushing your knees out so your elbows can move in between them. Go as low as you can without losing the arch in your lower back and come back up.

Stand with feet wider than shoulder width and hold a kettlebell (or a dumbbell by one of its ends) with both hands between your legs. Squat down a bit so hips and knees are bent and swing the weight up and over your left shoulder. You can pivot on the trailing leg but don’t let your foot come off the floor. Control the descent and repeat on the opposite side.

Directions Perform the workout up to twice per week on a separate day from your other weight training.

Complete one set of each exercise in sequence, and then repeat the sequence for four rounds.

You’ll perform reps of each move for 30 seconds and rest 30 seconds between them. The entire workout should take just 28 minutes.

Keep track of your reps on each lift and try to improve those numbers each time you repeat the workout. Be sure to choose weights that allow you to work for the prescribed amount of time, and take into account the multiple rounds you’ll be performing.

MEN’S FITNESS

Place a kettlebell or dumbbell on the floor.

Stand behind it with feet shoulder width.

Bend your hips back and, keeping your back flat, reach down to grasp the handle. Allow your knees to bend as needed. Extend your hips and knees to lift the weight off the floor and explosively heave it to shoulder level.

From there, press the weight straight overhead. Alternate sides each round.

AUGUST 2016

St yling by Christina Simonet ti; Grooming by Casey Geren/ B e rns te in & A n d riulli u sin g Kevin Murp hy

122

3 DEADLIFT TO CLEAN AND PRESS

4 REVERSE LUNGE Hold a dumbbell or kettlebell in one hand and step backward. Lower your body until your rear knee nearly touches the floor and your front thigh is parallel to the floor. Alternate sides each round.

5 SEATED RUSSIAN TWIST Hold a dumbbell or kettlebell and sit on the floor with hips and knees bent 90 degrees.

Twist to one side as far as you can. Turn to the other side. That’s one rep.

6 DUMBBELL SWING Hold a dumbbell by one of its ends or a kettlebell and stand with feet shoulder-width apart.

Bend your hips back and swing the weight through your legs and behind you while keeping your lower back flat. Bend your knees as necessary. Explosively extend your hips to swing the weight up to shoulder level.

THE TURKISH GETUP BUILDS CORE STRENGTH AND CONDITIONING.

7 ONE-HALF TURKISH GETUP Hold a kettlebell or dumbbell and lie on your back on the floor. Press the weight straight over your head and bend the knee on that same side 90 degrees. Raise your torso off the floor and turn to the non-working side. Lower back down.

That’s one rep. Alternate sides each round.

AUGUST 2016

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● Body Book

Muscle expert with just the 20kg bar, learning to handle the searing lactate in his biceps so he could work harder with other lifts while also sparking a huge surge of hypertrophy for his atlas stone-wielding arms. What can you do? Pick a weight that forces you to fail at 60 reps. Repeat weekly until you hit the 100kg jackpot, then add 2kg and repeat.

Strength strategy.

It doesn’t take a training revolution to win the arms race.

Five small tweaks for big arms Wanna be the No.1 hit at the gun show? Here are a handful of surefire tips for ramping up muscle growth and building award-winning biceps.

LATERAL MOVEMENT AWAY FROM THE LINE BETWEEN THE HAND AND SHOULDER WILL REDUCE THE EFFECTIVENESS OF YOUR BICEPS CURL. 124

MEN’S FITNESS

AUGUST 2016

1) Curl to your shoulder ■ The great Arnold Schwarwzenegger has always been a stickler for good form. With the biceps curl, that means flexing and extending fully at the top and bottom. Any lateral movement away from the line between your hand and shoulder is a cardinal sin — if you move your hand in or out a fraction, you’ll ease the tension on your biceps and stay closer to the noodle zone. And squeeze at the top.

2) Go heavier than you can lift ■ The key is to cheat

the concentric (lifting) part of a lift and then focus on the eccentric (lowering) phase. Although not applicable to all muscle-building strategies (see page 79), a study at the University of Florida found that neglecting the eccentric phase could cut your gains significantly.

So, instead, try overloading it. On your final set pick a weight you’d struggle to lift fully, get help hefting it to the top of the move from a spotter, then dig in and lower the weight as slowly as you can. Take a breath and repeat, five times minimum.

3) Shoot for a ton ■ Three-time America’s Strongest Man victor Derek Poundstone was renowned for his paintolerance training. He’d do a century of curls

4) Press pause for muscle ■ Fly through your reps and you’re missing out on 5% more muscle through sheer haste, according to a study in the JournalOfApplied Physiology.

To recruit your maximum amount of motor units, pause in the middle of a curl or triceps pulldown at the point of maximum tension for as long as you can handle. Best save it for the final rep.

5) Go large,then little ■ Pre-exhaust your bis and tris with big-boy moves first.

That means using multi-joint compound lifts like chinups and bench presses to pre-fatigue your arms before immediately following up with lighter single-joint lifts like curls and skullcrushers. It’s a method advocated by fitness guru Matt Bryzcki. ■

Win the arms race Inflate your arms with PT Deke Walker’s “feeder workout”.

1A hammer curl x 60 1B skullcrusher x 100 Walker says: “Before bed, I follow up the workout I did in the day with a final highvolume blast. Sitting on the end of my bed holding very light dumbbells I get through these reps as fast as I can, switching when I hit failure. Sleeping straight after gives them time to grow back bigger.”

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MEN’S FITNESS

AUGUST 2016

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MEN’S FITNESS

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MEN’S FITNESS

AUGUST 2016

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The Cooldown

One thing you can’t train without:

CATCHING UP W ITH:

Spikes! They’re the most important piece of equipment for a sprinter. Period.

UsainBolt

Best training advice you’ve ever been given:

Superstar Jamaican sprinter, Olympic shoo-in in Rio and reigning World’s Fastest Man. INTERVIEW BY MICHAEL RODIO

People who watch my races know that as I am tall, my start is slower than that of the smaller athletes. A few years ago, my coach told me to stop stressing about making my start faster and run to my strengths. The 100m race is long, and the winner is the one who crosses the inish line irst.

Hardest workout you’ve ever done:

We run sessions like 6–8 x 300m in the winter to build endurance. They are tough. Sprinters don’t usually like such high-volume sessions. But it’s necessary to build endurance during the pre-season.

Favourite off-season exercise:

I love playing soccer. I play left midield or striker with friends who have an appreciation of my profession and thankfully don’t tackle hard.

Perfect training meal:

“Away from the track, I play soccer. Thankfully, my friends don’t tackle hard.”

At the moment I am eating a lot of protein and vegetables and trying to stay away from too many carbs in order to get to my optimum racing weight. In competition season, I focus more and more on my diet to give myself the best chance to run fast when it really matters.

Favourite cheat meal:

Wings, man. Jerk, bufalo. All types! I love them.

Frustration or challenge you constantly battle with in training:

For elite sprinters, it is always training hard but staying injury-free. We tend to walk the line. We really need to watch the hamstrings, calves and Achilles, which all get tight.

Favourite training soundtrack:

I like a lot of dance hall, reggae and hip-hop.

Point in your career, at any level, when you realised you were special:

I think it all started in 2002, when I was 15 and I won the World Junior Championships, a competition for under-20s.

It’s unusual for a 15-year-old to beat 19-year-olds.

Achievement you consider your greatest triumph and why:

Six Olympic gold medals, 11 world titles and eight world records. They are all triumphs.

Worst thing that’s ever happened to you on the track:

I false-started at the 2011 World T&F Championships in Daegu (South Korea) when I was the favourite to win.

Reason you chose your sport over others:

My dad encouraged me to participate in an individual sport and saw that I was able to run fast. He said that in an individual sport I would control my own outcome and not be depending on others and politics in teams.

Qualities you consider the most important in a champion:

Being able to perform when it counts and coming back to do it again and again.

Attribute you most value in a coach or adviser:

My coach, Glen Mills, is a guru. He has a deep knowledge of the sport, but most of all, he teaches life lessons.

My parents brought me up to respect people no matter who they are or where they come from.

Best piece of advice you’d give your younger self:

Work hard. Enjoy the moment. ■ 130

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AUGUST 2016

shutterstock

Best piece of wisdom you’ve ever received:

by Kamil G.

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