MFAU - April 2016

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Уважаемые читатели! Данный журнал выложен группой «English Magazines Журналы на английском языке». Наш адрес: https://vk.com/englishmagazines К сожалению, в последнее время нашими трудами пользуются другие группы: более раскрученные, но, почему-то, не желающие самостоятельно искать для себя контент. Поэтому если Вы скачали этот журнал в другой группе, просим Вас лишь об одном: зайдите в нашу группу и, если понравится, подпишитесь. Поддержите наш труд, а мы каждый день будем радовать Вас новыми и интересными журналами на английском языке. Спасибо!

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32 She wants you to slip, slop, slap

115 Turn comfort-food fails into healthfood winners

Game Changers

Breakthroughs 21 News

32 Unsound basis

Why static stretching is no longer a no-no.

Don’t expect a “base” tan to shield you from the sun for long.

22 Upgrade Your legs won’t be shrimpy after you bust out the shrimp squats!

24 Fitness

34 Slow biz How anyone can com home to a delicious slow-cooked meal.

36 Pecs-tra development

New 3-D-printed soles will give your feet an, er, hand.

26 Nutrition Seaweed: sustainable and super-nutritious.

Expert strategies for adding 2cm to your chest in four weeks.

38 On the downloa Our fitness app picks

28 Success Loving your job won’t just help you mentally but physically, too.

30 Health Done right, meditation can provide more pain relief than morphine!

40 Wouldn’t eat that for a bet!

Father Brendan didn’ and he shed 30kg and reaped the rewards.

43 Matched malts Over beer samplers?

The whisky equivalen takes taste testing to a whole new level.

46 Cruise for more than views On expedition cruises your ship is only the start of the adventure

70 Pet pooches and 25 more of man’s best fat-fighting friends

106 JUST SIX WEEKS TO A HARDCORE SIX-PACK

Columns

Features 56 The Bear essentials Adventurer Bear Grylls on his fave moves and exercise philosophies.

63 Street-tested workouts The calisthenics you remember from school has gone badass...

70 Lost & hound Owning a dog and 25 other non-standard ways to lose weight.

79 Train with your brain Answers eight key questions to discover your muscle IQ.

86 Protein poor?

Are you getting enough — and at the right time?

New research says no!

94 Vertical growth Booming in popularity, climbing will take your fitness to new heights.

102 Strongarm tactics Modified Strongman Training (MST) can aid athletes of any size.

apr.

94 Been hitting the wall in training? Try climbing it!

63 Calisthenics goes guerrilla in the street workout scene

86 Why you can pig out on meat to max your protein

Regulars

The Body Book 106 Abs-olutely focused A six-week program to burn fat and get you that six-pack.

118 THE LATEST, GREATEST POST-GYM SHAKES

113 The “10,000 steps a day” myth Find out why we’re fixated on this figure.

Plus, activity trackers to put you a step ahead.

115 Treating without cheating Turning comfort cuisine like fish’n’chips into fabulous fuel.

118 Shake-up!

New smoothies for every taste and type of workout.

12 View from the top 14 Ask Men’s Fitness 16 Training diary 18 Hotshot

120 Moving on

50 In his own words

Stop targeting one area at the expense of your co-ordination.

52 Road to Rio

122 Limiting factor

127 Subscriptions

A harder workout with lighter weights?!

128 Want a washboard?

Managing your metabolism is the key.

118 Fitness shakes 124 Scoreboard

seiko.com.au

V IE W FRO M T HE T O P

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TRAINING PLAN

PRIEST S CONFESSION “I LOST 30KG IN 3 MONTHS.” P40

THE NEW MEASURE OF SUCCESS

KILLER

ABS IN JUST 6 WEEKS!

NUKE YOUR GUT

PECS ADD2CMTOYOUR CHESTINNOTIME! PERFECT PROTEIN: GROW MUSCLE IN YOUR SLEEP!

25 AR

ENOUGH? E YOU TOUGH

GRYLLS’ SMASH BEAR UT CHALLENGE WILD WORKO

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ADVENTURE SPECIAL

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ait up. Got a quick question for you: who’s going to be there if things go seriously pear-shaped and it comes down to fight or flight?

Yep, the answer is just you and your body. Your physicality might be the difference between life and death.

Bear Grylls recognises this indisputable fact, and trains for it accordingly (page 56). In fact, he has made a stellar career out of entertaining people with it.

The key is, he trains for what he will likely encounter, whether that’s scaling an icy cliff on Mount Everest or climbing down a mega-waterfall in the Panama jungle — as do the new wave of bodyweight warriors who are pushing the limits of gym-free workouts with their street calisthenics (page 63).

These are fine examples of functional fitness, an over-worn catch-phrase in the fitness industry these days. Put simply, it means you train for life, your life: be that an Olympian on the road to Rio (page 52) or a suburban dad who referees under-14 soccer. If you train your body for what you do, it will mean you’ll be better able to meet the challenges life chucks at you.

While you’re at it, be sure to check out our triathlon plan (page 54) and Scott Pendlebury’s preseason footy training tips (page 50). We’ve made a great mag and we genuinely hope you enjoy it.

Stay Strong.

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

Follow me on twitter @toddfcole

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MEN’S FITNESS

APRIL 2016

’

EDITORIAL

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

ART Art Director Tania Simanowsky

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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Top tips

I’ve been following the same diet as Q my fit colleague but I’m not seeing the same effects. Why? You’re doing the same amount of physical activity too, right? The answer may lie in the results of a recent study published in the life sciences journal Cell, which found that the same meal is metabolised diferently from one person to the next.

To find out which foods are holding you back, nutrition experts recommend an elimination diet, in which you remove one food at a time from your intake and monitor the results.

Alternatively, just sabotage your colleague’s eforts so you feel better!

ASK MEN’S FITNESS You ask, we answer… with a little help from our friends.

Can I do genetic tests to see which sport my Q son will be best at?

Devouring burnt animal flesh will not turn you into a lard-arse.

Q Is it true that if I eat too much protein I’ll get fat?

I’ve noticed I’m getting more tired Q and irritable recently.

Am I just turning into a grumpy old man?

There’s a chance you may have Testosterone Deficiency Syndrome (TDS), which can cause low libido, irritability and reduced muscle mass among other things. A study presented at the British Endocrine Society’s 2015 conference found that 46% of men with TDS believe their symptoms are age-related and don’t seek treatment.

One of the authors, Dr David Edwards, said, “Testosterone is required by all men for a healthy life physically and psychologically so it’s important that low testosterone is treated”.

If you’re concerned, see your GP. 14

MEN’S FITNESS

APRIL 2016

■

This old and somewhat bizarre myth stems from a study in the American Journal Of Clinical Nutrition, which found that 30g of protein per meal was the best for building muscle and that upping it to 40g didn’t improve the massgaining effects. But that doesn’t mean excess protein is converted to body fat — that simply isn’t an energy-efficient means of dealing with it. Still need convincing you won’t get tubby?

Nineteenth-century explorers who ate nothing but protein developed a condition called “rabbit starvation”, a form of malnutrition that occurs when the body doesn’t get any fat.

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For more details, see p127 or call 02 9439 1955

TRAINING PLAN

PR EST S CONFESSION “I LOST 30KG IN 3 MONTHS. P40

ABS IN JUST 6 WEEKS!

NUKE YOUR GUT

PECS ADD2CMTOYOUR CHESTINNOTIME! PERFECTPROTEIN: GROWMUSCLE INYOURSLEEP!

ARE

OUGH? YOU TOUGH EN

GET IN TOUCH Post your fitness questions.

AUSTRALIANMENSFITNESS

GRYLLS’ SMASH BEAR T CHALLENGE WILD WORKOU

APR L2016$8 50

Hoping you’ve produced the next Adam Goodes or Johnathan Thurston? Well, genetic tests that claim to identify athletic prowess in children are available — but they’ve been rubbished by the British Journal Of Sports Medicine, which branded them unreliable. Want more proof? In 2013, 22 companies were selling them, but 14 have since folded. You’ll have to find out if young Messi is good at sport the old-fashioned way.

ADVENTURE SPECIAL

@MENSFITNESSAU using the hashtag #askMF

NEED A QUESTION ANSWERED? MAIL US AT

askMF@mensfitnessmagazine.com.au

FOLLOW US ON

honda.com.au | 1300 1 Honda

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Training diary

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3

RUNS

April Nike Run Club Where: Adelaide, SA; Melbourne, VIC; Sydney, NSW What: Free to join and open to all skill levels, the Nike Run Club offers expert coaches and pacers at every session.

Just turn up and go hard!

Contact: nike.com/au/ en_gb/c/running/run-club

May 29 Climb For Cancer Where: Brisbane, QLD What: Test your cardio against the 37 floors (810 stairs) of Waterfront Place. Then enjoy the rooftop view and the satisfaction of having raised some dough for cancer research.

Contact: climbforcancer.org.au

June 4 YMCA Of Canberra Winter Series Where: Stromlo Forest Park, ACT What: Choose between runs of 2km, 3km or 6km on this off-road course just outside the nation’s capital.

Contact: canberra ymca.orga.au/ runnersclub

RIDES

April 5-9 Hawaiian Ride For Youth Where: Albany to Perth, WA What: Riders on this unique five-day trip will raise funds to combat youth suicide while delivering motivational talks to youngsters.

Contact: ridefor youth.com.au

May 3-6 Tenterfield To Murwillumbah Four-Day Ride Where: New England and Tweed Valley, NSW What: Raise money for mental health research by taking part in an unforgettable series of rides — 66km, 83km, 60km and 67km.

Contact: gtoc.com.au

June 25 Rocky Trail Shimano MTB Grand Prix Where: Ourimbah, NSW What: Whether you opt for the “Fast Grand Prix” or the “Furious”, get ready for an epic ride!

Contact: rockytrail entertainment.com

TRIATHLONS

MONTHS AWAY

April 17 Nowra Triathlon Festival Where: Nowra, NSW What: With a fast, flat course and plenty of options for beginners and experts alike, this is a highlight of the triathlon calendar.

Contact: eliteenergy. com.au/category/ festivals/triathlon

May 1 Tri Port Stephens Where: One Mile Beach, NSW What: Choose from the standard triathlon (1.5km swim, 40km bike, 10km run) right down to the TRYATRI (200m/10km/2km).

Contact: eliteenergy. com.au/category/ festivals/triathlon

June 5 Coral Coast 5150 Triathlon Where: Port Douglas, QLD What: An institution on the tri calendar, this event offers races of Olympic distance and smaller, with teams permitted in the biggies.

Contact: ap.ironman.com

SWIMS

MONTHS AWAY

April 3 Cooly Classic Where: Coolangatta, QLD What: Tackle famous surf breaks Snapper Rocks, Coolangatta and Kirra while competing over 1km, 2km or the new 3km.

Contact: worldseries swims.com.au/coolyclassic/

May 28 Swim Noosa Where: Noosa Heads Surf Club, QLD What: Test your guts and endurance in the big blue in one of four distance races: 3.8km (ironman equivalent), 2km, 1km and 500m.

Contact: ap.ironman. com

June 26 Winter Mile Swimming Carnival Where: Brighton, VIC What: Melbourne’s cold-water paddlers will turn out in droves for the 1600m, 800m and 150m dash. Note: expect a bit of shrinkage in the 12° drink!

Contact: brighton bathshealthclub.com.au

ADVENTURE

1

MONTH AWAY

April 23-24 Rogue24 Adventuregaine Where: Lake Manchester, QLD What: Buddy up and trek, kayak and mountain bike through as many checkpoints as possible in 24 hours.

Contact: rogueadventure.com/ adventuregaine/

May 7-8 True Grit Where: Caudo Vineyard, Cadell, SA What: This course consists of militarystyle obstacles such as the “The Trenches”, “Casualty Drag” and “Swimmer Scout”. Why not report for duty?

Contact: truegrit. com.au

June 25 Tough Bloke Challenge 2016 Where: Appin, NSW What: An 8km trail dotted with 25+ fiendish obstacles? What are you waiting for? They’ll even hand you a free beer after you cross the finish line.

Contact: toughbloke challenge.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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Hot shot

MEN’S FITNESS

APRIL 2016

Downward spiral

APRIL 2016

MEN’S FITNESS

Red Bull content pool

p p p deceptive, unforgiving nature will condemn you to life in a wheelchair if you miss the entry point by a few bastard centimetres? Quite slow apparently. “Once you’re in the air, seconds start to feel like an eternity,” says Colombian Orlando Duque, a Red Bull Cliff Diving champion, pictured here diving from St Nicholas Tower in La Rochelle, France. Divers actually hit the blue stuff at speeds of 100km/h-plus, having twisted, turned and coiled themselves into various bird-like positions to impress a bunch of judges. But it’s worth it in the end, says Duque. “When I get out of the water, my hands are usually shaking and I can’t stop grinning!”

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NOBODY PUTS CAMBER IN THE CORNER Trail riding is all about enjoying the most diverse terrain. Be it fast climbs, steep descents, or that perfect stretch of sweet, flowy single-track. With lightweight frames and balanced geometry, trail-tuned machines like the Camber deliver spot-on performance over every type of trail. specialized.com

Challenge the “Static” Quo Roadkill on the side of the Fitness Highway: that’s what “static stretching” became about 10 years ago, when studies seemed to show that warming up with slow, deliberate “static” moves — like touching your toes and holding the position for 20 to 30 seconds — could damage cold muscles and even sap strength during a workout.

Taking its place as the warmup of choice: the more

warms muscles and readies the body for movement — before static stretching, which will then lengthen muscles and improve their range of motion.

And though static stretching was indeed found to reduce strength if performed just seconds before an exercise (as opposed to dynamic stretching, which boosted strength), the reduction was minuscule — just 4.8%. So pick a diferent time to do them and your power levels won’t take a hit at all.

IF YOU’RE NOT DOING STATIC STRETCHING, YOUR MUSCLES ARE MISSING OUT.

—ADAM BIBLE

St yiing by Christina Simonet ti; Grooming by Natasha Leibel/ E xclusive A r tists usin g Ke rastase

R

movement-oriented “dynamic stretching” — like arm circles and leg swings — we now accept as the only stretching needed to limber up and ward of injuries. Wrong!

As it turns out, both static and dynamic stretching, if part of a regular warmup routine, help reduce injuries and boost flexibility, according to an extensive new study review in the journal Applied Physiology, Nutrition, And Metabolism.

To create the most efective warmup, do dynamic stretching — which

APRIL

2016

MEN’S FITNESS

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Upgrade

Breakthroughs

Build injuryproof knees Introducing the shrimp squat, your no-weight tool for ferocious leg strength.

A

For the man looking to build leg strength outside the gym, options are limited. Your quads, hamstrings and calves are already hauling your upper body around all day, so they need much more load to shock them into growth.

The pistol squat — where one leg stays out in front as you lower — is one option, but requires more ankle and hip flexibility than strength. Something else is needed.

Enter the shrimp squat. With no extreme mobility requirements, it builds balance and leg strength at the same time, making it the perfect tool for runners and touch footballers in need of more strength around the knees and quads. It’s your go-anywhere solution for improved legs.

How to do it ■ Start in an upright position, then bend one knee, lift the other leg behind you and grab your ankle — like you’re doing the classic footballer’s quad stretch. Slowly lower until your back knee touches the ground, then stand back up. Too hard? Do it without holding your ankle. Too easy? Hold your ankle in both hands.

UPG

THE TEA-BREAK POSTURE FIX

22

The office is ruining your posture. Fix it in the time it takes to boil a kettle.

DESK STRETCH

WALL W

STANDING BATWING

Grab a ruler or something else that lets you keep your hands 30cm apart. Press your elbows down onto the desk until you feel a stretch in your lats.

Stand with your back and forearms against a wall. Lower your arms to form a W shape, then back up. You’ll protect your shoulders and activate the surrounding muscles.

Keeping your back flat, take a small step away from the wall, then press your elbows back until your thumbs touch your armpits.

Pause for ten seconds and repeat once.

MEN’S FITNESS

APRIL 2016

Wo r d s Jo e l Sn a p e Ph o to g r a p hy D a n ny B i r d M o d e l C a l l u m M e l l y @ va n d e r l a m m i e.o m n / Il l u s tr a ti o n s Su d d e n Im p a c t

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Fitness

Breakthroughs

What can a 3-D printer make?

Happier feet.

Do you dream of the day when, each time you slam kilometres down on the pavement, your feet feel as cushioned and coddled as two babes being rocked in their mother’s arms?

Lucky for you, here comes Mama!

Or, to be more accurate, here comes design firm Nervous System, which was tasked with helping running shoe giant New Balance create a midsole for a runner’s arch — a notoriously tough spot to support because of all the physical forces at play. But instead of going the conventional route, Nervous designers decided to 3-D-print the midsoles, making foam structures that mimic natural cellular designs (like those in wood and bone) so they adapt more quickly to a runner’s foot than the usual man-made foams.

“We recorded data using a grid of sensors under the foot to design the foams,” says creative director Jessica Rosenkrantz, a process similar to the way your foot will be sized up when you buy the shoes in-store.

A limited-edition model with a 3-D-printed midsole will be unveiled at the Boston Marathon in the US in April, and New Balance aims to have a store version out in 2017.

D

RADICAL NEW 3-D-PRINTED MIDSOLES TAKE “CUSTOM FIT” TO A WHOLE NEW LEVEL.

You’re just what I need, sugar

■ A neat, clean, unsweaty roller is a workout boon — and a pain in the arse to tote around.

Until now: meet the Morph, the world’s first collapsible roller.

Push in one end to fold it flat, then pull two cords to pop it open. A Kickstarter hit, the Morph goes where other rollers can’t — like a gym bag, tiny locker or carry-on. Gluteus maximus, meet roller minimus. $68; out in April, pre-order at kickstarter.com.

■ For maximum

24

MEN’S FITNESS

energy during endurance work, take a hit of table sugar, say researchers at Britain’s Bath Uni after testing carbs’ effects on longdistance cyclists’ energy levels.

Down 1.5 tbsp sugar in 100ml water hourly for sessions beyond 2.5 hours.

The gym or the mat?

■ Which gets you in

better shape — yoga or lifting? Answer: Both. A Texas Uni APRIL 2016

study found that after three one-hour workouts per week, both lifters and yogis lost about 4% body fat and were equally fit overall (though the yogis won out in stretching, duh).

Ya gotta have friends

■ Training alone can be a drag. In fact, one study conducted by Kansas State University found that people who worked out with even a projected image of a partner could exercise longer yet feel less tired.

Now Yaye, a free app for Android and Apple, can provide some of that team spirit. Use it to share workouts, progress reports, and encouraging (or, when necessary, arse-kicking) IM chats with your own private group of mates or family members as you motivate one another to stay on task. It also tracks steps taken (no extra devices needed), calories burned, workout duration and your activity level versus other Yaye participants.

Exercise and nutrition programs are also available.

Visit yayeapp.com for more info. — S E A N H Y S O N

From top: Cour tesy of Ner vous System Inc.: Cour tesy of Brazyn

A foam roller that’s flat-out cool

Nutrition

Breakthroughs

Kale of the sea As a Westerner, you likely eat seaweed on just two occasions: when you’re out for sushi (and then only because rolls come wrapped in the stuff), and when there’s a gun to your head.

But, news flash: seaweed’s blowing up — and you should get in on the action. The aquatic vegie is super-nutritious — full of vitamin C and iodine (good for the thyroid gland) and loaded with calcium, iron, copper, potassium, selenium and zinc.

And, bonus: unlike some foods (factory-farmed beef, some prawns), it can be sustainably and ethically produced.

For starters, pick up a seaweed salad at a sushi joint or grocery.

(Trust us, it’s terrific — just watch your teeth; it likes to get stuck.)

Or buy snacks made out of savoury, salty nori sheets (aka sushi-roll wrappers) or bacon-y dulse flakes you can sprinkle on salads, add to sandwiches or even lightly pan-fry. Check the ingredients and opt for snacks with just seaweed, oil and salt, and watch that last one — seaweed’s naturally high in sodium, so try to stay within the RDA of 2,300mg a day.

A

■ Cranberry juice may boost the heart’s bloodflow and vessel function, the University Of Düsseldorf in Germany has found.

Cranberry is a rich source of polyphenols, an antioxidant which improves blood circulation and kidney function.

Frie that?

■ Too much fried food (burgers, chips, battered anything) ups heart disease risk by 56% — even more than takeaway pizza, Mexican or Chinese food, says a University Of Alabama study.

So skip the regular KFC runs and give your ticker a rest.

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MEN’S FITNESS

Strung out? It’s not you — it’s the addictive qualities of your favourite processed foods.

APRIL 2016

■ We’ve all joked that we’re “addicted” to a food — but the joke’s really on us.

Using 504 students as guinea pigs, US researchers found that processed foods like chocolate, icecream, chips, pizza and biscuits scored sky-high on the Yale Food Addiction Scale. (Addiction symptoms include loss of control over eating and the inability to stop eating despite having a strong desire or suffering negative effects.)

The same foods

were closely linked to eating disorders.

Lest you think food addiction isn’t really about processed foods, nuts — the first nonprocessed item to show a similar effect — came in only No. 20 on the list.

What a pear!

■ Pity the poor pear: The Forrest Gump of the fruit world, it’s always the underdog — eking out just 10th place on the mosteaten list, left behind if there’s an apple or banana in the bowl, shut out of the smoothie scene.

But pears actually kick arse, research shows. A Minnesota University study from the US found that a medium pear gives you not just ample vitamin C but also a full 24% of your daily fibre, putting the beatdown on both apples (17%) and bananas (a measly 12%).

And Horticulture Innovation Australia reports that eating one Asian pear, or drinking 200ml of the juice, before (not after!) partying can reduce next-day hangover misery by up to 21%. (Pear compounds may metabolise booze faster and cut the head-banging toxins.)

J a r r e n V i n k / 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 ; C h o c o l a t e : W i l l i a m & S u s a n B r i n s o n

We’d sell our souls for chocolate, icecream and chips

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Success

Breakthroughs

Whip this out to keep her smiling ■ Just a simple “thank you” — said sincerely and regularly — can keep your partner happy and

your relationship healthy. In fact, how often you express gratitude to each other can even determine how long you’ll stay together.

That’s the news from US researchers at Georgia University

who surveyed 468 married individuals and found that spouses who felt appreciated were more respectful toward each other and better at working through relationship

BEING HEAD OVER HEELS FOR YOUR JOB DOES WONDERS FOR YOUR HEALTH.

difficulties.

Saying “thank you” was especially helpful during tough times — such as when couples were having money difficulties — the study found, because it helped them avoid the feelings of anger, unhappiness and withdrawal that so often lead to breakups.

“Every couple has challenging times and disagrees on issues,” says study author Dr Allen Barton. “The negative effects come from how you handle them. Saying ‘thank you’, making sure your partner feels appreciated, and keeping a sense of humour can reduce the negatives and help make a partnership thrive.”

Tell her about it.

Gluten-hating may be doing nothing for your health.

■ Have you thought about ditching gluten because, well, everyone says you should? Time to think again.

New research from the University of Tasmania reports that athletes who self-diagnose and follow a gluten-free diet are often lacking in calories and gain no benefit.

The study tracked 13 cyclists for two weeks and found no difference in performance between those who included gluten in their diet and those who didn’t.

Head researcher Dana Lis said the gluten-free fad meant athletes were stressing unnecessarily about their diets instead of focusing on fuelling up and eating healthily.

She hoped the research would make people more objective when making dietary choices.

Put your tongue to work!

■ Grow up speaking

Love your job, love your life

■ You’ve heard it a million

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more efficiently, as juggling two languages constantly “exercises” the brain’s grey matter.

Benefits could be seen after subjects had studied a new language for even just a short time, proving that it’s never too late to pick up a life skill or two.

shutterstock

times: choose a career you love, something that interests you. Well, turns out it’s great advice. New research shows that if you’re emotionally attached to your job, you’ll perform better, feel more satisfied and be healthier all around.

The study, in the Journal Of Occupational And Environmental Medicine, split almost 5,000 Danish elder-care workers into 300 groups for 18 months and found that employees who were devoted to their jobs weren’t just more committed as a group, they were also physically and psychologically healthier, sleeping more soundly than workers who couldn’t really give a rat’s.

Do you count the seconds till you can escape your desk? Fantasise about winning the lotto so you can tell them all where to go? Science says get out and find something you truly enjoy. To put it another way: do what you want. And how often in life do you hear that? — J A M E S R O S E N T H A L

two languages? You must be enjoying the extra cash.

Speak just one?

You’re heading for mediocrity.

According to a new, “conventional wisdom”-defying report by UCLA in the US, children who speak both English and another language at home — even if the English is learnt as a second language in school — get better jobs and make up to $2,800 more a year than onelanguage kids.

Makes sense.

Scientists at Northwestern Uni in the US recently found that bilinguals solve problems and process info

Health

Breakthroughs

Back away from that burnt toast ■ Sure, everybody knows that eating seriously cinder-ised meats from the grill isn’t the smartest move you can make (unless you’re trying to get cancer, in which case have we got a blackened ribeye recipe for you!).

But a study review just put out by the UK’s Food Standards Agency has found that the same cancerous substances that show up in overgrilled meats can also lurk in overcooked starchy

foods, including everything from scorched potato chips and fries to charred toast.

The evildoer is acrylamide, a chemical that’s been connected to cancer in lab studies. It’s produced not only when tobacco is burnt, but also when foods containing water, sugar and amino acids are burnt at higher than 120°.

The higher the temp a food is cooked at, the blacker it gets, increasing acrylamides.

Acrylamides have also been linked to nervous system damage.

HOW’D YOU LIKE TO FEEL 27% LESS PHYSICAL PAIN AND 44% LESS EMOTIONAL PAIN? THINK ABOUT IT…

Fight cancer, join the March Charge

Where there’s smoke, there’s cancer. Burn a starchy food like toast and you create a carcinogen.

■ When Jacob Walker (pictured) had trouble concentrating at work two years ago, his GP wrongly diagnosed him with “anxiety” — the truth was way more sinister. The 30year-old TV producer had a cancerous tumour on his brain that not even a fivehour operation could entirely remove.

He is now required to have MRI scans every three months to monitor the disease, but that hasn’t stopped the courageous Melburnian from running the New York Marathon (just eight months after the op) and becoming

Twice-an-hour sex soups up your sperm

a triathlete. Now an ambassador for the March Charge (themarchcharge. com.au), a national movement which asks people run, ride or swim down cancer this month, Jacob says embracing fitness has helped him come to terms with his condition: “Having fitness goals and achieving them gives me the strength to set more goals and hopefully overcome cancer.”

■ For better or for worse (depending on your current, uh... life goals), having sex twice an hour can make your baby batter three times more fertile, say researchers at London’s North Middlesex Hospital.

In the study, 73 hoping-to-conceive couples were given intrauterine insemination (IUI), which places sperm directly into the womb.

IUI typically has about a 6% success rate — but when the sperm was from a fresh batch taken within 60 minutes of the first milking, the rate jumped to 20% — just 4% less than in vitro fertilisation.

Mindfulness:better than morphine?

What if there were a no-cost, nonsurgical, drug-free way to “close the gate” that lets the feeling of pain into your brain? Well, there is, say US researchers from Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center — you just have to use your head.

For the study, 75 volunteers were burnt with a thermal probe set at 50° (“A level of heat most people find very painful,” the report notes) while their responses were recorded in an MRI. Subjects were then split into groups: one got four days of real training on mindfulness, like deep breathing/meditation, and three got fake lessons, a placebo cream or nothing.

When the subjects were dragged — er, asked — back to the MRI to be burnt again, the results were mind-blowing: those who used their bogus treatment to try and handle the pain said it was lessened just a bit — likely a placebo effect — while the real mindfulness learners reported 27% less physical and 44% less emotional pain. In comparison, even morphine has been shown to reduce physical pain by only 22%.

The study, says lead author Dr Fadel Zeidan, “shows mindfulness meditation can be used with existing pain therapies” — a potential pain-management boon for everyone.

W

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2016

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Those sunnies will protect your eyes, but don’t expect the hard-earned tan to protect your skin...

Living in tan-tasy land If you built up an all-over “base” tan this summer, you won’t burn as easily, right? Wrong!

According to research in Scientific American magazine, the diference between pale and tanned may be as little as 10 more minutes in the sun before skin begins turning painfully pink.

“A base tan only provides an SPF, or sun protection factor, of 3 or less, according to the US Surgeon General,” explains the piece. In other words, as cool as your island-holiday tan looks, you still need to be just as careful next time you venture out into the sun for any length of time. What’s more, base tans that come courtesy of a tanning salon are even less efective and, according to an additional study, may only equate to an SPF of around 1.5.

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33

One-step wonders

What do you get when you use an old-fashioned slow cooker to whip up healthy, hearty recipes that require just one — yes, one — easy step? Cheap, simple, supernutritious meals that practically make themselves.

By Don Orwell Photographs by William and Susan Brinson

Lemon roast chicken.

Everything goes into the same pot and cooks at the same temp.

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Cooking

Game Changers

To most guys, a one-step meal is a microwaved frozen pizza — but that’s all about to change.

With these healthy one-step recipes, you simply drop your favourite protein and vegies into a slow cooker in the morning, press “cook” and come home at night to a hot, juicy chicken banquet or robust meatball stew.

These guilt-free dishes are packed with rich flavours but contain not an ounce of butter, cream or fake processed food — so calories stay low while nutrients soar. There’s never been an easier — or healthier — home-cooked meal. Sorry, microwave, it was fun while it lasted.

Meatballs with cannellini beans.

Pre-packaged meatballs speed things up even more.

GO SLOW!

EASY ONESTEP MEALS Gotta love recipes this easy to follow.

RECIPES SERVE 4–6

Lemon Roast Chicken INGREDIENTS

2.5kg whole chicken, skin removed 2-3 cups diced carrots, turnips or parsnips 1 tsp dried oregano 2 tsp minced garlic 2 tbsp coconut oil ¼ cup water 3 sprigs rosemary 3 tbsp lemon juice (for a stronger flavour, add when cooking’s done)

Your one-step primer One-step meals are less about following a recipe than about knowing a simple set of rules. Read this, then go create your own one-step combos.

Cheap meat is OK

■ Tough, inexpensive cuts of meat actually get tender and juicy after cooking for a long time. While lean cuts are better for the stove or grill, any meat will turn out great in a slow cooker.

Food st yling by C yd McDowell; Prop st yling by Sarah Smar t

The slower the better

■ The longer a food cooks, the more intense the flavours become. A vegie-only dish can be cooked on low in as little as four hours; for meat, the larger the animal, the longer it needs to cook. Beans will take as long as beef.

Salt and pepper DIRECTIONS

Add all ingredients to a slow cooker. Cook on low 7 to 8 hours.

vegetables like tomatoes, onions and mushrooms will eventually melt and turn into sauce.

Leafy greens will wilt if added too soon.

Certain ingredients are better as a finishing touch

■ If a recipe calls for dairy products, leafy greens like spinach or fresh herbs like mint, basil or dill, add them near the end of cooking. Add them too early and overcooking will diminish the flavour.

Broth turns stew into soup

■ A bit of broth or tomato paste boosts a dish’s flavour, but know that it won’t boil down the way it would in a saucepan.

In other words, you need only around a half a cup. More liquid (two to three cups) is sometimes needed for beans and grains like rice and quinoa.

MAKEAHEAD FLAVOUR PACKETS

Oil isn’t essential Fish goes fast

■ Seafood can cook in two hours or less on high; never cook mussels in a slow cooker for longer than an hour.

Some veggies melt

■ Root and cruciferous vegetables are hearty enough to withstand eight hours on low, but

■ You don’t need much oil — just two tablespoons will cover the bottom of the pot before cooking.

Thickeners turn soup into stew

■ For a thicker stew, add a tablespoon of gluten-free flour like almond flour or cornstarch 30 minutes before serving up.

THE LONGER FOOD COOKS, THE MORE INTENSE ITS FLAVOURS BECOME.

Breakfast is better slow, too

■ Slow cookers transform oatmeal.

Add steel-cut oats, dried fruits, cinnamon and some milk before bed and wake up to the best hot cereal you’ve ever tasted.

Don Orwell is the author of Crockpot Dump Meals.

Save even more time by building several meals beforehand

➙To speed up the

INGREDIENTS

1

2 1 1 4 1 1 1

800g prepackaged meatballs tbsp coconut oil sprig dried thyme 400g cannellini, drained and rinsed cups beef stock large onion, chopped bunch parsley, chopped cup chopped carrots Salt and pepper

DIRECTIONS

week’s prep, shop for and chop up a week’s worth of ingredients and put them into separate zip-lock bags for freezing.

First toss in the main vegies (celery, carrots, onions, leeks, garlic, ginger) and some salt and pepper.

Next, add your protein, including beans if you’re using them.

Finally, add seasonal vegies like cauliflower, green beans, broccoli, and red and yellow capsicums.

APRIL

Meatballs with Cannellini Beans

Add all ingredients to a slow cooker. Cook on low 7 to 8 hours.

Slow-Cooked Pork Loin INGREDIENTS

750g pork loin 1 cup tomato sauce 2 zucchini, sliced 1 head cauliflower 1-2 tbsp dried basil Salt and pepper DIRECTIONS

Add all ingredients to a slow cooker. Cook on low 7 to 8 hours.

2016 MEN’S FITNESS

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Training

Game Changers

CABLE FLYES DONE SLOWLY EXHAUST THE PEC FIBERS.

Pecs Add 2cm to your chest with these training tips.

appeal

By Sean Hyson Photographs by James Michelfelder

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S t ylin g by Chris tina Simone t ti; G ro omin g by Natasha Le ib e l / E xclu sive A r tis ts u sin g Ke ras t ase

There’s more to chest training than just presses, flyes and cable crossovers done week after week — but that’s the only approach most guys know. Allow us to shed some light on the science of building muscle so you can attack your pecs with a more precise strategy — one that could add up to 2cm of muscle in four weeks.

TIP NO. 1

Slow down

■ While the term

Balancing act.

Lighter exercises like flyes provide contrast to pressing.

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

“What should I eat after a workout to get the best insulin spike?”

■ It’s time to clear up one of the biggest misconceptions about post-workout nutrition. It’s been (correctly) reported that your body needs a rise in insulin to drive protein and carbohydrates into the muscles to help them recover and grow. Starchy foods accomplish this, which is why rice and potatoes are staples in any bodybuilder’s diet.

But here’s the funny thing: the one time of day you definitely don’t need to boost insulin is immediately after a weight workout.

Research from the Journal Of Applied

Physiology has shown that muscle contractions facilitate glucose transport into muscle cells, essentially mimicking the work insulin does.

In other words, lifting primes the pump for you, so you don’t need a sharp rise in insulin to get nutrition into the muscles.

So, rather than spend money on fancy post-workout supps that spike insulin, eat a piece of whole fruit.

Fast-digesting carbs are still important after a workout because they halt muscle breakdown, so a mere banana will get the job done.

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

pumping iron is ubiquitous, it’s a fairly poor description of how properly executed repetitions are performed.

Mechanically pumping out your reps allows you to rely on momentum and the stretch reflex to lift the weight, rather than forcing the muscles to work their hardest to do so.

Lower the weights on presses and flyes with a slower cadence and perform the lifting motion with power.

A review in The Journal Of Strength And Conditioning Research found that muscle gains were maximised when the lowering phase of a rep takes two to four seconds and the upward phase lasts one to three.

Additionally, a 2015 study from Sports Medicine found that muscles grow with rep durations up to eight seconds.

TIP NO. 2

Go heavy, go light

■ It seems that with chest training especially, guys fall into one of two camps. They’re either always loading up the bar to bench-press as heavy as possible, or performing high reps on machine or isolation exercises, denying their muscles the intensity of training heavy.

Traning expert Don Saladino says you need to mesh both approaches. “You can develop a bigger chest by lifting heavy weights, which work the type II muscle fibres, and light weights, which APRIL

hit type I fibres.”

This can be done by training chest twice per week, with a heavy stimulus one day and what Saladino calls a “pump day” four days later. Note that these workouts must be spread out for optimal recovery.

On the heavy day do low-rep sets of bench presses, and on the pump day work your machine presses, flyes and other isolation moves.

TIP NO. 3

Deload to reload

■ Nobody can go all-out all the time.

When you feel your performance beginning to sufer, or you just need a break from hard training, throw in a deload week. Deloading is a short period of reduced training intensity designed to lower injury risk and promote recovery for better gains to come.

It’s not optional.

“Deloads give your joints a break from the pounding of heavy weights,” says Saladino. “You also need them when you have adapted to a program and you’re not seeing any more gains.”

There are several ways to implement a deload. You can cut the volume you do in your workouts in half for a week — so if you were doing 20 sets in a session, perform only 10.

You can also reduce the loads you lift, using only 60–70% of the weight you used in the previous week’s workouts.

Or, Saladino says, simply begin a new program with lighter loads and focus on higher rep ranges.

In short, take it easy and come back stronger.

2016 MEN’S FITNESS

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Training

Game Changers

Health kicks: A good fitness app can be more addictive than Candy Crush.

Get fit on your phone Thousands of apps claim to make us leaner and healthier.

These ones really will.

Forget texting/sexting or whatever the hell it is you waste half your life doing on your mobile phone — its most useful function is keeping you fit and healthy.

We kid you not.

Men’s Fitness have sampled a shedload of apps to come up with the most engaging and easy to use, so that you can save time choosing the best ones to suit your fitness aims.

Want to undergo a full-body transformation? Tick. Need a PT to kickstart your running program?

Tick. Struggling to lose that chickrepelling beer gut? Tick. At a level to test yourself against runners and cyclists around the world? Tick.

Download these apps and reap the benefits.

F

FOR

FOR

FOR

FOR

FOR

RUNNING WITH A COACH

TRACKING YOUR GAINS

BLASTING BELLY FAT

RACING THE WORLD

TRANSFORMING YOURSELF

FIRING YOURSELF UP

Runtastic

Tanita Health Planet

7 Minute workout

Strava

JEFIT

Endomondo

(Android, BB, iOS, Windows)

(Android, iOS)

(Android, iOS)

(Android, iOS)

(Android, iOS)

■ 7 Minute Workout

■ Turn lonely runs and

■ As well as suggesting

(Android, BB, iOS, Windows)

■ Without structured sessions you’ll soon give up. As well as setting goals (distance, duration, calories), this app has pre-set interval training modes and pace feedback that scolds you for dawdling.

■ Monitor the changes in your body composition (weight, body fat, body water, muscle mass, metabolic rate, etc) and track your progress with this neat app. THP will help take your fitness to the next level!

gets you doing 12 kit-free exercises for seven minutes, three to four times a week. Go flat-out and it’ll turn your body into a flab-burning furnace.

Perfect for blokes who are strapped for time.

cycles into competitions between you and the almost-definitelycheating scoundrels above you on the Strava leaderboard. A powerful motivator to pick up the pace.

workouts, JEFIT has a progress report section that encourages you to take a pic each week.

This tangible, visual proof of your changing body makes skipping the gym much harder.

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■ Endomondo records more than 40 activities and has a huge community.

Not many of our Facebook friends care we’ve just done our fastest run, but on this? Digital highfives all round.

Shutterstock

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Game Changers

Inspiration “The nuns now say: ‘You can’t be Father Lee. We knew him and he was a fat man.

Where did he go?’”

TALE OF THE SCALE BRENDAN LEE AGE: 44 LIVES: ALBURY, NSW HEIGHT: 177CM WAS: 110KG NOW: 80KG LOST: 30KG

Competitive spirit Father Brendan Lee bet his brother he could lose 30kg in just three months.

A shedload of punishing gym sessions and a junk food-free diet later, he did.

■

“I get invited to afternoon tea and dinner by families and they always put on a big spread for me,” says Brendan, an assistant priest at Holy Spirit Catholic Church in Albury on the NSW/Victoria border. It’s one of the prime reasons the 44-year-old clergyman had blown out to 110kg late last year.

His poor physical condition was a far cry from his school days in the Blue Mountains where

he’d been a champion sprinter and rugby league player with a super-lean physique.

Indeed, Brendan’s weight began to balloon seven years ago when he quit playing sport to focus on the pressures he was facing at work.

At the time, he felt despondent about his life and sought refuge in junk food.

McDonald’s, KFC and Hungry Jack’s became his comfort diet as he moved to a small rural church with little to do,

which only served to compound the problem.

“I filled in time with food,” Brendan says.

Things didn’t get any better as he went on leave for a year and ended up living in an old pub.

Fortunately, his work problems were eventually resolved but his body issues weren’t. “I’d been trying to lose weight for years but just couldn’t budge it,” Brendan says. In October last year, his brother David and

a local businessman bet him he couldn’t lose 30kg by Australia Day — a period of three months. It was a monumental task — one that even most personal trainers would steer clear of — but it was just the spur Brendan needed.

“I attacked it like a one-day cricket match,” Brendan says. “Instead of runs per over, it was kilos per week, so over 12 weeks I knew it would be 2.5kg per week, and if I wasn’t

hitting that I’d have to lift my game.”

He blocked out the advice the naysayers were giving him about how difficult his goal was and relentlessly pursued a high-protein, low carb and high-water diet. Workout-wise, he completed a session in the morning to get his metabolism going, did a fast walk in the middle of the day then smashed a low weight/high reps gym session at night.

“I did as much cardio as possible,” he says, “and stuck to the crosstrainer until I was ruined.”

He also politely told parishioners he wouldn’t be able to eat as much as he used to when they invited him over. “It was OK, though — 95% were with it. I’d have a cofee but without the sugar and only one scone instead of two.”

The transformation

wasn’t easy, but Brendan’s faith kept him on target. “I often thought I would give up, but you have to have confidence in what you’re doing.

I remembered that saying: ‘In doing great deeds it is glorious even to fail.’ I knew that even if I didn’t make it, I would have given it my best shot.”

The results were sensational: while everyone else was out celebrating the nation’s birthday, Brendan was busy having himself photographed on the gym scales, which revealed he had shed 30kg in just three months — down to a streamlined 80kg.

He had won the bet.

The efect on his life and the people around him was huge.

“People think I’m a diferent person now.

It’s true: when you’re fat people tend to think you’re undisciplined, but when you’re slim they think you’re in control of your life.

“There are a group of Filipino nuns here and they say: ‘You can’t be Father Lee. We knew him and he was a fat man.

Where did he go?’”

His tip for losing weight is simple: “Food isn’t entertainment, it’s fuel. There are no better words to follow than ‘eat less, exercise more’. Losing weight is about having a new way of life.

“I went to the supermarket today to buy lollies and came away with fruit. It’s something I would never have done before.”

If you’ve a story like Brendan’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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Mix it up Game Changers

WHO DOESN’T ENJOY A TASTY THREESOME?

Flightplan Turn yourself into a whisky pro with three expertly chosen trios to try — and the tasting tips that will help them shine

By Brian Good Photographs by Levi Brown

Mark Twain once quipped, “Too much of anything is bad, but too much good whisky is barely enough.”

That’s truer now than ever. Inspired by distilling technology medieval monks brought to Ireland — the first recorded mention of the spirit was in an Irish tome from 1405 — whisky is booming in Australia, with more being imported, produced

M

and drunk than ever before. And its popularity continues to grow.

“We’re in the middle of whisky’s golden age, with more brands and varieties available than ever before,” says spirits expert Noah Rothbaum, author of The Art Of American Whiskey.

One of the best ways to enjoy the trend — and educate your palette in the process — is to try a whisky flight, he

says: “Wine lovers have been doing back-toback comparisons for decades, but the whisky flight is fairly new.”

With that, we asked Rothbaum to create three custom flights to try at home with friends, each progressing in flavour and complexity.

But before you even think of lifting a glass, here are the basic tasting rules to follow to get the most out of each sip:

1) Pour lightly. Don’t fill your glass — you want 30-60ml at most.

2) Swirl the whisky so it coats the glass, then breathe deeply with your nose about 3cm from the liquid. Open your mouth as you inhale to let the alcohol fumes escape so you can better discern other flavour notes.

3) Add a splash of water to your glass. Seriously.

Even a few drops will help reduce that familiar burn

you get from the alcohol in the whisky, enabling you to pick up the other subtle flavours present.

4) “Chew” your drink.

Roll the liquid around in your mouth, exposing it to your entire tongue so you can pick up each unique flavour.

5) Breathe through your nose as you swallow so that the fumes rise up into your sinuses — the best way to appreciate the spirit’s finish.

Game Changers

Mix it up Wild Turkey Master’s Keep Kentucky Straight Bourbon

Big and Bold

■ By moving its barrels of bourbon between wood and stone warehouses, Wild Turkey (unwittingly) maximised the butterscotch and brown butter flavours that allow Master’s Keep to taste significantly younger than its 17 years. $200

Hibiki Japanese Whisky ■ The 21-year-old is the gold standard of Japanese whiskys — rare and dangerously drinkable — but it’ll cost you a for tune. So maybe go for one of the younger varieties. $120 (12yo)

Hillrock Estate Distillery Single Malt Whisky ■ A specialty impor t, Hillrock prides itself on tradition, distilling its single malt with AD800 tech. The taste is grain and more grain — think toasted Cheerios with a hint of smoke. US$100

TASTING WHISKYS BACK-TO-BACK HELPS YOU APPRECIATE EACH BRAND ON ITS OWN.

Blanton’s Original Single Barrel Bourbon Whisky

Refreshingly Complex

■ This exceptionally smooth spirit helped kick-star t America’s whisky renaissance when it was launched in 1984 as the world’s first single-barrel, small-batch bourbon. Look for hints of burnt sugar and cloves as well as orange peel, nuts and light chocolate as you drink. $70

Rittenhouse Rye ■ A repeat award winner, Rittenhouse tastes great neat, on the rocks or in cocktails. Notice the peppery, leather-like scent as you pour and the combination of caramel, red pepper and vanilla flavours that mingle in each sip. $80

The Glenrothes Vintage 2001 Single Malt Scotch ■ Distilled back when Steve Waugh was still Australian captain, Glenrothes 2001 single malt has a “nose” that smells of orange, cherry and caramel; while the “mouth” combines vanilla, charred wood, and the spice and sweetness of cinnamon-dusted autumn apples. $100

Mister Katz’s Rock & Rye

Smooth and Easy

■ Imagine a batch of your favourite Old Fashioneds (sugar, bitters, whisky and citrus rind) dumped in a bottle and ready to chug, with the taste of tar t citrus, sour cherries and a hit of cinnamon heat. All that’s missing is a final dash of bitters. $67

Compass Box Great King Street Glasgow Blend Scotch Whisky

Redbreast 12-Year-Old Irish Whisky ■ A trad Irish whisky, Redbreast’s 12-year is rich, spicy and smooth, with a subtle fruit flavour. Look for a nutty smell when it’s first poured and a creamy, custard-like taste at the end of each sip. $100 44

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Drink st yling by Angela Campos/Stockland Mar tel

■ An ideal entry-level, beforedinner Scotch, this blend combines grain and malt whiskys. The resulting mix ture is then aged twice, in two different kinds of barrels — the first providing that familiar note of oaky, peaty flavour, and the second bringing in a light, sweet finish that’s similar to a fine sherry. $60

Safaris bysea

Why your next brave adventure into the unknown — whether it’s to paddle, swim, hike or bike — should begin and end on a cruise ship.

By Crai Bower

From floe to woah!

Watch 10 storey-tall ice blocks fall in Alaska’s Glacier Bay National Park.

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MEN’S FITNESS

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Game Changers

Experience

Most holiday passenger ships use nightly musicals and endless buffets to make you forget you’re out on the open ocean.

Then there’s expedition cruising, in which the boat is simply a vehicle to get you as close to adventure as possible — chasing orca pods, watching glaciers calve, even heading off on daylong hiking missions.

Offered by just a handful of firms, these voyages transport you on ships small enough to slip through narrow straits into pristine, party boat-free coves but cushy enough to always have a bartender or resident naturalist on hand.

Wintry games.

Paddle with wacky penguins in Antarctica.

GLACIERS AND GRIZZLIES

Alaska

From top: Cour tesy of Un - Cruise Adventures/ Ryan McNamee: Louie Psihoyos/Corbis

■ The 36-passenger

JURASSIC WORLD

Galápagos Islands

■ Most of us think

Safari Explorer and 60-passenger Wilderness Adventurer, used during Un-Cruise Adventures’ eight-day Discoverers’ Glacier Country trip, are basically mother ships, sending kayakers out to paddle among the tufted puffins, sea lions and jettisoned glacier bergs.

Alaska has a tendency to make one feel pretty small, and it’s no different here. It’s not uncommon for a kayaker to witness Dawes Glacier releasing a 10 storey-high block of ice into the waters of the Endicott Arm, or a paddleboarder to spot a young male grizzly bear searching for salmon off Baranof Island. During your downtime, you can enjoy a sunrise yoga session, talks by a naturalist, or Alaskan microbrews in the library before your dinner of locally caught halibut steaks.

of the Galápagos as remote, prehistoricfeeling, lizard-laden islands off South America, but they’re so much more than that.

There are few places in the world better for wildlife spotting — both on land and underwater — so snorkelling and diving around the islands are particularly exciting.

During the 11-day Galápagos Islands Explorer cruise, guides from O.A.R.S. will lead you on ocean excursions that get you up close and personal with bat rays and marine iguanas; on kayaking forays, you’ll paddle among the penguins and sea lions; and during hikes on dry land, you’ll walk within feet of red-footed boobies and 200-yearold tortoises. For a stark contrast, embark on a rugged trek up the volcanic cinder cone overlooking the barren caldera, then deep into the lava tubes.

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T HE G R E AT WHITE SOUTH

Antarctica

■ The expression “the experience of a lifetime” gets thrown around a bit too often, but in this case it’s true.

This case being the Lindblad ExpeditionsNational Geographic 12-day Journey To Antarctica: The White Continent adventure.

Beginning in either Buenos Aires or

Santiago, Argentina, you’ll fly to Ushuia, then sail to Antarctica, before spending the majority of your time getting up close and personal with the landscape and its inhabitants — and yes, that means penguins.

Expect Zodiacs, kayaks, hikes and expert advice every step of the way, on everything from your personal wellness to getting the best photos.

REMOTE CANADIAN OUTPOSTS

Nova Scotia

■ During your 10-day

From $16,700 per person, au.expeditions.com

Go large in Galápagos.

Lucky divers may get to swim with a whale shark.

APRIL

East Coast Maritimes: Fins And Fiddles trip, which traverses Canada’s eastern maritime provinces, your home will be the 120m Russian icebreaker Akademik Ioffe. First stop: Sable Island, a deadly sandbar that’s been responsible for more than 350 shipwrecks and is approachable only by small inflatable craft.

But making landfall each day is the primary objective of this itinerary, as the ship is loaded with mountain bikes, kayaks and expert guides. Once you disembark, head off to trailheads in moose-filled Gros Morne National Park, or set off to bike through the hillocks and salt ponds of Québec’s Îles de la Madeleine, with a pit stop in former fishing village La Grave for a moules-frites (mussels and fries).

From $4,200 per person, oneoceanexpeditions.com

2016 MEN’S FITNESS

47

Learn It!

How to (actually) work from home Because, trust us — we’d all rather sleep in or watch Walking Dead marathons.

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RULE NO. 1

Set in stone the time and the place Sure, you can roll out of bed at noon, sit in front of your computer without taking a shower and start churning out emails.

But that doesn’t mean you should.

Your irst step to becoming a killer telecommuter is recreating oice hours.

It’s important to maintain the same rhythm you had in your commuting life and bring a semblance of balance to your home-working life. So I’d encourage you to make it a goal to get everything done by, say, 6pm, and only then peel of to meet the guys for a drink at the pub.

Or if you know you get your best work done in the morning, make sure you’re

P r o p s t y l i n g b y M e g a n Te r r y/J u d y C a s e y

If you’re one of the millions doing freelance work in Australia today — or even just a dude savvy enough to get your boss to occasionally let you “telecommute” — you know as well as I do that it can be hard as hell to get things done in your own personal dojo. There are good days, of course, when you savour being your own boss, enjoy your insane wealth of privacy and manage to motor through tasks with a Jedi-like focus. But on the bad days, the distractions mount, procrastination rears its ugly head and you inevitably get through little more than a solid Netlix binge session.

Believe me, I know. Ever since I left my tech-support job and went solo more than a decade ago, I’ve been working hard to build my own media company. It all began with small segments talking tech on the radio; I eventually worked my way up to the national stage, not only writing for Men’s Fitness but also appearing regularly on talk shows. And somehow I’ve managed my whole new career from my home oice. And because I’ve spent years honing what I consider the perfect system for working remotely, I promise that with these simple tips, you’ll stay on track, boost your productivity and ultimately stay sane.

by Mario Armstrong

RULE NO. 2

Shower power: Reboot your day when things go bad No worker in any profession likes to have a bad day; it happens to the best of us.

But when you have a bad day as a freelancer, it’s especially awful, because it’s easy to sink into a funk in the coninement of your own apartment than at an oice, near compassionate colleagues.

Whenever this happens, I ind it helps to “reset” my day and start all over again.

For instance, I take advantage of the fact that I’m at home and hop in the shower.

That might sound crazy, but hear me out: there’s something about going through the process of starting your day all over again — physically washing of the stress, putting on some new clothes, and sitting down for a second time that can help get a bad business taste out of your mouth.

RULE NO. 3

No cat videos! (Or any other kind.)

Without co-workers, a boss and an IT department watching over you, it’s easy to get distracted by “just one more” YouTube video or the endless wall of junk-food links on your Facebook feed. To keep myself focused, I turn on the Freedom app, which allows me to block websites that can serve as distractions while still allowing me to do research and get things done.

If you really need space, block the internet completely for a set period of time.

RULE NO. 4

Be prepared to feed your face You never want to stop to igure out where your next meal’s coming from, so make sure you’ve got easily accessible foods you can eat to keep yourself fuelled.

In my pantry, for instance, I keep boxes upon boxes of quick snacks — granola and energy bars, mostly — that I can substitute for a meal in a pinch. For when I need a bit more, I make sure to keep the freezer well stocked with frozen fruit so I can whip up a nutritious smoothie in minutes and get back to work without having to sit down and take an extended break to eat.

Plus, eating a few extra lunches at the home oice each week will save you thousands of dollars over a year.

EAT FIT REAL MEALS FOR REAL MEN

RULE NO. 5

Tell everyone to ignore you I’m married to my business partner — my wife is the CEO of our company, and I’m the lead on creative projects. The arrangement can be tough, as we’re often sharing the same space. We manage this by establishing a ton of rules about how we manage our space and time.

The irst is that, when we’re working, the other person doesn’t exist. If I see my wife in the oice plugging away at her keyboard — or she inds me in the basement setting up a video camera — we don’t so much as acknowledge each other’s presence. If I want to talk to her during business hours, I set a meeting with her as if I would a future client. We email each other despite the fact we’re only in separate rooms.

You can put this tip into practice even if you’re not married — just make sure you set strict boundaries with roommates that, whenever you’re working, they respect the fact that you’re still “at the oice” and not at all available to grab a beer and hang.

Finally, there’s one rule my wife and I have had for more than a decade that I believe is more responsible than anything else for keeping our marriage alive: no work talk in the bedroom. It’s all about mindset, structure and focus — with the right combination of elements, you’ll be more productive, have more free time, and never have to settle in any aspect of

your work-life balance. ■ Mario Armstrong is a digital lifestyle expert.

AN E LE SU E C IS TH TING EA

getting up extra-early, and maybe you can inish your workday by early afternoon.

(Interestingly, a 2011 study in Thinking & Reasoning found that solving insight problems — ie, getting a “lash of brilliance” — is actually easiest at a person’s nonoptimal time. Night owls tend to come up with insights in the morning and early birds at night. So consider iguring that into your scheduling.)

When you’ve got your hours set, then create a workplace. Of course, this can be as simple as putting a desk in the living room, as long as you don’t wake up in the morning and have to decide where you’re going to work.

And the more set apart the work area is, the better: if you’ve got papers on the cofee table and a laptop on the bed, you’ll start to feel like work is everywhere and you can’t escape it. So choose one space as your work zone and own it.

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● In his own words

Captain marvel Sleek, skilful and speedy, Scott Pendlebury is one of the AFL’s hardest-working midfielders.

With the 2016 season about to kick off, the Collingwood skipper reveals his training secrets.

By Ashley Gray

In the away I game against the Gold Coast last season, Scott Pendlebury delivered 35 disposals, three goals and eight inside 50s. It was the kind of stellar performance that has made him one of the Pies’ all-time favourite sons. Although Collingwood finished outside the eight in 2015, Pendlebury’s form never wavered, but at the end of the season, he was forced to undergo surgery for a hip injury. Despite the disruption to his training, Pendlebury is now fitter than ever, thanks to a disciplined exercise and diet regime in the of-season.

That’s why I had to have hip surgery at the end of last season.

That meant I had to rest and look after myself really well so that I could come back and start training with the rest of the group.

■ It’s good to get away from footy during the break.

I got married in October in Bali and spent 10 days there with family and friends then went on a honeymoon to New York and Hawaii for three weeks.

She makes sure I get the right balance of carbs, proteins and fats. It’s been like that for ten years. That said, I do like to try new restaurants. We went to a new Vietnamese one in Port Melbourne called Tenpin which was great.

is important in our game because we cover so much ground on match day.

You can never do enough. Squats and deadlifts are also good base-building exercises that engage legs and core, plus the lower back.

■ I couldn’t train much after surgery.

■ GPS monitoring is a good feedback tool.

To begin with I did mobility exercises with club specialists, followed by theraband work to increase the hip’s time under tension. Then I did upper bodyweights and walking.

What it’s shown me is I have to keep up high-intensity running at over 16km/h or ¾ pace throughout, and that generally means I’ve had a good game. Alex and I have invested in co-ownership of a gym in Cremorne, so I get to play with lots of new toys there, too.

■ My wife Alex is a nutritionist.

■ I can bench 120kg and do 20 chinups in a row. But running

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MEN’S FITNESS

■ I’m focusing on my marking and stoppage work.

working on our communication.

For marking, I’ve done a lot of time with the speccy bag. I’m also working on my timing, and jumping of backs. As far as stoppages go, with ruckmen Brodie Grundy, Jarrod Witts and Mason Cox, we’ve just been

■ In the preseason, you to need make sure you have a solid ground in endurance.

Footy-wise, having skills on both sides of the body are crucial if you want to get better. ■ Scott Pendlebury is a Puma ambassador.

The Numbers Game Age: 28

Highlights:

Height: 191cm

• 2010 premiership • 2010 Norm Smith Medal • 5 x All-Australian Team (2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014)

Weight: 88kg Collingwood: 214 games (141 goals)

getty

■ There was a problem with cartilage poking out.

Hot Pie . Pendlebury evades Dyson Heppell’s tackle — and hair.

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● Road to Rio

Atkinson is Australai’s best peformed athlete in the Olympic tri.

Gunning foratrilogy Triathlete Courtney Atkinson is targeting a record-breaking third Olympic Games. Here he tells MF’s Ashley Gray how he’s prepping for the greatest show on earth.

■

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MEN’S FITNESS

be up against on Rio’s famous Copacabana Beach. If all goes to plan, he might just be belting out Advance Australia Fair on the podium in August.

■ Take us through the swimming training you’ve been doing with Richard Scarce.

I’m trying to increase my sprinting speed, so I don’t get left behind at the beginning. The depth of the field has grown — there used to be 20 guys at the first buoy, now there are 70.

If you don’t get into the race at that point, you won’t get anywhere. I used to have a long, lazy stroke, now it’s more powerful because I’m using my core.

I’m also relaxing and APRIL 2016

holding the length of the stroke when I’m beginning to fatigue, instead of just going harder and getting more fatigued. There are other cues I’m monitoring, too: like keeping my hips stable, which is something that can go when you’re tired.

I’m also practising with my head space; getting into the frame of mind so that I’m ready to go fast.

■ How has triathlon changed since the London Olympics?

The depth of talent from around the world is much greater. Australia, US and Britain used to be the strongholds, but now there are so many more countries, like guys from eastern Europe

The Rio Olympic course will suit Atkinson’s strengths.

competing. I get to the start and I can’t recognise the names on their backs or the country codes.

■ You’ve already had a trial run on the Rio course. Can you better your result from London 2012?

I’m confident this can be my best Olympics.

The course at Copacabana Beach suits me. In the swimming leg there won’t be any wet suits in the surf [they are only permitted in temperatures under 20°] which will sort out the bad

swimmers and split them from the field.

The bike leg has big hills, which will be tough on the legs and take out the speed element. That will mean more guys will be tired, making the running leg more of a slog and less a sprint.

■ A couple of years ago, you took time out from triathlon to compete in ironman.

What did you learn?

I understood why the average person wants to do ironman; because it’s so much longer, it’s an achievement just to

Get t yimages cour tesy of Red Bull

At 36, Gold Coastbased Atkinson is at an age when most triathletes are considering hanging up their high-tech, lightweight polyester suits. But with the Rio Olympics beckoning, and the chance to become the first Australian triathlete to compete in three Games in a row, Atkinson is training hard to make history.

At Beijing in 2008, he finished 11th and at London in 2012 18th, as Britain’s Brownlee brothers stole the show. A gun swimmer — he rates it his strongest leg — Atkinson has been working with Richard Scarce, the coach of Australia’s latest pool sensation, Cameron McEvoy, to get an edge on the guys he’ll

“Every week, I swim 20-25km, cycle 250-400km and run 80-120km, plus gym sessions.”

The Numbers Game

Age: 36 Lives: Gold Coast Height: 176cm Weight: 68kg Olympic Games: Beijing 2008, 11th; London 2012, 18th; highest-placed Australian Achievements: 6 times Australian tri champion

finish. But 20 minutes into my first ironman I realised it wasn’t really for me. I finished the race, but it felt like it was more about survival than actual racing, and I like to race. But I got really good base fitness out of training for it and when I returned to triathlons, it made them seem so much shorter, which they are.

■ You’re 36 and a veteran — how is your body holding up?

It’s alright. I’ve started to make my recovery diferent now. I’m aware of when I need

to back of and give my body a rest.

I’m also monitoring stress levels. The young guys I race against eat, sleep and train triathlon but I can’t do that because I have kids, and I have to look after their commitments and my professional commitments, too.

So it’s about monitoring that.

Training for a tri is in many ways an escape from stress.

■ What areas of your body are you working on in the gym?

APRIL 2016

I’ve been focusing on activating my glutes: circuits where I lift them on a swiss ball, bear crawling and squats. I also use a piece of wood and a belt to work at mobilising my ankle joints. Every week, I swim 20-25km, cycle 250-400km and run 80-120km.

■ Got any victory celebrations planned if you make the podium?

(Laughs) I’d just be very humbled. It’s my last Games so I want to bow out gracefully.

This one is for me. ■ MEN’S FITNESS

53

● Road to Rio Program Tips

Courtney’s tri training plan

● The bike and run on Wednesdays are very important. They build confidence in your ability to complete distances.

The goal is to complete each session (in the table below) in the required time at a pace which doesn’t force you to stop, exhausted. In later weeks, maintain a consistent pace and try to increase your speed.

● When training in a group, stick to your own pace. Handicaps are a good way to train with people of different fitness levels while keeping your own pace. ● Add strength to your training. These three exercises can be tacked on to the end of two runs :

Front and side planks 15 to 30 seconds each hold, 3 cycles Walking lunges 10 steps then rest, 3 cycles Single leg superman (raise back leg, lean forward and balance with arms out in front) 5 each leg, 2 cycles

WEEK 1

WEEK 2

WEEK 3

WEEK 4

WEEK 5

WEEK 6

WEEK 7

WEEK 8

MON

Run 10min + 5min walk

Run 15min + 5min walk

Run 20min

Run 20min

Run 25min

Run 30min

Run 35min

Run 20min

TUES

Swim 6 x 50m

Swim 2 x 200m

Swim 400m

Swim 400m

Swim 500m

Swim 600m

Swim 500m (50m easy/ 50m fast)

Swim 400m easy/4 x 25m fast

WED

Ride 30min

Ride 30min + run off bike 5min

Ride 30min + run off bike 7.5min

Ride 30min

Ride 30min + run off bike 10min

Ride 30min + run off bike 15min

Ride 30min + run off bike 20min

Ride 30min + run off bike 10min

THURS

Swim 4 x 100m

Swim 2 x 200m

Swim 400m

Swim 400m

Swim 500m

Swim 600m

Swim 600m, (100m easy/ 100m fast)

Swim 400m easy/4 x 25m fast

Rest or 30min free choice exercise

Rest or 30min free choice exercise

Rest or 30min free choice exercise

Rest or 30min free choice exercise

Rest or 30min free choice exercise

Rest or 30min free choice exercise

Rest or 30min free choice exercise

Rest

Run 10min + 5min walk

Run 10min + 5min walk

Run 20min

Run 20min

Run 25min

Run 30min

Run 30min

Light swim and/or bike

Ride 40min

Ride 45min

Ride 50min

Ride 45min

Ride 50min

Ride 55m

Ride 60min, very easy

RACE DAY

FRI

SAT

SUN

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MEN’S FITNESS

APRIL 2016

● Essential tri kit

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Atkinson and his mates a run for their money? This bike is designed to be the fastest set of racing wheels on the planet. The frame and bayonet-style fork will have you slicing through the wind like an Exocet missile.

■ Chasing a new PB? The Shiv Pro Race’s aerodynamic carbon frame and fork will enable you to whistle past strugglers in the peloton and secure that well-earnt victory you’ve been dreaming of for years.

■ The most highly engineered triathlon shoe in the world, the Trivent features a revolutionar y closure system designed to minimise transition time and get you to the finish line faster.

■ Open-water swimmers need to be able to scope buoys, the distance to the next competitor and random, man-eating sharks. These super-comfy and easy-toadjust goggles will do the trick every time.

■ Aside from protecting

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1) Trinity Advanced Pro O ■ Wanna give Courtney

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your noggin from the unforgiving tarmac, this awesome helmet also has a magnetic buckle to quicken transitions, smart aerodynamic design and cooling ventilation.

2016 MEN’S FITNESS

55

Bear Grylls needs you …T O I M P R O V E YO U R L I F E . T H E W O R L D ' S G R E AT E S T A D V E N T U R E R I S AT P E A K P H Y S I C A L F I T N E S S — A N D H E ’ S F E E L I N G I N S P I R AT I O N A L .

Bear Grylls, it’s fair to say, is a man who makes things

AGE OF ADVENTURE

These days, Bear Grylls is a global megabrand.

His TV shows have been seen by more than photoshoot during a tight window between his regular a billion people, and his biography was voted “Most Influential Book” in China in 2012. morning workout (more on that in a minute) and all the other But he’s also a father of three sons who hasn’t daily commitments that come with being a successful lost his love of adventure, and being in shape businessman, a best-selling author and one of the most is a top priority. How does he get that done?

That’s what we’re here to talk about. recognisable TV stars in the world. Ten minutes later he’s “I’m itter now, at 41 years old, than I’ve ever in front of the camera, improvising poses, making suggestions been,” says Grylls, in between doing Turkish and joking with the team. This is someone who knows how get-ups with a 16kg kettlebell. “When I was training with the military, it was mostly about to get things done. endurance, so I never felt as strong then as I do now. After that it was climbing stuf, which was all endurance That’s not surprising: Bear Grylls has been getting things done for again, and then I did that classic male thing where I went to the most of his life. He learned to climb and sail young, got a black belt gym but never felt very it. Then three or four years ago Natalie in shotokan karate as a teenager and went hiking in the Himalayas and I started training. I’ve totally changed in shape, in itness level, after leaving school. He failed his irst try at SAS selection — too slow in basically everything during that time.” on one of the marches — but was invited back and made it second Natalie is experienced personal trainer Natalie Summers, time around. In 1996, he crushed three vertebrae in a parachuting who was training Olympians and rehabilitating athletes when she accident and was in danger of never walking again; a year later, started working with Grylls’ wife Shara. “It was actually Shara who he summitted Ama Dablam, a peak Edmund Hillary once described arranged it,” says Grylls. “And I thought it would be a girly workout, as “unclimbable”. After that, he climbed Everest, circumnavigated which was my irst mistake. I thought, ‘How can you train in half the British Isles on a jetski and crossed the North Atlantic in an hour?’ But it was revolutionary.” an inlatable boat.

Grylls’ new training plan combines kettlebells, bodyweight Then he started really getting things done. moves and primal stretching in short, high-intensity workouts that 56

MEN’S FITNESS

APRIL 2016

Wo r d s Jo e l Sn a p e Ph o to g ra p hy Jo e l A n d e r s o n A r t d i r e c ti o n Pe d Mi l l i c h a m p

happen. “OK, who’s in charge?” he says, striding into our

G r o o m i n g L a u r a Tu c k e r

“I'm itter now at 41 years old than I've ever been.”

N’S FITNESS

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Bear’s necessities Strip your fitness back to basics with Grylls’ five-point plan.

Stay flexible ■ “I’ve done a lot of yoga because of back injuries, but I’ve got so many friends who work in offices and their backs have gone through inactivity.

They start going to the gym and pumping iron, but that just makes it worse. Stretching is important.”

…And stick at it ■ “Men are scared of yoga, but these sessions are real strength-building stuff.

You’re thinking, ‘Why can’t my body hold out, why can’t I maintain these positions?’

But once you get there, you start being able to do stuff other people of your age can’t.”

Up the intensity ■ “I use a lot of Tabata-style training — 20 seconds’ work and ten seconds of rest, or sometimes 30 and 30. Push it hard, take a quick breather, then get straight back in.”

Never go easy ■ “I used to train with people who’d always stay within their comfort zones.

But the fittest people I’ve seen training — Olympic athletes, those kind of guys — get to vomiting point. They know how to push themselves.”

Think 80/20 ■ “I use the 80/20 rule when I eat — staying sugar and wheat-free 80% of the time, then having the odd blowout.

You can still make things delicious and super-healthy.”

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“People love to challenge themselves. They want to feel they have some of these traditional man skills and feel like they can look after themselves.”

are designed both for function and form.

“I wasn’t able to do huge weights but over the months I was getting leaner, stronger and more lexible,” says Grylls. “Suddenly I realised it was all coming together. I only run occasionally these days but the strange thing is, I’m much better at it than I used to be. My heart and lungs are so much bigger because we do so much high-intensity stuf.

My VO2 max has gone up. And I still get that ‘shaking muscles’ feeling a day later — I used to have to train for three hours to get that.

It’s changed my whole approach to itness.”

FEED THE BEAR

On screen, Grylls’ culinary achievements are near-mythical, the subject of countless YouTube clips and internet lists: there’s the one where he eats a rhino beetle (“crunchy”), the one where he bites the head off a tick, the one where he takes a bite out of a camel carcass he’s sheltering inside… and, of course, the many, many times he drinks his own secretions.

Off-screen, his attitude to nutrition is far more conventional. “Basically I don’t have wheat, sugar or dairy, and when I have meat it’s good-quality, lean, grass-fed stuf,” he says. “I cooked last night, actually — got back from ilming in the mountains for three days and said, ‘Right, I’m cooking.’ I did

The numbers that took Grylls to the top.

23 -60 1.2BN °

■ The age Grylls was when he reached the summit of Mount Everest, 18 months after breaking his back.

■ The temperature low he encountered in an attempt to paramotor over the summit of Everest.

■ The amount of viewers around the world who’ve seen an episode of Man Vs Wild or Born Survivor .

7,600m

Bear facts

a big spaghetti bolognese made out of buffalo mince with buckwheat pasta — non-wheat but it’s great, really healthy, delicious stuff — and then I made a big chocolate mousse with raw cocoa, maple syrup and coconut oil and an egg.”

Perhaps inevitably, Grylls has a nutrition book due out this winter. “That means I’m experimenting with a lot of recipes — and the boys love it as well. I wish at school someone had taught me to eat healthy.

If I ran a school I’d teach how to train, how to eat healthy, how to build teams, how to lead people, how to take risks… life stuf.”

Grylls doesn’t run a school (yet, anyway) but he’s created the next best thing. The BG Survival Academy now runs courses for all ages, including a parent-and-child option that’s booked up for years in advance.

So does he think these skills are being lost?

“I think people love to challenge themselves,” he says. “They want to feel they have some of these traditional man skills — which really apply whether you’re a girl or a boy, of course — and feel they can look after themselves.”

And they don’t just do what Grylls calls “the boring bushcrafty stuf ” — a lot of it is based on the special forces training he knows well. “That’s changed a lot now,” he says. “In the old days we just carried

■ The altitude where he set the record for the highest open-air formal dinner, eaten in a hot-air balloon.

heavy packs over long distances, and now it’s a much more dynamic sort of strength.

I’m an honorary colonel to the Royal Marine Commandos now and I’m down at the commando training centre a lot, and I see soldiers diving over walls and carrying their buddies over their shoulders, sprinting, rolling, moving. What we do is definitely inspired by that, and also by the wilderness — a lot of crabs, crawls, leopard and panther stuf. Plus the stuf I do when I’m on the road — improvising with jerrycans or whatever weights we can ind.”

EPIC WIN

That improvisational approach to training has informed Grylls’ latest venture. BG Epic Training currently occupies four warehousesized spaces dotted around the UK, each decorated with little more than a few pullup bars, a rack of kettlebells and a couple of suspension trainers. The lagship is half an hour’s drive from the nearest train station, in Marlborough, a market town of 8,400 people — and it’s already packed.

“I said, ‘Let’s start a gym in the worst place in the world to start a gym,’” says Grylls.

“It’s a terrible demographic, but already we’re seeing people who never train getting massively into it. We don’t have Jacuzzis and showers — people want to train, to get it done before work or on the way back. They turn up, do half an hour and come out absolutely knackered. My new approach to itness has made it fun instead of a chore — people love the concept of pay-as-you-go, turn up and get it done. That’s the reason these gyms have exploded so quickly.”

M O U N TA I N M A N

And that, as Grylls gives out handshakes and prepares to head of, seems to be the point.

For Bear Grylls, itness — like jumping out of a plane, climbing a mountain or drinking yak blood — is what outdoor people call Type 2 fun: tough, frightening or downright awful at the time, but life-enhancing in retrospect.

“You don’t have to go to the ends of the world for adventure,” says Grylls. “Just grab a tent, get a friend, tell someone where you’re going and go climb a mountain. We all want to climb mountains in life but it’s a case of doing it and not just dreaming it."

And with that he’s gone, heading of to climb his next mountain. With most people you’d assume it was a metaphorical one.

With Grylls, you never know. ■ APRIL 2016

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Build primal flexibility ■

1 BABY BACK BEND

4 DOWNWARD DOG

In a standing position bring your arms overhead, palms together, and reach back behind you as far as is comfortable. Reverse the move slowly.

Start on all fours with your weight distributed between your hands and feet.

Press your hips back and up until your legs are almost straight.

2 WARRIOR ONE-TWO

5 WILD THING

Stand with your feet double hip-width apart, drop your shoulders and brace your abs. Turn your left foot outwards so it’s at 90° to your right. Bend your left knee and drop into a lunge, turning your right hip forwards to keep your hips square to your shoulders. Lean forwards slightly, extending your arms with your palms facing in. Extend your arms, turning your rear palm down and your front one upward.

Start in downward dog, then lift your right leg into the air, bending your knee and bringing your heel towards your glutes, rotating slightly. Lift your right hand off the floor and rotate your body towards the ceiling, putting your right foot on the floor. Reverse the whole move back to the start. Continue, alternating sides.

3 TRIANGLE

6 JUMP TO CROW

Stand with your feet hip-width apart, drop your shoulders and brace your abs. Turn your right foot 45˚ inwards and your left foot outwards. Stretch your arms outwards to form a T-shape, then ‘windmill’ your upper body towards your left leg, resting your left hand on your left shin. Hold for 15 seconds, then repeat on the other side.

Start in a plank position. Walk or jump both feet forwards so they’re just outside your hands. Keep your hips low, engage your abs and bend your elbows, pressing them into your knees. Lift your toes off the floor, keeping your body tight as you balance your weight on your arms.

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M o d e l C h r i s t o p h e r R e n d e l l @ B G E p i c Tr a i n i n g

Power stretching makes up the injury-proofing part of Grylls’s exercise routine, in which he combines flexibility and strength moves into a fat-burning circuit. Do each move for 30 seconds, then move on to the next. Repeat three times, and do two sessions a week.

Prepare for anything ■

M o d e l B e n C o l e s @ B G E p i c Tr a i n i n g

Grylls uses kettlebells to combine high-intensity intervals and strength training, for a lean mass circuit that also builds cardio. Do each move for 30 seconds, then move on to the next.

Repeat three times, and do two sessions a week.

1 LU

4 HIP BRIDGE TO CHEST PUSH

Holding the kettlebell in a rack position with your other palm facing up, take a big step forward. Bend your knee into a lunge, simultaneously bracing your abs and pressing the kettlebell overhead. Alternate sides.

Lie on your back with your knees bent so your feet are close to your glutes, hugging a kettlebell against your ush your hips off the floor In this bri ards, then lower under co

2 KETTLEBELL POWER PLANK

5 STANDING 8 TO WO

Start in a plank position with one hand on the ground and the other on the kettlebell. Bring your free hand off the ground steadily and hold the plank position for 15 seconds. Switch hands and repeat

Pass the kettlebell between your legs in a figure-of-eight motion. As it comes around the back of your leg, swap hands and drive it up to your opposite s gh your legs and continue the m

3 CRUNCH TO STANDING Lie on your back with your legs bent, gripping the kettlebell by the horns.

Exhale and curl your upper body up, bringing the kettlebell overhead and putting your weight on your feet. Stand up. Then reverse the move, hingeing at the hips, bringing your tailbone to the floor and rolling back to a lying position.

6 POWER PRESS-UP Get into a press-up position with one hand on the kettlebell. Lower yourself, then press back up. At the top of the move, shift across and switch hands, then lower into the next rep.

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ONE DAY AT THE VERY SAME TIME ALL OVER THE WORLD

MAY 8, 2016 MELBOURNE, 9PM 100% OF THE ENTRY FEE GOES TO SPINAL CORD RESEARCH

David Holbrook

Chris Luera holds the planche, a phenomenal act of vein-popping strength.

A growing army of athletes are proving that you don’t need fa n cy g y m s o r h e av y b a r b e l l s t o g e t l e a n , s t r o n g a n d m u s c u l a r.

Meet the elite bodyweight warriors combining outrageous aerial acrobatics with brute strength in the sport of calisthenics.

BY NICK LEVY

Until he takes hold of the bar, that is. He begins by pulling his chin up to the top of the steel frame before effortlessly gliding up and over it, straightening his arms above the bar. Slowly, he rotates his body back underneath it until he’s lying dead horizontal, as if floating on a bed of air, before folding his body into a right angle. Then he spins his legs through his arms to hang flat, face-down, high above the concrete floor. This series of gravity-defying moves — muscle-up into front lever pullup into onearm L-sit into reverse lever — is performed with all the elegance, precision and control of an Olympic gymnast.

Not that you’ll spot the Los Angeles native turning out for Team USA at the Rio games this summer. Luera, you see, is no gymnast, but a practitioner of the fastest-growing sport in the world today. Calisthenics — also known as street workout, owing to the urban arenas from which it emerged and where continues to thrive — is a jaw-dropping mash-up of the aerial acrobatics of gymnastics, the flair of breakdancing and the playfulness of parkour. In Australia it has taken off with outdoors groups such as Bondi Beach Bar Brutes in Sydney, which as the name suggests, promotes street workout and calisthenics techniques using little more than a pullup bar. “ T H E T H I N G I S , G Y M N A S T I C S I S V E R Y, V E R Y S T R I C T , ”

says Luera,33, who — with his California drawl — both looks and sounds like a character from Grand Theft Auto. “The younger generation wants to do tricks, they want to get strong, but they don’t necessarily want a coach or someone that’s drilling them to keep their toes pointed.” He has the utmost respect for the guys in lycra doing stride swings on their pommel horses, he says, but it’s the rules and regulations that he finds stifling. “In calisthenics, you don’t have to do every gymnastic movement — iron cross, swallow, this and that…

Just go out there and invent something. Show us what you’re going to bring to the table. Your personality. You.” This emphasis on creativity over discipline is just one reason behind the growth calisthenics has experienced in the past few years. While the precise number of people forsaking the gym in favour of street workout is hard to quantify — there’s not a lot of paperwork when 64

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it comes to use of the pullup bar at your local park — the rise of calisthenics is an indisputable fact. In the American College Of Sports Medicine’s annual survey of 3,000 fitness professionals, bodyweight training is cited as the number one exercise trend for 2016.

There’s no doubt that calisthenics is establishing itself both as an effective way to build muscle and as a competitive sport in its own right, and calling it “street workout” makes it sound ultra-modern. But its origins are ancient. Before the battle of Thermopylae in 480BC, a small group of around 300 Spartan warriors (yes, those ones), realising that they were being spied on by Persian scouts, performed their own version of street workout.

Or as they knew it, kalos sthenos — beautiful strength.

It was basically the Ancient Greek equivalent of doing biceps curls before an arm-wrestling contest. So sure, bodyweight training is a modern trend, in much the same way philosophy, Euclidean mathematics and yoghurt are.

However, in the two and a half thousand years between Leonidas and Luera, calisthenics suffered from an image crisis. In the 1960s and 70s especially, it was what coldhearted, steel-bodied Soviet soldiers did to stay in shape, and the reason for the ubiquity of star jumps in school PE sessions. By no means creative; in no way fun.

It has no such problems with perception today.

While Luera and his fellow bodyweight warriors are the driving force behind the rise of modern calisthenics, its rebirth began with one man, and one video.

T O D AY A S L A N S T E E L , 3 1 , I S O N E O F T H E T O P S T R E E T

workout athletes in the world, a professional course tester for Ninja Warrior, founder of calisthenics crew Bar Mob and, along with Luera, a senior figure in the World Calisthenics Organisation (WCO). He first saw the “Hannibal For King” video while he was still getting to grips with bodyweight training. “I was just starting to get pullups, working on my muscle-ups, then I saw what Hannibal could do and I was like, ‘Jesus Christ.’ It seemed impossible.”

The influential four-minute video shows Hannibal Langham — shirtless and hyper-cut — performing a

Aslan Steel (left) and Luera smash a hanging leg raise.

sequence of skills that would set the bar for calisthenics in the 21st century. At the time, in 2008, few people had heard of Langham, aside from his fellow residents at the homeless shelter and the families at the playground he used as his gym. Then a friend uploaded the clip to YouTube. Ten million views later, “Hannibal For King” is recognised as the modern origin of street workout.

That’s not where the internet influence ends. Moves like handstands, planches and human flags are highly photogenic, as are the shredded physiques of the men performing them. Forget sunsets, kittens and avocado on toast — this is what Instagram was made for. “YouTube, Facebook, Instagram have all exploded calisthenics,” says Luera. “You’ve got guys like me and Aslan and Hannibal constantly fighting for better, stronger moves, and we’re putting out all that content on social media. People are seeing that and being drawn in. It’s a very big part of why we’re growing so much.” We challenge you to watch a video of Luera slowly lowering himself from a straightarm planche into a reverse lever without breaking a sweat and not immediately go looking for a set of parallel bars.

And there lies possibly the greatest appeal of calisthenics, another tried-and-tested hand-me-down from ancient Greece: its democratic nature. No matter who you are, what your background, education, financial situation, age or gender, you can start bodyweight training. “As long as you’ve got a pullup bar at your local park, or even just a tree branch, that’s all you’re ever going to need for calisthenics,” says Steel. “You don’t need a gym membership, you don’t need expensive, fancy equipment.

Anyone can do it. And it starts with just one pullup.”

I T ’ S N O C O I N C I D E N C E T H AT S O M E O F S T R E E T W O R KO U T ’ S

biggest names have more in common than their love of a well-deployed V-sit. Hannibal Langham was a sometime bike mechanic, most-of-the-time cannabis dealer who couldn’t afford rent, let alone a gym membership. Terroll Lewis, founder of the highly respected London-based crew Block Workout, served an 11-month prison sentence thanks to his involvement with a notorious gang. When he got out he attempted to join Fitness First, but was turned away because he didn’t have a bank account from which to set up a direct debit. Thwarted, like Langham before him, he took his workouts to the monkey bars at his local playground.

It’s a familiar story for Luera. “When I was younger, I got in a bit of trouble and went to prison a couple of times,” he says. What sort of trouble? “I was on drugs. My birth parents both died when I was young. My mum overdosed.

My dad gave me up for adoption and soon after I went to the foster home, he got shot in a bad drugs transaction.”

Luera was three years old.

He soon entered the adoptive care of his great-aunt and uncle, who he now talks of affectionately as his “real parents”. He nevertheless found it difficult to stay out of trouble, hence his familiarity with the correctional facilities of southern California. Eventually, determined to turn his life around, Luera took a bartending job 66

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A bad childhood and jail time were no barriers to Luera becoming a street workout champ.

Mastering the back lever takes supreme strength and balance.

The vertical ring hold requires maximum power — and lots of tatts.

Your no-gym strength plan BEGINNER Sets 10 Reps 5 Rest 2min I N T E R M E D I AT E Sets 5 Reps 10 Rest 90sec

T H E R E A L B LO W W O U L D C O M E I N 2 0 1 2 W I T H T H E D E AT H

of his great-aunt. He fights back tears as he talks about losing the one constant he’d had in his life. “I couldn’t sleep at night. I’d just dwell on how she wasn’t here anymore. I started going to the gym to get tired, to distract myself, to make sure I wouldn’t try to kill myself in the middle of the night thinking about how she’s gone.”

It was at the gym that he first saw someone doing a muscleup, raising his torso up and over the pullup bar. Luera was inspired and began a regime of bodyweight training. “Before I found calisthenics, I had no passion,” says Luera. “I was just working, dreading my job. This gave me passion.”

Sport has long been recognised for the transformative effect it can have on someone’s regular health, wellbeing and happiness. But there is arguably no sport with a more consistent or more powerful track record for positively overhauling lives than street workout.

Less than four years since he unceremoniously hoisted himself up into his first muscle-up, Luera is now the two-time middleweight champion of Battle Of The Bars — one of the most prestigious calisthenics competitions in the world.

THE COMPETITIVE SIDE OF STREET WORKOUT IS IN ITS

infancy, but many involved in the sport hope it will soon attract the TV cameras and elevate calisthenics into the mainstream. The format is simple: over the course of three three-minute rounds, competitors take it in turns to throw down a sequence of moves which their opponent must then match and improve on. The other guy does a handstand pushup midway through his routine? You do a single-arm handstand pushup. He bounces on his palms; you’d better bounce then lower yourself into a planche. Judges (usually well-respected athletes in their own right) choose the winner based on familiar criteria: difficulty, creativity, control, execution and crowd interaction. Think Step Up, if Channing Tatum could do a 360° spin at the top of a muscle-up.

When not wiping the floor with all comers, Luera and Steel run WCO-certified workshops around the world to introduce bodyweight training and its various progressions to new audiences. The message is simple: don’t pay for the body you want, get creative instead.

“In calisthenics, you get caught up with gaining more strength to do the next move, or to get a longer hold, and the amazing by-product is you get ripped,” says Steel.

“And the shape is a natural shape, a balanced, wellproportioned shape, and you can tell it’s useful.

Those muscles are used for something.”

True. They’re used for balancing horizontally over a giant anvil, for nailing 360° spins over the top of 2m-high bars, for using the power and potential of the human body in ways that no trained athlete has ever even considered. It’s more than safe to say those Spartan warriors had no idea what they’d started. ■ 68

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A D VA N C E D Sets 10 Reps 10 Rest 60sec

WORKOUT 1 PUSH

Archer pushup Start in a pushup position but with one arm straight out to the side. Lower yourself to the floor, then press back up. Do half your reps on one side, then switch.

Bodyweight skullcrusher You’ll need a table, chair or other surface of similar height for this. Put your hands together on it and, keeping your body as straight as possible, lower yourself until your head’s below your hands.

Crucifix pushup Lie face-down on the floor with your hands spread wide to your sides. Getting up onto your fingertips if you can (palms if you can’t), lower your chest to the floor and then press back up, feeling the stretch in your chest.

WORKOUT 1 PULL

Negative muscle-up You’ll need a pullup bar for this workout. Jump — or get a friend to help — so you’re above the top of it, then lower yourself into the bottom position of a dip, then through a reverse pullup.

Jump back to the start.

Head banger With your palms facing away from you, pull up to a bar until your chin’s above it. Extend your arms until they’re straight, keeping your head high, then pull back to the bar and finally drop down.

Caution: do not try this on a home pullup bar.

Inverted row Lie under a waist-height bar (or table) with your feet on the floor and your body in a straight line. Pull up until your chest touches the bar, pause, then lower yourself under control.

Illustrations James Carey@Debut Ar t

with a local catering company. It paid the bills and kept him out of trouble, but he was miserable.

■ Choose your exercises wisely, and you don’t need weights to build strength. Do each of these sessions once a week, leaving at least 48 hours between them, using the recommended rep ranges below.

LT H Y

LI

KS

MF

HEA

FE HAC

get a dog (and 25 other surprising ways to lose fat) ■ IT’S NOT ALL KETTLEBELL SWINGS AND KALE CHIPS. SMALL CHANGES ADD U P T O B I G FAT LO S S , A N D E V E RY O N E OF THE TWEAKS YOU’LL FIND HERE IS S I M P L E , S M A R T A N D S U S TA I N A B L E .

READ ON – AND GET READY TO SHED.

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BY MARK BAILEY

A dog’s life: Mutts lessen stress — and force you to walk them.

01.

GET A POOCH A dog isn’t just a man’s best friend — having a mutt can also keep you greyhoundslim. Everyday stress floods your body with the hormone cortisol, which triggers the storage of fat, but a University Of Missouri study proved that hanging with hounds releases the feelgood hormone oxytocin to keep belly-bloating stress at bay. Dog owners are also 34% more likely to get out and exercise.

For the greatest benefit, choose the most suitable breed of dog for your preferred type of exercise (see below) — shuffling around with a wheezing pug gives off the wrong vibe.

PICK THE RIGHT DOG

Make sure your new BFF matches your activity.

RUNNING

Dogs bred to hunt (like Labradors and Weimaraners) or to pull sleds (huskies) will keep up with you even on marathon runs. For a smaller option, a Jack Russell has almost boundless energy.

WAT E R S P O R T S

If you’re an open-water swimmer or a kayaker, a Newfoundland — with its thick, water-resistant fur — is perfect. If you have no space (they can weigh 65kg), a small, Portuguese water dog is non-allergenic.

M O U N TA I N M E N

An all-rounder like an English or Irish setter can easily cope with vertiginous hikes, although serious walkers might prefer the power of a Bernese mountain dog.

02. EAT EGGS FOR BREAKFAST

Swapping your morning toast for a three-egg omelette could be the easiest fat-loss trick you pull today. Research in the Journal Of Three American College Of Nutrition found that replacing a grain-based breakfast with eggs boosts fullness and cuts your lunch intake by more than 160 calories. In fact, the effect lasts for 36 hours, so you’ll still be eating smaller portions tomorrow.

03. Eat grapes before you shop ■ If you often hit the supermarket with a list of vegies but come home with bags of pastries, it’s probably because your willpower is starved of glucose. Research in the Journal Of Personality And Social Psychology proved that willpower drops with your glucose levels, so eating glucose-rich grapes before you shop will sweeten your chance of avoiding the cake aisle.

04. Munch on cheese ■ Giving up cheese in a bid to slim down is a bad idea.

In a study published in the Journal Of Agriculture And Food Chemistry, a group of men who ate a cheese-rich diet had higher levels of the compound butyrate, an anti-inflammatory fatty acid that boosts your fat-burning metabolism, than those who ate other dairy products or a control diet. If you’re concerned about your fat intake, stick to cottage cheese and feta, which are relatively low in fat.

05. Drizzle lemon on your lunch ■ Give your stomach some lemon aid by squeezing lemon juice into everything from stir-fries and salads to fish dishes and fruit shakes. It blunts the post-lunch insulin spike that causes your body to store fat and helps it store carbs as fuel instead of blubber, so you’ll feel citrus-fresh for your next trip to the gym.

06.

CHEW GUM IF YOU CAN’ T HELP

We’re not yolk Eggs boost full for 36 hour

07

08

READ THE LABEL

CLENCH YOUR FIST TO FIGHT HUNGER

People who understand food labelling weigh 4.5kg less than people who don’t, according to research published in Agricultural Economics . Check the ingredient order — manufacturers are

legally bound to put the biggest one first.

If your protein bar’s first, second and third ingredients are varieties of sugar (sucrose, fructose and saccharin, say), it’s basically a sugar bar.

Next time you walk past the office vending machine, tighten your fist into a ball. Research in the Journal Of Consumer Research revealed that people who clench a muscle for 30 seconds are better able to control

snaffling a bag of jelly babies every time you pick up your copy of Men’s Fitness magazine, chuck a stick of gum into your mouth on the way to the shop. A study in the journal Appetite proved it reduces cravings for sugary snacks. Plus, not even a lolly tastes good when you’ve got mint-mouth.

their impulses, giving you more chance of ignoring that shiny Picn bar. It will also come in handy next time your finger is hovering over the Buy button for a $20 shirt you know you don’ really need. k

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09.

LISTEN TO POP MUSIC Working out to cheesy pop tunes like Katy Perry’s “Firework” or David Guetta’s “Titanium” can help you exercise for longer and shed more fat.

Research in the Journal Of Sport And Exercise Psychology confirmed that synchronising your running pace to music with a tempo of 125bpm — as those tracks have — causes a 15% improvement in endurance. Check out jog.fm for more 125bpm fat-burners.

Work out to tracks with a tempo of 125bpm and your endurance will improve, resulting in greater energy expenditure.

10.

SPICE UP YOUR DINNER Chop up an extra chilli in your stir-fry. A study in Physiology & Behaviour showed that spicy foods slash cravings for fatty, salty and sweet grub, while the University Of Wyoming found that the capsaicin in chillies increases your fat-burning metabolism.

11. SWEAT FOR TWO MINUTES Whether you hit the treadmill during your lunch break, commute to work on your bike or just nail a post-work sprint for the bus, find a way to knock out a two-minute all-out effort today.

A report in the journal Applied Physiology, Nutrition And Metabolism showed that just 120 seconds of high-intensity effort increases the potential for fatty acid oxidation so your body burns more fat whatever you’re doing.

12. Enjoy a two-course meal ■ Bulldozing straight into your main course at dinner time could turn you into a pork chop. Experts at Pennsylvania State University discovered that eating a starter of vegetable soup satisfied diners’ grumbling guts before the main course arrived and they consumed 20% fewer calories overall. In other words, double your courses and can fat for good.

13. Choose a coloured bowl ■ Next time you graze on chips or biscuits while watching football on TV, eat them out of a red or blue bowl. A study in the journal Perception showed that the brain is tricked into thinking snacks served in coloured bowls taste more intense than those from white bowls, so you’ll scoff less without even thinking about it. Final score: beach body 1, belly fat 0.

14. Eat slower ■ Chewing your food slowly might make you look like a camel but it will also help you shift the fatty hump around your middle. Research in the Journal Of Clinical Endocrinology And Metabolism showed that men who ate ice cream slowly produced higher levels of appetite-busting peptides in the gut than those who wolfed down their food.

15.

COOL YOUR BEANS

Just two minutes of hardcore exercise will ramp up fat burn.

A D D I N G R E S I S TA N T

starch — a type of fibre found in beans — to meals increases your body’s ability to burn fat by 23%, according to a study in Nutrition & Metabolism .

And if you cook the beans the night before and allow them to cool, you’ll crank up the resistant starch content for additional fat-torching gains.

Go down swinging: Reduce weight by pushing harder.

16

17

T U R N O FF YO U R I PA D

shutterstock

According to the Lighting Research Centre, gadgets reduce production of melatonin — a hormone that helps you sleep — by 22%, while the University Of Chicago found that sleep loss sparks an

E AT LU N C H A LO N E

18% drop in leptin, a hormone that tells your brain you’re full, and a 28% increase in ghrelin, which triggers hunger.

Ditch the iPad after 9pm to bag more shut-eye and dream your way to a better body.

Whatever you tuck into at lunchtime, try to eat it alone.

A study published in Physiology & Behaviour proved that eating with people you know wrecks your focus and causes you

to consume 18% more grub. We wouldn’t suggest ignoring your girlfriend or kids at the dinner table — but a weekday lunch is one meal you can enjoy alone without making your family hate you.

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18. DEVOUR PORRIDGE

Muesli may look like a cold version of porridge but scientists from Sydney University found that porridge’s gloopy consistency makes it twice as filling, even when the portions contain the same amount of calories, so you’ll find it easier to reject that mid-morning office doughnut.

State of porridgin’: Its density fills you up faster.

19. Take a morning walk ■ Yes, walking obviously burns a few calories, but it’s the timing that really matters. Scientists at Brigham Young University in the US found that 45 minutes of moderate exercise in the morning reduces the desire for food later in the day — giving you a 24-hour fat-dodging bonus.

20. Use a smaller plate ■ Shrink your plate and you’ll shrink your gut. A study published in the American Journal Of Preventive Medicine showed that people given a larger bowl served themselves 30% more food than those given a smaller bowl — even though they were no hungrier. If your dinner plate is the size of a satellite dish, swap it for a Hobbit-sized plate and you’ll eat less.

21. Snack on plums ■ Next time you’re ambushed by the munchies, reach for a plum. Research by the University Of San Diego’s School Of Exercise And Nutritional Sciences showed that plums suppress hunger better than cookies, so you feel fuller for longer. Not bad for just 30 calories and 0g of fat.

24.

BUY A HEAVIER SPOON INVESTING IN WEIGHTIER,

higher-quality cutlery won’t just impress your guests at dinner parties — it’ll automatically slash your food intake. Research at Oxford University showed that heavier cutlery captures your attention when you eat and tricks your brain into thinking your food tastes better.

With a happy belly you won’t be raiding the snack cupboard two hours later.

22

23

STOCK UP ON OLIVE OIL

BAG A BREAK

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using olive oil instead of butter causes diners to eat 23% less bread and consume 16% fewer calories overall, so your stomach will soon look more like a thin chapatti and less like a burger bun.

APRIL 2016

If you enjoy running, rowing or cycling in the gym during your lunch hour, take a break halfway through the session and you’ll nuke more fat.

A Japanese study found that taking a

break during cardio exercise helps you metabolise more fat than simply exercising without stopping.

Try nailing that threeminute plank you’ve been gunning for while you’re resting.

shutterstock

If you can’t ditch your passion for bellybloating buns and loaves, slosh some olive oil over your bread and you’ll eat much less. A study in the International Journal Of Obesity showed that

25.

RUN ON GRASS/SAND

Jogging on uneven surfaces means the body’s muscles have to work harder and use more energy.

Switching your morning pavement plod to a run through a grassy park or sandy beach will help you torch more fat.

A study in the Journal Of Experimental Biology revealed that running on soft surfaces burns 1.6 times more energy than running on pavements because your muscles have to work extra hard on uneven terrain. There’s less chance of stumbling across a pie shop full of cream buns, too. ■

It’s like BarryWhite in a box.

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A R E YOU T R AINING SM ART AS WELL AS HARD? THE MO RE YO U K NOW ABO UT YO UR OW N

Photography Steve Neaves / St yling Hayley Lawrence /Grooming Beck y Rule / Model Chris Rober ts@vanderlammie.com

B ODY, T HE MOR E YOU ’LL BE ABLE TO TARGET W EAK NESS AND MA XIMISE STRENGTH.

R E A D O N , A N D M A K E S U R E YO U R B R A I N ’ S F I R I N G O N A LL CY L I N D E R S .

BY JOEL SNAPE

Q What muscle is the best signal of full-body strength?

A: The forearm

Hand-grip strength is a good predictor of total-body muscular strength and endurance, according to a study in the Journal Of Strength And Conditioning Research — while other studies show that a powerful grip’s also linked to longevity.

Strengthen yours with fatgrip moves: wrap a towel around the bar before rows, curls or deadlifts, and you’ll strengthen your grip alongside your other muscles.

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Q Which activates your back muscles better — a pullup or a chinup?

A: It's a tie

Q Are dumbbells or barbells better for chest growth?

A: Dumbells

True, you can probably shift more weight with a bar.

But technically, the main function of the pectoral muscles during pressing exercise is “transverse adduction”, or bringing the arms towards the centre of the body.

Obviously, there’s a limit to how much you can change your arm position with a bar, but dumbbells will give you a longer range of motion: let your hands go below chest level at the bottom of the move and then bring the dumbbells together at the top.

For a highdefinition finisher, do a final set of pushups on a medicine ball, stopping at the top of each rep to “squeeze” your hands together as hard as possible — you’ll feel your pecs activate. Hold for five seconds, then do four more reps for a set.

Just to clarify: chinups are when your palms are facing you, pullups are when they’re facing away. And depending on what you’ve been told, you may be surprised to find that in a study published by the Journal Of Strength And Conditioning Research, electromyographic (EMG) signals were collected from volunteers doing both exercises, and muscular activation in the latissimus dorsi — the biggest muscles of the back — was roughly the same for both.

The difference?

Chinups average higher activation in the biceps, while pullups make the lower trapezius muscles — the triangle-shaped bit in the middle of your back — work harder, so it’s worth doing both.

Combine them as a finisher: set a timer and do sets of two to four pullups every 30 seconds — then when you can’t do any more, switch to chinups and carry on.

Q Which athletes have the best calf strength?

A: Dancers

Jumping and sprinting are highly dependent on your posterior chain — that’s your glutes, hamstrings and back muscles — which is why it’s possible to have tiny calves and still be successful in anything from basketball to the 100m hurdles. One place you can’t get away with it, though, is ballet.

To stand in the position known as demi-pointe, dancers train for up to ten hours a day, mostly with a variation of the calf raise known as the relevé.

“A normal person should be able to do 20 single-leg calf raises on each side,” says trainer Chad Waterbury.

“But most people can’t. Do three or four unsupported calf raises on each side to activate your ankle muscles, then put your fingers against a wall or desk for balance while you do an all-out set on each side, starting with your strongest leg. Repeat three times a day, take 48 hours off, then do it again. In a couple of weeks you’ll have bigger, stronger calves.”

Tights optional.

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Q Name the three muscles in your upper arm A: The biceps, triceps and brachialis

You probably got the first two, but it’s the third you should focus on if you’re heading for the gun show.

The brachialis sits directly underneath the biceps and plays a key role in making your arms look bigger. Training with hammergrip curls will help, but it’s not the full story — as speed of movement increases, brachialis activation downshifts, pushing more stress onto the biceps. Fix them with super-slow curls: squeeze

APRIL 2016

your muscles throughout each curl, then pause for two seconds at the top of each rep, trying to squash your biceps with your forearm.

Do ten reps, then finish the set with a 20-second squeeze. You will burn — but you will grow.

Q

Which of your leg muscles should you train to prevent knee pain?

A: The VMO

It stands for vastus medialis oblique, but don’t worry about that.

Known as the “teardrop” muscle by bodybuilders, it connects your patella (kneecap) to your femur (thigh bone) and plays a key role in running, jumping and almost any other movement that involves extending

your knee. Not surprisingly, your local broscientist might tell you that leg extensions are the best way to train it, but don’t head for the machines just yet — a study in the Journal Of Biomechanics found that shearing tension on the ACL (the fragile ligament

that football players are constantly tearing) is higher during leg extensions than even on heavy squats or leg presses.

The solution?

Use 1¼ squats, which Olympic skiers swear by to slope-proof their knees. Squat down slowly, taking five seconds to hit the

bottom, come up a quarter of the way, then go back down and come up until your knees are short of lock-out. That’s one rep. Do four sets of four.

Q What’s the best piece of equipment for building a stronger core?

A: The abs wheel

Forget the crunches.

In a study comparing “traditional” abs exercises including crunches and sit-ups with moves using kit like suspension trainers and the Abs Revolutionizer (no, us neither), the wheel was the clear winner, scoring higher muscle activation across the upper and lower rectus abdominis (that’s your

six-pack) and obliques. Add a “pulse” for optimum time under tension: do ten reps, stop at the end of the movement, then do ten minireps where the wheel moves only a couple of centimetres.

You’ll still need to eat right to see your abs, but at least you’ll know they’re there.

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Q What’s the strongest muscle in the human body?

A: The gluteus maximus

Fine: if you’re being picky, it’s actually the masseter muscle in the jaw, which works on a shorter lever than the bigger muscles and can exert up to 4,337 Newtons of force. But in terms of cross-sectional area — and overall muscle-fibre count — it’s the glutes, which are key in everything from squatting to sprinting.

To make sure they’re awake and firing, do wall squats before

leg day. Stand with your feet shoulderwidth apart and toes touching a wall, then squat back and down without your knees brushing the brickwork.

Do three sets of five and you’ll feel your glutes firing during weighted moves.

BR AIN WORKOUT SCORES

HOW MANY DID YOU KNOW?

0-2

3-4

5-6

7-8

Do you even science, bro? Nobody’s saying you need a degree in biology, but knowing which muscles you’re working helps.

Not bad, but a quick refresher wouldn’t hurt.

Ask a PT what muscle groups you’re working during your next session: you might be surprised.

You certainly know your gastrocnemius from your gracilis (probably), but there’s room for improvement.

Near-flawless, as long as you’re converting those brains into gains by hitting the iron as well as the books.

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–CH 2PH

YO U ’ R E N O T –CH(CH 3) 2

E A T I N G N E A R LY –CH 2IN

ENOUGH

–CH 2CH 2SCH 3

pr otein.

–CH 2PY

PERIOD.

–(CH 2) 4NH 2

We all know protein is the single most impor tant building block of muscle growth. But, amazingly, science is only now discovering exactly how much protein we should be getting and — just as impor tant — when we should be getting it.

who studies how protein supports muscle growth, tells me that 110g per day should be ample. I bump up my intake accordingly, nearly doubling it.

Two weeks later I’ve dropped 2.2kg — most of it off my belly.

I’m stacking on extra weights for chest and shoulder presses. But the most profound change is in recovery.

The throbbing quads and calves I’d sufer after long runs? Gone. And when I overload my muscles while lifting (think: big burn), the soreness lasts for mere hours instead of days.

Now I crave protein like a drug. I eat it in the morning and, as you’ll soon learn why, before bed. I eat everything from omelettes to salmon to crushed insects that look like shit. And here’s the thing: I’ve never felt better.

Later, when I convey my experience to Dr Robert Wolfe, one of the early pioneers in protein science, he’s not surprised. “When you look at the research, it’s impossible not to be impressed with the beneits of a higher proportion of protein than the RDI in the diet,” he says. Eat more protein and “by and large, you’re going to be itter”.

A small plastic pouch filled with dark brown, organic matter arrived at my doorstep today. No, I didn’t immediately bolt down the stairs in hot pursuit of some teenagers.

Instead, I took a closer look and found that the bag actually contained something else entirely: dead crickets. Alex Drysdale, founder of Crik Nutrition, was so eager for me to sample his lagship product that he shipped it express via DHL from his office in Winnipeg, Canada.

I just hadn’t expected it so soon.

Drysdale, a former communications technician who quit his job last year to cash in on today’s protein boom, swears that his critters “are loaded with nutrients because they’re made from whole, crushed-up cricket — you’re eating the exoskeleton and all the organs”. I try not to picture cricket guts when I open the pouch and take a whif. Surprisingly, the smell is sweet and nutty. Feeling ballsier than usual, I shove a spoonful in my mouth. Compared with gritty whey and soy powder varieties, this stuf dissolves instantly on my tongue and tastes like almonds and honey.

Crik is just the latest form of protein I’ve happily eaten lately; the others include protein-infused granola, protein pancakes, high-protein Greek yoghurts and the gamut of powders — whey, soy, pea, hemp and now cricket. The protein industry reaps about $9 billion annually, a igure that’s quadrupled since 2005. Some dismiss this as just another leeting food fad, the result of a connection to certain popular high-protein diets, such as Paleo. A few experts claim we’re eating too much protein. But, I’m happy to report, scientists who study protein insist otherwise.

For the record, the Australian Recommended Dietary Intake (RDI) oicially recommends just 0.75g of protein per kilo of body weight.

“That’s designed for the average person to just exist — hang out, watch TV, do whatever,” says Dr Mike Nelson, an exercise physiologist and fitness coach who espouses a high-protein diet. “But,” adds Nelson, “if you’re not the average person, and you’re exercising more intensely, you’re going to need more protein.”

At 73kg, the RDI puts me at 55g per day, which is hardly more than a cup of Greek yoghurt at breakfast and a small chicken breast for lunch, with zero protein for dinner. But based on recent indings, protein scientists now advise at least 1.4g per kilo and up to 1.6g if you’re doing intensive weight training (more than two hours daily) and want to bulk up fast — which would put my recommended intake at almost 120g per day, divided into four servings, consumed roughly four hours apart. Because I exercise ive or six days a week, Dr Stuart Phillips, a professor of kinesiology at McMaster University in Canada,

Feeling ballsier than usual, I shove a spoonful of crickets in my mouth.

Compared with gritty and bitter whey and soy powder varieties, it tastes fabulous — like almonds and honey.

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Despite everything we know about the connection between protein and muscle growth (for the record, protein refers to the amino acids from foods that our bodies require to be healthy and strong but don’t produce intrinsically), it wasn’t until very recently that scientists began to determine just how much protein we should be eating, what types (animal or plant), when (morning or evening) and how much.

“Back in the early 1980s, we used to think that if you averaged out your recommended protein intake over a week, you were OK,” says Dr Nancy Rodriguez, a professor of nutritional studies at the University Of Connecticut in the US. “But fast-forward 10 years, and we realised it wasn’t just having protein every two or three days. You should be eating it every day and distributing it among meals and snacks.”

For decades, dietitians and trainers generally adhered to the RDI. But Dr Donald Layman, a US professor of nutrition, suspected this number might be too low. Often regarded as a leader in protein requirements, Layman had been investigating how humans metabolised amino acids and whether there was a threshold amount required to trigger protein synthesis, the biological mechanism that spawns muscle. In 1999, Layman conducted experiments on rats and foundthataspeciicamountoftheessentialaminoacidleucine,contained in all protein, is necessary to kick-start synthesis. Leucine alone can’t create muscle — you need all nine essential amino acids to do that; leucine is just the catalyst that ignites the process. “Until you get enough leucine, protein synthesis won’t run at 100%,” Layman explains.

Whenheextrapolatedhisdatatohumans,hedeterminedthatforsomeone like me to optimise post-workout muscle growth, I should be consuming upward of 30g of protein per meal, which provides 2.5g of leucine. (For that, a whey- or soy-based protein smoothie with

P r o p s t y l i n g b y A r i a n a S a l v a t o /A p o s t r o p h e

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–CH 2PH

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10) NONFAT GREEK YOGHURT ■ It ranks last in protein by weight but is remarkably low in calories — one 100-calorie cup has 17g.

Protein per 100g: 24g

Protein per 100g: 13g

Protein per 100g: 10g

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MEN’S FITNESS

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professor at Maastricht University in a half-cup of yoghurt added would do the trick; so would a tasty 120g T-bone steak.) the Netherlands, adding that he favours But what happens if I eat more than that? Would devouring, say, 90g of protein in a whole animal foods like beef because they single sitting — or about 350g of salmon — triple muscle growth? No-one knew the answer digest slowly — a steak can take 24 hours for until Dr Doug Paddon-Jones, a professor of nutrition and metabolism at the University the body to process — so it provides a steady Of Texas, consulted with Layman for a study. In 2009, Paddon-Jones enlisted a group protein supply all day. of volunteers, including eight men in their early 30s, all weighing about 80kg, and fed If you’re a vegetarian or vegan, good them each a 120g steak with 30g of protein. Five hours later, he took blood samples and old-fashioned rice and beans, and tofu are muscle biopsies from the volunteers. “There was a 50% improvement in muscle protein acceptable alternatives. But remember: by synthesis,” says Paddon-Jones. When he repeated the test but ramped up the size of the proportion, animal meat packs up to three meal, eventually tripling protein intake, synthesis remained the same. “That suggests that times the protein content as plant-based food somewhere around 30g [for an 80kg male] there is a ceiling efect for your ability to use like legumes and nuts. So with tofu, for example, actual protein-rich foods to build and repair muscle,” Paddon-Jones says. For bigger guys, you’ll have to eat a lot more of it to get the same of course, those numbers will rise proportionately. If you clock in at 115kg, for instance, protein you would dining on a 200g sirloin steak your per-meal protein intake would rise to 42g. (And there are other factors that can push or a three-egg cheese omelette. Some plantthat number even higher, such as genes.) based proteins are also high in carbohydrates, But too much protein in a single meal is like illing the 60-litre tank in your SUV with 180 which, if not readily burned of, end up as fat. litres of petrol — two-thirds of the fuel gets wasted, spewing onto the pavement. (Excess (Crickets are about 70% protein by weight.) protein ends up in your urine.) “You don’t have a protein storage site,” explains Phillips.

If you’re going the supplement powder route, “You can’t pack it away for further use.” scientists suggest you choose whey, the wildly Paddon-Jones warns about racking up extra calories: “The biggest problem with popular animal-based protein derived from overconsuming protein is you’re going to get fat. There’s an upper limit in terms cow’s milk. For a 2015 study in the Journal Of of what your body can process at one time. You can eat more, but it’s likely not doing your muscles much good at all.”

Food Science, Phillips analysed whey, soy and rice powders and found that whey had the highest leucine content of the three. “And when we’re talking about regenerating muscle, BEFORE WORKING OUT OR AFTER: the key is protein higher in leucine,” he says. “Based on our work, WHAT’S THE PROTEIN-SMOOTHIE SWEET SPOT? whey tops the list.”

At the University Of Connecticut, Rodriguez hones diets for Whey also ranks irst in its ability to feed muscles faster than any other collegiate and American professional athletes, including those protein type. “Whey protein is absorbed really quickly in the blood, in the NFL, NBA and NHL. She instructs them to get about 35g within 15 to 20 minutes,” Paddon-Jones says. Train hard and your body of protein per meal and scales it up for heavier guys. But will burns stored carbs and fat to produce glucose for energy. But unlike any protein do? Rodriguez cites several new studies that have fat, there’s no protein cache to tap for making muscle. And as van examined plant versus animal proteins, and whole foods Loon points out, “When you combine exercise with protein, you get a compared with supplements. The upshot: to grow new muscle synergistic response — muscle protein synthesis is doubled.” That’s why and get bigger while adhering to a low-calorie diet, whole, animalexperts love whey: its rapid absorption improves the rate of rebuilding based sources are preferable, speciically meat, poultry, ish, eggs compared with other protein sources. and dairy (milk, cheese, yoghurt). Now, you might be wondering But timing is everything. When muscles contract during strenuous about the recent World Health Organization (WHO) report from exercise the cells become more anaerobic, and protein synthesis late last year that caused carnivores to panic because it labelled shuts of. So chugging a protein smoothie right before hitting the gym meat a carcinogen and lumped bacon with tobacco in the certainor while exercising is pointless — and a few studies suggest it may death category. Not to worry. First, the WHO study surveyed even be counterproductive, impeding your muscle’s ability to grow. people who consumed almost nothing but — that is, heaps of meat “There’s no good reason to do it,” Phillips says. On the other hand, every day. These folks are also often overweight and sedentary. researchers have measured the largest gains in lean muscle growth in So does meat give you cancer? Or do you get it from being fat and athletes who consume whey protein 30 to 90 minutes after training. lazy? The answer is almost certainly the latter, meaning that if “That’s when you get the biggest bang for your buck, because the you’re it and work out regularly, a modest serving (120g) a few machinery is set up to resynthesise muscle,” Rodriguez says. times a week of beef or bacon isn’t going to put your health at risk.

“I don’t think you can become the best athlete you can be CAN YOU ACTUALLY BUILD MUSCLE WHILE YOU SLEEP? without meat,” says Dr Luc van Loon, an exercise physiology When we bulk up in response to resistance training, it’s because there’s a net gain of new muscle growth. Squats break down quads, which –CH CH SCH respond by rebuilding themselves bigger and stronger — a process that protein ampliies. But like other scientists, van Loon once believed this occurred only when we were awake. Then three years ago, he met with colleagues at a bar and “after too many beers, we thought, I now crave protein like a drug.

‘What happens if we give people protein during sleep?’ ” Scientists I eat it in the morning and before had never considered whether protein could be metabolised at night, bed. I eat everything from omelettes or if it could, whether muscle synthesis would occur. to salmon to dead insects. And you When you eat protein, its amino acids are dispatched to various know what? I’ve never felt better. tissues — muscle, organ, bone — where they’re used to repair and 2

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2

3

—CH 2CH(CH 3) 2

YO U R P R O T E I N P O W E R C A LC U L AT O R What, when and how much to eat, in four simple steps.

=$

160 g day

STEP 1

STEP 3

WHAT TYPES?

HOW MUCH?

■ Mix it up: beef, pork, chicken,

■ Disregard the Recommended Dietary Intake, which suggests 0.75g of protein per day, per kilo of bodyweight. At 75kg, for example, that’s 56g, or roughly one large chicken breast. That’s not enough.

Increase it to at least 110g, or 1.4g per kilo. If you’re in the gym daily and trying to bulk up, up to 2.2g per kilo of bodyweight is OK.

seafood, tofu, even hemp seed, which has more protein by weight than any other vegie source. Variety is not only more fun, it also feeds muscles with a good medley of micronutrients and aminos. If you’re the type who insists on bang for the buck, opt for foods that rank highest by protein-to-weight ratio: lean beef, tuna, chicken breasts and whey.

35g

35g

B R E A K FA ST

LUNCH

STEP 2

STEP 4

WHEN?

ANYTHING ELSE?

■ Let’s say your weight puts your

■ Yes, at 90% protein, whey tops the supplements — and even whole foods like steak and salmon — in protein density and also digests faster.

So pairing a whey smoothie with a workout is a no-brainer. Thirty to 90 minutes after exercise, get 35 to 40g of it. (Mix it into a smoothie with berries, banana, honey and milk.)

Timing’s essential: post-workout, your body sucks up protein like a sponge and converts it to new muscle almost twice as fast as other times.

C ock wise from ef t: Christopher Grif fith; Stock food/Food Collection; C h r i s t o p h e r G r i f f i t h ; M a r e k U l i a s z /A l a m y

ideal protein intake at 140g per day.

Research suggests there is likely a threshold for protein, and your muscles can use it only in small batches. You should divide your daily intake into four servings.

In this scenario, that’s 35g per meal — breakfast, lunch, dinner — and a fourth snack right before bed. Also — and this is important — at least one of these meals should immediately follow a workout (see Step 4).

rebuild cells. But to determine what happens at night, van Loon had to pinpoint the exact where and when of this process. So at a university animal research facility in the Netherlands, he rigged a Holstein cow with intravenous tubing and pumped in $40,000 worth of chemical compounds called tracers that allow scientists to follow them throughout the body. From the cow’s milk, van Loon derived a protein supplement he could give to human test subjects and then track the amino acids throughout their bodies. “I could see the digestion and absorption, how much of the protein becomes available in the circulation, and how much of what you eat lands in the muscle over a few hours,” he explains.

Next he conducted two separate protein-and-sleep studies by recruiting healthy men in their early 20s. In the irst experiment, the men exercised in the evening, then half took a protein supplement before bedtime, with the remainder fed a placebo.

Van Loon found the protein was efectively digested and absorbed while the men slept, and muscle rebuilding was also higher. In the next study, he had the subjects lift weights for three months in the evenings, with half taking a protein supplement before bedtime and the other half a placebo. He found the group who consumed protein prior to sleep had a greater increase in muscle mass.

= 90%

70g DINNER & SNACK

Based on his results, van Loon recommends a “fourth meal” of protein 30 minutes before bedtime — that would be about 30g for a guy my size. But keep calories low, since anything in addition to the protein isn’t going to burn of. Good choices are Greek yoghurt, cottage cheese or a protein smoothie, assuming you minimise sugary illers like berries and juice. “Protein prior to sleep gives you a greater window of opportunity to facilitate muscle reconditioning,” van Loon says. “It turns out that nighttime is an unused period when you can stimulate the adaptive response to exercise.”

WHAT’S THE BEST WAY TO GET YOUR PROTEIN HIGH?

Because I’m a carnivore, to me more protein means more seafood, chicken, pork and beef. On top of ample salmon and kangaroo — two of my favourite foods — during my investigation, I added van Loon’s fourth bedtime “meal”, as well as whey after workouts.

And my grocery bills went out of control.

Ultimately, I decided to mix things up: a few times a week I now splurge on pricey seafood (often tuna or snapper, among the protein kings of ish), and for smoothies I go with organic, grass-fed whey or Drysdale’s Crik powder: the yummiest of the supplements, but — APRIL 2016 MEN’S FITNESS

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–CH 2CH(CH 3) 2

After two weeks, not only do I feel great but also I’m 2.2kg lighter, chiefly because protein makes me feel fuller and satiated, which keeps me from snacking.

at roughly $5 for a 32g serving of protein — also the most expensive.

Primarily, though, I rely on protein-packed basics like yoghurt, eggs, peanut butter and cheese. For breakfast, I do one cup of nonfat Greek yoghurt, blended with blueberry keir, a tablespoon of peanut butter and a teaspoon of honey. I follow my late-morning workout with a whey smoothie, using the provided scoop to get the correct amount of protein, then sweeten it with whatever fruit happens to be in the fridge — and call that lunch. Dinner varies, but the main dish is almost always a high-protein whole food, such as pork or salmon, eyeballing the portions to get roughly 250g. Before bed, I might snack on a bowl of cottage cheese topped with sliced chicken or turkey breast, dishing it out based on the serving-size info on the packaging.

After two weeks, not only do I feel great but also — as previously mentioned — I’m 2.2kg lighter, chiely because protein makes me feel fuller and satiated (which keeps me from snacking), and because of protein’s thermic efects (I actually burn calories while digesting it).

I notice something else with my new diet: I’m always thirsty. As it turns out, protein is hygroscopic, which means it attracts water like iron ilings to a magnet. “If you shift to high-protein, you should drink 50% more water than you were drinking before,” Layman advises.

Besides dehydration, what other potential risks might protein pose? Low-carb diets, like the Atkins, which became popular in the ’90s, preached all-you-can-eat protein. You can ill up on steak and eggs as long as you limit carbs. With Atkins, protein functions like an inert, low-calorie iller: consume enough of it and you’ll be too stufed to eat more. (In contrast, the Paleo diet embraces protein for its superior nutritional value. But it falls short because it doesn’t prescribe how much to eat or when. It also rejects dairy — even Greek yoghurt, which research has identiied as a superlative protein.)

At the height of the Atkins craze, reports of health problems surfaced, the most serious being kidney failure. I ask Phillips whether I should be concerned, and I’m told no. Because many of the Atkins dieters were overweight, he explains, they were also “verging on type-2 diabetes”, a disease that can include kidney dysfunction.

“But as the circular logic went, the high protein caused the kidney failure in the irst place, and that’s not true. There’s no evidence of that.” The other myth is “protein is bad for your bones”, Rodriguez says. The theory used to be that protein-rich foods nudged your body’s pH balance toward higher acidity — and too much acid would leach minerals like calcium from bones and lead to osteoporosis. But current research proves just the opposite: protein increases bone density by improving calorie absorption. “We’re realising that eating adequate protein, along with calcium, is good for bones,” Rodriguez says. In a 2008 study in The American Journal Of Clinical Nutrition, Layman wrote, “Higher protein diets are associated with greater bone mass and fewer fractures when calcium intake is adequate.”

As I worked to harness the beneits of protein, I discovered that the plant-based soy doesn’t build muscle as fast as animal protein or whey. “Soy is about 60% as efective as whey,” says Layman. “But if you use a small enough amount, say 12 to 15g, you will get no musclebuilding efects.” I also learnt about one big protein no-no: booze.

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Both Phillips and Paddon-Jones recount tale shared among protein geeks, which involves a team of Aussie Rules players. During the of-season they’d meet every Friday at a gym for weight training.

Afterward, they’d go drinking at a nearby pub.

“No one was getting stronger,” Paddon-Jones says. A coach with a hunch about the booze changed their training to Tuesdays — a less convenient night to souse it up — “and they put on a ton of muscle mass and strength. Alcohol was shutting down protein synthesis.”

Last year, Phillips led the irst-ever experiment to test the theory.

He gathered eight men ages 21 to 26 and put them through an exercise routine that included weightlifting, cycling and high-intensity interval training. After the workout, he gave them each 50g of protein over a four-hour period and then got them trashed. Over the subsequent eight hours, he took tissue biopsies from their quad muscles. The result: muscle-protein synthesis had dropped by 24% compared with his control group, who got protein but no booze. “Eight solid drinks of vodka deinitely messed up their muscles’ ability to utilise protein,” he says. “Alcohol afects your ability to regenerate and repair muscle and get it ready for a subsequent workout. If you’re an athlete, consuming more than one or two drinks a day is not recommended.”

There’s still one question that can’t be overlooked: how will consuming 100-plus grams of protein a day for years on end impact long-term muscle health? “We can’t answer that quite yet,” Layman says. One sure fact: men in their mid-40s will ind that their muscles begin to naturally shrink. “As we get older, we’re less eicient at turning protein into muscle,” Layman says.

This has led nutritionists to assume that adults need less protein as we age. Having documented what high protein does for younger men, scientists now challenge that assumption and plan to conduct longitudinal studies to track men and their muscles over a lifetime.

When such a study occurs, I tell Layman he should enlist my dad, who turned 82 last month and remains an avid athlete.

He devours chicken and salmon, plays tennis with guys half his age and often begins his day by paddling his kayak 3km.

Is it protein, exercise, lucky genes or all three?

No matter. The jump in strength and recovery I begin to experience after disregarding the RDI and doubling my protein intake is reason enough to stick with it long term.

Bring on the crickets. ■

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FIND YOUR STRONG

Fitness goes

With the explosion of climbing gyms across the globe, MF ’s Scott Christian heads to New York to scale the heights where it all began. But as he soon discovers, clambering up walls next to hot girls isn’t just addictive, it also gets you seriously ripped.

PHOTOGRAPHS

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The “inish” is maybe two metres away, but at this point it hardly matters.

I’m dangling three metres in the air, completely sapped of energy and doing my best just to hold on as a razor-like burn courses through my forearms and shoulders. Below me, a it young crowd has assembled — it’s the type of “grab life by the short and curlies” scene reminiscent of a beer commercial — and I try to regain my focus as they ofer words of encouragement. But the truth is, I can’t. Bizarrely, I’ve started laughing, as if in some state of itness-inspired euphoria.

If I were to fall and break my neck, I think to myself as the Black Keys come wafting up through the rafters, at least I’m not in a gym that’s playing ‘Uptown Funk’. My ingers give out, and I fall backward for the fourth time today (by now, I’ve perfected my Hans Gruber–in–Die Hard impersonation), and I land gently on the soft padding below.

IT FELT LIKE SOMEONE HAD CRAMMED THE WORLD’S COOLEST PLAYGROUND INTO A GIANT NEW YORK ART GALLERY. 96

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defying gravity, scurrying her way up an incline with the ease of an ant climbing a blade of grass. When no one’s paying attention, I quietly haul myself to my feet, reapply some chalk to my hands and march back to the wall.

CALLING ROCK CLIMBING A SPORT IS A DISSERVICE; IT ’S MORE

like an obsession. And for a long time I was among the obsessed.

Like a lot of male climbers out there, I irst got into the sport because of a girl. It was her hobby, and she was consistently better at it than I was, which drove me to log serious hours inside dank and dark climbing gyms in hopes of impressing her. Admittedly, I never did meet her skill level, but I did get really it as I tried.

That was four years ago.

Today, rock climbing — and the chic rock-climbing gym, in particular — is one of the fastest-growing fitness trends in the world. “Over the past three years we’ve had pretty much doubledigit growth,” says Mike Helt, editor in chief of Climbing Business Journal. “Almost every state and almost every major metropolitan area has a climbing gym.” The Sydney Indoor Climbing Gym is a massive 3,700 square metre facility that has hosted World Youth and Oceania Climbing Championships. While in Melbourne, the Cliffhanger Climbing Gym boasts the highest walls — 20m — in the southern hemisphere. In the US, Stone Summit in Atlanta, Georgia, features towering four-story climbing walls alongside gleaming, modern gym equipment and a rock slide. And then there’s Vertical Endeavors in Minnesota and Chicago, the biggest rock climbing gyms in the country with 4,200 square metres of climbing wall each.

But no other gym represents the new “climbing-gym lifestyle” quite like Brooklyn Boulders, with headquarters in Brooklyn, New York but currently expanding all over North America.

The brand is doubling down on a strategy that has made rock climbing all the rage among a new breed of itness junkies, namely millennials and Silicon Valley types. “Most people think in terms of work-live-play, in that order,” Stewart says. “But we prefer to think of it as play-live-work.” He says that’s a philosophy long embraced by the Facebooks and the Googles of the world, what with their expansive toy-and-amenity-festooned campuses that include rockclimbing walls amid conference rooms and cubicles.

“We saw that people would bring their work to the gym,” says Jeremy Balboni, who, along with Lance Pinn and Stephen Spaeth, founded the original Brooklyn Boulders in 2009. “They would work, they would climb, they would go back to work, but on, like, shitty little benches. They were just happy to be part of the environment,

S t y l i n g b y D e l v i n L u g o ; 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

“Gravity — it’s the great equaliser, man,” says Mike Stewart, general manager of the Brooklyn Boulders climbing gyms in New York and one of my climbing partners for the day. If you were looking to cast a movie about rock climbers, Stewart would be your guy. Cut and compact, with short, mussed brown hair, he has that halo of rugged outdoorsy-ness that gives you the impression he leads expeditions up Kilimanjaro on the weekends. “Gravity doesn’t care how much money you have, what school you went to, what demographic you are — it’s indiscriminate. You’re going to fail, and you’re going to fall.” Out of context it doesn’t sound like much of a pep talk, but sitting there on the padded loor, surrounded by climbers of all stripes and skill levels, it’s surprisingly motivational.

There’s no shame in failing here.

In fact, it’s the failing part that keeps you coming back.

I just wish I could fail at the level I used to. It’s been more than four years since I laid a chalky hand on a climbing wall, and my former skills have all but evaporated. “The sport can be pretty unforgiving in that respect,” says Luke Livesey, Brooklyn Boulders’ head climbing instructor. “If you don’t climb for even a few weeks, you really feel it when you come back.” Although I used to climb at an intermediate level, today I may as well be a beginner. I can feel it in my hands and forearms. I can especially feel it in my back — imagine doing 15 pullups and then immediately trying to hoist yourself up a rope, and that’s basically how the last third of any climb feels.

But fortunately, in climbing, diiculty isn’t really a matter of the steepness of the grade; it’s the pattern and protrusion of holds that form what’s known as the route. My current white whale is this moderate-grade zigzag of yellow lumps stretching just 5m in the air.

As I sit there and begin to recalculate my approach to the route, I notice, like everyone else in the enormous room, a microsize girl on a nearby, prohibitively diicult climb, who has apparently discovered some wizard’s spell for

Elevated adrenaline levels: Clockwise, from top left: New York-based artist Hyo Kim hits the gym’s pullup wall; Michael Wideburg, a composer and musician, scales a “training wall”; Brooklyn Boulders’ Evelyn Park with her trusty safety gear; bouldering essentials — shoes, chalk bag and harness; the gym’s youth programs manager, Ashton Horton, on a difficult bouldering problem.

Social climbing: At Brooklyn Boulders’ max-luxe Queensbridge location, climbers tend to get “hooked up” in more ways than one.

even if they weren’t climbing. That’s when we realised we’d created an environment where people just wanted to be.”

Now, with Queensbridge, there are not only desks and work spaces and wi-i, but also art on the walls, a café and a glass-walled conference room — all meant to appeal to today’s growing band of coders, investors and creative classes.

Of course, this is all a far cry from your standard climbing gyms of just a few years ago. When the irst indoor rock-climbing gym opened in America in 1987, it was simply a place for outdoor climbers to keep it during the winter. As the gyms proliferated, they remained little more than dark caves stufed into industrial warehouses on the outskirts of town where hardcore climbers took the winter edge of. Even when the sport expanded in the early 2000s, climbing gyms stayed geared toward hardcore climbers.

“It’s easy to sell climbing to climbers,” says Mike Helt. “They’ll go to a dirtbag cave and climb, no problem. But to sell climbing to a non-climber takes a diferent approach.”

That approach is evident as I tour the new Brooklyn Boulders Queensbridge facility, where it feels as though I’m walking inside a pyramid. There’s a work space just past the front desk that Cyrena Lee, a Brooklyn Boulders employee, tells me will soon have overhead pullup bars. A short lift ride takes us down to the main climbing loor, where pale wooden walls are adorned with holds that look like great gobs of rainbow-coloured chewing gum. In the centre are towering climbing walls with ropes dangling from the top like jungle vines. Down yet another loor there’s the glass-walled conference room intended to appeal to techies, a yoga studio and an event space that has so far featured concerts, mixology classes and a table tennis tournament. There are even plans for hosting TED talks. Tucked inside both the men’s and women’s locker rooms are cedar-paneled saunas. There’s art on the walls — so far a couple of specially commissioned paintings by New York artist Shantell Martin, with more to come — and the place is drowning in sunlight.

All I could think during my tour was that someone had igured out a brilliant way to cram the world’s coolest playground into a giant New York art gallery.

L I K E M O S T C L I M B I N G G Y M S , B R O O K LY N B O U L D E R S I S B R O K E N

into three areas for three diferent types of climbing: bouldering, top roping and lead climbing. Both top roping and lead climbing involve ropes and a technique called belaying, in which one climber applies tension on one end of a rope to keep another climber on the other end from falling. Bouldering, on the other hand, is done without ropes and generally maxes out at a height of around six metres. The only equipment needed to boulder are a good pair of climbing shoes, a bag of chalk and a padded loor to ease your falls.

In terms of diiculty, climbs start at beginner level, essentially like scaling a wonky ladder designed by a drunk, and go up to pro level, which probably means you’re slinging webs and saving fellow citizens from costumed villains in your of-hours.

IF ALL YOU’RE One of the aspects of DOING IS CLIMBING, climbing that makes it EXPECT TO GAIN addictive is you can get STRENGTH VERY QUICKLY — NOTHING better at it quickly. This IS BETTER AT is because most men can CONFUSING YOUR compensate for a lack of MUSCLES. technical ability at the

ROCK THE COOL CLIMBING LOOK There’s no gym more social than a climbing gym, so here’s how to look your best — without compromising power or safety.

CLIMBING HARNESS ■ The Black Diamond Momentum SA Harness ($99.95, blackdiamondequipment.com ) is suitable for any kind of climbing, so you can use it outdoor and indoor. A pre-threaded speed adjust waistbelt buckle saves time and eliminates error when tying in, while “Dual Core Construction” ensures comfort.

CLIMBING PANTS ■ You want stretch without going full Lycra. “Prana makes some really great pants that are jean-esque yet have stretch,” says Mike Stewart, general manager of New York’s Brooklyn Boulders. He recommends the Bridger Jean ($79, prana.com ). “These come with gusseted crotches, so you’re not gonna blow them out. They have a cotton-spandex blend, so you’re gonna have that natural fibre feel and good movement — and once again, no spandex thing going on or too much polyester to make noises when you walk down the hallway.”

CLIMBING SHOES ■ “Climbing shoes have to be super-snug. Usually everybody’s at least a full size down,” says Stewart. You can’t go wrong with the Evolv Defy Climbing Shoe ($89, evolvsports.com ), which has a lush bedroom slipper feel and comfort for extended wearing, plus soft midsole and sensitivity for feeling the rock and smearing.

NECESSARY ACCESSORIES ■ For the perfect grip, go with high-performance chalk which works to absorb moisture on the hands to increase the friction between the skin and the crag. We like the Black Diamond Refillable Chalk Shot ($9.95, blackdiamondequipment.com ).

It’s specifically blended for climbing to keep sweat at bay, ensuring maximum grip no matter how hot or humid it gets.

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Height of fashion: The latest indoor rock climbing gyms incorporate yoga classes, weight rooms, wall art, conference centres and cafés.

beginning with strength. “When you start climbing, it’s super rewarding to see that rapid progress, because your body is pretty quick to adapt to it,” says Livesey. Such adaptability is the result of the intense nature of the workout, similar to HIIT, which gets you really fit really quickly. Of course, to continue to succeed, itness must eventually be matched by technique, and that’s what slows your progress at the intermediate levels. Good technique, it turns out, is as difficult to acquire as muscle, if not more so.

“When you’re a good climber trying to get a little better, it’s a lot of hard work,” Livesey says.

But you can make that work a lot easier by improving your strength and flexibility. Chiefly with pullups, of course, but also with workouts like yoga, which, thanks to its emphasis on flexibility, core strength and bodyweight exercises, can dramatically improve your abilities. One thing that surprises a lot of beginners is how much you use your legs in climbing. Think about it this way: you wouldn’t pull yourself up a ladder using only your arms. It’s the same with climbing.

Also important to keep in mind if you start climbing is muscle balance. Since climbing is all about pulling, you want your exercises in the weight room to involve pushing, especially with regard to your chest and triceps.

But if all you’re doing is climbing, expect to gain strength fairly quickly. Muscle gains require variety, of course, and nothing confuses your muscles like rock climbing. “One of the big differences with rock climbing is the variety of movement you’re performing,” says Livesey. “Your body doesn’t adapt to it as it does with more regimented exercises. So you keep getting stronger.” Most rock-climbing gyms will change the routes every four to six weeks as well, so your body never even has a chance to get in a rut. And as for the workout itself, besides the obvious muscle groups of arms and back, it also works your legs and, toafairlyaggressiveextent,yourcore.Frankly,I’veseenmoresix-packs in rock-climbing gyms than in any other workout space I’ve ever been to. And though climbing rewards a good strength-to-weight ratio, anyone can climb. One of the most elite climbers of the 1980s, in fact, was John Dunne, a Brit known as much for his 90kg frame as for his crazy skills.

Best of all, climbing is mentally engrossing. “I know from personal experience, when people go to a conventional gym, they’re clock watching,” says Livesey. “With climbing, you almost have the opposite problem, where you’ve been climbing for two or three hours and suddenly realise you should have been out of there 40 minutes ago.” (I can attest to this: I became so engrossed in that one climb that I blew right past an 8 o’clock dinner appointment.)

This is due to the problem-solving aspects of climbing. Routes are literally called “problems,” and when you inish a climb, you “send” it. The mental focus required to send the problem puts you in a zone where you lose track of everything else that’s going on around you. Imagine powering through a CrossFit or SoulCycle workout while at the same time working through a Sudoku puzzle, and you have some understanding of what rock climbing is.

I’VE SEEN MORE SIX-PACKS IN As corny as it sounds, ROCK-CLIMBING climbing is also communal.

GYMS THAN IN ANY “We’re all about getting OTHER WORKOUT people to t ake their SPACE I’VE EVER headphones out,” says BEEN TO. Stewart. The act of climbing

Brooklyn Boulders’ general manager, Mike Stewart (far left), with a Friday afternoon crowd.

itself requires a tremendous burst of physical exertion, which means that most of what you’re actually doing while you’re at the gym is resting. “While you’re resting your body to be able to succeed, you can talk to the people around you,” says Jeremy Balboni.

Mikhail Martin, a coder and a regular at Brooklyn Boulders, says he often goes in just to hang out with other climbers, even when he doesn’t feel like climbing. “I’ll go anyway and just have a good time.

And those are the days when I end up climbing my best.”

And, it’s worth mentioning, rock climbing attracts an inordinate number of women. Fit women. Like Sierra Blair-Coyle, who is an occasional model and, more important, a two-time national champion rock climber. Actress Lea Michelle apparently loves climbing so much she once conducted a magazine interview at a climbing gym. “I think we can take credit for at least two marriages right now,” says Stewart, who notes that it’s much easier to strike up a conversation with a woman while climbing than on the treadmill.

Just don’t give her a lecture. “One thing that drives me crazy is when guys try to mansplain how to climb to women,” says Cyrena Lee. You’ll not only look like an arsehole, but it’s likely that you’ll be giving “advice” to someone who’s better than you.

As I rest for the last time on the padded floor in front of my moderate climb route, I can’t help but stare at the girl burning up the hardcore climb next to me. She’s clearly focused on the problem in front of her — so in control, so determined, that I wouldn’t dream of trying to talk to her — well, at least not now. That’s when I’m reminded of a conversation I had earlier with Balboni. “It’s easy to bond here around this single purpose,” he told me, his hand patting the wall, “which is succeeding at something that’s really hard.”

So maybe I’ll strike up a conversation with her afterward, whether it’s by the gym’s café or near a water cooler. After all, I’ve fallen on my face for the past two hours. I could use some expert advice. ■ APRIL 2016 MEN’S FITNESS

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Photographers: Keith Ladzinski and Sandra Salvas

USE. DESIGN. ENGINEER. BUILD. REPEAT.

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CRUNCHFREE ABS

PHASE I: 3 WEEKS: D AY I

See your abs in six weeks with this full-body workout.

1A FRONT SQUAT

By Robert Yang Photographs by James Michelfelder

Sets: 4 Reps: 6–8 Rest: 0 sec.

Grasp the bar with hands at shoulder width and raise your elbows until your upper arms are parallel to the floor.

Take the bar out of the rack and let it rest on your fingertips. Step back and set your feet at shoulder width with toes turned slightly out.

Squat as low as you can without losing the arch in your lower back.

■

Believe it or not, if you want a ripped midsection, training your abs directly should be last on your list of priorities. The first step is cleaning up your diet. The second should be this program, which focuses on training the biggest muscles in your body to burn the most calories (thereby shedding the fat that covers your abs). In six weeks, you’ll already be revealing some of the definition you’d buried beneath your belly.

And you’ll be shocked at how few abs exercises it took to get there.

1B DUMBBELL OVERHEAD PRESS How it works ■ This program comes in two parts. You’ll do one phase of workouts for three weeks and then another threeweek phase with different workouts.

The first part has no direct ab training at all, just circuits of tough, big-muscle exercises like squats and presses that rev up your metabolism.

In the second phase, once your body-fat levels are down enough to reveal some ab definition, we’ll target the six-pack with a hanging leg raise and weighted crunch variations, two of the most effective moves for adding dense ab muscle that pops through the skin.

Sets: 4 Reps: 8–10 Rest: 0 sec.

Directions Alternate each workout (Day I and Day II) for three total sessions per week, resting a day between each.

So you can do Day I on Monday, Day II on Wednesday and Day I again on Friday in the first week. (You’ll do Day II’s workout twice the second week and repeat the cycle.) The first three weeks make up Phase I. After the third week, switch to the workouts in Phase II, which are done the same way.

Exercises marked “A”, “B” and “C” are done in sequence. Perform one set of each, and then rest after C. Repeat for the prescribed number of sets.

Note that in Phase II, the ab exercises are A and B (not C), so rest after B.

Stand with feet shoulder-width apart and hold a dumbbell in each hand at shoulder level. Brace your core and press the weights straight overhead.

CHOOSE LOADS THAT ALLOW YOU TWO TO FOUR REPS MORE THAN THE PRESCRIBED NUMBER.

1C SQUAT Sets: 4 Reps: 8–10 Rest: 60 sec.

Nudge the bar out of the rack and step back, setting your feet shoulder-width apart with toes turned out.

Bend your hips back and squat as low as you can without losing the arch in your lower back.

2A DUMBBELL BENCH PRESS

2C FEETELEVATED PUSHUP

Sets: 4 Reps: 8–10 Rest: 0 sec.

Sets: 4 Reps: As many as possible Rest: 60 sec.

Hold a dumbbell in each hand and lie back against a flat bench.

Position the dumbbells at shoulder level. Press them over your chest.

Get into pushup position and place your feet on a bench or box. Lower your body until your chest is just above the floor, and then push up.

2B SINGLE-LEG SQUAT TO BENCH

3 FARMER’S WALK

Sets: 4 Reps: 8–10 (each leg) Rest: 0 sec.

Set a bench or box behind you that’s tall enough so that when you sit on it your thighs are parallel to the floor.

Extend one leg in front of you and bend your hips back to sit on the bench, but don’t relax on it. Extend your hips to come back up.

IF YOU NEED HELP BALANCING, HOLD A LIGHT WEIGHT AT ARM’S LENGTH IN FRONT OF YOU.

Sets: 3 Reps: Walk 60 sec. Rest: 30 sec.

Hold a heavy dumbbell in each hand and walk as quickly as you can.

Keep your shoulders back and chest out.

P H A S E I : 3 W E E K S : D AY I I

1A DEADLIFT Sets: 4 Reps: 6–8 Rest: 0 sec.

S t ylin g by Chris tina Simone t ti; G ro omin g by Natasha Le ib e l / E xclu sive A r tis ts u sin g Ke ras t ase

Stand with feet hipwidth apart and roll a barbell up to your shins.

Bend down to grasp it outside your knees.

Keeping your lower back in its natural arch, push through your heels and extend your hips until you’re standing with the bar in front of your thighs.

1B WIDE-GRIP PULLUP

1C SWISS BALL LEG CURL

Sets: 4 Reps: 8–10 Rest: 0 sec.

Sets: 4 Reps: As many as possible Rest: 60 sec.

Hang from a pullup bar with your hands twice shoulder-width apart.

Pull yourself up until your chin is over the bar.

Lie on the floor and rest your heels on a Swiss ball. Brace your abs and drive your heels into the ball to extend your hips.

From there, bend your knees and roll the ball toward your butt.

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2A WIDE-GRIP BENTOVER ROW Sets: 4 Reps: 8–10 Rest: 0 sec.

Set a barbell on a rack and grasp it with hands twice shoulder-width apart. Take it out of the rack and step back.

Bend your hips back and lower your torso until it’s parallel to the floor. Pull the bar to your belly button.

P H A S E I I : 3 W E E K S : D AY I

1A BULGARIAN SPLIT SQUAT

2B BACK EXTENSION

2C SEATED CABLE ROW

Sets: 4 Reps: 12–15 Rest: 0 sec.

Sets: 4 Reps: 12–15 Rest: 60 sec.

Secure your feet on a back-extension bench and set the pad just under the crease of your hips. Bend your hips and lower your torso as far as you can without losing the arch in your lower back.

Squeeze your glutes and extend your hips to lockout so your body forms a straight line.

Attach a V-grip handle to the pulley of a seated cable row machine. Set up on the bench with knees slightly bent and grasp the handle with palms facing each other.

Row the handle to your sternum, drawing your shoulder blades back and pushing your chest out. As you lower the weight, allow your torso to bend forward so your lats get a stretch.

3 BATTLING ROPES OR BEAR CRAWL Sets: 3 Reps: Work for 30 sec. Rest: 30 sec.

Secure a rope around a fixed object and grasp one end of it in each hand. Whip the rope into the floor as hard and as fast as you can for 30 seconds. If you don’t have a rope, get on all fours and crawl forward like a bear for 30 seconds.

1B DUMBBELL FRONT SQUAT Sets: 4 Reps: 8–10 Rest: 0 sec.

Sets: 4 Reps: 6–8 (each leg) Rest: 0 sec.

Hold two dumbbells or kettlebells under your chin and perform the front squat as described on Day I.

Hold a dumbbell in each hand and stand lunge length in front of a bench. Rest the top of one foot on the bench behind you. Bend both knees and lower your body until your rear knee nearly touches the floor. Keep your torso upright.

1C JEFFERSON SQUAT Sets: 4 Reps: 12–15 Rest: 60 sec.

Straddle a barbell with your feet at right angles to each other. Squat down and grasp the bar at arm’s length. Drive through your heels to stand up with it. Change the leg that points forward each set.

EXERCISES THAT WORK THE BIGGEST MUSCLES DO THE MOST TO REVEAL YOUR ABS. 108

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2A OVERHEAD PRESS Sets: 4 Reps: 6–8 Rest: 0 sec.

Set the bar on a rack at shoulder level. Grasp it with hands shoulderwidth apart. Nudge the bar off the rack and step back. Raise your elbows so your forearms are perpendicular to the floor and brace your abs. Press the bar overhead, pushing your head forward as the bar clears your face.

2B DIP Sets: 4 Reps: 8–10 Rest: 0 sec.

Suspend your body over parallel bars.

Lean forward as far as possible with knees bent. Lower your body until your upper arms are parallel to the floor.

2C INCLINE DUMBBELL PRESS

3A HANGING LEG RAISE

3B HANGING KNEE RAISE

Sets: 4 Reps: 10–12 Rest: 0 sec.

Sets: 3 Reps: As many as possible Rest: 0 sec.

Sets: 3 Reps: As many as possible Rest: 60 sec.

Hang from a pullup bar and extend your legs beneath you. Brace your abs and raise your legs until your toes touch the bar.

Bend your knees 90 degrees and raise them to hip level.

Set an adjustable bench to a 30- to 45-degree angle. Hold a dumbbell in each hand and press them over your chest.

IF YOUR TORSO BENDS BACKWARD ON THE PRESS, LIGHTEN THE WEIGHT.

P H A S E I I : 3 W E E K S : D AY I I

1A SUMO DEADLIFT Sets: 4 Reps: 6–8 Rest: 0 sec.

Stand with feet outside shoulder width and toes turned out 45 degrees.

Bend hips back to grasp the bar at arm’s length.

Push your knees out and drive through your heels to extend your hips to lockout, lifting the bar until it’s in front of your thighs.

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1B DUMBBELL SWING Sets: 4 Reps: 12–15 Rest: 0 sec.

Stand with feet shoulder-width apart and hold a kettlebell (or dumbbell) with both hands. Bend your hips back so the weight swings between your legs and behind you.

Explosively extend your hips and allow the momentum to raise the weight to eye level.

1C HIP THRUST Sets: 3 Reps: 12–15 Rest: 60 sec.

Sit on the floor and roll a loaded barbell into your lap. (You may need to wrap it in a towel or use a bar pad for comfort.) Lie back against a bench, bend your knees and plant your feet on the floor.

Brace your abs and drive through your heels so you raise your hips off the floor to full extension.

THE BARBELL HIP THRUST STRENGTHENS THE GLUTES, HAMSTRINGS AND CORE WITHOUT RISKING BACK STRAIN.

2A RENEGADE ROW Sets: 4 Reps: 8–10 (each side) Rest: 0 sec.

Hold a dumbbell in each hand and get into pushup position with your feet spread wide.

Brace your abs and shift your weight to the left side. Row the righthand dumbbell. Repeat on the other side.

2B CABLE ROW TO NECK

3A WEIGHTED SWISS BALL CRUNCH

Sets: 4 Reps: 10–12 Rest: 0 sec.

Sets: 3 Reps: 8–10 Rest: 0 sec.

Attach a rope handle to the top pulley of a cable station and grasp an end in each hand.

Stand away from the machine to put tension on the cable and row the handle to your neck, flaring your elbows out.

Lie back on a Swiss ball holding a weight plate or dumbbell on your chest.

Allow your body to mould around the ball so you feel a stretch in your abs. Raise your upper back off the ball while driving your lower back into the ball, contracting your abs.

2C NEUTRALGRIP LAT PULLDOWN

3B SWISS BALL CRUNCH

Sets: 4 Reps: 12–15 Rest: 60 sec.

Sets: 3 Reps: As many as possible Rest: 60 sec.

Secure your knees under the pad of a lat-pulldown station and attach a V-grip handle to the pulley.

Pull the handle to your collarbone.

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MEN’S FITNESS

Perform the same crunch movement but without the weight plate.

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AFTER

BODY BOOK

Cardio expert

Magic mark? You’ll be suprised at where the “ideal” number of daily steps originated.

Do you really need to take 10,000 steps a day to be fit?

When your arse is planted on an office seat all day long it can be hard to rack up enough movement to please an activity tracker, but the sooner you do, the better.

shutterstock

■

Activity trackers like Fitbit suggest we should set a daily goal of 10,000 steps — but what’s the medical basis for that igure?

There isn’t any. The igure stems from 1960s Japan, when a pedometer called manpo-kei (which literally means “10,000 step meter”) was created. It was a goal that sounded challenging yet achievable, and this became the core of its marketing strategy.

Although the 10,000 igure was arbitrary in its conception, research conducted since the 1960s shows that people who increase their walking to hit the target do experience health beneits. One study showed that it reduces blood pressure, while another found it has positive efects on blood glucose levels.

For people who lead sedentary lifestyles, aiming for 10,000 steps is a no-brainer on the path to itness. But what if you’re no stranger to the gym? Slow and steady cardio has had a bad rap in the past few years, but walking 10,000 steps — roughly 8km — a day has health beneits for everyone.

Some might argue that you could just skip one latte a day instead — 10,000 steps burns around 400 calories — but then you’d be missing out on the numerous health beneits

you get simply by moving. Apple CEO Tim Cook was exaggerating when he called sitting “the new cancer” but if there’s one thing all modern studies into longevity prove, it’s that regular movement is the key to long life.

A low-impact activity that can be done every day without straining joints or muscles, brisk walking gets your heart working at about 60% of your max rate, enough to provide health beneits without overtaxing your body. You might think running would be a better choice

THE EXPERT NAME: MANDY COLEMAN SPECIALITY: BODY TRANSFORMATION

for losing that belly, but in fact it has the potential to induce catabolism (the breakdown of muscle for energy) and encourage cortisol production, which in turn encourages fat storage.

It’s perfectly possible to be it without worrying about hitting a target set by a Japanese marketing team 50 years ago, but aiming to take 10,000 steps a day is an easy way to stay as healthy as possible. Get a tracker, make a game of it and reap the rewards. ■

MEASURE YOUR STRIDE Reach your own step goals with these ace activity trackers.

FITBIT CHARGE HR $229.95, fitbit.com.au Activity and sleep wristband that track steps, distance, calories burnt, floors climbed and active minutes.

RUNTASTIC MOMENT ELITE $279.95, runtastic.net.au/ A smart-looking analog watch with the functionality of a modern fitness tracker.

STRIIV FUSION BIO $99.99, striiv.com Monitors heartrate and activity, and enables you to screen calls and text, plus control your phone’s music.

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2016 MEN’S FITNESS

113

LISTEN TO YOUR HEART

ACTIVITY TRACKER

FOUND AT YOUR LOCAL

SMARTWATCH

HEART RATE MONITOR

by

● Body Book

Good eats Fresh catch.

Wheat breadcrumbs and Greek yoghurt make bog standard fish and chips healthy and tasty.

Comfort-food flips With just a few quick ingredient swaps, “illegal” comfort foods can be turned into healthy — yet still delicious — treats.

BY VIKKI KRINSK Y PHOTOGR APHS BY WILLIAM AND SUSAN BRINSON

When you’re in the mood for comfort food, you want it to taste like it’s supposed to — rich, delicious… comforting — not all “healthified” (“low fat!” “sugar free!”) and cardboard-y. Well, prepare your taste buds for the surprise of a lifetime, because we’ve come up with recipes that do the impossible: combine solid nutrition with real, decadent indulgence. We’re talking gooey macaroni and cheese, crispy fish and chips, downright sweet brownies — all just slightly modified so you can enjoy the flavours you crave without the kilos that usually come with them. Trust us, even a health food junkie will find these dishes delectable.

W

APRIL 2016

MEN’S FITNESS

115

2 Butternut Pumpkin Macaroni & Cheese MAKES: 6 SERVINGS

INGREDIENTS

FOR MAC & CHEESE

500g spiral pasta 1

tsp olive oil

½ medium onion, grated 1

tsp liquid amino acids

1

tsp ground pepper

1

tsp fresh or dried thyme

¼ tsp cayenne pepper ¼ tsp nutmeg

Yeast inspection.

Nutritional yeast contains B vitamins that help produce serotonin, which boosts your mood.

2

cups frozen or fresh butternut pumpkin

1

cup chicken stock

½ cup unsweetened almond milk 2

tbsp nutritional yeast

½ cup grated white cheddar cheese FOR GARNISH

2

garlic cloves, smashed and minced

½ cup gluten-free breadcrumbs 2

tbsp chopped fresh parsley

DIRECTIONS

1) Boil pasta and cook until tender, 12 to 14 minutes.

Crumbed Fish & Chips PAG E 11 5

1

cup 0% Greek yoghurt

2

tbsp sweet relish

2

tbsp chopped fresh chives

1

tsp chopped fresh dill

1

tsp Dijon mustard Juice of 1 lemon

MAKES: 4 SERVINGS

Pinch of salt

INGREDIENTS

Pinch of cayenne pepper

FOR FISH

¼ cup whole-wheat breadcrumbs ¼ cup grated Parmesan Pinch of black pepper 1

tsp ground flaxseed

4

snapper fillets (100g each), without skin

Dill pickles FOR CHEESY P O L E N TA T O T S

1

(500g) tube organic polenta, cut into 3cm rounds, then diced into bite-size pieces Drizzle of extra-virgin olive oil

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¾ cup finely grated Parmesan Pinch of black pepper DIRECTIONS

1) Preheat oven to 190°.

In a bowl, combine breadcrumbs, Parmesan, pepper and flaxseed.

2) Coat a baking pan with cooking spray and place fish on it.

Sprinkle the crumb mixture evenly over the fish. Bake for 15 minutes.

3) In a bowl, combine yoghurt, relish, chives, dill, mustard, lemon juice, salt and cayenne pepper. Chill until ready to serve.

4) Place polenta pieces in a bowl and drizzle oil on top. Add Parmesan and pepper. Gently toss until polenta is coated.

5) Line a baking sheet with foil and lightly coat with cooking spray. Place the coated polenta bites on the sheet and bake for 12 minutes.

THE ONLY WAY YOU’LL STICK WITH EATING GOOD FOOD IS IF IT TASTES BETTER THAN JUNK FOOD.

3) Add pumpkin, stock, almond milk and yeast and bring to a boil.

Turn off heat. With a blender, puree the sauce until smooth.

Stir in cheese.

4) Strain pasta and stir it into the sauce.

6) Divide polenta tots among plates and top each with a piece of fish; serve with a few pickles and a dollop of tartar sauce.

5) In a saucepan over medium heat, add garlic, breadcrumbs, and parsley and cook for a minute.

Serve pasta in bowls, garnished with breadcrumb mixture.

N U T R I T I O N (PER SERVING)

N U T R I T I O N (PER SERVING)

388 calories, 41g protein, 30g carbs, 12g fat

364 calories, 10g protein, 68g carbs, 7g fat

F o o d s t y l i n g b y C a r r i e P u r c 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

FOR GREEK YOHGURT TA R TA R S A U C E

1

2) Meanwhile, place a large saucepan over medium heat.

Add oil, onion, amino acids, pepper, thyme, cayenne and nutmeg.

Stir until onions are translucent.

● Body Book

Good eats lengthwise, deep enough to open them in half. Line a baking sheet with foil and place sweet potatoes flesh side down. Bake for 25 minutes.

4 American Sloppy Joes MAKES: 4 SERVINGS

INGREDIENTS

4

medium sweet potatoes

1

tbsp coconut oil

450g lean turkey mince 2

(300g) jars tomato salsa

1

(500g) jar of tomato paste

1

tsp honey

2

tbsp apple-cider vinegar

1

tbsp honey mustard

¼ tsp salt Ground pepper 1

tsp garlic powder

½ cup roughly chopped flat-leaf parsley

2) Place a pan on medium-high heat and add oil. Add turkey and break it up with a spoon. Lower heat to medium-low and cook the meat.

3) Add salsa, tomato sauce, honey, vinegar and mustard. Season with salt, pepper and garlic powder.

Cook until the mixture thickens.

4) When potatoes are done, scrape them with a fork to loosen the skin. Place potatoes, open side up, on the plate, and scoop a heaping ladle of the turkey mixture into the centers. Garnish each plate with parsley.

N U T R I T I O N (PER SERVING)

DIRECTIONS

446 calories, 35g protein, 44g carbs, 16g fat

1) Preheat oven to 190°.

Cut sweet potatoes

¾ tbsp mint extract (or ½ cup fresh mint leaves)

5

2

tbsp maple syrup

DIRECTIONS

Brownies w/ Whipped Mint Cashew Cream MAKES: 16 SERVINGS

Mint condition.

Mint leaves promote digestion and cleanse the palate.

INGREDIENTS

FOR BROWNIES

12 pitted dates, soaked in warm water 30 minutes

3 Quinoa Meat Loaf MAKES: 8 SERVINGS

1

tsp salt

1

egg

2

tbsp chopped flat-leaf parsley

FOR GLAZE

½ cup organic ketchup 1

tsp Worcestershire sauce

1

tsp Tabasco sauce

1

tsp cumin

1

tsp honey

INGREDIENTS

1

cup quinoa, cooked

1

tsp thyme

1

tsp chilli powder DIRECTIONS

1

tsp black pepper

½ cup unsweetened almond milk ½ medium white onion, roughly chopped 1

small carrot, chopped

½ medium red capsicum, chopped ½ cup rocket 2

garlic cloves

600g lean turkey mince

1) Preheat oven to 180°. In a small bowl, combine cooked quinoa, thyme, chilli powder, black pepper and almond milk. Set aside.

2) In a food processor, combine onion, carrot, capsicum, rocket and garlic.

Pulse until all are well chopped. Be careful not to overchop.

3) Transfer vegetables to a large mixing bowl and add turkey and the quinoa mixture.

Add salt and egg.

Gently combine.

4) Line a baking sheet with foil and lightly coat with cooking spray. Mold the meat into a rectangular shape in the centre.

In a bowl, mix all the glaze ingredients together and brush over meat loaf.

5) Bake meat loaf for about 45 minutes, or until the internal temperature is well done (90° on a meat thermometer). Let stand 5 minutes before slicing.

Sprinkle with parsley.

N U T R I T I O N (PER SERVING)

345 calories, 41g protein, 12g carbs, 17g fat

QUINOA’S STARCHY NATURE MAKES IT A SUBSTITUTE FOR BREADCRUMBS.

1

package silken tofu

½ cup unsweetened cocoa powder ½ cup unsweetened almond milk 3

tbsp cacao nibs (or mini dark chocolate chips), reserve 1 tbsp for garnish

2

tbsp vanilla extract

2

tbsp chia seeds Dash of cayenne pepper Pinch of salt

6

tbsp brown rice flour

½ tsp baking powder 1

tbsp sliced almonds

FOR MINT CASHEW CREAM

2

5

cups raw cashews, soaked in warm water at least 15 minutes cups fresh spinach APRIL 2016

1) Preheat oven to 180°.

In a high-powered blender, add dates, tofu, cocoa powder, almond milk, 2 tbsp cacao nibs, vanilla, chia seeds, cayenne and salt. Blend, periodically pausing the blender to scrape down the sides.

2) Add flour and baking powder and pulse the blender until incorporated but do not overblend. Coat a 9-by-9 baking dish with cooking spray and transfer the batter to the dish.

3) Top batter with the 1 tbsp reserved cacao nibs and almonds.

Bake for 40 minutes, or until brownies are set. Let cool before cutting.

4) Place all cashew cream ingredients in the blender and blend.

To serve, place a brownie on a plate and top with a dollop of the cashew cream.

Garnish with a mint sprig, if you like.

N U T R I T I O N (PER SERVING)

189 calories, 5g protein, 20g carbs, 12g fat MEN’S FITNESS

117

● Body Book

Supps

Shake things up Bored with the same old bland protein powders? Reinvent your post-gym drinks with these fitness-boosting combos.

BY BEN INCE

1

3

4

Green And Lean

Energy Banana

Berry Blast

Big Breakfast

1 scoop of chocolate whey

1 scoop of vanilla whey protein

1 scoop of strawberry whey

1 scoop of vanilla whey

2tsp supergreens

400ml coconut milk

Handful of blueberries

Handful of porridge oats

Handful of kale

2tsp honey

Handful of raspberries

1tbsp Greek yoghurt

1tsp flaxseed oil

1 banana, sliced

200ml milk

400ml almond milk

Water, to taste

Water, to taste

Water, to taste

Water, to taste

Not a fan of greens? Try mixing it with delicious vitamin K-rich blueberries

One banana contains 25% of your RDA of brain-boosting vitamin B6.

Berries are the ultimate low-fructose fruit — perfect if you’re cutting we

This morning shake has four different

5

Henr y Car ter

2

6

7

8

Super Strawberries

Blue Flu Fighter

Power Latte

Fruit Fusion

1 scoop of strawberry whey

1 scoop of strawberry whey

1 scoop of vanilla whey protein

1 scoop of plain whey protein

5 strawberries, stalks removed

Handful of blueberries

100ml chilled coffee

1 orange, peeled

400ml milk

Handful of blackberries

300ml almond milk

400ml pineapple juice

1tsp vanilla extract

2tsp manuka honey

1tsp cinnamon

1 banana, sliced

Water, to taste

Water, to tastete

Water, to taste

Water, to taste

One regular strawberry contains 20% of your RDA of recoveryimproving vitamin C, which is why this recipe contains five.

A potent antioxidant cocktail that will help stave off illness in the depths of winter.

Trade your normal morning coffee for a bonus hit of calcium-heavy almond milk and insulin-regulating cinnamon.

Winter’s the best time of year to enjoy seasonal citrus fruits, when their levels of health-boosting vitamin A are highest.

APRIL 2016 MEN’S FITNESS

119

BODY BOOK

Muscle expert Full potential.

You won’t reach it without totalbody exercises.

Should I train movements instead of muscles?

Put it this way: focus on one area and you do so at the expense of overall co-ordination.

illustrations: sudden impact / shut terstock

■

When you irst go to the gym, it’s tempting to just focus on your chest and arms. It’s what most of your fellow gym-goers will probably be doing — and everyone wants to look good in a T-shirt.

But in reality, whether you want to build a stronger body, get better at sports or just prepare yourself for day-to-day life, it pays to base your sessions on how your body works as a whole rather than targeting speciic parts.

Weightlifting involves training your body to be better co-ordinated when dealing with added resistance and teaching your muscles to link up and work through diferent movement patterns more powerfully and eiciently. If you focus on and isolate speciic muscles, you reduce the amount of full-body co-ordination required, and with it the relevance to real-life situations.

Compare training your legs using machine leg extensions and barbell squats. The squat requires your hip, knee and ankle to work together, while the leg extension isolates the quad and trains it out of context. Guess which is more useful when you’re climbing a step?

Instead of splitting your workouts into body parts, I suggest making them all full-body sessions, and ensuring that each contains exercises that work through the ive main movement patterns: pushing, pulling, squatting, bracing and rotating (see right). You don’t need to train each pattern exhaustively, either.

I recommend a maximum of two exercises 120

MEN’S FITNESS

APRIL 2016

per movement in each workout, performed back to back as a superset (any more increases the risk of injury, which is another reason to avoid spending a whole workout targeting only one area).

MOVE TO IMPROVE An example would be to twin dumbbell high pulls with kettlebell swings for your pulling

MAKE YOUR MOVES

THE EXPERT NAME: VERN GAMBETTA SPECIALITY: STRENGTH AND CONDITIONING

exercises, barbell squats and dumbbell lunges for your squatting exercises or alternating dumbbell bench presses and pushups for your pushing exercises. To further reine your workout, do any total-body exercises — for example, deadlifts for pulling or push press for pushing — at the start of the workout, and save exercises that are speciic to the upper or lower body for the end. ■

Gambetta’s picks for targetting the main movement patterns.

5 ROTATION

1 PUSH

RUSSIAN TWIST (right) Tense your core to stop your feet or the kettlebell touching the ground as you twist from side to side.

PUSHUP Keep your core and glutes tensed to ensure you’re working your whole body.

2 PULL DUMBBELL HIGH PULL (left) Think about spreading your elbows wide apart and pulling the dumbbells back rather than high up.

3 SQUAT ALTERNATING DUMBBELL LUNGE (above) Keep your chest up throughout, and push off your front leg to return to the start position.

4 BRACE PLANK Keep your body tense and straight, and avoid the temptation to let your hips sag.

BODY BOOK

Home workout HOW IT WORKS

Each of these moves comes with a form tweak to prevent cheating, but you still need to make sure you’re strict. Keep the movement to the muscles you’re supposed to be working and you’ll see benefits from this plan faster.

DIRECTIONS

Light weights, big results Self-limiting exercises toughen up workouts and give old dumbbells a new lease of life.

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MEN’S FITNESS

APRIL 2016

WEEK 1

WEEK 3

Sets 3 Reps 6

Sets 4 Reps 6

WEEK 2

WEEK 4

Sets 3 Reps 8

Sets 4 Reps 8

■ Get a set of weights for the house, the thinking goes, and at some point you’ll outgrow them: conventional squats and curls won’t challenge you enough and it’ll be time for a trade-up in size. But there’s a solution at hand. By picking moves where it’s impossible to cheat, sometimes known as “self-limiting” exercises, you’ll challenge the muscles you’re actually trying to target while keeping larger muscles out of the equation. The workout here targets five prime movers for a full-body session that’ll challenge you even with the smallest of dumbbells.

W o r d s J o e S n a p e P h o t o g r a p h y R u p e r t F o w e r M o d e l F r e d d i e A b r a h a m s @ WA t h l e t i c Adidas Los Angeles shoe £65, adidas.co.uk

Do the sets and reps shown for each move, resting for 45 seconds between sets. Increase the reps as you improve (as shown in the table).

Aim to complete the whole routine twice a week.

REVERSE GOBLET LUNGE ■ Holding a dumbbell will stop you from swinging your arms and keep the focus on your quads, where it should be. Hold the top of the bell in both hands in front of your chest, then take a big step back into a lunge, letting your back knee brush the ground before you step back up. Repeat on the other leg to complete one rep.

A

B

A

B

A

B

A

B

A

B

BENT-OVER ROW ■ Bend at the waist with a dumbbell in each hand, keeping your legs straight. Row the weights up to your chest, focusing on bringing your elbows back rather than pulling with your hands. If your back moves, you’re cheating.

FLOOR PRESS ■ This limits you to a smaller range of motion than the dumbbell bench press, safeguarding your shoulders and forcing you to use correct form.

Press the dumbbells overhead, keeping your shoulders pressed to the floor. Lower until your triceps touch the floor.

SLIDING SINGLE-LEG DEADLIFT ■ The SLDL usually has a “seesaw” effect — keep your foot on a towel to stay under control and cancel this out. Start with a dumbbell in each hand and lean forward with your back neutral, allowing your foot to slide backwards. Use your back and hamstrings to straighten up.

KNEELING OVERHEAD PRESS ■ Always find yourself adding a bit of leg drive to your overhead pressing? This fixes it. Kneel, holding the dumbbells at shoulder height. Press up until your arms are straight, then reverse the whole move.

S

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Known as the Friendly Games, the Masters also features a stellar entertainment lineup for the opening and closing festivities. To get accreditation in order to enter an event, check out alicespringsmasters games.com.au and follow the prompts. Happy competing!

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124

MEN’S FITNESS

APRIL

2016

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APRIL

2015 MEN’S FITNESS

125

S

EBOARD High Performance Guide

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MEN’S FITNESS

APRIL

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BODY BOOK

Body expert

No break.

Supersets ramp up fat loss.

Can I really get a six-pack in a month?

You can reveal your abs sooner than you think if you employ portion control and exercise to increase metabolism.

■

How quickly you can reveal your six-pack depends largely on how committed you are — and how prepared to ignore the standard advice. For example, health authorities advise dropping no more than 1kg a week for healthy weight loss. Not only is that based on poor assumptions, it’s also totally unambitious. First, it assumes exercise isn’t part of the plan. Why? Because the second assumption is that weight loss is achieved by restricting calories. That’s in spite of mounting evidence suggesting losing weight isn’t as simple as a calories in/out equation.

Besides, getting a six-pack is not about losing weight — it’s about burning fat. And losing 1kg-plus of fat per week isn’t just possible, it’s

the real way to reveal your abs. I routinely see clients lose 10kg of fat in eight weeks. This is done through portion control and by using diet to regulate the hormones controlling blood sugar and appetite. I also train clients in a way that stimulates muscle growth, as well as creating a “metabolic disturbance” that keeps their metabolism — the body’s fat-burning mechanism — high for up to 36 hours after training (see below).

In fact, you can eat more thanks to the metabolism change that comes from building new muscle tissue. This will support further lean tissue growth as well as ensuring the body doesn’t feel “starved” and hold on to fat, thereby concealing your abs.

THE EXPERT NAME: CHRIS WALTON SPECIALITY: METABOLISM

CARB ALARM A lot of people go carb-free when trying to lose fat. This is a mistake — the body reacts badly to a low-carb intake after two or three weeks. First, your thyroid slows production of the cells responsible for metabolism, and second, there’s an increase in production of the hormone cortisol. As well as storing fat around the belly, this breaks down muscle tissue and causes insulin resistance, which all spells bad news for fat loss.

So, yes, it’s totally possible to see your abs in four weeks. If you’re overweight it’ll take longer, but the immediate changes should be dramatic enough to keep you going until a six-pack starts taking shape. ■

METABOLISM DISTURBERS Start your workouts with supersets that put your body in fat-burning mode fo 1A DEADLIFT Works the back of the lower body

2B CHINUP Works the back of the upper body

CH he the ody 2A Wo fro lower body

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MEN S FITNESS

APRIL

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How hard is it to...

Freediving is an exploration of the unknown — both of the ocean and of man’s physical limits. How deep could you go?

What goes down might not come up

Freediving is universal. You’ve probably done it yourself. “Anybody who’s ever dived to the bottom of a pool has done it,” says Skolnick. Roman freedivers used it to erect underwater barricades. The Ama are mostly female Japanese divers who look for pearls in a tradition said to go back two millennia.

Freediving became a sport in 1949 when Italian Air Force captain

“Humans can survive at amazing depths due to the mammalian dive reflex,” Skolnick says. As the lungs contract, blood vessels involuntarily constrict, pushing blood to the core to fill the vacuum with fluid that can’t be compressed.

At the same time, blood vessels in the heart and brain dilate, flooding them with oxygen so you can function, and the spleen contracts, sending a fresh supply of red blood cells into the circulatory system.

The return feels like swimming against a stiff current until the final 10m

The pulse can slow to as little as 20bpm — known as bradycardia

At 20m underwater

20m+

You’ve already mastered it

We’re born to dive

99% of blackouts happen on return to the surface, 0.9% happen beyond 10m

10-20m

Competitive freediving — diving as deep as possible on a single breath — tests the limits of human ability in the most hostile environment on Earth. “Hundreds of metres below the ocean’s surface organs compress, light disappears and one mistake could kill you,” says Adam Skolnick, author of One Breath: Freediving, Death And The Quest To Shatter Human Limits. Yet it’s rarely lethal. In 2013, American Nicholas Mevoli, the focus of Skolnick’s book, was the first death in over 35,000 comp dives.

Raimondo Bucher dived 30m to win a 50,000-lira bet.

At 10m the lungs shrink to half their normal size

0-10m

Dive to 100m

It’s breathtaking You must be able to hold your breath at the surface for close to six minutes to be capable of diving to 100m. “It takes hundreds of hours under water to prepare your body for the demands of deep sea equalisation,” says Skolnick. The hatha yoga pose uddiyana bandha, or upward abdominal lock, is practised daily by elite freedivers. It helps them control their diaphragm and fight the urge to gasp.

gravity takes over and you sink like a stone

Herbert Nitsch

What it takes

No-Limits record of 214m set in 2007, using

Zen-like calm Six-minute lung capacity ● 20bpm resting heart rate Difficulty rating 10/10 ● ●

a weighted sled to dive down and an inflatable bag to return

214m

of Greece holds the

The depths of courage

You have to be able to hold your breath for six months at the surface before you can freedive 100m.

■ No-one knows the perils of underwater diving better that American Scott Cassell. A counterterrorism combat dive instructor to the US Special Ops community, Cassell attempted a record-breaking 83km scuba dive from Santa Catalina Island to San Pedro Harbor, California, in 2011. His mission was to explore the decline in the local shark population, but owing to an equipment failure, he blacked out after five hours and had to resurface. Battling hypothermia and extreme dehydration, he returned to complete the record dive — an incredible feat. It’s only one of the reasons why Cassell is considered a legend in undersea exploring.

He also documents his discoveries for science, and hunts down lawbreakers whose activities threaten ocean ecosystems. On every expedition he sports a watch from the Luminox Scott Cassell Special 3950 Series — the rugged time piece Men’s Fitness recommends for all divers.

Luminox Scott Cassell Special 3950 $700, luminox.com

by Zak N.

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