AUSTRALIAN m

MAY 2021 $9.50

NZ $9.99 INC GST

THE

25
MIND
HACKS
From the Traditional
DI ET

Biggest Fitness
Myths Busted
It's Time To
to the Truly Bizarre
Have Sex Again
HALF THE REPS
TWICE THE
Healthy MUSCLE
Food for a
Healthier
Brain
Workout
Secrets
of the GOATs A
LeBron
Brady
Slater P
Tiger
A
Fitness, fame & heritage with KJ Apa

How Much Coffee Is Too Much? Your Plan To Simplify Joy

Nature created electricity.
Porsche gave it soul.
The first all-electric Porsche. The new Taycan.
When the force of nature was fused with the force of Porsche’s soul, the new Taycan was born. An awe-inspiring sportscar
promising pure emotion and maximum driving pleasure, the new Taycan stands alone at the forefront of a new era.
True to Porsche’s DNA: puristic and timeless design, pioneering technology, with every part synchronised in a delicate
dance of perfection. The Taycan sets a new benchmark for electric performance and innovation, igniting passions that
will change your drive forever.

See it at your Official Porsche Centre.

 CON T E N TS 0 5 /2 1

64 Though just 23,

breakout Kiwi
actor KJ Apa has
a perspective on
fame and identity
suggestive of an old
soul on a perpetual
search for meaning.

4 MEN’S HE ALTH
 COVER GUY:
KJ APA
PHOTOGRAPHED BY:
JIM JEONG

THE

DI ET
INSIDE THIS ISSUE

TACT I CS

p16 Not Your Average Joe

Superstar trainer Joe Wicks went from
zero to hero via dogged persistence
– and one brilliant idea.

p130 Sure, Why Not?

How being open to a random introduc-
tion set up comedian Andy Lee for life.

80
25 Ways to Protect Your Heart Now Supersize Me
110 p26 Fewer Reps, More Size
MUS CL E

This variation on the classic deadlift

will build lower-body gains, fast.
Get up to speed on what the latest research is To build the might and muscle you desire, your p129 Raise the Bar
revealing about the best ways to look after this workouts need to be complemented by a pinpoint Over push-ups? Time to return to the
critical yet demanding workhorse organ. refuelling plan. Here it is, flavour-packed and all. bench to build a button-popping chest.

NUTRITION

p24 Eat for B

Launch a counteratta
and anxiety

p34 Top
Fruit versus veg.
which should be you

HE ALT H

p32 Make Caffei

Dose is everything. He
right and r

p88 Breakin
The next pandem
corner . . . un

98
Do You Believe in God? Workout Secrets of the GOATs
p72 MH
H Sta
We stopped telling a
F I TN E S S

Val Kilmer brought an uberconfidence and eerie kind
of cool to various iconic roles, including Batman. But
behind the mask was a profoundly complex man on a
search for purpose – a search that’s growing all the
more urgent (and eccentric) as the years pass.
LeBron, Tiger, Brady, Slater: these champions’ turning our weaknesses into strengths.
extraordinary careers have been built on talent and
dedication, sure, but also on a meticulous approach p94 In an Idle World
to preparing themselves physically for competition. An evolutionary biologist separates
Learn their secrets and start nipping at their heels. exercise fact from fiction.

MAY 2021 5
 EDITOR’S LETTER menshealth.com.au Men's Health Australia @MensHealthAU @MensHealthAU

AUSTRALIAN

SCOTT HENDERSON
Editor
BEN JHOTY
Deputy Editor
Squad Goals: DANIEL WILLIAMS
Team MH on their Associate Editor
day of reckoning.
JASON LEE

WAIT TRAINING Creative Director

CHRISTOPHER RILEY
They say good things come to those who wait. But in 2021, you have to ask Contributing Editor
yourself if this is still the case? We can get food delivered to our door NIKOLINA SKORIC
in minutes, watch any movie or TV show on demand and order a new Digital Editor
wardrobe while scrolling through social media. Surely, it’s widely accepted that JESSICA CAMPBELL
good things come to those who own a smartphone. Patience, these days, is Digital Content Writer
rarely required.
It’s no wonder, then, that when it comes to our health, relationships and
careers, we often become overwhelmed and frustrated with slow progress.
In this world of instant gratification, we wonder why our larger goals can’t also
be achieved overnight? Where’s ‘Netflex’ when I need it? ‘Insta-family?’
‘Amazon Promotion?’ IAN BROOKS
Patience is something we’ve all been forced to become reacquainted with Chief Executive Officer
this past year as we’ve waited for a return to normality, a vaccine, travel, seeing LLOYD O’HARTE
loved ones . . . the list goes on. As Men’s Health readers this has perhaps been a Executive Director
little easier for you than it has been for others. You’re accustomed to the wait, LEE MCLACHLAN
the journey, and the process inherent in achieving a desired outcome. You’re Creative Services
also someone who values goals and recognises that their achievement is JULIE HUGHES
fleeting, a moment in time. It’s the process that consumes us. Subscription Manager
subscribe@paragonmedia.com.au
My grandma used to say of golf, “Any shot closer to the hole is a good
shot”. This was often uttered after I shanked a drive, or sent a clump of fairway ANN-MAREE MULDERS
further than my Titleist. But she was right. Slow progress is still progress. National Commercial Director
Through work and dedication, where you are now is not where you will be. NATALIE WARD
If instant success were possible – abs on demand or the corner office National Brand Manager
by lunch – the satisfaction would be similarly shortlived. At most a ping of RACHEL SULLIVAN
dopamine, rather than a reward. Which begs the question: is an outcome truly National Sales Manager
valuable without having been on the journey? Or is it simply . . . desirable? MICHELLE BAYLEY
It’s difficult not to get caught up in the hype of instant results. Blame social Marketing & Sales Strategy Consultant
media, or the media in general, but it’s the end result we often project to the CHRIS MATTHEWS
world, rather than the journey. It’s easier to look at the heroes of health and Sales Executive
fitness and assume their success has been achieved overnight. But although the
subjects of this issue – Joe Wicks (p16), KJ Apa (p64) and our sporting GOATs
(p126) – may all appear to be instant success stories, heroes emerging from
obscurity fully formed, this would be a lazy assumption that ignores the years, DEBI CHIRICHELLA KIM ST. CLAIR BODDEN
even decades, of hard work and toil required to reach the top. President, SVP/Editorial
My own advice heading into this issue is to identify your goals, commit Hearst Magazines & Brand Director
to them and enjoy the process of chasing them down . . . something Team INTERNATIONAL EDITIONS CHLOE O’BRIEN
MH experienced firsthand on p72. Have patience and forgive yourself for not Australia, China, Germany, Italy, Deputy Brands Director
having everything you want right now. Because although in 2021 good things Japan, Korea, Netherlands, Poland,
Portugal, Spain, UK, US
can be acquired by anyone, great things come to those prepared to immerse
themselves in the journey, and wait.
PARAGON DCN PTY LTD
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14/174 Willoughby Road, Crows Nest NSW 2062
Ph (02) 9439 1955, paragonmedia.com.au
PHOTOGRAPHY: JASON LEE

Scott Henderson
scott@menshealth.com.au
Published and Distributed by Paragon DCN Pty Ltd by Permission of Hearst Magazines,
Inc., New York, New York, United States of America. Printed and retail distribution by
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Health © Hearst Magazines International. No part of this publication may be reproduced
without written permission. Men’s Health is a registered trademark and the unauthorised
use of this trademark is strictly prohibited. issn 13293079. © 2021 Paragon DCN.

6 MEN’S HE ALTH
Shakshuka – Poached Eggs in Spicy Sauce
Ingredients
• 2 Tbsp olive oil
• 1 Onion, chopped
• 2 Red capsicums, finely chopped
• 1 Jalapeño pepper, finely chopped
• 1 Can diced tomatoes
• ½ Cup vegetable broth
• 6–8 Eggs
• 2 Tbsp chopped parsley
• ¼ Cup crumbled feta cheese
• 2 Tbsp Pistachio Dukkah
• Salt and pepper
Method
In a large, deep skillet, heat the oil over a medium-
high heat. Add the onion and peppers, cooking for
about 7 minutes until softened and beginning
to brown.
Add the tomatoes, vegetable broth, cumin,
paprika, oregano, and salt and pepper.
Simmer for 20 to 22 minutes or until thickened.
Crack the eggs evenly on top of the sauce, cover
and cook for 6 to 8 minutes, or until the egg whites
are set and yolks are thick but runny (if you like
firmer yolks, cook for an additional 1 to 2 minutes).
Sprinkle with parsley, feta cheese and our
Pistachio Dukkah.

Look for our Dukkah range in the spice aisle of your local supermarket.
 ASK MH
THE BIG QUESTION
So, Seriously,
What’s the
Best Breakfast?
Show of hands if you’ve
inhaled an all-butter
croissant on the way
to work and called it
“breakfast”? While science
has posited that our first
meal of the day is the most
important, a mouthful of
pastry isn’t what those
researchers had in mind.
The good news is that
assembling the true, perfect
breakfast is a cakewalk.  sprouted sourdough
To make the most of your
morning meal, fill a third of
your plate with high-quality
protein. According to Sarah
Coe, nutrition scientist at
the British Nutrition
Foundation, two large
poached eggs should
do the trick – delivering
14g of muscle-building
amino acids, plus essential
micronutrients such
as vitamin B12, selenium,
iodine and omega-3
fatty acids.
By prioritising satiating
protein over nutritionally
flaky baked goods, you’ll
also end up making
healthier choices
throughout the day. This
macro alters activity in
brain regions relating to
food motivation and
8 MEN’S HE ALTH
-AK
reward-driven
eating, so you’re less
likely to eye up the
biscuit tin, come
11am. No pain au
chocolate, no gain
au chocolate biccies. 
Next, raid the
bread bin for starchy
carbohydrates.
Don’t feel compelled
to splash out on
made from ancient
wheat – your average
wholemeal supermarket
loaf with extra seeds packs
2g of gut-boosting insoluble
fibre per slice, contributing
to your recommended 30g Star at the
WORDS: ANNIE HAYES; PHOTOGRAPHY: ROWAN FEE, JASPER WHITE, JASON LEE; ILLUSTRATIONS: NICK HARDCASTLE
per day and, as a bonus, breakfast
bench and reap
protecting you from the rewards.
colorectal cancer.
Before you plate up, add
at least one 80g serving of
veg, such as grilled
mushrooms and tomatoes.
They’re extremely nutrient-
dense and full of soluble
fibre. “Soluble fibre acts as
food for beneficial microbes
in the gut, helping them to
produce short-chain fatty
acids that may reduce the
risk of type 2 diabetes,
obesity and heart disease,”
Coe explains. Yes, chef.
 ANCIENT SOLUTION TO ASK THE GIRLS IN THE OFFICE
A MODERN PROBLEM
Ask the MH girls the questions you can’t ask anyone else. They’re three
Q The CEO is about to visit my branch of women who speak their mind, so don’t expect sugar-coated answers
the company. What can I say to make
an impact?
A Wise men talk because they have
What age difference is okay and
something to say; fools, because they
have to say something. Plato; b. 428BC when does a guy become a creep
just by talking to you?
Harriet For me, it’s an age Harriet Also, things in just because of their age?
gap of up to 10 years older common. I mean, what Lizza Yes. Because at 25,
or one year younger. am I going to talk to a five years seems like a
TEXT A PT Having said that, you could 19-year-old about? huge difference.
MY MUSCLES ARE STILL SORE FROM be one year older than me Lucy If you say you’re only Lucy When my boyfriend
YESTERDAY. SHOULD I TRAIN? - WB and still be creepy. It all going to date somebody in and I first started dating, I
depends how you make your age group, maybe was 22 and he was 31. And
the approach. that’s too limiting. Maturity that was a huge age
Yesterday, I went so hard at the gym
I couldn’t get dressed this morning. Lucy When we were 23, wise, guys tend to be so difference at the time.
But I don’t want to miss a session. one of my girlfriends was much younger than girls. Whereas now, like we’ve
What should I do? dating a dude who said he Lizza I was a bit older than said, the age gap closes
was 27. After a couple of usual when I started dating as you move into the same
months, it came out he and as a result I didn’t life stage.
What type of pain are we talking? DOMS will
cause a tight feeling in your muscles, whereas was 37. I feel that if you want to date guys who Harriet As a guy, you’d
an injury will feel like a sharp, stabbing pain. have to lie about your age, would want to get too want to know when you
it’s no deal. serious too quickly. I’ve shouldn’t even bother
Harriet It’s not even found I always attract making an approach.
It’s definitely DOMS. So,
necessarily about the age. much younger guys. Lizza I think if you’re 35
is it safe to work out?
It’s more about life stage Harriet So, how do we and you’re talking to
– being on the same page simplify this? somebody who’s 24,
Only if you warm up and cool down in terms of where you are. Lizza At 25, I had men try you’ve got to reassess
properly and lower the intensity. More
stress triggers degeneration – muscle Lizza So wise. I remember and crack onto me who your priorities. You’re
disappears and is replaced by fat and when I was 25, though, were in their forties and over the hill. You’re
connective tissue. thinking that I could go fifties. I mean, gross! chasing a dream.
only two years older Harriet Really? Would you Lucy Sure. But I’d also
Hmm, okay. I might as well stay than me, because say someone who’s 20 say, in the next breath, love
at home and watch Netflix. anything more felt just years older than you is me a silver fox. So, work
way too old. always going to be creepy, that out.
Not necessarily. Light activity will ease the Got a query? DM us via Instagram @menshealthau
pain. Whole-body exercise, like swimming
or yoga, will even the load and keep you at
the right level.

Sounds good. What else can I do to

get me back to max intensity?

Drink some tart cherry juice . The

LIZZA
anthocyanins it contains can ease
DOMS. A salt bath with essential oils LUC Y
will relax your muscles, too.

The rule of thumb to remember is that if the

stiffness doesn’t ease during your warm up,
throw in the towel until tomorrow. HARRIET

Rachid Louali,
Physio and PT Lead Trainer at UN1T

MAY 2021 9
Working far
from home.
I’m in.
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FKDOOHQJH\RXUVHOIWRWDNHUHPRWHZRUNLQJRQHVWHSIXUWKHU"-HHSLV
HQFRXUDJLQJ$XVWUDOLDWRWDNHWKHRIÀFHRIIURDGDQGHPEUDFHWKH
IUHHGRPRIZRUNLQJDQ\ZKHUH/HDUQPRUHDWJeep.com.au
 THE
YOUR MONTHLY DOWNLOAD OF THE LATEST LIFE ENHANCING RESEARCH
BREW UP AN EXTRA
SHOT OF STAMINA
You don’t need to train on a mountain top to build
game-changing endurance. Push your limits by
combining your cup of coffee with an L-carnitine supp
PUT THE KETTLE ON, fill your
mug and settle in for some good
news: researchers at Chonbuk
National University have found a
foolproof method for hacking your
cardio endurance, one that will
help you hit a PB without the need
for newfangled breath trainers or a
flight (eventually) to an Ethiopian
training camp.  energy. Test subjects who were
It’s already well known that
a shot of espresso will give your
performance a jolt. Caffeine not
only counteracts the metabolism-
slowing effects of adenosine – an
organic compound that naturally
builds up in your body to create
feelings of tiredness – but it also
makes your cells more sensitive to
hormones such as adrenaline. As
a result, your muscles are able to
work harder for longer.
However, the South Korean
researchers have discovered that
while caffeine alone does boost
WORDS: LOUEE DESSENT-JACKSON; PHOTOGRAPHY: KAT PISIOLEK / STUDIO 33
TRACK YOUR
RESULTS
Music can help you run a
faster 5K. Make every beat
count with these bangers
05
21
endurance, the results are far
more dramatic when you preload
with a combination of caffeine and
L-carnitine – a compound that you
can pick up as a simple capsule on
most supplement websites. 
In basic terms, L-carnitine
encourages your cells to absorb
fatty acids and convert them into
given this cocktail were able to
cycle at 80 per cent of their VO2
max on a stationary bike for twice
as long as members of the control
group, who were given nothing.
That makes this one-two combo
an impressive performance-
enhancer for your next race day
but, importantly, it will also make
going further and faster on your
training runs easier, too.
So, lace up and power through
extra speed sessions while
increasing your mileage. All you
need to do is take a shot.
Drink in a double
dose of on-road
staying power.
RUN WITH THE WOLVES
The Prodigy
GO YOUR OWN WAY
Fleetwood Mac
TILL I COLLAPSE
EMINEM
Deploy this
high-tempo dance
Research shows that
simple lyrics are best
Spotify’s most popular
workout-related tune
track to keep you at giving you extra for four years in a row,
movin’ when you motivation – and few and with good reason.
start to flag. songs get to the point
like this one.
MAY 2021 11
THE FEED
HIT FAT FOR SIX AND SCORE LEAN MUSCLE
Scientists have identified a plan that will help you shred without
putting your gains at risk. You’re going to need more Tupperware
BOTH BULKING UP and leaning down
are admirable aims in isolation, and
we’re willing to bet that you could do with
a bit of both. In practice, though, that can
be a tall order – after all, weight loss is
achieved by cutting kilojoules, which is the
antithesis of getting swole. Fortunately,
nutritionists at Skidmore College have
discovered a workaround: a way to have
your beefcake and eat it.
Their study pitted the standard eating
plan of three meals a day (with 15 per cent
of your kilojoules coming from protein, 60
per cent from carbs and 25 per cent from
fat) against two high-protein diets, in
which the protein ratio was doubled. One
group of high-protein dieters consumed
their daily kilojoule intake over three main
meals; the other ate six smaller meals.
Both high-protein groups lost more fat
12 MEN’S HE ALTH
0521
Double the number
of meals to multiply
your muscle gains.
SUPP YOUR CHANCES
Push your body composition in the right
direction with this trio of supplements
than those on the conventional eating NIGHT CAPS
plan, but the changes occurred much Taking L-citrulline just before going
to sleep helps you to hold onto
faster for those who doubled their meal
hard-won muscle mass.
count – they were also the only group to
Université Paris Descartes
gain lean mass over eight weeks.
The scientists attributed
these results to a process called
thermogenesis: eating little and often
increased energy expenditure through
RAY OF HOPE
Taking vitamin D in summer as well as
WORDS: LOUEE DESSENTJACKSON; PHOTOGRAPHY: ROWAN FEE
digestion. Despite the kilojoule deficit, in winter has been shown to inhibit
the steady supply of amino acids from the the growth of fat cells.
protein was also able to stop the subjects’ Tehran University
gains deflating. A dose every three hours
proved to be optimal for protein synthesis,
according to a separate study in Nutrition
& Metabolism – and so the six, high-
MICRO MACHINES
Can’t manage six meals a day?
protein meals a day were able to efficiently Take BCAAs before and after training
fuel gains in muscle alongside losses in to maintain strength.
weight. Hungry for progress? Then College of Charleston
chew on this new plan of action.
WHY VODKA
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THE FEED 0521

GIVE YOUR BODY IRONCLAD YOUR MIND

Sound the alarm on mental ill-health with
AND MIND A LIFT a naturally uplifting morning routine

A strong body correlates with a stronger

mind, according to the latest science. Shift some 0 7:0 0
weight to get a grip on your mental health
QUIET TIME
Meditating regularly reduces levels
of inflammatory chemicals called
THE NEXT TIME you’re in the gym, take a cytokines, warding off low moods.
look around you. One in eight men are NIPER

battling mental ill-health, with

some experts estimating that
the true figure is far higher.
Among them will be men
you see at the squat rack,
07: 1 5
on the cable machine
and in the dressing CHASE THE BUZZ
room. Luckily, you Two to four cups of coffee each
and your fellow day cuts your suicide risk by half.
Caffeine appears to act as a
lifters are in the
mild antidepressant.
right place, because
Harvard University
adding kilos to your
barbell can give
you strength in
every sense. 
According
to researchers
07:3 0
from the
Washington
PEEL SESSION
Vitamin B6 in bananas helps your
University
brain to make the mood-boosting
School of neurotransmitter serotonin.
Medicine, the Northumbria University
more muscle
strength that
men have, the
less frequently
they think about 07:45
suicide. The
team analysed POUND THE PAVEMENT
data from nearly Ditch the car and hotfoot it
9000 adults, who to the gym. Just 15 minutes
squeezed a gripper to of steady-state running can
record their maximum keep the blues at bay.
JAMA Psychiatry
strength and disclosed
how many times they had
thought about taking their own
life in the previous fortnight. For every
additional 5kg that the men could grip, their
0 8: 4 5
WORDS: LOUEE DESSENTJACKSON; PHOTOGRAPHY: JOBE LAWRENSON

likelihood of suicidal ideation decreased

Outmuscle
by 16 per cent. depression in the
Men are less likely to seek therapy than weights room. COLD COMFORT
women and tend to have less social support Cool down in the shower. Two to
from friends and family. After a year like three minutes at 20°C can relieve
2020, it’s understandable that we might depression symptoms.
Virginia Commonwealth University
feel mentally fragile, too. Muscling out School of Medicine
depressive symptoms is now one solution
– and it could even save a life. So, while
you work on opening up about your mental
wellbeing, double down on the heavy metal.

14 MEN’S HE ALTH
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 ADVANTAGE
STAY AHEAD OF THE GAME

NOT YOUR
AVERAGE JOE
Once a skinny kid from a troubled home,
Joe Wicks has emerged as a giant of food and
fitness. Now, having conquered his home turf,
the UK, he’s eyeing Australia, where his cooking
skills and signature look originated. There’s just
one problem for the fast-talking overachiever:
he needs to clone himself
BY DANIEL WILLIAMS

16 MEN’S HE ALTH
 TACT I C S

SUCCESS EXACTS A PRICE. For Joe Wicks, that

price is pain. “Today I’m getting some treatment
because I’m just so sore,” he says on a breakfast
call from his London home. “I train so much that
I just don’t get enough recovery.” Shortly, he’s
expecting a knock on the door from a guy
trained in acupuncture and osteopathy.
“Because, yeah, I’m smashing my body six
or seven days a week, you know?”
Well, we could have guessed. Wicks isn’t
so much an obsessive trainer as an overworked
one. Though he was already thriving pre-
pandemic as The Body Coach – an online
fitness and nutrition expert whose 90 Day Plan
had gone gangbusters alongside eight
bestselling cookbooks – it was a masterstroke
born of a late-night epiphany that sent his
celebrity (and training load) to the next level.
As Wicks tells it, he was lying in bed on
March 20 last year, ruminating on the just-
announced UK-wide, COVID-forced closure of
schools, when three words flashed before him:
PE With Joe. Within seconds, the details
followed: workouts led by Wicks from his home
every weekday at 9am, livestreamed on YouTube.
Word spread like juicy gossip. Three days
later, when Wicks filmed his first PE With Joe
workout, he had 806,000 live streams. On day
two, 955,000 – a world record. After 10 days, the
videos had been viewed 28 million times. For a
battler who’d grown up with little money and
limited prospects, life had just changed forever.
Wicks kept up PE With Joe for four months,
stopping only when Britain’s schoolkids returned
to their classrooms. He could have trousered
about $1 million from YouTube ad revenue and
sales of PE With Joe T-shirts, but instead
donated every penny to the UK’s National Health
Service. The masses voted with their thumbs:
Wicks now has 4 million Instagram followers and
2.7 million subscribers to his YouTube channel.
Time to cruise a little? Alas, over the past
year, UK schools have been subject to rolling
closures, and Wicks has twice rebooted his
juggernaut initiative in one form or another. He’s
speaking to Men’s Health during his third stint,
which he’s doing on a less-onerous three-days-
per-week basis.

MAY 2021 17
 Even so, those millions of voracious fans in
the digital realm need feeding. “My days revolve
around shooting content,” he says. “Filming
recipes for Instagram and filming workouts for
my new Body Coach App [now available in
Australia] or my YouTube channel.” That, and
caring for his two children with his wife, model
Rosie Jones.
As lifestyles go, it’s full-on. But there’s no
backing off. Better to control the fire, he reckons,
than to risk putting it out. It’s not by taking soft
options that Wicks, 35, has made it to where
he is. The Wicks Way is to persevere through
adversity, to push on towards whatever it is
you’re seeking, all the while holding tight to
your values. Sure, success for Wicks is views,
followings and moolah. But more than any of
those things, he says, it’s the knowledge that
he’s helping people. “That’s what truly motivates
me,” he says. “That’s what keeps me going when
I’m exhausted.”
FOR THE CAUSE OF GET TING KIDS
(AND THEIR PARENTS) MOVING,
WICKS WILL DO JUST
ABOUT ANYTHING.
Men’s Health: Where did the PE With Joe
lightning bolt come from?
JW: I was planning on doing a UK tour. I’d done
a couple of these already where I visit about
15-20 schools in a week. I go in, do a workout
and interview the head, the teachers and the
kids, and I find out how things are in the school:
how’s everyone’s mental health? But a few days
before I was about to start another one, the first
lockdown was announced. I thought, Shit, this
changes everything. But I still wanted to reach
people. And I thought, Okay, every single person
in the UK is going to be in their house. They can’t
go out. So, I thought, Right, why don’t I do a PE
lesson? It was really aimed at kids, but I soon
realised there were millions of adults watching,
too. After those first few days I had the head of
Channel 4 ringing me saying, “Can you stream it
on Channel 4?” And I was like, “No. This is global.
I need kids in Australia and India and South
America doing these workouts”. So, I stuck to my
guns and kept it on YouTube, and it was the best
decision I ever made.
18 MEN’S HE ALTH
WICKS RAISED THIS SUM
FOR BBC CHARITY CHILDREN IN NEED
LAST NOVEMBER BY EXERCISING FOR
24 HOURS STRAIGHT.
MH: Except now your muscles and tendons
are rebelling?
JW: Yeah. What I’ve realised over the years is
that I really do train like an athlete. I train like six
days a week, filming sometimes two or three
sessions a day. It’s very intense on the body
because it’s a lot of high-impact training. So,
I’ve been getting acupuncture in the sides of my
legs, my quads, my lower back, my glutes, and
I’ve found it releases some of that tension deep
in my muscles. I’ve also just got into cold-water
therapy. My therapist treats a lot of professional
athletes and he says, “Look, most of these guys
are doing sauna, ice baths – they’ve got
hypobaric chambers”. So, I thought, OK, fuck it,
I’m going to order a sauna. So, I’ve now got this
lovely outdoor barrel sauna made out of cedar,
and in the garden I’ve got a copper bath that I fill
with ice. I do 12 minutes in the sauna, then two
or three minutes in the ice. I’ve been doing that
for a few weeks and I’m really feeling . . . not so
much the physical benefits but the mental
benefits of ice therapy. I film in the house and
then I put down my phone, go down the end of
the garden and switch off.
MH: You need some substitute Joes,
don’t you?
JW: The thing is, I’m a personality-led brand,
so it’s all on me. Before lockdown and before
PE With Joe, I used to get two million views a
month. Now, I’m getting 10-12 million. There are
so many more people waiting for content. So,
although I’ve got my business, which is the app
and my 90 Day Plan, I still value free content.
I still need to engage and reach that audience.
I’m on a hamster wheel, essentially.
MH: How rough was your childhood?
JW: Yeah, I’ve been open about this. I’m not
ashamed or embarrassed. I had a chaotic
upbringing. We lived in a council flat. We didn’t
have nice food – it was all shit: a lot of chocolate,
frozen meals and crisps. My mum left home when
she was 15. She had my older brother [Nikki] when
she was 17 and me at 19. My dad was a heroin
addict. He’s clean today, but through my childhood
it was a cycle: he was clean, he was in rehab, he
was out, he was relapsing. Yeah, I had a mad
childhood. It was a lot of shouting and swearing,
a lot of doors getting slammed and holes getting
punched in walls.
MH: How did you cope?
JW: Sport. Fitness. They were my therapy. When
all my friends were down at the park graffitiing or
smoking weed or drinking, I was playing football
or I was running or I was doing an afterschool
karate class.
MH: It sounds like your life could have gone
either way. Would that be fair to say?
JW: Yeah. When you grow up in a council estate,
kids get into petty crime and drugs, and end up
in Young Offenders. I could have been that kid
– 100 per cent. If I wasn’t raised right by Mum, I
would have been that kid. But I didn’t want to
drink or do drugs. I was scared of becoming an
addict. So, I just channelled my energy in a
positive direction. And I’m a parent now to two
little kids. I’ve got a two-year-old girl [Indie] and a
one-year-old boy [Marley], and I just want to be a
good dad. I want to be present. I want to be
patient. I don’t want to be screaming and
shouting. And again, my exercise: it allows me to
be tolerant and calm. On days I don’t exercise,
I’m snappier and I don’t like it. So, for me,
exercise is all about mental health. It used to be
about body image, about being muscly. I used to
hate my body because I was super-skinny when
I was little. But now my narrative around fitness
has changed – for me and for my audience.
MH: When you finished school you weren’t
thinking about making fitness your job. Your
plan was to teach?
JW: Yeah, but before I went to university I went
travelling in Australia for a year. I went up the east
coast from Sydney to Cairns and loved it. I lived
in Byron Bay for a while and had the time of my
life. Me and my friends, we were so young and
we were the first guys in our neighbourhood to
travel anywhere. When we landed in Australia,
we stayed in a right funny place called Penrith in
the western suburbs of Sydney. We bought this
banged-up Nissan and drove all the way up the
east coast. I met a girl in Byron, a Swedish girl, in
a bar called Cheeky Monkey’s, and we were
together for a long time. I had plans to come
back to Australia but the bushfires in 2019
stopped me. I’ve got a lot of love for Australia. I
like the sense of humour. Anyway, I came back
from that trip, did three years of uni and worked
as a teacher’s assistant. I could tell that teaching
wasn’t something I could do for life.
IN LONDON’S HYDE PARK ON JULY 5,
2017, WICKS AND FANS BROKE THE
WORLD RECORD FOR THE LARGEST
OUTDOOR HIIT SESSION.
 TACTI C S

RAPID FIRE

Best quality?
Generosity

Go-to exercise?
Anything bodyweight:
push-ups, pull-ups, dips

Least favourite?
Long-distance running

Cheat meal?
Burger, chips
and shake

Hero
The Rock

Wardrobe staple
Athletic top and shorts,
but I should tell you I’ve
been voted the
10th worst-dressed man
in Britain

Favourite movie
Ratatouille – I’m
watching it with the kids,
over and over

Advice to
20-year-old self?
Stop drinking beer,
go home and
get some sleep

MAY 2021 19

WICKS MARRIED “THE WOMAN OF HIS
DREAMS”, ROSIE JONES, IN 2019.
MH: So, just as you did as a child, you turned
to fitness in your hour of need?
JW: I asked myself, What else can I do? I went and
got the PT qualification, and that was the start of my
journey. I launched an outdoor boot camp called
Rumble in the Park, and it was just a really slow
burn. I would go to the park, hoping there’d be
people there, and there’d be no one. And I’d be
disheartened but I never gave up. I used to stand
outside train stations giving out flyers during rush
hour. I found that so humiliating, but it was all I
could do. I couldn’t afford anything else. I couldn’t
even afford a van, so I had a pushbike with a trailer
loaded with exercise equipment, and I used to
cycle five miles to get to the park every day at 6am
and again at 7.30pm. I just had this resilience, this
voice in my head saying, “Keep coming back, Joe
– someone will come next week”. It took me three
years to build a successful business, and from
there I started sharing stuff on social media.
MH: And going online was the making of you?
JW: I didn’t start out on a mission. I was
watching other trainers with 20,000 followers
selling plans online, and I’m like, Wow, they’re
monetising their audience. And that got me
thinking I should start creating some video
content. I had no idea where it was going to lead,
but I did know I had this ability to connect. Just
like my boot camp, though, nobody was there at
the start. Nobody was watching the videos or
engaging or commenting. But I just kept
relentlessly posting one YouTube video a week
and one recipe a day. And when I got about
60,000 followers on Instagram, Pan Macmillan
contacted me and said, “We’d love you to come
in and have a meeting with us. We’d love you to
make a book”. And that was Lean in 15 – The
Shift Plan, which became the second-most
successful cookbook of all time in the UK after
one of Jamie Oliver’s.
MH: How has fame changed you?
JW: I think the reason I’m successful is my
authenticity. When you follow me on social
media, there is no filter. I’ve never tried to be
anyone I’m not. Certain lifestyle things have
changed: my house is different and I’ve got more
privacy, and I’ve taken care of my mum and dad.
But fundamentally, I’ve stayed myself, just more
generous and patient. Sure, I like signing a
20 MEN’S HE ALTH
strong commercial deal, but it’s doing PE With
Joe or having millions of people on YouTube or
Insta enjoying my content that truly motivates
me. That’s what gets me out of bed and filming
more workouts. And that’s what I was like when
I was doing my boot camp. I love getting unfit
people fit. I love seeing someone who couldn’t
“I had this voice
do a press-up in week one come back and do
10 a month later. in my head:
MH: How did a guy who grew up on junk food
‘Keep coming
become such a proficient cook?
JW: You’re not going to believe this, but it started
back, Joe’“
in Australia when I went backpacking. When I left
home at 17 or 18, I couldn’t cook healthy food.
My mum would make bibs and bobs, but she
wasn’t a great cook. But when I got to Australia,
and me and my mate were travelling up the
coast and staying in hostels. We couldn’t afford
to eat out so we’d go to Woolies and get our
chicken or fish and cook it up on a public
barbecue or in the hostel kitchen. Sometimes I’d
do a stir fry or cook some mince for a bolognaise.
Very basic things. That was fundamentally how I
started to cook. It was based on throwing some
ingredients into a pan and hoping for the best.
MH: You have a good look – the lean
physique, sure, but also the Jesus hair.
Have you always worn it wild?
JW: I used to have it short and spikey in the ’90s,
but when I landed in Australia I went, Right, I’ve
got to have long hair. Board shorts, thongs and
long hair – and I loved it. So, I grew it in 2004 and
it’s been long ever since. And it’s longer than ever
now because of lockdown.
MH: What’s still to achieve?
JW: I want school curricula to include not just PE
but regular physical training. Because I happen to
believe there’s nothing more important than our
kids’ mental and physical health. We talk about
academic subjects and passing exams and getting
into Cambridge, but if your child’s overweight or
depressed or being bullied and has no self-
confidence, what’s the point? Also, get my arse to
Australia. Get into schools there. Can I have the
same impact there I’ve had in the UK? I’d like to
think Australians would take me on.
ENDLESS STREAMED WORKOUTS
TOOK THEIR TOLL ON WICKS, WHO’S
USING SAUNA-AND-ICE
THERAPY TO STAY IN THE GAME.
 TACT I C S

HIIT WITH JOE

Got 10 minutes max?
No equipment? Torch every
muscle and get your heart
racing with this conceived-
in-lockdown Wicks
workout. Do each exercise
once for 45sec. Rest for
15sec between each move.
Go hard and stay home

1/ High-knees Run

2/ Squat

3/ Mountain Climber

4/ Bicycle Crunch

5/ Burpee

6/ Push-up

7/ Reverse Lunge

8/ Run & Punch

9/ Plank

10/ Star Jump

MAY 2021 21
WHY WE
OVERCOMPLICATE JOY
How to get some of the outlook-
boosting emotion, even now,
in the strangest of moments
BY DR GREGORY SCOT T BROWN

SO HERE WE ARE, slowly emerging from

a world-stopping pandemic. It’s a time of joy,
right? Except you’re just not feeling it. And you
know what? That’s okay.
It might not feel okay right now – living
without joy makes it seem like you’re merely
going through the motions. Everything is fine,
but nothing truly lifts your heart. My patient Jim
(whose name has been changed for this story)
described the feeling well. The first time I saw
him, he made it clear that he didn’t have any
of the classic signs of depression – a
combination of feeling worthless, having
trouble sleeping, avoiding things you like, and
experiencing suicidal thoughts. He felt good
about his life and his marriage, and he found
his career as a trader to be fulfilling. “But I’m
bored with everything,” he told me, and his
mood all the time was “bleeeeh,” he said as
he deflated in his chair.
So many men, like Jim, are telling me

22 MEN’S HE ALTH
 MI ND

they’re having trouble getting their juice, mojo

or oomph – call it whatever you want – back, but
what they’re really saying is that they’ve lost their
joy. Although losing your joy isn’t a medical
diagnosis, that doesn’t make it any less
significant. What makes the situation especially
frustrating is that we tend to overcomplicate joy.
We succumb to the seasonal pressure to be
feeling or spreading it, we assume there’s
something wrong with us if we don’t have it, and
we believe it’s difficult to capture that sensation
again. None of this is true.
Having periods without joy is completely
normal. In fact, it would be a little weird for
someone to be living in a perpetual state of joy.
But sometimes your joy tank runs low and you
feel empty and unmotivated. The key is to
recognise that these moments are normal
and they’re usually temporary.
At first, Jim thought that taking a medication
was the only way to get his joy back. Prescription
drugs are useful in some circumstances, but in
Jim’s case, since he wasn’t depressed, they
weren’t likely to help. Instead, he learned how
joy works and nudged it back with the right
playbook. This worked for Jim – and can work
for you, too.
“There’s even some evidence
that happiness is contagious”
severe mental illnesses, including depression.
There’s even some evidence that happiness is
contagious. Research from Harvard Medical
School and the University of California, San
Diego, indicates that if you’re happy, your friends
and even their friends have a higher chance of
being happy. So working on your own gratitude
may help you create a happiness loop that
supports your ecosystem.
Step 3: FIND ONE DOWNER
Try to identify one thing that’s separating you
from joy right now. It doesn’t have to be a big
thing. Jim figured out that part of what was
dragging him down was not being able to go
to the office due to the pandemic. Since I didn’t
have a pill that could send him back to work, we
focused on helping him learn to shift his
perspective. Time away from the office meant
less money, less interaction with coworkers
and more time in the house. But it also meant
that he actually had time to catch up with old
friends, even if it was virtually, and brush up
on certain hobbies that he couldn’t fit in
before. That filled the meaning void and
notched up his joy. I’m not saying you have
to turn lemons into lemonade. This is about
discovering small areas that encourage you
to work toward making undesirable situations
tolerable. It’s a process that takes time, but it’s
not impossible with a little practice.
While it may be hard to find right now, joy
doesn’t dry up and go away. Cut yourself
some slack if you’re not feeling it right now.
Also know that you’re never more than a few
steps away from experiencing joy, which may
be enough to carry you through until life gets
back to normal.

Step 1: THINK BACK ON SOME

DECISIONS YOU’VE MADE
The worst thing you can do is stand by and wait
for joy to come to you. Joy doesn’t work that way.
3 WAYS I RECOVER JOY
I’ll be the first to admit that 2020 sucked, and even I
To invite it in, you first need to get yourself out of at times struggled to find joy. Here’s what keeps it from sliding too
stasis. One way to do that is to tap into what far away from me, and what helps bring it back when I need it
motivates you so that you can get the fire going.
Try this: think about a few important decisions
you’ve made in the past few years. You may find
that you were motivated by the possibility of
earning a raise, elevating a relationship,
coaching your kid’s team, or a combination GET OUT OF THE PRACTISE YOGA TRAIN KAI, MY
of many things. Jim realised that providing a HOUSE EVERY DAY WITH MY WIFE NEWLY ADOPTED
comfortable life for his family was always his Spending less time on the We stream classes RESCUE DOG
primary motivator. When the pandemic took road and not going to my online or do a community Sometimes when
down some of his income, he discovered that office or hanging out at session on Zoom. joy starts slipping
there were other ways he could support his my favourite spots is a joy Yoga can increase away, Kai won’t
family, including spending more time with them. drain for me. So even as levels of the brain stand for it – she’s
Making the choice to do that (and having his it gets colder, I continue chemical GABA, which barking at me,
family be happy about it) opened the door for joy to go outside for walks can help you relax. ready to play catch,
to enter. or runs. Being outdoors (It’s almost impossible or nibbling at my
has allowed me to find to feel joy when you’re leg to take her out
Step 2: ASK YOURSELF excitement in the novelty stressed.) Moving for a walk. Pets
can reintroduce
WHAT’S GOING WELL of things that had been around can also
around me all along and enhance feel-good structure to your
After Jim explained how he was feeling, I’d
that I’d been too busy to chemicals such as life; plus, they often
start our sessions by asking him to tell me three
notice before, including BDNF that promote serve as a quick way
things that were working out in his life. He to bring a smile to
parks and hiking trails, a healthy and
eventually found that doing a gratitude exercise as well as a lake that I upbeat mood. your face.
like this outside of our sessions set a positive didn’t know was so close
tone for his day. That’s not just something that to my house.
can boost joy and wellbeing; expressing
gratitude is effective in helping people reverse

MAY 2021 23
HEALTHY FOOD,
HEALTHIER BRAIN?
Some of the most powerful tools to help combat depression
and anxiety can be found at the end of your fork
BY DR DRE W R AMSE Y
IN MY TRAINING as a psychiatrist, I’d never been
taught to ask my patients what they were eating.
When I did finally start, the results were startling,
to say the least. People who made even a few
small dietary tweaks began feeling better and
sometimes were able to decrease the dosage
of their medication.
It may seem as if making a couple
adjustments to your diet as an intervention for
depression is too good to be true, but think of it
this way: the brain is an expensive machine to
run. Despite weighing only about five kilograms,
it consumes nearly 20 per cent of the kilojoules
you eat each day. Its optimal functioning
depends upon key nutrients that give it the
building blocks required to back its cells and
neurotransmitters. That’s why assessing nutrition
and food choices should be an integral part of
treating and preventing mental-health disorders.
24 MEN’S HE ALTH
FROM YOUR FORK
T O YOUR B R A IN
Today, many doctors advocate a more
Mediterranean-style diet. And we understand
that by focusing on fruits, vegetables, fish, whole
grains and healthy fats, it provides the essential
nutrients that support mental health. But instead
of pinpointing a specific diet that helps your
brain, I prefer to recommend eating more from
certain food categories that contain high levels
of brain-healthy nutrients. (See “How to Feed
Your Mental Health,” at right.)
The evidence that eating healthy, whole
foods is beneficial to your mind is becoming
clearer and clearer.
More than 60 years ago, studies that looked
at the health of people who adopted the
Mediterranean way of eating found that it was
instrumental in reducing the risk of heart attack
and stroke. Later it was linked to lower rates
of dementia and depression.
Studies kept mounting, and plenty of data
showed that diet matters when it comes to
depression and anxiety. But it was hard to
definitively argue that psychiatrists should be
prescribing dietary changes, because there was
no “gold standard” trial (a randomised, controlled
clinical trial) to indicate that. In 2017, scientists
from Australia’s Food & Mood Centre at the
Deakin University School of Medicine published
the first one.
This research, done by two leaders in the
PHOTOGRAPHY: DAVID MALAN
field of nutritional psychiatry, Felice Jacka and
Michael Berk, looked at what happened to 67
people with major depressive disorder (many of
whom were already taking medications or doing
talk therapy) over 12 weeks when they received
either coaching on eating a Mediterranean-style
 HE A LTH

“Trials show that dietary changes can reduce

or even eliminate symptoms of depression”
diet or “befriending” sessions – social support
that provides the sort of connections that tend
to be helpful to those with depression. The
researchers found that about one third who
received the nutrition coaching saw their
depression completely resolve. Since then,
other trials have shown that dietary changes
can help reduce or even eliminate symptoms
of depression.
“There were so many stunning things that
came out of this trial, but I think one of the
biggest is that people could improve their diet
even though they had clinical depression at the
moderate to severe level,” Jacka explained at
ADAPTED FROM
the time.
the book Eat to Beat Depression and Anxiety,
When you put it all together, you see that
by Dr Drew Ramsey, Copyright © 2021 by
these are extraordinary results showing that a
Drew Ramsey. Published
change in your diet has the power to change
by Harper Wave, an
your mental health.
imprint of HarperCollins
By replacing junk foods with those that
Publishers. Reprinted
contain brain-boosting nutrients, you
by permission.
can improve your brain’s overall health and
function. Ultimately you, and only you, have the
power to decide what you’d like your brain to be
made of – and in doing so, put it into a mode of
growth, resilience, and health.

HOW TO FEED YOUR MENTAL HEALTH

Foods from the groups below contain the important nutrients that feed the good bugs in your gut, reduce
inflammation and put your brain into “grow” mode – all things that can help with depression and anxiety.
Pick the foods you enjoy eating most from each category, and fill up on more of them

NUTS, BEANS LEAFY

AND SEEDS SEAFOOD GREENS MEAT
These are rich in brain Seafood helps you get the long-chain Leafy vegetables give you As a former vegetarian, I understand that many
nutrients, including fibre; omega-3 fatty acids that your brain so the most bang for your buck of us feel conflicted about eating meat. Some
zinc, which helps regulate desperately needs to stimulate nerve-growth when you’re talking about people won’t ever do so, and that’s fine. That
brain signalling and factors and dampen inflammation. It also nutrient-density-to-kilojoule said, meat is a remarkable source of iron, protein
adaptation; and iron, delivers minerals like zinc, iodine and ratios. Spinach, kale, rocket, and vitamin B12, which is central to your
important in building a selenium. Check out bivalves for ample B12. Brussels sprouts and mixed production of the mood-regulating chemicals
protein in red blood cells lettuce are all great for fibre; serotonin, norepinephrine and dopamine.
that helps transport oxygen AIM FOR: Two or three seafood meals vitamin C can counteract
from the lungs to the brain. each and every week. free-radical damage in brain AIM FOR: Three servings per week (optional).
They offer a nice mix of GET MORE: Turn mild-tasting fish into cells; vitamin A is linked to GET THE RIGHT STUFF: Grass-fed beef has
healthy fats and protein. tacos; serve mussels over pasta. the brain’s ability to grow fewer kilojoules and better fats for your brain.
and adapt; and folate helps
AIM FOR: At least a small support the creation
handful every day. of new cells.
GET MORE: Add walnuts
into a morning smoothie. AIM FOR: One to two
packed cups of chopped EGGS &DAIRY
greens per day.
GET MORE: Blend kale Eggs have protein; B vitamins, which help
into a smoothie; add regulate brain chemicals; and choline, a cousin
RAINBOW FRUITS & VEGETABLES watercress to cheesy to certain B vitamins that has been linked
scrambled eggs. to fewer anxiety symptoms. Fermented dairy
Eating fruits and vegetables of many AIM FOR: At least half a cup of products like yoghurt and kefir are full
colours is a smart way to get a range of rainbow produce at each meal. of good bacteria.
important plant nutrients, plus fibre for GET MORE: Roast them, stir-fry
the good bugs in your gut to thrive on. them or use tomatoes and AIM FOR: Five-to-seven eggs and three-to-
The nutrients in purple produce like capsicum as the basis for five servings of dairy (ideally, fermented)
eggplants and blueberries, for pasta sauces and stews. each week.
instance, have amazing anti- GET MORE: Whip up a vegetable frittata;
inflammatory properties. Orange crack open a yoghurt for an afternoon snack.
options have carotenoids for vitamin A.

MAY 2021 25
 MUS C LE

HALF THE REPS FOR

TWICE THE MUSCLE
Divide and conquer to build all-
new strength with this update THE
to a classic lift. The BANDED
LUNGE DEADLIFT puts the BEST 1TOP FORM
balance of power on your side EXERCISE Start in the centre of the trap bar,
YOU’RE NOT with your feet standing hip-width
DOING apart on the band. Reach down
THE DEADLIFT MAY BE the king and grab the handles.
of lifts, but single-leg variations
are stepping up to the plate.
Training each leg individually
fires up your stabilising muscles
and addresses strength
imbalances, helping you build
new power in your quads, glutes
and hamstrings. But what the
2 GET IN LINE
Step one leg outside the
single-leg deadlift giveth, poor bar, with your hips aligned
form taketh away. Balancing on and knees forward. Send
one leg is tricky, and adding your hips back and your
weight stresses your lower back.  chest up, until you feel
This move takes care of all tension in your glutes
that. Grounding your back foot and hamstrings.
boosts your balance, says
strength coach Luka Hocevar,
while the trap bar brings the
weight closer to your centre of
gravity. The band adds tension
only at the top of the rep, where
you’re least susceptible to injury,
Hocevar continues.
Aim for eight reps per leg,
controlling your descent for three
3 POWER UP
Explosively stand tall,
4 MAKE THE SWITCH
Lower the bar over three
seconds, before exploding back pushing the ground away seconds, take a breath and
up. Tackle three sets, twice with your front foot. Keep reset your form. Stand up
a week, to bulletproof your your back straight and for the next rep and repeat.
lower-body strength, one your core tight. Squeeze Complete the set, swap legs
immaculate rep at a time. your glutes at the top and go again for a balanced
of the rep to maximise power boost.
muscle activation.
WORDS: ANNIE HAYES; PHOTOGRAPHY: PHILIP HAYNES

What You’ll Gain

SUPERSIZED EXPLOSIVE INJURYPROOF

MUSCLE POWER STRENGTH

26 MEN’S HE ALTH
Kidney disease
took our dad
from us #nofilter

We feel robbed, there are so many moments in our life

that our dad should be there for. Just don’t leave it too late.

Prevention starts at
kidney.org.au/kidneyrisktest

IT’S TIME TO
HAVE SEX AGAIN!
The psychological hellscape of the past year took
a toll on many people’s sex lives. Suzannah Weiss
has the secrets to getting out of a bedroom rut
IT WOULD BE an understatement to say the
past year was not sexy. Not to blame
everything on COVID-19, but if your
bedroom has lacked fireworks since social
distancing became a thing, you’re not alone.
Nearly half of adults reported a decline in
their sex lives over the first few months of
the pandemic, according to a recent Kinsey
Institute study, and experts suspect that the
trend has since continued. “People are
masturbating less, [and] they’re having less
sex,” says lead author Justin Lehmiller,
a research fellow at the Kinsey Institute.
28 MEN’S HE ALTH
“Part of the reason is people are more
stressed and more anxious, and that has
the effect of lowering sexual desire.”
Treating those mind issues by talking to
a mental-health professional can help your
body get back on track, says psychiatrist
Gregory Scott Brown. Just recognising that
you and your partner may be extra stressed
can also help nudge you in the right
direction. Our experts shared tips for beating
five common obstacles between you and
your long-lost sex life. Because even nightly
Netflix binges can start to wear thin.
THE PROBLEM
Your body’s in the bedroom, but your mind
is a million miles away. A lot of people are
on edge now – if not about their health so
much anymore then it’s their work prospects.
“When people are less connected to their
partners, they’re less likely to have an
orgasm, and it’s basically because they can’t
be present in the moment,” Lehmiller says.
After all, physical responses like erection and
orgasm also require mental focus.
THE SOLUTION
Tap into the feels. To stop that broken record
of worries in your head, Lehmiller suggests
practising mindfulness – that is, learning to
keep your mind in the moment. Sit for 10
minutes a day and pay attention to whatever
sensations you’re feeling in your body.
“When people practise doing this in
everyday life, they can take that same skill
and apply it to sex, training themselves to
get lost in the sensations and not pay
attention to distracting thoughts about
what’s going on at work or what’s going
on with the pandemic,” Lehmiller says.
Disconnect from technology in
PRO TIP
the hour before you have sex.
 S EX

THE PROBLEM THE PROBLEM THE PROBLEM

You’ve abandoned dating apps, because
what’s the point? Look, we get it. They often
feel like a crapshoot, you’ve had too many
disappointments, that last ghosting really
hurt. This hopelessness can feed on itself,
leading guys to throw up their hands
and settle into loneliness. “Chronic
loneliness is very bad for our mental
health, so we need to find a way to have
these interactions and find ways to do it
safely,” Lehmiller says.
THE SOLUTION
Get swiping. Go into dates with an open
mind but keep expectations in check: you
might just make a friend and that’s really all
you need right now. And be patient if dates
don’t want to meet up straight away - some
people are still in a lockdown mindset, which
can work in your favour. “People are having
more intimate conversations now than they
were before,” Lehmiller explains. And those
intimate conversations can lead to sexting
or cybering.
No unsolicited junk pics, please.
PRO TIP
Instead, ask if they’d be down to
swap sexy selfies.
Your penis isn’t cooperating. Almost every
penis-related problem, from erectile
dysfunction to delayed ejaculation, can be
linked to mental health, Brown says. Anxiety
and depression both stem from imbalances
of brain chemicals like serotonin (which can
help you last longer) and dopamine (which
can help with desire).
THE SOLUTION
Find the treatment that’s best for you.
Maybe it’s therapy; maybe it’s medication;
maybe it’s a little bit of column A, a little bit
of column B. Your doctor will have the
answer. In the meantime, Brown
recommends regular exercise, a proven
natural mood booster. He suggests yoga,
which increases levels of the neuro-
transmitter GABA, which in turn helps
reduce anxiety.
Check that your meds don’t
PRO TIP
exacerbate the problem.
SSRI antidepressants like Prozac and
Zoloft can create difficulties with arousal
and orgasm, since they increase the
amount of serotonin in your brain,
Brown says.
You just can’t summon the urge. It makes
sense that your libido is nowhere to be
found. “When people are feeling emotionally
overwhelmed, when they’re feeling drained,
when they’re feeling anxious, when they’re
feeling depressed, they’re not going to be in
the mood for sex,” Brown says. “You have to
have all those things be in sync in order for
sex to work properly.”
THE SOLUTION
Whip out the silky restraints. If there’s a
fantasy you’ve always been curious to
explore, now’s the time. “Novelty increases
arousal when you’re trying something new,
but it also creates this more immersive
experience that draws you in,”
Lehmiller says. His study found that people
who tried new things – including switching
positions, sharing fantasies, sexting and
sending nudes – reported enhanced
sexual desire.
Not sure where to start?
PRO TIP
Be brave and watch porn
together to figure out what turns you
both on. (For a tamer option, explore
audio erotica on dipseastories.com.)

THE PROBLEM
Your partner feels like a stranger (not in a COWGIRL REVERSE THE SQUATTING THE
good way). With many of us still working Name aside, COWGIRL MOUNTAIN 69 MAYPOLE
from home people have less space to people of all Level up by CLIMBER Warning: do not If you can pull
themselves, which means couples are not genders flipping Hope you’ve attempt with tight off standing
only getting tired of each other but also can hop on top for things been practising hamstrings. sex, we
getting into more arguments, Lehmiller says a wild ride. around. your planks. salute you.
– and that’s affecting them in the bedroom.
“One third of couples are reporting that
they’re experiencing conflict related to the
pandemic, which is lowering sexual desire,”
he says.

THE SOLUTION
Get to the root of the issue and address it
directly. A lot of couples are arguing right
now over division of household chores and
childcare, says Lehmiller. Decide who’s in
charge of what, perhaps with the help of
virtual couples therapy via Talkspace. Seeing
each other as teammates, not enemies, will
set the stage for romance.
TTER
POWER BASIC STRETCH FIRST
Make time every day for each of THE SLIDING SCALE
PRO TIP
ILLUSTRATION: ALLIE FOLINO

you to get out on your own. It’ll

build anticipation for what you’ll do when
you’re together again. NEW POSITIONS
MAY 2021 29
 HER RECORD SPEAKS for itself. Twenty-three grand slam
singles titles and counting, accumulated over two
decades. She needs one more to equal the record tally
of Australia’s Margaret Court. That 24th major is proving
elusive. But even as Serena Williams approaches her 40th
birthday and balances motherhood with the demands of
the circuit, only a fool would say that achievement is
beyond her. Power. Poise. Intensity. Determination.
Resilience. Williams, icon and Berlei ambassador, has
it all.

SERENA WILLIAMS
On many experts’ shortlist of the greatest
athletes of all time, the ageless champion
of the court talks the Three Rs:
routine, recovery and rejuvenation
BY LUCY E. COUSINS
She turned pro way back in 1995, making her longevity
nothing short of astounding. Other champions of the
game, former rivals to Williams such as Hingis, Capriati,
Henin, Sharapova, have come and gone. Williams has
been immovable and, for the most part, indomitable. Sure,
she loses sometimes – and a little more often these days.
But the sense remains that nearly all her matches are
on her racquet; that if Williams brings her A game, she
will prevail.
Her time in the sun has featured its share of
controversies, of course. Perhaps she carries a regret or
two. Who doesn’t? But any blemishes will pale when her
time is finally up. Our advice is to savour her talents
before it’s too late, for her every performance is a lesson
in technical mastery and ferocious passion.

30 MEN’S HE ALTH
 W O M EN I N SP O RT

“I try not to have routines

THE WORLD ACCORDING TO SERENA WILLIAMS
Men’s Health: Could you tell us
about your morning routine?
Williams: So, my daughter
wakes me up. And that is my
alarm clock. I tend to her straight
away, see how she’s doing and
hang out with her. Then I tend to
take the mornings for myself. I
usually go and train or do some
gym, and I’ll do yoga.
MH: Has that always been your
routine – the morning training – or
has it changed since you became
a mother?
SW: No, I’ve never done that
before. I had to do something
because I spent all day with my
daughter and I’ve really been
trying to learn a little balance.
MH: What are your non-
negotiables? For example, do you
have coffee first thing?
SW: I’m not a routine person in
terms of, like, I need coffee! I aim
to do yoga every morning. It’s not
a must, but I’d probably do it five
times a week. So, I don’t have
any routines. I try not to have
routines in terms of food or
coffee because I don’t want to
be dependent on anything.
MH: Last year was like no other.
How did the pandemic and its
impact on professional tennis
affect you?
SW: Well, it was great for me
as a mum because I got to spend
some great time with my family,
my husband and my daughter.
And that was really nice. As an
athlete, tennis is different. We
play a socially distanced sport,
so we’ve been able to keep
training. We just weren’t able
to compete.
because I don’t want to be
dependent on anything“
MH: How strange for you was
that absence of competition?
SW: I’ve been playing for so
long, so if anything, it felt like
a chance for rejuvenation and
an opportunity to get healthy,
which I really needed. Take the
time off and then start again.
MH: What would you have for
breakfast, lunch and dinner on
an average day?
SW: Yeah, I’m really into this
lately. I realised that for
breakfast, I like to go light.
I’ll usually take 120 calories
[500kJ]. So, that’s like an apple
or two boiled eggs, and coffee if
I want but just black – no sugar,
no anything else. I just try to hit
120 calories because it gets my
metabolism going. After that, I
try to make sure I have lots of
greens and then lots of protein
– not necessarily meat, but more
through beans or something like
that. And then a few complex
carbs, depending on whether
I worked out enough or not.
MH: If you’ve just trained, is
there a specific food you’d eat
to help with recovery or to satisfy
your hunger?
SW: Definitely lots of greens.
Sometimes I just go home and
make a shake, or I eat a lot of
nuts immediately afterwards
so I can have some sort of
quick protein.
MH: What are your favourite
cheat meals?
SW: French fries. Popcorn.
Which aren’t meals, because I
don’t really do cheat meals. I do
cheat snacks. I would also say
homemade cinnamon rolls.

For more on Williams’ approach to training, turn to page 126 for “Fitness Secrets of the GOATs”

MAY 2021 31
 HE ALTH

01 02 03 04 05

DRINK SMARTER TO
HARNESS CAFFEINE’S
POTENT EFFECTS.

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN

I OVERDO CAFFEINE
Mainlining espresso will kill your buzz.
Rewire your caffeine habit to filter out the
jitters and drink in the bean’s full benefits

01 02 03 04 05
GE T A DRIP W IR E D BU T T HE FIX IS IN P E R K U  L AT E R P R E S S R E  GRIND
A mug of instant coffee FRIE D Consuming as little as In order to dial down your You’ve conquered the
was once enough to The obvious solution is, 100mg of caffeine each dependence, try withdrawal phase
power you through the well, even more coffee. day (two and a half cups eliminating one serving at – congratulations! Next,
morning. Now, your But as well as blocking of tea) is enough to leave a time and avoid going determine your optimal
second triple-shot latte sleep-promoting you reliant. Where once cold turkey. Withdrawal dose. Taking up to 400mg
barely registers. What adenosine, caffeine also your morning brew gave can last up to nine days, per day (around four cups
gives? Caffeine mainly triggers the release of you a mental and but you don’t have to of coffee) is fine for most
works by plugging the adrenaline, the so-called physical edge, all it does suffer. To combat fatigue, adults, according to the
adenosine receptors in fight-or-flight hormone. It now is stave off go upstairs, but not to European Food Safety
your brain – four and a rushes through your body, withdrawal symptoms. bed: 10 minutes of Authority. To double down
half cups of coffee can giving you extra energy Grogginess, fatigue and climbing stairs will boost on caffeine’s performance-
WORDS: ANNIE HAYES; I ILLUSTRATIONS: PETER GRUNDY

block up to 50 per cent to unleash on an AirBike. difficulty concentrating your energy as much enhancing qualities,
of them – allowing But at higher doses, it’ll appear 12-16 hours after as an espresso, while the introduce the compound
highly stimulating leave you jittery, nervous your last cup and peak endorphin rush will drown L-carnitine to your mug.
neurochemicals such as and anxious. So potent at around 24-48 hours out irritability. Pop a When test subjects
dopamine to flood your are the effects that – often with a headache, painkiller to ease your gulped it, they cycled at 80
system. When your body caffeine-induced anxiety as your caffeine- headache and muscle per cent of their VO2 max
catches on, it responds disorder is recognised tightened blood vessels pains. Caffeine-free, for twice as long as the
by churning out more by the American dilate, creating pressure of course. control group.
receptors in an attempt Psychiatric Association. in your brain.
to restore equilibrium.

32 MEN’S HE ALTH
 HE ALTH

TOP OF THE CROPS

Both fruit and veg will help you harvest more nutrients, but which
p y

FRUIT VEGETABLES
VS
98% ds
3.7m
The amount of tonnes produced in
the Australia per year, with garlic,
course of a year. tomatoes and sweet potatoes
rising the fastest.

WEIGHT LOSS
Gram for gram, fruit is higher in gut-filling Research published in the European
fibre, which promotes healthy fat loss: up
to 15g per 100g. Leafy veg lags behind
with up to 4g in the same portion.
15g 6kg Journal of Clinical Nutrition found that
upping vegetable intake helped subjects
lose (and keep off) 6kg over 12 months.

MISCONCEPTIONS Fresh isn’t always best. The nutritional

Concerned about fruit sugar? Don’t be a
melon. Fibre slows the release of fructose load of food degrades after picking.
to your liver, avoiding fat storage. Stick to Freezing it locks in the vitamins. Stock
whole fruits rather than juices. up on peas, butternut squash and spinach.

Cranberries Pomegranate Papaya UNSUNG HEROES Silverbeet Radish Celeriac

Improved Heart-healthy Supports gut Lowers blood Supports brain Beats gut
immune function antioxidant health sugar function inflammation

Pectin, a prebiotic in fruit, reduces “bad” HEART HEALTH People who eat 400g of vegetables per
(LDL) cholesterol without affecting day are 18 per cent less likely to develop
“good” (HDL) cholesterol, reports the heart disease, according to the
American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. International Journal of Cardiology.

Perfect as snacks or porridge toppers,

BEST IN CLASS “Variety is key, but cruciferous
berries are “the highest in antioxidants vegetables such as cabbage are great
and polyphenols”, which reduce your risk sources of iron, vitamins A, C and K,
of cancer, says nutritionist Jenna Hope. Berries Cruciferous folate, fibre and magnesium,” says Hope.

THE MH VERDICT: VEGETABLES WIN!

It’s a close race, and both are undeniably healthy as part of your plan to hit 10 portions.
WORDS: ANNIE HAYES

However, for a more complete nutrient profile, veg reigns supreme. Aim for three portions
of vegetables for every portion of fruit and give optimal nutrition the green light.

34 MEN’S HE ALTH
 NEW PODCAST

In this brand new podcast , we chat to movie stars, athletes,

musicians, industry experts and extraordinary blokes about how
they have overcome adversity to find strength in their lives.

HQJWK6HVVLRQV
0HQ·V+HDOWK6WU
Episode 1
Download the Men’s Health Strength Sessions
podcast on your favourite streaming app or visit
menshealth.com.au
DELICIOUS TERROR
While it may lack the understated design of earlier
M3s, BMW’s new offering is an exhilarating
celebration of power and precision
BY STEPHEN CORBY
NOW LOOK, obviously it had been a long, long
time since I’d been allowed out of the house, so
I was pretty excited already. It had also been far
too many months since I’d driven anything on a
race track. Or even seen one.
So the chances that I was going to be blown
away by hurling the new BMW M3 Competition
around the insanely fast and exciting Phillip
Island circuit were stratospheric.
Then there’s the fact that the M3 – perhaps
the best-ever example of a super sports car that
36 MEN’S HE ALTH
can do double duty as a four-door family hauler
– has long been one of my dream cars.
Best of all, this new one has an M Drift
Analyser, and we were encouraged to try it out
by being sent out on a wet skidpan to drive
stupidly sideways in between the crazy-fast laps.
Taking all this into account, I still think, on
any other day, I would have to rate this BMW
as one of the best cars I’ve ever been scared
witless by.
On the downside, the M3s of old that I fell
in love with (first launched in 1986, the car is
now in its sixth generation) were subtle, sleeper
cars. You had to know what an M3 was to
understand how special and speedy it was,
because they never looked overly aggressive.
This new one looks like it was designed by
someone who shouts a lot and is obsessed with
bodybuilding. It is to subtlety what Donald Trump
is to politics.
The giant, whale-mouth grille will not be to
everyone’s taste, but at least when you’re in the

driver’s seat, holding the super phat steering
wheel, or operating the slickest set of carbon-
fibre shift paddles it’s ever been my pleasure to
touch, you don’t have to eyeball it.
Fortunately, it looks fantastic from behind,
with its huge quad pipes, which also make
properly dramatic noises when you unleash the
wildly powerful twin-turbo, 3.0-litre straight
six-cylinder engine.
The 375kW and 650Nm M3 Competition is
fast – 3.9 seconds to 100km/h and an easy
WHAT THE NEW M3 LACKS IN
SUBTLE AESTHETICS,
IT MAKES UP FOR
IN PERFORMANCE.
“It has a sense of humour, too, with
the Drift Analyser handing out star
ratings for your drifting moves“
240km/h-down-the-Phillip-Island-straight fast
– but it’s the way it sticks to the road and gives
you the confidence to assault corners with
malice that makes you fall in love with it.
It has a sense of humour, too, or at least a
taste for the absurd, with the aforementioned
Drift Analyser handing out star ratings for your
drifting moves, and recording not only how far
you’ve slid sideways but at what angle. Why?
Who knows? Who cares? It’s just great.
No car is perfect, of course, and I must admit
M H GA R AGE
PERFECT COMBO: FAMILY-
CAR ROOMINESS, SPORTS-
CAR THRILLS.
I made rapid sucking and blowing noises of
disappointment when I was told that the price for
the new BMW M3 starts at $144,900. (Another
$5K will get you into the two-door coupe version,
the M4, which is sexier but less practical.)
I should probably also wait until I’ve
driven it on public roads before delivering
a final verdict, but I’m doing it anyway. The
new M3 is a beast – a big, beautiful, brash
and bonkers beast. And you should definitely
buy one and then lend it to me.
MAY 2021 37
 In his new book, Revelation, the comedian-turned-guru explores
what is sacred. Here, he riffs about purpose, sacrifice
and becoming the person you want to be
BY AMOS BARSHAD ILLUSTR ATION BY BR ÁULIO AMADO
WHEN RUSSELL BRAND turned 40 five
years ago, he found himself facing a crisis.
He felt totally adrift. He thought, simply
enough, I don’t want to live how I’m living.
The manic English comedian first broke
out stateside in 2008, playing a ramped-up
version of his lascivious self in Forgetting
Sarah Marshall. The next few years were a blur
of tabloid and talk-show omnipresence. There
were also brief, high-profile nuptials with Katy
Perry. Then, for reasons both voluntary and
otherwise, that all went away.
Brand is Zooming from the kitchen of his
pastoral home in England, where he lives with
his wife, Laura, and their two daughters. There
are thick grey streaks in his beard; his hair,
still long, stays hidden in his hoodie. When he
was in the spotlight, Brand says, “there was
an obvious cultural template that I was
pursuing”. Today, “sitting back, older, with a
family,” he wonders, What was the real value
of that? His crisis, he says, was spurred by a
universally recognised panic that comes with
middle age. “It’s the end of fertility or of virility.
Most obviously, it’s the recognition that there
is more life behind you than there is in front of
you. That sense of, ‘Oh, my God, I’m not
ascending’.”  because I’m a drug addict
He turned to a few men in his recovery
community who’ve supported him. (He’s
been in recovery from drug and alcohol
addiction for 18 years now.) One told him,
“This is normal. You should feel this now. If
you didn’t feel it, it would be worrying.”  Revelation, he had grand
Brand realised he had to come to terms
with the death of his fame, because it
represents an inauthentic version of himself
that he’s still, inevitably, drawn to. “It’s a
difficult thing to let go of,” he says. “There’s
some things that I look at [and think], ‘That
looks so cool!’ I see me in the tight clothes or
the crazy hair or the eye makeup and I think,
‘Well, that in a way must have been simpler’.
But a lot of those clothes were a bit tight! And
I don’t think those high-heeled shoes were
good for my lower back!  But should Russell Brand
“You go through little deaths,” he continues.
38 MEN’S HE ALTH
“The little deaths of the phases of your life. And
perhaps our progression as individuals is
contingent upon if we are able to accept that.” 
Now 45, Brand has reinvented himself as,
for lack of a better phrase, an Internet thinker.
And just like everyone else, he’s got a podcast.
Under the Skin with Russell Brand is an
interview series in which Brand scrutinises
change, he explains, as well as a
“transpolitical and spiritual interpretation of
life, whether there are alternative models
to how we organise society/reality”, and
the “decentralisation of transnational
corporations”. He stops to laugh.
Brand’s latest project, titled Revelation,
is being released exclusively by Audible,
a subsidiary of Amazon, the biggest
transnational corporation of them all.
“I recognise I’m working for Audible
– I don’t know what umbrella that
comes under!” Revelation,
available now, is an exploration
of the “sacred in our lives. I’m
looking for what is sacred in my
relationship with my wife, with
my children, with my work,”
Brand says. “Otherwise,
and selfish, I drift toward not
caring. Since I’ve become
spiritual, I have found that
it’s easier to be alive.” 
Through writing
plans to get out in the
world. He wanted to hang
with Wim Hof, the
ice-plunge influencer, or “do
an ayahuasca ceremony”, if
his recovery would even
allow that, he says. But then
came the pandemic. In turn,
Revelation “became a much
more personal examination”
of how to live.
be telling people how to live?

His public behaviour hasn’t always been
aspirational. After he split from Perry at the end
of 2011, she told Vogue that Brand was a “very
smart man, and I was in love with him”. Then
she added, “Let’s just say I haven’t heard from
him since he texted me saying he was divorcing
me”. His open-ended investigation of lofty ideas
can seem sincere; it can also seem flighty,
messy and performative.
Brand understands that you may never take
him seriously. In 2013, when he was first
“beginning to explore these ideas in the
commodified celebrity space”, he went on
Morning Joe. “And the way they spoke to me
was like, ‘Oh! You are an idiot!’ ” he recalls with
a smile. He realises many people who notice
him, maybe even most people, still know him “at
the point when I was most famous” – in a
“high-octane, celebrity-marriage type of way”.  but pretty famous. And I’m 20 years older than
H A S BR A ND AC T UA L LY
E A R NE D T HE RIGH T T O
P ON T IFIC AT E ?
Well, that’s your call. He’s not going to push you
one way or the other. “The edicts I’m espousing
that I would be comfortable with people living
by aren’t mine,” he says. On his podcast and in
his books, “I try to point out: this is a perennial
system of belief that has been found
everywhere from Iceland to Tibet – and this is
something that I’m just making up on the spot!”  DEPRESSION AND USES THESE
At 40, his crisis year, Brand also had the first
of his two children with Laura. “A lot of the
clichés have been really true,” he says. “It’s really
joyful and exhausting. And when they’re asleep,
it’s magic, man.” Parenthood has provided a
clear “duty and purpose. I now have no doubt
what the most important things are, [whereas] I
would have to make a really deliberate choice
now to care about other stuff”.
In 2017, Brand enrolled in a Master’s
program – religion in global politics – at SOAS
University of London (School of Oriental and
African Studies). It was a dramatic break for a
man who happily consumes most of his content
via YouTube. “I was not as famous as I had been,
everybody. It was mad to be in the corridor of a
university.” He studied Edward Said and Michel
Foucault, and he did his best to hang with the
kids. He says his presentations were solid – “I
was able to bust out some performance skills”
– but the written assignments, which had to be
fully sourced and cited, killed him.  with darkness without help. Create a
“I didn’t finish the course,” he clarifies. “I rather
like having a freewheeling, undisciplined mind
when it comes to understanding topics as vast
as that. But I would like to do more of it.”
Sometimes the students would ask for a selfie
and a chat, and in the evening, he would get
picked up and driven back to his home.
“I was on safari. It made it all the more
amazing.” It was all part of this thing he’s
doing now, this constant, churning attempt
at knowledge acquisition.  person was mean to me at work; I’ll
For better or worse, he floats his time at
university – comedian–turned–YouTube-sage
goes back to school! – as the kernel of a film.
But he’s not really thinking about it as a movie
project. He’s accepted the death of his old self.
He’s gotten through his crisis. But, it seems,
it’s nice for him to idly imagine that
big-screen return. To go back, briefly, to
being the movie star he once was. “I’m
sure there’s something in it,” he says,
smiling. “It was like a John Hughes
movie. Is there a lane for this?
Could this work?”
MI ND
BRAND ON BRAND
RUSSELL BRAND HAS LIVED
THROUGH ADDICTION AND
FIVE TACTICS TO AVOID
DOWNWARD SPIRALS
FOCUS ON YOUR
EXTREMITIES
During moments of internal panic,
Brand recommends bringing attention
to your breath, looking at your feet or
the palm of your hand, and thinking
something like, I’m aware that this is
my hand and there is life in it. It’s “very
important,” he says,“to return to base”.
LAY FOUNDATIONS,
THEN REACH OUT
Brand relies on his recovery community
and suggests building one of your own,
with friends or people in your industry.
“If I’m unable to regulate my own
thinking, I reach out to someone who is
not in the miasma of my own thought.
I’m not so hubristic to think I can deal
life that can withstand the inevitability
of demons.”
CHASE DOWN
YOUR CORE FEAR
“I was taught this by the 12 steps: write
down the thing that’s happened and
how it made you feel. Then you can
ask yourself what your fear is. ‘Oh, this
lose my job; I’ll never work again; I’ll
be poor.’ You chase it down. What is
actually motivating you?”
REJECT LATE CAPITALISM
“Late capitalism – this phase – is so
immersive. The objective to sell. It
is present even in this conversation.
It has a corrosive effect on human
beings. We were not evolved for
these conditions.”
DON’T TRY TO BE HAPPY
 TRY TO BE GRATEFUL
“Joy is a by-product of purpose and
gratitude. I stay in touch with gratitude,
because otherwise I start thinking
I should have more of everything. I
find my way to gratitude by thinking
of the many things in my life I have to
be thankful for. If people are reading
this, they subscribe to Men’s Health
and have something to be grateful for.
There is great beauty in the world.”
MAY 2021 39
 HOW I BUILT MY BODY

MAKE YOUR
MUSCLE PLAN
ROCK SOLID
Daniel Murakami lifts
stones, flips tree stumps
and sprints on sand to
pump up his strength
DANIEL MURAKAMI, 33,

86kg
spent years dominating
deadlifts, bench presses and
squats. Then, five years ago,
he walked up to a boulder
field near his home in
Murrieta, California, braced
his core and tried to lift a
huge rock. Nothing
happened . . . except a
seismic shift in Murakami’s
training philosophy. If he
WEIGHT
couldn’t lift anything outside
of the gym, was gym training
even working? “I wanted barbells on most days, but training with these organic
farm-boy strength,” he says, occasionally he pushes his loads that offer some
“and I found that was best clients (and himself) through much-needed complexity,”
achieved through shoulder presses and cleans, Murakami says. “It’s not just
unconventional means.” using jagged rocks, tree the weight that prevents you

WORDS: EBENEZER SAMUEL; PHOTOGRAPHY: PETER BOHLER ; ILLUSTRATIONS: HARVEY SYMONS

Murakami, a certified
trainer who had worked in
gyms for more than a
decade, began to rethink his
methods. He had already
mastered bodybuilding,
powerlifting, bodyweight
training and Olympic lifts. He
shifted gears, first exploring
the origins of strongman
training in the late 1800s,
then going even further back
in history to study how
ancient Chinese warriors
sculpted their bodies. In
2018, he used this
knowledge to create Human
Strong Training, a strength
program inspired by nature.
Murakami still works with
trunks and anything else from lifting it. It’s the
he can find in the awkwardness.”
wild. “The Nothing exemplifies
symmetrical, linear this better than rocks.
box that we put They were used as
movement in doesn’t training tools by
translate to the chaos Chinese weightlifters in GEAR UP
of life,” he says. the 1300s. “Each rock You’ll need gloves to
Nature replicates THE is a complex riddle that protect your hands.
that chaos, delivering MOTIVATOR requires a different These landscaping
uneven loads and Strength coach solution,” Murakami gloves from Mechanix
imbalanced surfaces Daniel Murakami says. “The weight is Wear have DuraHide
that hot-wire your is the founder of a mystery. The right leather padding that
nervous system, Human Strong grip must be found, will cushion your
forcing stabilising Training. daniel and the weight palms, lift after lift.
muscles into action murakami.com distribution adjusted in $30; bunnings.
and challenging your real time. Every rock com.au
core muscles, too. is an opportunity.” You
“We gain a certain just need to grab them
‘strength IQ’ from with both hands.

40 MEN’S HE ALTH
 M U SC L E

185CM
STEPPING STONES
Train up your strength the
old-fashioned way with these
grapples from Murakami

HEIGHT

1/ GROUND -TO-OVERHEAD
ROCK LIFT (3 sets of 5 reps)
Deadlift a heavy rock to your thighs, squat
and let the rock settle on them. Roll it up to
your shoulder, shift your hands beneath it
and press overhead.

2/ ROCK AND ROW (5 sets of 10 reps)

Fire up your lats and forearms. Tighten
your core. Pull the rock towards your
chest, squeezing your shoulder blades.
Lower it slowly back to the ground.

3/ LOG ZER
RCHER SQUAT
(3 sets of 8 reps)
Hold a medium-sized log in the crooks of
your elbows. Keeping them and your chest
up, squat until your thighs are parallel to
the ground. Stand back up.

4/ STUMP FLIP (10 sets of 3 reps)

Squat and get your hands under a tree
stump. Push it up and away from your
body, using leverage from your legs to flip
it. Run to the other side and repeat. 

MAY 2021 41
 rink is undergoing a revolution.
low-alcohol culture could help
elationship to booze
BY HANNAH WARREN COUSINS
ASIDE FROM LAST YEAR, when
two-thirds of Australians admitted
to stress-drinking to help deal with
pandemic anxiety, research
suggests that, as a nation,
we’re actually trending towards
drinking less, with per capita
consumption at its lowest level
since the mid 1960s.
Young men especially are
opting to drink in moderation,
with recent research suggesting
that Generation Z (aged 18 to 24),
and millennials (aged 25 to 40)
are the ones working the hardest
to change their relationship
with alcohol.
But less alcohol doesn’t mean
we’re being less social. Bottle
shops are stocked with interesting
(and pretty delicious) low-alcohol or
alcohol-free drinks. Global brands
like Bacardi are offering low-sugar
recipes. Feb Fast and Dry July are
a national sport and organisations
like Hello Sunday Morning promote
no-hangover weekends. In short,
the schooner glass is half empty,
in a good way.
SIP A ND S AVOUR
So, what exactly is mindful drinking
and why is it gaining in popularity?
Put plainly, it’s essentially the
opposite of what most of us
have done our entire adult lives
– reaching for a drink (or, more
likely, several) because we’ve
finished work, because it’s Friday,
because we’ve had a bad day or
a good day, because we’re having
a nice meal, because we’re bored,
because . . . well, let’s be honest,
most of us don’t normally really
need a reason.
Mindful drinking is here
to combat that mindless
consumption. It’s all about
the conscious practice of
questioning your motivation for
imbibing, reflecting on those
behaviours, and being open to
making alternate choices. And it
42 MEN’S HE ALTH
looks different for everyone. herbs and citrus notes, low-alcohol
“Mindful drinking is about beers coming from mainstream
taking a conscious approach breweries (Carlton, Heineken and
to consuming alcohol – with Coopers, to name a few) and major
attention and intention. There wineries like Lindeman’s producing
is no right or wrong way,” says wine with just 0.5 per cent alcohol,
Dominique Robert-Hendren, chief the idea is to add balance,
clinical psychologist at Hello not hangovers, to Saturday
Sunday Morning, which offers night festivities.
community peer support, self-care Being “soberish” has never
navigation and health coaching. “It been more appealing.
can assist with more responsible Cheers to that!
drinking and potentially be a middle
path to sustained change.”
He adds that being mindful of
your consumption can also lead
you to a place of acceptance and
can help you be open to
understanding your relationship
with alcohol, so you can start to
decide what role you want it to
play in your life.
This growing interest in
maintaining a “sober-curious”
lifestyle has found a passionate
home on Instagram, a platform
dominated by millennials.
Thousands of accounts have
popped up encouraging a healthier
approach to drinking, and
#sobercurious has, at last count,
been used on 181k posts.
“Mindful drinking ties into that
holistic approach to how millennials
look after themselves,” confirms
Robert-Hendren. “With that
demographic particularly, they are a
lot more in tune with wellness and
fitness, and they’re getting
educated when they go to the
gym or see a nutritionist.”
With this emphasis on health
and education, it’s no wonder the
mindful drinking movement has
also started attracting gym-goers,
morning runners and yoga-
devotees everywhere. This increase
in interest has fuelled a range of
low-alcohol beverages; gone are
the days when lemon, lime and
bitters was the only option. With
drinks such as alcoholic kombucha,
spirits spiked with nutrient-boosting
 TACT I C S

“Mindful drinking can be a middle

path to sustained change“

LOWALCOHOL TRENDS
WE FROTH

OOZELESS 6-PA HEALTHIER SPIRITS LOW-SUGAR MIXERS

t th t t f
one without the fuzzy that are getting a healthy
head? Non-alcoholic
beers like Heineken 0.0
are fermented from
natural ingredients with
gentle alcohol removal to
achieve a fruity flavour
and slight malty notes
– just like the real deal.
It’s not only the mixes Choosing a low-sugar/
low-kJ tonic water can
makeover. No-alcohol make all the difference
spirits, like Seedlip and when it comes to your
“no hangover”, low G & T. We love Aussie
alcohol spirits, such brand Nexba, which
as the antioxidant- makes no-sugar, naturally
infused Oppil tipple, flavoured mixes for your
are becoming a mindful favourite drinks.
drinking staple, too.

MAY 2021 43
 ONE IMPOSSIBLE CHALLENGE. FOUR WEEKS TO TRAIN. GO BY MIKE CHRIS TENSEN

BY SEA,
BY LAND
COMBINING TWO TRENDING FITNESS PURSUITS
 TRAIL RUNNING AND OPENWATER SWIMMING 
ÖTILLÖ SWIMRUN IS THE ULTIMATE ALLTERRAIN
ENDURANCE TEST. OUR MAN DIVES IN. WOULD YOU?

PHOTOGR APHY BY PIERRE MANGEZ

44 MEN’S HE ALTH
 Hone your survival
instincts clambering
over slippery rocks.

SUCH IS MY LOVE of physical

activity that it’s rare that I feel like
a total novice. But that’s exactly
how I feel when I sign up to my
first Swimrun, with a mere four
weeks to train.
“Surely it’s just a bit of
swimming and running,” my
wife says. “A triathlon minus the
cycling?” That may have been
what my month of warm-up
training involved but, by the time
I’m standing at the start line, I
know that the simplest answer is:
“Not in the slightest!”
Though it was established in
Sweden more than 15 years ago,
many still consider Swimrun to be
a new discipline. Made up of –
you guessed it – swimming and
running, it now has a curious rep
for instilling in participants a
hippy-like, holistic relationship
with nature. Some speak of how
it activates an inner, amphibious
mode of being, as you move
seamlessly between land and
water, swimming with shoes on
and running in a wetsuit, for
distances of up to 75km. My
assignment, I’m told, is a “sprint”
distance over roughly 12km.
Michael Lemmel, the founder
of Ötillö Swimrun, knows better
than anyone what the sport is
about, so I feel lucky that he’s the
man who picks me up from
mainland Sweden. He gives me
a few tips for tomorrow’s race.
“All you can do is adapt to
nature. That has been our ethos
from the very beginning,” Lemmel
tells me, as we speed across the
Baltic Sea towards the island of
Utö on the outer southern
archipelago, the spiritual home
of Swimrun. “There’s no value in
talking about times, or the
toughness of something.
Swimrun is more about sharing
the love of being outside in

MAY 2021 45
nature and the passion of
pushing yourself. Because when
you push yourself, you realise
more things about yourself and
about others.”
Just then, the boat slows and
ahead lies a picture-postcard
backdrop for an event, draped in
late-summer sunshine. “This is
Utö,” Lemmel says, proudly. I get
goosebumps, but I can’t tell if it’s
mild seasickness or butterflies
about what I’ve signed myself
up for. I know the ugly truth: how
hard I’ll have to push my body
across this beautiful landscape.
The pep talk over, I hop off
the boat and take my chance to
explore part of the course before
dinner with my race partner.
That’s right, you Swimrun in pairs
– being attached to them is
optional. Lemmel tells me: “To do
it with someone is so much better
than doing it by yourself, as it
brings so much more to the
experience, sharing all the ups
and downs with someone”.
I check in and quickly change
before heading out to meet
Gabriel, the unassuming local
tasked with getting me around
alive. It’s here that my novice Test yourself in
the rugged beauty
status truly manifests. In terms of Utö island.
of preparation, I’ve spent the past
couple of weeks mastering how
to use the kit required to optimise evergreen trees, moss, overgrown decent night’s sleep, and we’ll physically with the elements, not
Swimrun – non-absorbent shoes, shrubbery, rocks and tranquil meet again bright and early on against them. How long that
hand paddles, a buoy between water, the short test Swimrun we the start line. feeling of serenity lasts, though,
my legs and, of course, a special do is a first date that I’ll remember Strenuous exercise isn’t remains to be seen.
wetsuit. Turning the corner, I set for a while. Running in tow supposed to be poetic, but
eyes on my partner, and it clicks through the wilderness, the Swimrun on Utö is exactly that. OUT-OF-BODY FEELING
as to why I’ve found it near- excitement builds ahead of The mini-practice calms any Standing on the start line with
impossible to zip up my wetsuit. tomorrow’s race. I can’t get nerves. My usually competitive Gabriel, the mood is jovial. The
For a month – documented for all enough of the ever-changing nature evaporates. I’m not start times don’t split men,
to see on my Instagram feed route. Distance events can so thinking about what position we women and mixed, and there are
– I have been wearing it back to often be a monotonous slog, but might come, or how fast we’ll no separate age categories. It’s
front. Instinctively, I dart into here I am, darting along, up and complete it. I’m suddenly one big community. Everyone
a bush, correct my wardrobe down trails, scaling cliffs and a wetsuit-clad cliché, assured seems relaxed with their swim
malfunction and emerge, my jumping into the (surprisingly that it’s only the act of caps and goggles on, paddles
shoulders freed from their tolerable) Baltic Sea. participating that counts and, tucked into wetsuits and buoys
unintentional shackles. Pumped, I thank Gabriel. He come rain or shine, I’m looking positioned just above bottoms.
Set against picturesque tells me to get a good meal and a forward to testing myself Some have the course mapped

46 MEN’S HE ALTH

The chilly waters of
the Baltic will fire up
your adrenaline.
“EVERY TIME WE ENTER THE WATER, I FEEL
ENERGISED – AND EVERY TIME WE REACH LAND,
I FEEL A GREAT SENSE OF ACCOMPLISHMENT”
out on their paddles by distance
per run, swim, run and so on. In
total, today’s course is just over
12km, with the longest run 3.5km
and the longest swim 900m.
Last night’s dinner chatter
suggests that around the
two-hour mark would be very
respectable for a Swimrun rookie,
so I keep that in my mind.
Stretched and ready, we hear the
klaxon and we’re off into the
wilderness. As I stride up the first
hill, I’m thrilled by the sensation of
entering the unknown – mentally
I don’t know what lies ahead, and
physically I don’t know how my
body will cope with the challenge.
The ensuing one hour and 58
minutes (scraped it, didn’t I?) feel
like an almost out-of-body
experience. It’s human nature to
“end-gain” your way forward, with
your mind focusing on the finish
line and not on the present. But
as I tear across Utö, the only thing
going through my mind is my
next step, stroke, slip, drop, climb,
crawl, paddle or reach. Such is
the changing terrain and currents
that I have no choice but to be
immersed in every moment, or
risk tripping, slipping, wasting
energy in a rip or, well,
endangering my life. So, I don’t
check my watch to monitor our
progress. Neither do I think about
who is in front of us, or behind us.
A thunderstorm comes and goes,
largely unnoticed – though the
rain does cause me to slip and
fall down some rocks. Adrenaline
kicks in and picks me back up.
Every time we enter the water, I
feel energised; every time we
reach land, I feel a great sense of
accomplishment. Every stride
feels so good.
That said, I’m pushing. Really
hard. Running up and down the
tracks uses every muscle in your
legs, and swimming with paddles
is a full-body workout in itself. As
we come out of some bushes,
Gabriel knocks me out of my
trance, saying, “This is our last
swim”. I look up and recognise
the view. We are in the home
straight. As I lunge into the water
for the last time and swivel the
buoy between my legs, I feel
a chill. My body is low on
energy. Still, I savour the final
swim, marvelling at the scenery
around us.
Out of the water, we have one
Swim-runners
compete in pairs
to keep each
other motivated.
Lose yourself
in the race’s ever-
changing terrain.
more push of 200m up a steep
incline to the finish line. It’s here HE GEAR
that I begin to process the past
two hours – the quaint Scandi
huts dotted around the island
we passed; the endless vistas
stretching across the horizon; the
density of the woods we travelled
IMRUN
through; the stunning natural A slim profile and
beauty that engulfed my low weight are crucial
consciousness. We sprint up the for minimal water
last hill and, as we cross the line absorption, and traction
to applause in fifth place (okay, is key. These tick all of
I was counting), we embrace the boxes.
Icebug Acceleritas8 RB9X
one another. ($177; runnerinn.com)
I am as elated as I am
exhausted. My legs, lats,
shoulders and pecs are done. By
8pm that night, after a dose of
fine Swedish cuisine, my Garmin
chimes in to say my “body
battery” is at 20 per cent, the
lowest it’s ever registered. I’ve
burned in excess of 16000kJ and
THE WETSUIT
my heart rate sat in the high The Yamamoto 40 neoprene
140s. Out of my wetsuit, I’m still gives you plenty of flexibility
swimming in clichés – I really in your shoulders, and the
haven’t experienced anything like vest-like construction
it. Nature, eh? You gotta love it. provides ample ventilation
when running. Those arms
are detachable.
Visit otilloswimrun.com to find
RS1 Swim-Run wetsuit
out about scheduled races, the ($325; orca-australia.com.au)
pandemic permitting.
MAY 2021 47
BOBBY (LEFT) WEARS
Jacket ($699), T-shirt
($49.95) and
d pants
($149.95) all byy MJ
Bale; shoes ($379)
by Hugo Boss.

PHIL WEARS
Trench ($2850) and
shoes ($825) both by
Bally; knit ($775) by
Z Zegna; pants
($379) by Hugo Boss.

A STEADY DIET OF CURLS AND CRUNCHES MAY HELP YOU LOOK GOOD IN THE GYM, BUT WHEN IT
COMES TO CHANGING OUT OF YOUR TRAINING GEAR THINGS CAN GET A LITTLE TRICKY. WITH SOME
HELP FROM GREATER WESTERN SYDNEY GIANTS’ PHIL DAVIS AND BOBBY HILL, WE SHOWCASE
WAYS TO MAKE THE MOST OF THAT GLORIOUS RIG OF YOURS, WHATEVER SHAPE IT TAKES

PHOTOGR APH Y BY CHRIS MOHEN ST Y LING BY RHYS RIPPER

48 MEN’S HE ALTH
 STYL E

THIRTY-year-old
Davis was the first IN THE BAG
signing for GWS in
A tighter pant
2012. Since then, his
tall, wiry frame has with a tucked in
helped him become T-shirt can help
one of the AFL’s best add length to
defenders – while also your frame.
enabling him to rock
a trench coat like
few others.

More than just an

electrifying forward
with a penchant for
high-flying marks,
21-year-old Hill
demonstrated his
artistic abilities when
he designed the club’s
Indigenous round
jersey in 2020. Here,
he adds ‘model’ to his
growing repertoire of
talents, demonstrating
ways to style a more
muscular physique.

BOBBY WEARS
Polo ($199) by
Calibre; pants ($349)
by Hugo Boss; bag
($1095) by Coach;
watch ($21,900)
by Hublot.

MAY 2021 49
 HIGH TIMES
High-waisted
pants will enhance
a taller body shape
while a mesh polo
lets you show
off that physique
you’ve worked so
hard for.

PHIL WEARS
Polo ($650) by
Bally; pants ($2795)
by Ermenegildo
Zegna; sunglasses
($460) by Vaanyard;
watch Phil’s own,
worn throughout.

50 MEN’S HE ALTH
 STYL E

VESTED
INTEREST
Subtlety is key
here. Pairing a
singlet with an
elevated jacket
helps you show
off your chest
without looking
like you’re
screaming
for attention.

BOBBY WEARS
Jacket ($749) and
shoes ($379) both by
Hugo Boss; singlet
($90) by Ian Nessick;
pants ($730) by Bally.

MAY 2021 51
STY L E

PLAY TO YOUR
STRENGTHS
In a nod to the
’50s dapper man,
this loose and
cool combination
of open shirt
and baggy pants
is a fashion-
forward way
to convey your
match-winning
personality.

BOBBY WEARS
Shirt ($179) by
Client Liaison;
pants ($1390) and
boots ($1195) both
by Bally; shirt worn
around waist ($320)
by Bassike.

52 MEN’S HE ALTH
KEEP IT SIMPLE
You need little
more than a
plain T-shirt to
emphasise a
muscular frame.

BOBBY WEARS
T-shirt ($59)
by Flux; pants
($249) by Calibre;
sunglasses ($490)
by Vaanyard; and
watch ($10,800)
by Hublot.

MAY 2021 53
 THE LONG GAME
The flowing linen
jacket paired with
high-waisted
pants creates a
silhouette that is
both imposing
and graceful.

54 MEN’S HE ALTH
 STYL E

THROWBACK
The ’50s-inspired
bomber in shades
of mustard helps
bring out
fairer hair.

PHIL WEARS
Trench and pant
suit, ($7875) by
Ermenegildo Zegna;
shirt ($195) by
Double Rainbouu.

PHIL WEARS
Jacket ($349) by
Hugo Boss; T-shirt
($110) by Bassike;
pants ($379) by
Coach; shoes ($435)
by Monochrome.

MAY 2021 55
 BRISTLING
IT’S WEIRD, RIGHT? Half a beard. But you
know what’s weirder? The state of the
environment. Well, half of it, at least.
Back in 2017, when I learned that half of

WITH PASSION
On learning of the perils facing our world’s forests, HalfCut founder
James Stanton-Cooke embarked on a grooming mission like no other.
Using his face as a billboard for change, he’s proving that
a bunch of halves can add up to a whole lot of change
photography by BEN COOK
the world’s forests had been destroyed, I was
dumbstruck. I noticed a lot of other ‘halves’
going on as well: half the Great Barrier Reef
was dead; half the world’s plant species are
at risk of extinction; we’ve lost 50 per cent of
Arctic ice in the last half century; and in the
same period, average wildlife population sizes
have dipped by 68 per cent worldwide. Faced
with a seemingly glass-half-empty scenario,
I realised humankind had only half a chance
to get the climate crisis sorted out in time to
avoid total catastrophe.
I had a large, lush beard at the time, and
decided to create a visual disruption. I wanted
to shock my mates into asking, “Why?!” It’s
the ultimate conversation starter.

56 MEN’S HE ALTH

So, I shaved half my beard. My beard
represents the world’s forests. It’s a metaphor
for the damage we’ve done in such a short
space of time. However, it is also, I hope, a
powerful call to action. As bad as things
are, the fact is we can still turn this around,
with best practice tree regeneration and by
protecting what’s left.
I let it be known to my footy club, to the
school I was teaching at and to my family
and friends that I would continue shaving
half my beard for one year if I could raise
$100,000. My partner, Jessica, joined me by
braiding half her hair every day for 365 days.
Together, we raised more than $235,000 from
donations. HalfCut, the charity, was born.
Since then, HalfCut has gone on to protect
185,000 acres of Amazonian rainforest
in Peru, while also supporting local
conservation efforts in the face of drought,
fire and the COVID-19 pandemic, with a
particular focus on a Daintree buyback, as
well as expanding Daintree National Park
and having it managed by the Daintree
Lowland Traditional Owners – the Eastern
Kuku Yalanji bama. We’ve also managed to
plant more than 5 million trees worldwide, all
thanks to a unique grooming trend.
Most people get a laugh when they see a
beard cut in half. For me, having been ‘half
GRO O MING
The many (half) faces
of impassioned activist
James Stanton-Cooke.
NO HALF MEASURES
If you’re going to go all-in on
a half cut, do it properly
cut’ now for more than three years, it’s a FOR THE BEARD
If you’re going to rock half a beard,
look that has its pros and cons. I regularly
then you may as well appeal to the
forget that I have half a beard and will find other senses … like smell.
myself wondering why someone is looking Melbourne Beard Oil is a local brand
at me strangely. However, the staring isn’t dedicated to beards both full and
the toughest part of partial grooming – the partial. Its oils will keep your
bushier bits dandruff-free,
maintainance is. It’s always a challenge
glossy, manageable and
to achieve that precise symmetry, which smelling a treat. There are
requires a combination of a traditional razor numerous varieties but our
and an electric shaver. pick is ‘Apple Crumble’,
which contains a blend of
Not every man is follicularly gifted, and
macadamia, almond,
it does take a level of natural talent to grow coconut and emu oils.
truly luscious locks on your chin. For that (melbournebeardoil.
reason, HalfCut evolved beyond the beard. com.au $23.95)
Some people have chosen to halve their hair,
eyebrows or some other hairy bit. Others FOR THE SHAVE
have achieved a half effect with hair colour or Since you’re goal is to save the
planet, make sure you use a razor
braiding; some have even taken the scissors to
that fits the brief. The Bulldog
their clothing and are getting around in half Bamboo Razor lowers its
a flanno or half a tee. environmental impact by featuring
I encourage people to groom for a cause a natural bamboo handle
and unchromed metal
– to get ‘half cut’ as a way to help save the
components. Heck, even
remaining forests and regenerate what has the packaging is made
been destroyed. I wear the issue on my face from fully recycled stock.
24/7 to raise awareness, generate donations It’s a razor for all skin types
and create social change. And so can you, for with five tempered steel
blades, a lubricating strip
half the effort of a regular grooming routine.
with aloe, a precision
Not to mention the savings on beard oil. trimmer and pivoting design.
Learn more about HalfCut, its impact A cut above the rest.
and how you can get involved at halfcut.org (bulldogskincare.com; $18)
MAY 2021 57
 TAG Heuer
Carrera

Air Time
Heuer 02
GMT $9250

Don’t get “in the zone” – get in two

of them with a GMT watch
BY LUKE BENEDICTUS

IF YOU’VE GOT itchy feet right now, that’s

hardly surprising. According to a 2019
study, Australians are the second most well-
travelled population on Earth. The study,
commissioned by travel site agoda.com,
Rado
found the average Aussie had travelled to HyperChrome
10 different countries, while one in 25 had UTC $2700
visited more than 31. That’s pretty impressive
globetrotting given our geographic location.
But it also makes our current predicament
harder to stomach. Over the last year,
COVID-19 has forcibly clipped our wings,
with most of us writing off any chance of
international travel in 2021.
IWC Pilot’s
One consequence of such limitations is Watch
that the idea of hopping on a plane to jet off Timezoner Le
to some far-flung destination suddenly feels Petit Prince
$21,700
more exciting than ever. It also increases the
desirability of a GMT watch.
The GMT watch was born in the 1950s.
Back then, air travel was a glamorous business
with air hostesses akin to movie stars and
men routinely wearing three-piece suits to
board a plane. Subsequently, the notion of
the “travel watch” was mooted to help pilots,
businessmen and other jet-set types adjust
to a new time zone while also keeping track
of the one they’d just left. In 1953, Glycine
created the first watch capable of tracking two
24-hour time zones simultaneously, but this
achievement was promptly eclipsed by Rolex.
The Rolex GMT Master was designed
in partnership with Pan Am in 1954, as the
airline wanted a watch to give to their pilots
and crew members on long-haul flights.
Alongside the hour, minute and second hands, ubiquitous among brands, largely because
the watch offered a fourth hand that was set it’s still arguably the most useful watch
to Greenwich Mean Time – the benchmark complication around. And that’s still true
against which all time zones are set. The even when you’re grounded. You might use
owner could then twist the bezel to allow your GMT to stay in synch with a colleague
the GMT hand to track whichever time zone in the Perth office, or to avoid FaceTiming
they chose. It was simple, functional and also your mate in New York at 2am, or to ensure
aspirational, because it tacitly signalled you you don’t miss kick-off in the FA Cup final.
were a well-travelled man. The popularity One day, of course, it’ll revert to its original
of the watch quickly spread far beyond purpose when your international playboy
airline cabins, with everyone from Hunter lifestyle returns. In the meantime, it’ll offer a
S. Thompson to Fidel Castro conspicuously comforting wrist-bound reminder that things
flaunting their GMTs. will eventually return to normal and you’ll
Today, the GMT function has become soon be clocking up those air miles once again.

58 MEN’S HE ALTH
 WATCH E S

Tudor Black Ball Engineer

Bay GMT Hydrocarbon
$5510 AeroGMT II
$5200

Rolex
GMT-Master
II
$13,600 Mido Ocean
Star GMT
$1825

Omega Aqua
Terra GMT
Worldtimer
$13,875

Seiko GMT
SPB223J1
$2150

MAY 2021 59
 MH
RADAR

The Future of Health

TO MARK THE RETURN of both
Men’s Health and Women’s Health
(Australia), a selection of Sydney’s
key health-focused opinion leaders
descended on Porsche Centre
Sydney South’s new space, The Hub.
Guests enjoyed a bespoke breakfast
while listening to a panel discussion
on “The Future of Health”. MH
editor Scott Henderson and WH
editor Jacqui Mooney were joined
by former cover stars Madison de
Rozario (Australian Paralympian)
and psychiatrist Dr Kieran Kennedy.
Guests left inspired by the panellists’
insights into topics that included
representation, mental health
and the mind-body connection.
The event was an opportunity to
celebrate the magazines’ revival
with many of the brands’ close
friends. As travel retrictions ease, we
look forward to reconnecting with
the rest of Australia shortly.

Psychiatrist Kennedy discusses “The

Future of Health” with an emphasis on
mental and emotional wellbeing.

Porsche Centre Sydney South

general manager David Jackson.

60 MEN’S HE ALTH
 Women’s Health editor Mooney,
de Rozario and Thrive founder
Leilani Abels.

12WBT lead trainer Todd Liubinskas and

First Base founder Ali Cotton getting
up close and personal with the all-new
electric Porsche Taycan.

Australian Paralympic athlete and three-

time World Para Athletics Championship
gold medallist de Rozario.
The all-star
panel: de Rozario,
Mooney, Henderson
and Kennedy.

MAY 2021 61
MH S U BS C RI PTIO N O F FE R

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Leading light: Apa is
managing to navigate
his way through the
fame game.

64 MEN’S HE ALTH
 MH COVE R G UY

KIWI ACTOR KJ APA CAME OUT OF NOWHERE TO LAND THE COVETED ROLE OF
ARCHIE ANDREWS ON HIT TEEN DRAMA RIVERDALE. AS HIS STAR CONTINUES TO
RISE, THOUGH, APA’S MANAGING SOMETHING VERY FEW OF US COULD HOPE TO
ACHIEVE: TO GO FROM NOBODY TO NEXTBIGTHING WITHOUT LOSING YOURSELF
by BEN JHOT Y photography by JIM JEONG

MAY 2021 65
 N A DIFFERENT LIFE, KJ Apa might
have been an All Black. It’s every young
Kiwi boy’s dream, right? But while it
was mostly schoolboy, pie-in-the-sky
musing, Apa was perhaps a little more
equipped than most to imagine himself
in a vein-bulging lather, bellowing out
the haka before a Test at Eden Park. He
had pedigree – his uncle was an All
Black. And thanks to his dad, a fitness
nut, he’d been taught the discipline and dedication he
would require if he was to make it in elite sport. Most
importantly, Apa had the confidence to believe he could
do anything. Which is a good thing, because that’s exactly
what he proceeded to do.
“That was the first goal, to play rugby,” says Apa, who
instead of rampaging toward the try line in a Bledisloe
Cup decider, is talking to MH on a snowy afternoon in
Vancouver’s Lighthouse Park. “I wanted to follow in my
uncle’s footsteps.”
Apa is sitting on a stool nursing a coffee in front of
an old blue house, looking down through the tumbling
snow to where the sea would be if he could see it. It’s a rare
day off from shooting on his hit show Riverdale, a soapy,
subversive update of the classic Archie Comics series, in
which he plays the titular character Archie Andrews.
Archie is one of the reasons Apa isn’t chasing his boyhood
dreams, though the levers of fate creaked particularly
hard on this one. Apa blew his first audition for the
sought-after role. He was tired and jet lagged after flying
in from NZ. Fortunately, the show’s creator, Roberto
Aguirre-Sacasa, decided to give him another shot. This
time he brought out his guitar and nailed it. But he’s often
wondered what would have happened if he didn’t get the
gig. “I like to think I would have booked something else but
maybe I would have been back on the next plane to New
66 MEN’S HE ALTH
Zealand after a couple of weeks and back to playing rugby,
trying to make that happen for myself,” says Apa, whose
abbreviated nickname KJ – short for Keneti James – has
the ring of stardom, whatever the field. “It was pretty
much next on my list.”
Instead of 130kg props, Apa would face an equally
imposing psychological foe in overnight fame and its
stacked front row: money, girls, media. It can easily
swallow a kid up. Heck, it almost did. Apa admits he
got caught up in it all for a while there. Got caught
up in himself.
“When this show first took off, being so young and
getting success like that isn’t a natural thing for a
human to deal with,” says Apa. “That amount of fame
in such a short time. It’s easy to get distracted and get
carried away. I experienced that and I’ve learned
from those experiences.”
To be calling yourself out at 23 gives you an indication
of Apa’s maturity. That could be due to where he came
from: the suburbs of Auckland, descended from Samoa,
where his dad was a ‘matei’ or village chief. They’re
places most Hollywood casting agents regard as nowhere.
“Nobody even knows what Samoa is over here,” he says.
The ambition and drive Apa once poured into rugby
are now channelled toward another dream, one even
more rarefied, possibly more cutthroat. One where he’s
needed the values impressed upon him by his parents to
survive the parts of the dream no one tells you about. How
the glare of the public eye can create a suffocating sense
of loneliness. How the pursuit of success is inherently
solitary. How much you’ll have to sacrifice. And, perhaps
most importantly of all, just how easy it is to forget where
you came from.
“I think you come to the realisation that things are
getting out of hand when you lose gratitude,” Apa says
quietly. “Whenever I’m at a point where I’m not stepping
into gratitude every day is when I know that I’m getting
carried away.”
It’s a pretty handy way to stay in possession of yourself,
whether you’re 23 or 93, a somebody or a nobody, or even,
as Apa once was, you’re a nobody from nowhere, who
dreams of going somewhere.
HAIR APPARENT
From the cold dark winter of Vancouver, where Apa
works 13-hour shifts that often run through the night,
his childhood back in NZ seems impossibly idyllic and
carefree. “Growing up in New Zealand was the best, man,”
he says eagerly. He remembers playing rugby on the
beach at lunchtimes with his mates. “It really brings
up a lot of emotion.”
He lived in a suburb outside of Auckland and caught
a train and a bus to attend a high school that was all boys
until Year 11. “I remember sitting in class with girls for the
first time and being like, ‘Oh, my God. This is crazy’.”
Things were about to get crazier. Apa’s sister was on the
books in a modelling agency. Her agent saw him and asked
if he’d be interested in auditioning for a TV show because
he looked like one of the show’s female characters and the

producers were looking to cast her brother. “I’d never done
an audition in my life and never even really thought about
acting,” Apa says. “I thought, ‘Fuck it, why not?’” He got
his lines while on a camping trip with his mates and woke
up at 2am to rehearse them in peace.
The show was Shortland Street, NZ’s answer to Home
and Away. It was a life-changing opportunity – just how
so, Apa would only appreciate later. Everything that came
after started then. His fame in NZ grew quickly. “It’s not
the same as over here but it’s still something as a 16-year-
old,” he says. Suddenly he was a somebody.
From there he landed a role in a film called A Dog’s
Purpose and headed to LA, where he began doing rounds
of auditions, a prospect few actors enjoy. Apa saw them as
a challenge. “I fucking loved it, bro, even as a grom in LA. I
loved how nervous I got because I was excited to go in there
and I knew I had what it takes. I was fearful but it almost
made it more exciting to me. Not being cocky, but I knew
I was capable of doing whatever anyone needed of me. I
backed myself.”
The fearlessness of youth. The fact that he had nothing
really to lose yet. He took rejections on the chin. Moved on
MH C OVER G UY
to the next one. Wasn’t meant to be. “The only way I know Rugged terrain: Apa
how to take that is, ‘I’m just not the right person for the practises gratitude to
maintain perspective.
role’,” he says. “It could have been because I wasn’t good
enough. It could have been because I didn’t look right for
the part.” The irony: he got his break on Shortland Street,
precisely because he ‘looked right for the part’. Swings and
roundabouts. The levers of fate. In a further irony, the part
he ended up getting was one he didn’t actually look right
for; Apa has to dye his naturally dark hair every
two weeks to achieve Archie’s iconic copper mane.
But if he hadn’t landed Riverdale, chances are it would
have been something else. There’s an irrepressible quality
to Apa. Sooner or later, you think, he would have been the
‘right person’.
Riverdale would make Apa a teen heart-throb. It
would create opportunities he’d only dreamed about.
He’d never be nobody from nowhere again.
APA-TITE FOR COMPETITION
Five-and-half seasons in, Apa and the rest of the Riverdale
cast are best mates. They’d want to be, working in close
quarters 10 months a year. It’s both a whirlwind and a
MAY 2021 67
 RAPID FIRE

Favourite project?
I Still Believe

Favourite exercise?
Burpees

Least-favourite?
Sit-ups

Cheat meal?
Ramen. Any time,
ramen

Hero?
I’m the only one that
can save myself, so my
hero is me

Workout anthem?
Roll Right, Rage
Against the Machine

Favourite item
of clothing?
Stan Ray jeans

First international
holiday destination
when borders open?
New Zealand

68 MEN’S HE ALTH

“I’M EXTREMELY COMPETITIVE. IN MY HEAD
I’M ALWAYS TRYING TO BE THE BEST”
grind, a period they already know they’ll look back on
fondly, like their ‘uni days’. “We talk about that all the
time because it has been a hell of a ride,” he says. “Don’t
get it twisted, though. The show is gruelling. It’s like
a machine.” Just how demanding that workload can
be was highlighted in 2017 when Apa was lucky to
escape serious injury after he fell asleep at the wheel
on his way home from a long day on set. At the time
he said he made a mistake in attempting to drive
home and should have pulled over to sleep. Another
lesson, perhaps, from this deeply formative period.
Apa can sound conflicted about the Riverdale
experience. It both confines him and provides the
platform that allows him to pursue more creatively
meaningful projects. “As soon as the season’s over it
makes me hungry to sink my teeth into something more
meaty and just different, honestly,” he says.
Last year he appeared in I Still Believe, a romantic
drama about contemporary Christian music singer-
songwriter Jeremy Camp. It was the moment he
realised what he was capable of as an actor. “Just feeling
true emotions directly drawn from the story and not my
own experience was a new thing for me,” he says. It was
also an opportunity to develop a character and realise a
full narrative arc, one of the reasons he likes movies
more than TV. Given how wildly unpredictable the plot
lines on Riverdale can be you can hardly blame him.
“You never know what’s going to happen,” he laughs. “I got
attacked by a fucking bear in one scene that I had no idea
was going to fucking happen to me.”
Also last year, in the middle of the pandemic, he made
Songbird (in cinemas later this year), a sci-fi thriller
based on COVID-19, in which the virus has mutated into
COVID-23. The experience whet his appetite for action
– Lord knows he’s got the rig for it. “Just the physicality
of that movie and the physicality of the character were
really, really fun,” he says.
As well as scratching his creative itch, these
off-season gigs give Apa fodder to banter with his
Riverdale mates, particularly Charles Melton, who
plays Reggie Mantle in the show. “I’m extremely
competitive, but not in a loud way,” he says. “In my
head I’m always trying to be the best. I’ve always been
like that. And it’s funny, because Charles and I are best
friends, but we are so fucking competitive with each
other. He’ll be like, ‘Oh, I see you’re meeting for that
movie’, and I’m like, ‘Yeah’, and I can tell when I’m
looking in his eyes what he’s thinking. I’m the same way
with him. It’s just the nature of this industry that you have
to compete against your friends.”
Confidence and competitiveness. They’re powerful
traits, but ones it can often feel uncomfortable to
acknowledge. The truth? You aren’t getting out of
nowhere without them.
MH COVE R G UY
A STAR IS TORN
Apa’s abdominal section is the subject of considerable
interest among his young fans online, his Insta account
a place those with particularly parched eyeballs like to
congregate. Apa can probably thank his dad, not only
for the genetic royal flush, but also for instilling an
appreciation for the value of shifting iron. “My dad worked
out like a madman,” he says. “He’s a big boy, too”. At 11
years old, Apa began a gruelling daily regimen in the
family’s backyard gym, recalling with fondness the rigour
of the sessions and the rudimentary nature of the set-up.
“It’s this garage with no walls,” he says. “A lot of the metal
is rusted. At nights we had to cover everything with a tarp
because the tin roof leaked when it rained.”
His dad also made him knock out a five-kay run every
day, riding alongside him on a bike. It paid off: Apa won his
school cross country eight years in a row. While he often
chafed against the relentlessness of the regimen, he’s
grateful now for what it built within him. “That’s how I got
that level of motivation and commitment when it comes to
working out,” he says. And in the crucible of the spotlight,
it’s provided him with an outlet to escape the stress of his
work and the heat of his burgeoning fame. “It’s become
one of the biggest parts of my life in staying grounded in
this industry,” he says. “I’m so thankful for my desire to
be physical and train my body. It’s something I need at the
end of a hard day.”
There’s unlikely to be any Christian Bale-type body
transformations popping up on Apa’s IMDB. If not a
temple, he regards his body as a fortress that needs
protecting. “I think I value the health of my body over
my career,” he says. “Health is a long game and I’m
trying to live long.” What about stacking on muscle for an
action flick? “That I would enjoy,” he says. “I would do that
in a heartbeat.”
As it is, right now he favours high-intensity training
in which he keeps his heart rate up, with minimal rest
(see box, “Abs, Pecs, Arms”). “Just because it completely
fucks me up,” he explains. He and Melton often work
out together after a day of shooting, pushing each other
to exhaustion. “We’re so competitive that we’re almost
vomiting after every workout. It’s so good.”
You hear that and you think maybe Apa really could
have been an All Black. That he would have relished the
intensity, thrived under discipline. The thing is, though,
if top-level rugby truly had been an option, he might have
preferred to pull on the Royal blue jersey of Manu Samoa.
Certainly, whenever Samoa played the All Blacks, there
was no doubt who Apa was cheering for.
It raises the question of identity, often a shapeshifting,
elusive concept for someone of mixed race (Apa’s mother
is of European ancestry). In North America, everyone
regards Apa as a Kiwi. Yet he himself has always identified
as Samoan. He has Samoan tribal tattoos (along with a bee
MAY 2021 69
 M H CCOO V EERR G U Y
MH
“I’VE NEVER BEEN SO SURE OF
ANYTHING IN MY LIFE . . .
I WANT TO BE A FATHER”
in tribute to his grandmother and a Van Halen logo). And
he used to visit the country regularly. “Growing up I saw
myself as Samoan,” he says simply. “That was it. Period.
Because the majority of my family were Samoan. People
were speaking Samoan around me all the time. But since I
left I really miss that side of me. It almost seems foreign to
me now because I haven’t been surrounded by the culture
anymore. I miss it so much and I worry that I’ll lose that
part of me if I don’t get back in touch with it soon.”
If Dwayne Johnson’s career is anything to go by, guys
with Samoan heritage have a pretty good track record
in Hollywood. And while Apa probably wouldn’t mind
emulating The Rock’s career path, particularly his action
blockbusters, there’s something else he would elevate
even above that. “I really admire actors who are able to
have families while travelling the world, making amazing
movies and doing what they love,” he says. “That’s
something I really respect.”
The loneliness of his journey is something Apa returns
to throughout our discussion. It’s something he’s felt
70 MEN’S HE ALTH
even more keenly in the past year due to COVID. But it’s Boy Wonder:
been gnawing away inside him since the first season of Apa made the leap
from schoolboy
Riverdale, when he began to realise just how much he’d to superstar.
have to sacrifice in order to pursue his career. “That was
the first inkling I had of having to let go of time with my
family,” he says. “That’s when it became real to me.”
Apa’s lived away from home for over six years now.
He feels that time and distance like a constant ache. But
it’s that ache that ultimately grounds him. Lose it and
he loses everything. “It’s weird when I go back now,” he
says. “I feel like I don’t fit in as much because I’ve been
gone for so long. It’s a really worrying feeling to me for
the first couple of days, because I’m like, ‘Fuck, I’m not
the same as these people anymore’. I’ve been through so
many different experiences to the people who grew up
with me.”
Which is perhaps why he’s been feeling the desire
to start a family so acutely. In fact, it was his original
dream, before rugby, before acting and before music,
his other great love. “I’ve never been so sure of anything
 MH COVE R G UY

A BS, P ECS, A RMS

DO THIS SEVEN-ROUND MONSTER TO GET COMIC BOOK-LEVEL CUT
DIRECTIONS
Do seven rounds for time. “Usually, I crack it out in 22 minutes, but on a good
day, if you can crack it in 20 minutes, I feel like you’re ripping,” says Apa.
with Charles. He starts on the ex f me so that I m always on
k. As far as rest, you can kind of p ou go. I just walk really
over to where the next exercise is aths and then keep going.”

1/ UPS x 7 2/ USH-UPS x 7

3/ O-BARS x 7 4/MMILITARY PRESSS x 7

5/ REESS x 7 6/DDDEADLIFTS x 7

7/BURPEES x 7

in my life, other than the fact that I want to be a father,”

he says. That desire is only heightened by the often
superficial nature of life in the spotlight. “It’s a lonely
place, this industry,” he says. “Human interactions are
no longer the same for me. I’m searching. I’m searching
for genuine relationships with people who genuinely care
about me and who I care about, not because of who I am or
who they are.”
He pauses for a long time before returning to the
subject of family. “I don’t want to be lonely for the rest of
my life,” he says. “I’m looking around me at people doing
what I’m doing, putting everything into their careers
and into fame and into themselves. I’m guilty of the same
ILLUSTRATION: JUSTINAS ALISAUKAS

thing but I look around and I’m like, ‘Wait, what’s the
point of all this if you can’t share it with anyone other than
yourself and your friends?’ It becomes meaningless. I’d
be willing to drop acting and all of this if I had a beautiful
family. If I had to do it, I would do it.” Killer
Kil ler combi
mb nation
ionn:
Apa’s looooks
ks, phhysi
ks ysique
que
That’s right; he’d go back to being nobody from an taale
and lent make hi himma
nowhere . . . and he’d have, if not everything, enough. kn cko
kno ckout
ut pac
ackag
kage.e.
F IT N E SS

Jason Lee (Creative Director)

Ben Jhoty (Deputy Editor)

Christopher Riley (Contributing Editor)

Daniel Williams (Associate Editor)

Stronger, Higher,
72 MEN’S HE ALTH
 2021
MH
Ian Brooks (CEO)

STAFF FIT
NESS
CHALLEN
GE
SIX GUYS, SIX GOALS,
FIVE WEEKS, ZERO EXCUSES
BY MH WRITERS PHOTOGR APHY BY JA SON LEE

Here at Men’s Health we encourage our

readers to strive to be the best you can
be. To take on challenges and leave
your comfort zone, even if there's a
chance you might fall flat on your face.
Well, in a case of what's good for the
goose . . . we, the MH team, felt it was
time we pushed our own limits.
On this occasion our challenges are
physical. Each MH staffer identified
an athletic feat he wanted to achieve.
These ran the gamut from CrossFit to
ocean swimming. Some chose
exercises they’ve previously struggled
with. Others opted to try and enhance
a strength they already possessed.
Scott Henderson (Editor) And some tried to recapture former
glory. As always, we sought expert
advice, with top-level coaches guiding
us through intensive five-week
training programs.
Did we succeed? You’ll have to read
on to find out. But you can rest

Further assured, each of us gave our all, learned

new skills and discovered much about
ourselves – to paraphrase Pulp
Fiction’s Marsellus Wallace, "pride
f*cked with us". Our efforts were
certainly aspirational. We hope you’ll
find them inspirational.

MAY 2021 73
 F IT N E SS

“A HANDSTAND FLIP THE SCRIPT

DO THIS WORKOUT 5 TIMES A WEEK
STUMBLE IS A BETTER TO TURN YOUR WORLD TOPSYTURVY

DESCRIPTION OF MY WARMUP
• Shoulder Floss - 3 minutes per side
CURRENT ABILITY” • 20 Gentle Kip Swings
• 15 Empty Bar or DB Press
• HS hold - 20-40 sec
• T-Spine Peanut Smash - 3 minutes 
(Hug a 20kg plate while lying on a peanut
massage ball)

FORWARD ROLL
Perform 5-8 forward rolls 
Focus: Practise safely forward dismounting
and orienting yourself to being upside-down
in case of a fall. Use a mat or perform
on grass.

HANDSTAND WALK INTO WALL

For five minutes, assume the inverted
position and practise walking toward a wall
Focus: Start as close to the wall as needed.
Even if it’s one step and then you hit the wall,
that’s fine. Record distance.

HANDSTAND HOLD
WITH WEIGHT SHIFT
3 x max duration 
Shift weight from one hand to the other 
Focus: Maintaining a perfect hollow
position against the wall.

first session. Competent in the

Name: Scott
Henderson
Position: Ed
itor
Challenge: 1
0ft (3m)
Handstand
Walk
fter dabbling in CrossFit
for almost five years,
it’s down to pure
luck that I’ve never
been dealt a handstand walk
in a competitive workout. One
of the sport’s most essential
skills, the handstand walk is a
vital component in the arsenal
of any CrossFitter, as crucial as
butterfly pull-ups or the ability
to tell the world you do CrossFit.
With only six weeks until the
2021 CrossFit Open I know my
luck can’t last forever. It’s time
to add this next-level skill to my
admittedly limited repertoire of
gymnastics-based moves.
To help me master the art of
walking upside down, I turn to
long-time pal and Australasian
CrossFit Masters champion
Andy Ginn. Based on the Gold
Coast, Ginn has been my coach
since long before he migrated
north. His knowledge of human
movement exceeds that of almost
anyone I’ve been fortunate
enough to train under, but
perhaps even more valuable
is his understanding of the
human psyche. He knows my
strengths and weaknesses. He
knows I respond only to internal
motivation. He understands my
fragile ego and he programs
to navigate these quirks of
my personality.
Thanks to a background in
swimming, my shoulder
strength is greater than
anticipated heading into my
handstand push-up, I’m also
no stranger to the sensation of
seeing the gym upside down
and supporting my bodyweight
through my shoulder joints.
With shoulder strength
sorted, Ginn is quick to identify
thoracic mobility, or lack
thereof, as my first major hurdle.
Despite what my obnoxious
Instagram account might
suggest, as a magazine editor
much of my day is spent hunched
over a computer, resulting in
extreme tightness across the
upper spine and shoulders.
Thankfully, Ginn is confident
it’s nothing a few mobility drills
can’t solve.
The next flaw Ginn pinpoints
is that I’m not actively engaging
my core while upside down. With
my focus on locking my shoulders
up and out, as well as technical
imperatives such as eye position,
hand position, and not-falling-
on-my-head position, I find
myself forgetting to activate the
muscles that hold almost every
human movement together: the
abs and obliques.
 Our final challenge is slightly

74 MEN’S HE ALTH

“PRACTICE DOESN'T
MAKE PERFECT - IT
MAKES PERMANENT”
larger and requires me to get used
to the feeling of being inverted,
yet unsupported by a wall.
Incremental ‘regressions’ on
the handstand walk, such as
starting only 30 cm out from a
wall and essentially falling onto
it, mean that piece by piece I find
comfort walking on my hands,
vertically unassisted.
With five weeks up, so is
my confidence. Truth be told,
being 188cm means that with
enough momentum, some core
strength and the ability to hold
my weight through my shoulder
joints, it’s possible to propel
myself over 10 feet (3m) through
pure momentum. Though I can
get inverted and take ‘steps’, a
handstand stumble is perhaps
a better description of my
current ability. Poor mobility
and lack of core activation are
still holding me back from truly
‘walking’. Heading into my
next competition, however, I
feel confident I can probably
‘Bradbury’ it over the finish line.
Or at the very least, link two
5-foot (1.5m) handstand walks
together. I guess you could call
that baby steps, right?
Name: Ian Brooks
Position: CEO
m
Challenge: Swim 2k
SWIMMING HAS ALWAYS been a weakness of
mine. It has never felt natural or effortless, which
I know it does for some people. Even as a kid I
could swim maybe a few laps before I’d need a
breather. It’s fair to say I didn’t clean up at
school swimming carnivals. These days I barely
swim, unless you count a dip in the surf.
By contrast, over the years I’ve been a
decent runner and rower and had my moments
on the soccer pitch. This gap in my athletic
competence – swimming like a cat – is
something I’m keen to address. Covering a
2021
MH
STAFF FITN
ES
CHALLEN S
GE
WATER WORKS
BROOKS’ METHOD WAS FIRST TO
FINETUNE HIS TECHNIQUE, THEN TO
APPLY IT OVER GRADUALLY LONGER
DISTANCES. TO SWIM LIKE A FISH,
SUIT UP AND FOLLOW IN HIS WASH
WEEK 1
• Swim 800m, nonstop, on 3 separate days
WEEK 2
• Swim 800m, nonstop (5 days)
WEEK 3
• Swim 1200m, nonstop (4 days)
WEEK 4
• Swim 1600m, nonstop (4 days)
WEEK 5
• Swim 2000m, nonstop
distance of 2km without stopping strikes me as
a goal that’s ambitious yet achievable.
I know I’m supposed to enlist a coach, but
the truth is I don’t feel it’s necessary. Everything
I need to know is available either on YouTube
or in past issues of MH.
My research leads to an inescapable
conclusion: my difficulties with swimming all
come down to breathing. Basically, I’m messing
it up. Specifically, I’m not exhaling fully. As a
result, carbon dioxide is building up in my
system and my muscles aren’t getting enough
oxygen. This is why I’ve felt exhausted on the
rare occasions I’ve tried to swim more than a
couple of hundred metres.
Meeting this challenge is going to come
down to improving my technique more
so than my fitness. As a smart guy once
told me, practice doesn’t make perfect – it
makes permanent. You need to do things
correctly so as not to ingrain flawed technique.
Also, I slow down my stroke, the same way
you do a golf swing when you’re looking for
easy power. After all, I don’t need more speed
– just more efficiency. I don’t care how long it
takes me to swim the 2km. Like Rocky, all I
wanna do is go the distance.
Progress is gradual. Some mornings I need
to stop six times. But I know I'm getting there.
I’ve done all my training in the ocean at
Sydney’s Balmoral Beach and that’s where I
head on the big day. At 6.30 one recent
Wednesday morning, decked out in Speedos
and goggles, I head out about 100m to a line
of buoys and set off, swimming parallel to the
shoreline and turning every 350m.
Confident in my technique and distracted by
the fish and a majestic sunrise, I cover the 2km
distance comfortably, returning to shore weary
but not at all breathless, and quietly satisfied
with a resounding PB. And at my age, I consider
any new PB an achievement.
MAY 2021 75
F IT N E SS

PREPARE FOR
LIFTOFF
DO THESE SESSIONS THREE TIMES A
WEEK TO REACH NEW ALTITUDES

WEEKS 1 3
Superset 1
• Trap-bar deadlift x 3
• Box drop and jump x 3

Superset 2
• Bulgarian split squat x 5 on each leg
• Borzov jump x 3 on each leg

Superset 3
• Jump squat x 5
• Vertical leap x 3

WEEKS 45
Superset 1
• Goblet squat x 4
• Vertical jump (arms down) x 3

“TO DEPART THE Superset 2

• Eccentric loaded DB jump x 3
EARTH REQUIRES • Vertical jump (using arms) x 3
• Bulgarian split squat x 5 on each leg
EXPLOSIVE POWER”

measure of power. It’s about how fast you

Name: B
en Jhot
Position y
: Deput
Challen y Editor
ge: Imp
vertica rove
l leap
AS A KEEN BASKETBALL FAN, I’ve long
been interested in vertical leap, aka hops.
Possessing hops increases your likelihood
of being able to perform basketball’s most
celebrated and emphatic move: the dunk. At
173cm with small hands, the chances of me
being able to dunk have always been slim,
but that’s never stopped me dreaming.
In Year 12, as part of a physical education
assessment, my standing vertical leap was
measured at 50cm. Back then, with a running
jump, I could touch the ring. Almost 30 years
on I wonder: can I touch the ring again? Can
I get my hops back?
To assist me in my mission, I recruit the
services of Corey Bocking, strength and
conditioning coach for the NSW Waratahs.
Bocking’s a man used to taking raw muscle
and sinew and refashioning them into potent
and precise instruments of athletic
endeavour. Hopefully he can do something
similar for me.
We meet at the Waratahs' training facility
in Sydney’s Kensington, where Bocking takes
me through a program heavy on squats,
plyometrics and something I hadn’t actually
foreseen: jumps. “Just the act of jumping
develops a muscle-stimulus response,”
Bocking explains. To depart the earth
also requires explosive power, he adds. “You
need to have a solid base of strength that
you then convert into a jump, which is a
can express your strength.”
As I absorb Bocking’s physics lesson, I
picture myself as a human projectile, blasting
into the sky. Bocking quickly grounds me.
“As we get older the ability to develop
power is one of the things that goes,” he
says. The risk of calf injury – or the dreaded
Achilles tear – also increases.
We take a baseline measurement of my
standing vertical leap. To my surprise I
manage 46cm, not far off my high school
mark but light years away from New Orleans
Pelicans' force of nature Zion Williamson’s
114cm – despite weighing nearly 130kg.
I begin training and am staggered by how
exhausting the sessions are. Jumping is a
full-body exercise, Bocking explains. It
doesn’t take much to spike your heart rate.
It’s also a hell of a lot of fun. As a kid I was
always jumping, every branch, awning or
street sign an invitation, every fence, gate or
boulder an obstacle I needed to conquer.
Sometime in my twenties I stopped. Now I
realise what I’ve been missing.
When launch day arrives, I feel ready.
Bocking advises that at my age, cracking
50cm again would be an achievement, so
when I touch the wall at 54cm I’m satisfied.
There happens to be a ring in the gym.
Admittedly it’s lower than regulation but I
decide it’s now or never. At 45 years old I
soar into the air and for a few fractions of
a second I’m a teenager again, leaving the
years, fears of fading muscle strength and
the pessimism and caution of middle age
on the ground. I dunk. Then I cramp.

76 MEN’S HE ALTH

“IS IT EVEN MEDICALLY
ADVISABLE FOR ME
TO GO ALL OUT?”
PASS THE BAR EXAM
USE THIS ROUTINE FROM CHINUP
CHAMP MARCUS BONDI TO STACK
MUSCLE ONTO YOUR SHOULDERS AND
LATS  HELLO, VSHAPE  AND SEND
YOUR FUNCTIONAL STRENGTH SOARING
WARMUP:
Hang from a bar for 10 seconds, first with
palms facing out, then facing in. Then do two
sets of two reps, emphasising speed.
SET 1
With 5kg attached, do as many chin-ups as
you can. When you fail, do as many half reps
as you can. Then quarter reps. Then hang
until your fingers are about to slip off the
bar. Rest for 3 minutes.
SET 2
As for Set 1. But add only 2.5kg.
Rest for 3 minutes.
SET 3
Repeat Set 1. Rest for 3 minutes.
SET 4
Repeat Set 2.
OPTIONAL EXTRA SETS
illiams
Hang one-armed for as long as you can.
Name:Daniel W Switch arms. Do 6 total sets.
ciate Editor
Position: Asso
NB: Progressively add weight for sets 1-4.
strict-form
Challenge: 20
s in)
chin-ups (palm
O
ver several decades I figure I could attack my To help me double that
I’ve made almost flipside with bent-over rows. But number I turn to Marcus Bondi,
every training at the age of 56 and with a history the Bradman of chinning and the
blunder in the book. of back trouble, the risk of injury king of the North Bondi exercise
Among the more egregious: is too high. So, I opt for old school bars. Recently, with Arnold
overworking the mirror muscles. chin-ups, palms facing in. My Schwarzenegger in the audience,
Predictable result: a back lagging PB for a set of these is 13 but that Bondi did a chin-up with 105kg
in strength and development. For was set years ago. Nowadays, I do strapped to his waist.
me, this challenge is a chance to them in sets of five or six. At “Dat was incredible!” Arnie
right a wrong. a stretch, I can do 10. told Bondi, who, unencumbered,
2021
MH
STAFF FITN
ES
CHALLEN S
GE
can do 40 perfect-form chins at a
moment’s notice. And Bondi and
I are almost the same age. This
union is perfect.
When we meet, he seems
relieved.
“You’re fit,” he flatters,
glancing at my shoulders. “And 10
reps is a decent base.
"Daniel, you’re going to smash
this,” adds my new trainer, who’s
as enthusiastic as he is strong.
“You will be a human machine!”
His plan for me centres on
weighted sets to failure. No time
to mess about, he says. [See “Pass
The Bar Exam”, below.]
Privately, I don’t share Bondi’s
confidence that 20 is doable. I’ve
loved training since boyhood.
But, gee, it gets harder as you age.
Physically, you hurt more and
recover slower; energy bursts
are rarer and less electrifying.
Just as limiting is how the
psychology of working out
becomes complicated. Unhelpful
questions abound. Does anyone
give a f*** how many chins I can
do? Do I give a f***? Is it even
medically advisable anymore for
me to go all out? Doubt takes root.
You lift less weight, less often.
And you wonder, is this age-
related decline? Or am I going
soft? Or both?
Come judgment day, I’m
below par. I’ve felt headachy and
slightly woozy for a few days. I
fear that a max effort could see
me pass out. But what can you do
but try?
After nine reps I’m tired and
slowing. I grind out six more to
reach 15. Afterwards, you can
find me loitering somewhere
between disappointed and
demoralised. The ensuing night
is long. I’ve let myself down.
Marcus, too.
Next morning I call him,
because I have to.
“Daniel, no, no, that’s
fantastic! You’ve set a new PB
in your fifties,” he says. “You’ve
upped your reps by 50 per cent in
five weeks. That almost can’t be
done. You should be proud.”
I’m not. But thank you. And I
do feel better. Enough to set a new
goal: 20 by July.
MAY 2021 77
F IT N E SS
RING THE CHANGES
ALREADY GOT PULLUPS AND BAR DIPS
IN YOUR BAG? FOLLOW THIS REGIMEN
TO BECOME A LORD OF THE RINGS
WARMUP:
• 15 Band pull-aparts x 3
• 15-sec Bottom of dip hold x 3
• 30-sec Hollow hold x 2
• 20-sec Superman hold x 2
STRENGTH
10 min EMOM
• 10 Supine bent-over barbell rows
• 20 Barbell skull crushers
MUSCLEUP SPECIFIC
• 4 Russian dips x 3
• 5 Floor-to-low-ring transitions x 3
• 1 Kipping hips-to-tall-ring transition x 8
78 MEN’S HE ALTH
Name: J
ason Le
Position e
: Creati
Challen ve Dire
ge: Ring ctor I STARTED CROSSFIT back in February
Muscle
-Up 2017 and it’s pretty much taken over my life
ever since. I train in classes five times a
week and am constantly pushing, prodding
and massage-gunning my body in recovery
the rest of the time.
Back when I started there was no way I
could see myself pulling off a move like the
muscle-up, be it the ring or bar variety. I
couldn’t even do chest-to-bar pull-ups. But I
kept training, kept improving and in the 2019
CrossFit Open I managed to do a single bar
muscle-up. Unfortunately, shortly afterwards
I had a snowboarding accident and suffered
a shoulder subluxation and partial dislocation
that took 15 months to heal properly.
Muscle-ups were something I avoided until
late last year when I began trying the bar
muscle-up again, managing to work up to a
single rep. It made me wonder how much
more I could challenge myself. There was
another carrot, too. I knew that ring muscle-
ups and double-unders are the two hardest
technical moves in CrossFit. And I’m a sucker
for technical moves other people can’t do.
To help me in my quest I enlist the help
of Patrick Fitzsimons, a former CrossFit
Games Regionals athlete and owner of
arguably Australia’s premier box, CrossFit
Active in Sydney.
“The ring muscle-up is tough,” Fitzsimons
warns me when I show up to his box on the
first day. “It involves going into the deepest
dip position that you’ll ever do. You need a
solid foundation of strength. You should be
able to do six to 10 strict-form pull-ups and
the same in dips before attempting it.”
Fortunately, after four years of training I
already possess the necessary strength. I can
do ring dips with ease. I can do pull-ups. My
problem is the transition and linking these
movements together.
Fitzsimons gets me to do a series of
false-grip movements – false-grip hang, false
grip pull-up – that I find really awkward. I get a
lot of bruising around my wrists. I’m also
struggling to pop my hips – in the kipping
motion you really need to engage your glutes
to pop your body up onto the rings.
Come judgment day I’m sad to say I’m not
quite there. While I’m disappointed, I have
made progress. I can now link my bar
“I'M A SUCKER FOR muscle-ups during class WODs, which
basically means I can do two in succession.
TECHNICAL MOVES This is no mean feat, Fitzimons tells me, as it’s
OTHER PEOPLE the second muscle-up from the top of the bar
that is the real challenge.
CAN'T DO” Athletically, this has been the hardest thing
I’ve ever attempted. But it’s given me the tools
and the self-belief that I can take on anything
inside a box. I’d call that a gain, wouldn’t you?

“AT SOME POINT AROUND WEEK
4 I THINK I HEAR MY POSTERIOR
CHAIN START CRYING”
pher Riley
Name: Christo
osition: Contributing Editor
P for going the extra mile.
rdic Curl
Challenge: No
hen some
unidentified
genius coined the
timeless phrase
‘curls for girls’, I’m not sure a
nordic curl is what they had in
mind. After all, your hamstrings
don’t quite command the same
attention as your biceps. But it’s
for precisely this reason I choose
the nordic curl as my exercise to
master: it may not be the poster
child of gym movements, but
what it lacks in star power it more
than makes up for in usefulness,
both in terms of performance
and injury prevention. Honing
in on more or less your entire
posterior chain, the nordic
curl is unparalleled in building
hamstring and glute strength,
offering a knee flexion workout
that your typical hamstring-curl
session can only dream about.
When it comes to selecting
the coach with the skillset to
help me on my nordic
journey, I know I have
to find a trainer known
It’s one thing to help a
client add a few kilos to
their bench press, or shave a few
minutes off their 5km time, but
understanding the mechanics
of the lesser-known nordic curl
required a PT of professorial
knowledge. A true student of
the game, if you will. Enter Matt
Walsh of Ultimate Strength and
Conditioning, operating out of
Fitness Playground Surry Hills.
Applying an academic-like rigour
to his coaching, Matt is the sort
of PT to help a client initiate life-
long training methodologies,
rather than simple quick fixes.
My first attempt finds me
lowering with steady control
for all of half a second before I
fall flat on my face. Hamstring
strength nil, gravity one.
Thankfully Matt is more
optimistic about my chances
of mastering the curl within
five weeks than I am – though
I think his optimism is based
more along the lines of ‘he can
only get better’. Over the course
of the five weeks, my training
revolves around nordic negatives,
machine curls, kettlebell
deadlifts and lower-back work.
(At some point around week
4 I think I hear my posterior
chain start crying.) With Matt
keeping me honest, I quickly
become more confident in my
hamstrings, slowly starting to
share in his optimism that this
is indeed possible after all.
With the nordic curl being
an intense strength-building
exercise, it requires a lot of rest
between sets. For someone like me
who works out with an obsessive,
frantic energy, this was always
going to be a challenge. But it’s
in these moments that I gain the
most valuable insights from this
whole experience. Sitting with a
coach and probing the mechanics
of the human body, rather than
simply scrolling Instagram for my
next #workoutinspo, means I’m
forced out of my usual gym routine
and into the trusted guidance
of an expert. For a long time,
my obsession with ‘functional
movements’ (a hangover from my
CrossFit days, I’ll admit) meant I
almost never performed a curl or
2021
MH
STAFF FITN
ES
CHALLEN S
GE
CURL POWER
DO THIS WORKOUT THREE TIMES
A WEEK TO PUMP UP YOUR
POSTERIOR CHAIN
A) Razor curl, 4 x max effort
B) Nordic hold, 3 x 30 seconds
C1) Back hyperextension, 3 x 30 seconds
C2) Single-leg calf raise, 3 x max effort*
C3) Roller curl, 3 x max effort
*C performed as a super set
any other single-use movement.
When it came to working my
posterior chain, this meant I
only ever performed deadlifts or
kettlebell swings. This is all well
and good, Matt tells me, until you
realise the hamstrings consist
of three muscles, one of which
is utilised only when flexing the
knee, i.e. in a curl. Thus, in order
for the hamstrings to function at
their best, they need both hinge
movements (deadlifts etc) and
knee flexors (curls). Let me tell
you, that blew my mind.
With five weeks of solid
training in the bank, when it
comes to testing myself I have
that smug feeling of a kid before
an exam who knows they’ve done
the course work. With Matt’s cues
playing in my head (‘Eyes up!’,
‘HOLD!’) I pin my ankles in and
nordic curl for dear life. The result
sure isn’t pretty but technically
speaking I get the job done. Mission
accomplished. Not only do I leave
with a huge sense of achievement,
I’ve since found more spring in
my step when running and more
power in my deadlift. As for the
girls? Unfortunately, the jury’s still
out on that one.
MAY 2021 79
Kick-start your heart:
careful maintenance
will keep your
ticker, ticking.

80 MEN’S HE ALTH
 HE ALTH

TO PROTECT YOUR
HEART Treating this critical yet
vulnerable workhorse
organ right isn’t just about
doing the same old stuff.
Take advantage of new
tech, new science and new
thinking today and help
remove cardiovascular
disease from that number-
BY MH WRITERS PHOTOGR APHY BY DA N FORBES one-killer-of-men spot

MAY 2021 81
 BODY
1
TRAIN LIKE YOU’VE
ALREADY HAD A
HEART ATTACK
2 DO THIS HIIT WORKOUT
A new cardiac-rehab protocol
reveals a smart strategy for anyone
who wants a stronger ticker

DOCTORS USED TO treat guys who had heart

trouble with kid gloves, as if their hearts were
extremely fragile and intense exercise could
cause another blowout.
“We had the ‘Take it slow, let’s not push too
hard’ view of recovery,” says Dr Andrew Keech,
an exercise physiologist at the University of
New South Wales.
It was safe and reasonably effective for
strengthening the heart and avoiding future
problems like another heart attack. It was also so ) INCHWORMS
Stand with soft knees, feet
boring that guys in rehab didn’t show up for their A) PRISONER hip-width apart. Lean forward,
cardio workouts. (Sound familiar?) Norwegian
cardiology researcher Dr Ulrik Wisløff had the
VERTICAL JUMPS reach down and place both
Stand with your feet hands on the floor. Walk your
notion to turn things up a notch. The maximum shoulder-width apart, hands as far past the plank
amount of oxygen your body can use during hands behind your position as possible without
exercise – your peak aerobic capacity, or VO2 head. Keep your back arching your back. Hold a
straight, brace second. Walk your feet toward
max – is the single best predictor of cardiac-
your core and sit into your hands and repeat.
related deaths (and deaths of all causes). So his
a half squat. Jump up,
team figured that exercise that raises VO2 max lower into a half squat,
might be just what the doctor ordered. and jump again. Jump
And one of the smartest ways to raise that hiigh or jump quickly,
VO2 max is through high-intensity interval but always land softly.y
training. With HIIT, you make your heart beat
hard, then back off and let it recover, then go
hard again, reaching intensities that the start-
low-and-go-slow approach could never match.
Wisløff’s method worked. In a seminal 2007
study of adults in cardiac rehab, those who did a
HIIT program three times per week – they spent
four minutes at a tough 90-95 per cent effort,
recovered for three minutes, then did it again
three more times – increased their VO2 max
D) LATERAL WALKING PUSH-UPS
Get in a high-plank position, feet wider than shoulder width. Place one
three times as much as those who walked for hand on the edge of a step and the other on the floor. Do a push-up. As
about 45 minutes at 70-75 per cent effort. you come up, cross the hand that was on the floor over the hand on the
The HIIT rehabbers remodeled their hearts platform. Move your weight over the platform and place the other hand
in a way you can, too. Their left ventricle on the floor. Keep alternating from side to side.
transformed from stiff and ineffective to
stronger and springier, meaning it can hold and
squeeze out more blood with every beat.
Keech’s team published research in October BEGINNERS
2019 that found that six weeks of cardiac-rehab 8 rounds, 3 times a week
HIIT also lowered other heart-disease risk
factors: it dropped systolic blood pressure
and reduced dangerous belly fat by AT AFTER 2 AFTER 2
10 per cent. And it was fun, which meant FIRST WEEKS MORE WEEKS
they were more likely to stick with it. And so 15 SECONDS ON 20 SECONDS ON 30 SECONDS ON
are you. Do the workout at right to get your 20 SECONDS OFF 15 SECONDS OFF 15 SECONDS OFF
heart functioning more efficiently.

82 MEN’S HE ALTH

The following HIIT workout
by Menachem Brodie, founder
of Human Vortex Training, gets
your heart reshaping itself in a
healthy way (see #1) while also
strengthening your muscles
C) WALRUS PULLSS
Lie facedown, torso on a towel, arms
extended overhead, palms flat. Press
into the floor with your hands and,
keeping your forearms and elbows
close to the floor, pull until your chin is
at your hands. Reverse the move back
to the start and repeat.
E) REVERSE LUNGE HOLD
nd step back
e, front knee
st 90°, back
ing over the
for the
ied below.
to the start;
s.
ADVANCED
8 to 10 rounds, 3 times a week
AT
FIRST
30 SECONDS ON 40 SECONDS ON
14 SECONDS OFF 10 SECONDS OFF
HE ALTH
ANALYSE YOUR
3 -6 SMARTWATCH DATA
Dr Aaron Baggish, a cardiologist at Massachusetts General Hospital
and team cardiologist for the New England Patriots, helps you
understand the heart-related numbers from your wearable
3
RESTING HEART RATE 4
WHAT IT IS: How many times
HEART RATE RECOVERY (HRR)
your heart beats in a minute.
WHAT IT IS: How much your
The lower it is, the better your
heart rate drops in the first
fitness – your heart doesn’t
minutes after exercise; it tells
have to work as hard to keep
you how efficient your heart
up with demand. The very fit
is. The more consistently you
have resting heart rates as low
exercise, the faster your
as 40 (60 to 100 is normal).
HRR will be.
USE IT: A regular exercise
USE IT: It helps prove that
plan naturally decreases it.
60 your workout is making you
If it’s 15-20 beats higher than 25
usual in the morning, that
fit. A drop of 20 beats in the
first two minutes is normal.
may mean you’re getting sick
Athletes can drop 30-50 beats
or you’re not recovering fully
per minute.
from workouts.
8
150
5
SLEEP 6
WHAT IT IS: A number that’s
critical to your heart. The
ACTIVITY DATA/STEPS
WHAT IT IS: How much
heart is the only organ that
never really fully rests, you move around in a day
but sleep is aboutthe – and it matters. When you
closest we can get. don’t move enough, your
blood pressure goes up,
USE IT: Aim for seven to eight
your cholesterol spikes and
hours a night. New research
inflammation increases.
has found that people who
regularly slept less than six USE IT: If you have a desk job,
hours were 27 per cent more stand up every 45 minutes
likely to have plaque-laden and do something. Aim for
arteries than those who slept 150 minutes of moderate-in-
seven to eight. tensity exercise per week.
NEWS UPDATE i)
7 S H O U L D I TA K E M E D S I N S T E A D O F G E T T I N G A S T E N T ?
If you have confirmed narrowed coronary arteries that aren’t causing symptoms,
adding a bypass or stent to a healthy lifestyle and medications does not reduce
AFTER 3 the risk of death, says a new study in The New England Journal of Medicine. The right
WEEKS lifestyle habits and medications “can essentially freeze plaques in their tracks,” says
Dr Peter Johnston, an interventional cardiologist at Johns Hopkins. Those meds
include aspirin and statins, along with beta blockers, calcium channel blockers and
long-acting nitrates. Bottom line: consider a pill prescription first.
MAY 2021 83

ASK YOURSELF THESE QUESTIONS
Harvard Medical School cardiologist Dr Haider J. Warraich
treats patients, sees and studies disparities in heart care
and is the author of State of the Heart
8 Is my heart-disease risk
higher than I think?
Your risk can vary and many risk
factors can be modified with
lifestyle changes, like eating more
produce and cutting processed
foods, moving more and taking
the medications you’re prescribed.
However, one’s race and ethnicity
are also risk factors for heart
disease. (According to Heart
Research Australia, Aboriginal
and Torres Strait Islander people
have a higher risk of CVD). While
we used to think these differences
were mostly biological, a higher
risk of heart disease is now usually
considered to be a result of social
and environmental factors, such as
lower income and less access to care.
One good way to figure out your
risk of heart disease (and stroke) is
with The Heart Foundation’s online
‘Absolute CVD risk calculator’. We
suggest taking the trouble. You can
find it at heartfoundation.org.au.
9 Do I connect with
my doctor?
A good doctor isn’t just someone
who will order tests and prescribe
medications. Your doctor has to
be someone you can trust, who
makes you feel heard, and with
whom you feel comfortable making
decisions about your health.
As an example, a recent study in
the US showed that Black patients
who saw Black doctors received
34 per cent more preventive
services, in part because the
patients likely communicated
TRY 4 NEW WAYS TO
EAT AN AVOCADO
12 heart-healthy fats, but they’re also
seven grams.) And diets high in fibre
have been linked to better heart health
84 MEN’S HE ALTH
LIFE
11
MAKE
with those doctors better and
trusted them more. This to me SALMON
suggests that finding a doctor LESS
you connect with should be a
top priority.
BORING
Every time the subject of
Everyone needs to know they
what to eat for a healthy
have the right to seek a different heart comes up, salmon
doctor – one they feel understood inevitably does, too,
by – at any time. because it’s a rich source
of omega-3 fats – the
ones that support heart
10 Is my community
supportive of my health?
Heart health is affected by so
health by reducing
inflammation,
maintaining healthy
many things, in particular by arteries and keeping
your community. Many people triglycerides in
who smoke, for example, have check. If your taste
difficulty stopping when they buds aren’t as into
salmon as your
are around others who smoke.
heart is, here’s
On the other hand, those how to make
surrounded by a community this all-star
focused on healthier habits may taste better.
gain many more years of life.
If you aren’t part of a
community that understands and
supports your health, you might
need to find one that does. The
gym can be one such place. At
times, I refer patients to online
groups where people with similar
conditions share wins and losses,
hopes and fears, as they provide SAVE YOUR SKIN
companionship in what can be For crispy, bacon-like
skin, cook the skin
a solitary confinement with
side of a fillet in a hot,
disease. I am impressed by
oiled pan over medium
both the moral support people high. Press down often
receive and the helpful advice with a flat spatula to
they get from others who live enhance contact, until
with the same illness and deal crispy, 3-4 minutes.
with the same issues. Often they Flip and kiss with heat,
about 1 minute.
talk comfortably about problems
that few patients bring up in front
of their doctors.
i GR
i)
Po
s
f dir
da
mii
sca
pr

TRY GRAVLAX
This style of salmon
is cured, meaning
it “cooks” in a brine of
salt and sugar. So it’s
not as fishy-tasting as
smoked salmon, but
still good on a bagel
with cream cheese.
GO FOR STEAK
Overcooked salmon
– dry, mealy and tough
– is probably why you
hate salmon. Salmon
steaks are harder to
overdo than skinless
fillets. Sear them like
steak on a hot, oiled
grill, 2 -3 minutes a
side for medium rare.
ii) SMOOTHIE-FY THEM iii) CEVICHE-ISE THEM
Avocados’ creaminess adds a
texture to your drinkable meals
similar to that of Greek yoghurt.
Their subtle nutty flavour teams
up well with sweeter ingredients,
like berries and bananas.
HE ALTH
13 G U Z Z L E T H E U LT I M AT E
H E A R T- H E A LT H Y S H A K E
Your heart does best when it has fibre can just zip together this smoothie
on board, plus vitamins, minerals and by dietitian Dr Chris Mohr. It gets you
phytochemicals from plants, all without about halfway through a day’s produce,
tonnes of extra kilojoules. Which can adds some healthy protein and fibre
mean chopping and cooking. Or you and tastes refreshing.
1⁄2 CUP FROZEN
BLUEBERRIES 1 CUP MILK
Their phytonutrients (Or unsweetened dairy
and fibre can help alternative.) The vitamin
lower your risk D is important for 1 LARGE
of heart disease. overall wellness. HANDFUL SPINACH
Its vitamin K may
1⁄2 FROZEN BANANA slow artery calcium
Your heart needs its deposits and its
potassium to trigger folate may reduce
the contractions that heart-disease risk.
move blood through
your body.  
1 SMALL HANDFUL
WALNUTS
1 SCOOP CHOCOLATE
WHEY PROTEIN These provide
more plant-based
This provides protein
omega-3 fats than
and the amino acid
any other nut.
leucine, important
for lean muscle.
2 TBSP HEMP SEEDS
1 SLICE FRESH GINGER (Or flax or chia.)Their
It’s optional, but it will fibre helps
add a burst of bite keep cholesterol
and flavour. under control.
Add all ingredients to a blender and blend until smooth.
NEWS UPDATE ii)
14 S H O U L D I C U T B A C K O N S A LT ?
While sodium isn’t inherently evil – it helps keep your muscles and heart
going – large amounts may contribute to heart-related conditions. Stay in
balance: limit processed foods and, at home, try using larger crystal salt
after cooking. It takes time to dissolve, so the flavour stays on your tongue
longer and you may reach for less.
iv) DRESSING-IFY THEM
Mix 2 cubed avocados, a handful of When blended, avocados create
halved cherry tomatoes, the juice an extra-creamy salad dressing.
of 1 lime and minced coriander and Pour ½ cup vinegar-based bottled
red onion. Let sit for 20 minutes. dressing into a blender, add half an
Add salt and pepper. Eat with avocado and whir until smooth.
tortilla chips – or a spoon. Who needs ranch?
MAY 2021 85
 MIND
15
WATCH BREAKING BAD
How cardiologist Sandeep Jauhar, the author of
Heart: A History, learned to manage one of the
most dangerous things for heart health: stress
IT STARTED with shortness
of breath. Dr Sandeep
Jauhar, the director of the
Heart Failure Program at
Long Island Jewish Medical
Center, would be walking
up the stairs to his fourth-
floor office and find he
needed to stop and rest. The
cardiologist had just turned
45, and he followed the
Mediterranean diet, played
tennis regularly and already
took a statin for marginally
high cholesterol. He went
for a check-up that led to a
CT angiogram. It revealed a
30-50 per cent block at two
places in the main artery
feeding his heart. “I felt as if I
were getting a glimpse of how
I was probably going to die,”
says Jauhar.
Given his already
healthy lifestyle, the hard-
charging doctor, who admits
he was “contemptuous
of relaxation”, realised
something else was causing
the problem: emotional
factors. “Stress inflames
20-25
TRY THESE
CARDIOLOGISTS’
FAVOURITE HEART-
HEALTHY HACKS
86 MEN’S HE ALTH
your arteries, causes the
thickening of artery walls,
increases blood pressure,
raises cholesterol, makes
your platelets stickier and
even changes the shape of
your heart muscle,” he says.
Jauhar set about treating
his mental health more
gently. He tried yoga but
didn’t find it relaxing. So,
he started running four
km every morning instead.
Then he committed to not
dragging any work home.
“Paradoxically, this has
made me focus better
and be more productive at
work,” he says.
The most profound
change was that he
prioritised relaxation. For
years he’d wanted to watch
Breaking Bad but always
felt he should be doing
something more productive.
So, he finally watched the
series. “It sounds trivial,
but I was very, very pleased
with that decision and how it
made me feel.”
20
MY NOISE-CANCELLING EARBUDS
“I pop these in to listen to mid-
21
MY HERB GARDEN
“This garden means I can
tempo classical music and easily cook a flavourful meal
and avoid the salt and calories
practise mindfulness. Both
ILLUSTRATION: ERIC ROSATI
have been shown to improve of takeout. My mainstays – basil,
heart-disease risk factors.” rosemary, thyme, oregano and
– Dr David Montgomery,
PREventClinic
sage – are good on everything.”
– Dr Chris Kelly,
UNC Health Care
 HEALT H

16 17
“WHEN YOU’RE PUT A STICKER SAY THANK YOU.
OPTIMISTIC, IT ON YOUR PHONE A LOT
Dr Mimi Guarneri, an integrative New research shows that when you’re optimistic, it
LOWERS YOUR RISK cardiologist, uses an old-school trick to lowers your risk of heart disease by 35 per cent, says

OF HEART DISEASE get her patients to do stress-reducing

breathing exercises throughout the
Dr Stephen Kopecky, a preventive cardiologist at the
Mayo Clinic. One way to become more optimistic is to

BY 35 PER CENT” day to benefit the heart: she gives them

a small green dot sticker to put on their
phone. Every time they look at the
phone, they’re reminded to perform
this simple nose-breathing exercise to
calm their nervous system: inhale on a
four count through the nose; exhale on
a seven count through the mouth.
think thoughts of gratitude, he explains. Lying in bed
at night and thinking of three things you’re grateful
for at the end of the day is good. Writing them down
in a journal is better. Sending a note or an email to a
person expressing your gratitude is best. Kopecky
adds that practising random acts of kindness daily,
whether it’s letting a driver cut in front of you or buying
a homeless person a meal, benefits your heart. “That
kind of behaviour tells your body’s nervous system that
everything is fine, which lowers your stress level, and
that’s good for your heart,” he says.

18 NEWS UPDATE iii)

RATE HOW 19SHOULD I GET A

YOU’RE DOING GENETIC TEST FOR
RESEARCH BY DR DEAN ORNISH, the president of the STRESS SENSITIVITY?
Preventive Medicine Research Institute, reveals that Just as some people are caffeine
stress management and social support are important sensitive, some people are stress
components in reversing heart disease, along with diet sensitive and take longer to clear
and exercise. Ornish’s program – which has been proven the body of stress hormones,
to reverse cardiovascular disease – emphasises an hour says Guarneri. A genetic
of yoga or meditation every day and focuses on love. “The test that includes the genes
more connected you feel, the more you have a buffer associated with depression,
against stress,” he says. Ornish’s patients rate their level of stress and anxiety – MAOA,
connectedness once a week and aim to increase their score COMT and MAOB, CBS and
through greater interaction with family, friends and social MTHFR – can help tell you if
groups, especially those that include different generations. you’re one. Knowing this can
“With intergenerational communities, there’s a deeper motivate you to be rigorous with
connection,” he says. “If you go to rehab or you lose your stress management, critical in
job, you know that they know, and they know that you know any heart-healthy plan.
that they know, but they’re still there for you.”

22
MY PET CHICKENS
“Spending a few minutes every
morning caring for another living
creature has a positive effect on
stress. Also, knowing where your
food comes from and that it’s
healthy and fresh is important to
a heart-healthy lifestyle.”
– Dr Daniel Jacoby, Yale Medicine
23
MY COFFEE MAKER
“Drinking black coffee has been
associated with a lower risk of
dying of cardiovascular disease
and developing type 2 diabetes.
I make it with reusable pods so
it’s better for the Earth.”
– Dr Raj Khandwalla, Smidt Heart
Institute at Cedars-Sinai
24
MY ADOBE LIGHTROOM APP
“Pictures from college keep me
honest about staying fit. There’s
evidence that visceral fat is
particularly deleterious to heart
health, so these photos
are motivation.”
– Dr Jeremy Robbins, Beth Israel
Deaconess Medical Center
25
MY WIFE’S HOMEMADE DESSERT
“My wife and daughter make
fruit nut clusters with minced
dates and almond butter,
as well as coconut, cocoa
and dried raspberries.
They’re far healthier than
store-bought dessert.”
– Dr Peter Johnston, Johns Hopkins

MAY 2021 87
88 MEN’S HE ALTH
 HE ALTH

Can the
World Stop
the Next
Pandemic?
Over a year has now passed since we first
heard the term COVID-19, not long before the
sudden start of our “new normal”. But was the
devastation it caused really inevitable?
Here, science journalist Debora MacKenzie
argues that the pandemic was eminently
preventable – and that if we can’t learn from our
mistakes, this could merely be the beginning
BY DEBOR A M ACKENZIE

MAY 2021 89
 On 11 February 2020, the World
Health Organisation (WHO) gave a
name to an illness that had emerged
only two or three months earlier:
Coronavirus disease 2019, more
commonly referred to as COVID-19.
That day, few would have believed that, a
year later, the odd-sounding disease would
still be the defining issue for men’s – and
everyone’s – health. But it hasn’t just been
a period of mounting death tolls, baffling
symptoms and economic mayhem. The last
year has also seen an unprecedented
outpouring of science, the invention of
effective vaccines and a deeper
understanding of how pandemics happen.
So, it’s time to ask ourselves a few things.
Could we have stopped the pandemic? Can
outbreaks such as this happen again? If so,
has COVID-19 taught us how to prevent the
next one?
Spoiler alert: during the first lockdown
last autumn, I wrote a book called COVID-19:
The Pandemic That Never Should Have
Happened and How to Stop the Next One.
Just based on what we knew then, the
answer was yes, we could certainly have
prevented it, or if not, controlled it better.
And, yes, there will be another outbreak like
this, of an animal virus that spreads lethally
in people. Since last autumn, this has
become even clearer: if we learn what we did
wrong this time and act on it, there is every
chance that we can stop the next one. What
we don’t have is any assurance that
governments facing the economic fallout
of this pandemic will do what is needed.
It isn’t as if we weren’t warned this time.
The real scandal of COVID-19 is that
scientists have been predicting such a crisis
for decades. Some of them even warned
about this specific family of viruses. I know:
I’m a science journalist, and I’ve been
reporting the warnings since the 1990s.
They boil down to this: there are many
90 MEN’S HE ALTH
viruses in wildlife that can spread
to and between humans – and even
kill. This is happening with increasing
frequency, as humans live and work
in formerly wild areas and encounter more,
sicker wildlife. The germs that jump to us
spread further and faster as our
global connectedness increases, yet
we don’t have adequate plans or enough
research and development to detect and
limit such outbreaks before they spread out
of control.
In other words, the conditions that led
to COVID-19 have not gone away, and
another pandemic could happen at any time.
There are worrying viruses just waiting for
their chance.
What has changed, however, is that now
we all know that this threat is real. BC – that
is, before COVID – few people, especially in
rich countries, believed that our modern
world could be struck down by pestilence.
Such an idea seemed like something from
the distant past. That, I think, is what
ultimately kept us from being ready.
For years, scientists warned of the threat
and many countries had plans in place for
a pandemic – at least, on paper. But when
COVID-19 hit, the responses in many places,
including the US and the UK, were chaotic
and ineffectual.
The Origin Story
In December 2019, doctors in the Chinese
city of Wuhan noticed that they were seeing
a lot of unusual cases of severe pneumonia.
Tests soon revealed a new kind of
coronavirus. They found that it was
spreading between family members. Viruses
that are new to humans can’t always go from
person to person easily, so they don’t travel
far. This one could.
It was an important observation: the first
hurdle is to recognise the problem. But the
Chinese authorities decided to play down
the outbreak. Doctors were told to stop
putting cases in the central reporting system;
then, tests were limited, so the official case
numbers didn’t climb. In early January,
Beijing told the WHO about the outbreak but
claimed – to the Chinese public, as well as to
the WHO – that it didn’t spread from person
to person.
No one apart from those involved knows
why. There was a big government meeting
planned for Wuhan in January, and officials
might have decided to keep things quiet. A
similar coronavirus that broke out in China
in 2002, SARS, was contained by isolating
people with symptoms; perhaps they
assumed that the new virus could be
stopped just as easily, with sick people
confined in hospitals. Comments from the
time suggest that, like officials everywhere,
they didn’t want to panic people.
As we now know, people without
symptoms can transmit COVID-19, so it
continued to spread in Wuhan. Eventually,
on January 20, Beijing announced that
COVID-19 could spread from person to
person, after all, and put Wuhan – soon
to be riddled with the virus – in lockdown
three days later. By then, however, some
five million people had left for their big
annual New Year’s holiday, spreading the
virus worldwide.
If they had acted later, it would have been
far worse for both China and the rest of the
 HE ALTH

world. If they had acted earlier, they might, in
theory, have stopped the pandemic
completely. Yet epidemiologists suspect that
no authorities would have acted aggressively
enough, or early enough, to stamp out the
virus before they knew much about it
– especially that people without symptoms
could spread it. After all, many authorities,
including in the US, were reluctant to take
strong actions even after they knew far more.
But if we had known about this earlier,
maybe more countries could have deployed
tests, isolated infected people and their
contacts and limited or quarantined
travellers, before the virus got far. Singapore,
South Korea, Vietnam, Taiwan, New Zealand
and, yes, Australia acted swiftly once the
truth was out, significantly limiting their
epidemics. If more countries had done the
same, it wouldn’t have stopped the virus
completely but it might have meant far less
suffering and death.
banning chemical weapons, countries
declare their chemical activities and
inspectors verify that what they have
declared is true. Something similar happens
for nuclear material. Countries set aside
sovereignty in these limited ways for
everyone’s safety.
The IHR now requires countries to
declare novel outbreaks, and China did – just
not completely. What if the WHO had been
able to say, “Thanks, our inspectors will be
there tomorrow to check it out”? The truth
could well have emerged earlier.
And if countries had to make these
declarations regularly, inspectors
could come in and check that they really are
looking hard enough to know that they have
no new or worrying diseases. In the case of
poorer countries at high risk, other nations
could help them build that capability.
That’s what we really need: disease
surveillance everywhere. The IHR requires
rich countries to help poor ones do that now,
but according to global health experts,
it isn’t happening.
That’s just one idea for how we could
somehow all take charge of this problem.
However, we need a more foolproof
early-warning system soon, because
we will get more outbreaks like this.
History Repeats
Back in the 1970s, scientists were convinced
that we had largely beaten infectious disease
with public health, sanitation, vaccines and
drugs. That was until HIV – originally a

Poor Communication
Wherever the next outbreak occurs, we need
to make sure that we rapidly have access to
the complete information. Chinese officials
are far from unique in wanting to keep
diseases quiet. In the 1990s, most European
countries denied that there was mad cow
disease on their farms, long after scientists
knew that it had to be there. African
countries reluctant to report cases slowed
the response to the 2014 Ebola epidemic.
The former US president Donald Trump
downplayed COVID-19 early on to avoid
upsetting people – or the stock market.
So, how do we make sure that this
doesn’t happen again? Trump blamed the

86%
WHO for not warning the world that the virus
was contagious. Yet the WHO had no way to
find out if Chinese authorities didn’t tell it or
even let WHO experts in.
Even though we are all at risk when The es
t i m at e
a disease breaks out, the treaty that governs d prop
of thos ortion
this – the International Health Regulations as y m p e who
t om at are
(IHR) – puts the country with the outbreak i c , maki
isolati ng
solely in charge. The WHO can’t demand to ng CO
p at i en VID -19
investigate, even if it suspects that it hasn’t ts a ch
all en g
heard the whole story, because that would e
violate national sovereignty, which is
sacrosanct in international relations.
This is dangerous in a world as closely
connected as ours, where a contagious
disease anywhere is soon everywhere. How
do we reconcile the need for countries to
be independent with the need to make sure
that they act in all of our interests, and To stop a future
pandemic, we need
quickly, when needed? Other international to act fast on all
treaties use verification. Under the treaty that we now know.

MAY 2021 91
 chimpanzee virus – went pandemic in the
1980s. It still is pandemic.
Shaken, experts realised that other germs
could jump from animals to people. And
many have. One estimate is that around five
do so each year, and that figure is rising.
Some of these diseases fizzle out, or do very
little. Others spread clumsily, and we beat
them back – as we did with SARS and its
cousin MERS, which emerged in 2012.
A few just keep circulating as people
develop immunity, as with the four flu
pandemics since 1918. And some haven’t
– yet – evolved the ability to spread between
people, such as bird flu.
But there are viruses that are trying. When
I ask disease researchers what scares them
most, many say Nipah. This virus is carried by
the big fruit bats of Asia and Africa. Some of
these animals were driven out of deep forests
by fires in 1998 and flocked to farms, where
they spread the virus to pigs, then to people,
in Malaysia. The final scenes in the Steven
Soderbergh movie Contagion (2011) were
person to person from there. The cases from more close encounters with wildlife just by
the market might simply have been because trying to earn a living. The Intergovernmental
people crowd together there. Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem
China has shut down sales of wildlife Services (IPBES), a group of scientists who
for food since then, which is wise, given all advise governments on biodiversity, reported
the unknown germs that they carry. But last October that thousands of viruses in
bat viruses can spread in other ways. wildlife can probably spread to humans
Powdered bat guano, for example, is – and increasingly, they actually do.
used widely in China as a traditional
remedy for eye ailments. A Stronger Defence
The bigger problem is that humans So, how can we stop this? The EcoHealth
around the world are having more and Alliance, a non-profit organisation based in
T
7
h
5%
e d
ra
ir u
t
eath s, which
e fo r th e

ats.
based on Nipah. This virus scares scientists a h v u i t b
Nip from
fr
n
because it has a 75 per cent death rate. It is
i gi n at es
h a v e bee
moving – first into Bangladesh, now across or tions 998
India – and has started to spread from Infec ed since 1
t
person to person. Sure, it isn’t travelling very repor
far, for now. But that could change.
The WHO has a watch list of scary viruses
like this. COVID-19, for example, has cousins.
In 2005, a Chinese virologist, Zhengli Shi,
found dozens of viruses that are very similar
to SARS in common insect-eating bats.
By 2017, she and her colleagues had
found the SARS virus itself, and others that
could already infect human airway cells and
cause disease, straight from the bat. They
warned that these were “poised” for human
emergence. There was little response – no
drugs, or vaccines, or diagnostics developed,
nor surveillance started. And then one
eventually emerged and caused COVID-19.
It is hard for humans to catch a virus from
ordinary wild bats – those in the US carry
rabies, for example, but very few people
catch it. One way we could have stopped
COVID-19 would have been to severely limit
contact between humans and bats.
Bats are eaten across Africa and south
Asia, but normally not the kinds that carry
COVID-19, and there is no evidence that this
is how it emerged. Some early cases in
Wuhan had links to a market that sold wildlife
for food, but many had none.
Andrew Rambaut of Edinburgh University
says that the virus’s genes show that We may have vaccines
for COVID-19, but we
it jumped only once, probably from one bat need to be alert to
into one or a few people, then spread from the next threat.

92 MEN’S HE ALTH
 HE ALTH

New York that works on both wildlife disease
and conservation, helped to discover and
warn about the SARS-like viruses in bats.
Peter Daszak, head of EcoHealth, tells me
that we need to look for wildlife viruses that
can invade humans, and design drugs and
vaccines for them before they emerge – not
after a pandemic is raging, as we are now.
Experts must also try to ensure that
humans aren’t exposed to those viruses by
working with people to stop risky behaviour.
This means making industries that stress and
displace wildlife and bring it into contact
with people – farming, lumbering, mining,
road-building, the wildlife trade – far more
careful in their actions.
But no existing organisation can do all of
that. “It would need a coalition of the willing,”
says Daszak: groups from the WHO and
conservation organisations, plus varied
industries and researchers brought together
by a specific, government-level pandemic
prevention council, in order to get the
important work done.
The answer is certainly not to kill the
animals. “Bats don’t cause disease
emergence,” says Andrew Cunningham of
the Zoological Society of London. “People
do, by destroying bats’ habitat.” Besides, bats
save billions of dollars’ worth of crops yearly
in the US alone by eating insect pests –
never mind that they are the sole pollinators
of the agave plants used to make tequila.
And that’s not all. Without fruit bats
spreading seeds, says Cunningham, “There
would be no rainforest, with its vital role in
controlling the climate.”
Instead, IPBES calculates that for around
$50bn per year, the world could control the
global wildlife trade and reduce risky
changes to land use enough to cut the risk
of pandemics. This is around 1 per cent of

“WE NEED TO IDENTIFY NEW the cost so far of COVID-19. IPBES hopes
that this obvious bargain might inspire

VIRUSES AND DESIGN DRUGS governments and industries to find the

necessary funds.

BEFORE THEY GO PANDEMIC” It seems a no-brainer. The US is the

world’s biggest importer of wildlife – mainly
pets – and the trade spares little thought for
viruses. In 2003, US children caught a virus
related to smallpox that had been brought in
with pet African rats. Land-use change, such
as converting tropical forests to palm oil
plantations, released a third of the dozens
of new germs that have invaded people from
animals since 1960, says IPBES. Both could
be managed better.
Meanwhile, climate change also stresses
and displaces wildlife. It contributed to the
forest fires that drove out the Nipah-carrying
bats. Restoring the forests would massively
reduce greenhouse gases, while giving the
bats somewhere safer to go.
A win-win, then. Yet while the leaders of
the world’s 20 biggest economies, the G20,
promised in March to “substantially increase”
spending on “a global initiative on pandemic
preparedness and response”, their second
statement in November mentioned no such
spending or initiative: just “advancing global

$50b
pandemic preparedness, prevention,
detection and response”, and the “continued
sharing of timely, transparent” information.

T h e an
m e as u
n u al c
os
n There was no mention of trying to prevent
any more failures of transparency.
The good news is that we now have a
r e s d e s t of
to pre v igned better idea of how the COVID-19 pandemic
ent f u t happened and how we could stop the next
p an d e u re
mi c s , s one. Governments reeling from COVID’S
c u rbin u c h as
g th e g economic impact may need convincing. But
wildlif l ob al
e t ra d e the G20 was right – we need to channel
more resources into preparing for,
preventing, spotting and responding to
pandemics. We can’t afford to wait long.

MAY 2021 93
 In An
Idle World
IF YOUR MOTIVATION TO EXERCISE HAS BEEN FALTERING LATELY, EVOLUTIONARY
BIOLOGIST DANIEL LIEBERMAN SYMPATHISES. HE ARGUES THAT RECREATIONAL
TRAINING RUNS COUNTER TO HUMAN INSTINCT, AND THAT OUR ANCESTORS WEREN’T AS
FIT AS THE POPULAR MYTH SUGGESTS. COULD IT BE THAT YOU WERE BORN TO BE LAZY?

BY PAUL WIL SON PHOTOGR APHY BY MICH A EL HEDGE

94 MEN’S HE ALTH
 FI TNE SS

DANIEL
LIEBERMAN
A paleo-
anthropologist
at Harvard,
Lieberman’s
book Exercised:
The Science of
Physical
Activity, Rest
and Health
challenges
common beliefs.

Were hunter-
gatherers really
fitter than we are?

MAY 2021 95
 f exercise is integral to our health
and longevity, why do many of us
find it so uncomfortable? If this
thought has ever crossed your
mind, Daniel Lieberman’s Exercised
is the eye-opening, mind-expanding
and potentially body-reshaping book
for you. Lieberman is a professor at
Harvard and a keen marathoner
– sometimes barefoot. His life’s work
in evolutionary biology makes him
your ideal companion for a journey
through the history of exercise, rest
and health. And he can explain why
a desk job might not be as bad for you
as you think.
A theme of your book is that there’s
too much conflicting information
about what constitutes “good”
exercise. Why are we so confused?
That’s a good question. First, we tend
to oversimplify things. People like
to give and receive simple answers,
because they don’t want complexity.
Second, the problem with biology
is that it’s a messy topic. Bodies are
messy and, if you try to oversimplify,
you’re going to get it wrong. But we
have, in many ways, medicalised
and industrialised exercise. And in
order to do that, you need to have
a simple message.
But haven’t you tried to distil
evolution into about 300 pages?
I still needed a book to do it! You
couldn’t do it in a pamphlet, right?
Sure, but you do make a snappy
conclusion to summarise your work.
Yes: make exercise necessary and
fun. Do mostly cardio, but some
weights. Some exercise is better than
none. And keep it up as you age.
You’ve been criticised for writing
another self-help book. What was
your objective?
Well, hopefully, by the end of this
book, you’ll better understand
what you’re doing and why. Of
course, many people are already
into exercise and they know all this.
But I wanted to write a book that
was equally interesting and useful
for people who feel confused about
96 MEN’S HE ALTH
exercise and feel shamed, blamed diseases like heart disease, cancer
or even bullied. They are the vast
majority of the world, and they have
HITS & and diabetes. This book’s a sequel.
It’s about how exercise fits into that.
a lot of questions. MYTHS But haven’t we recognised that? We
Fitness ‘facts’
What surprised you in the research that don’t tally invented jogging and gyms to fight it.
and writing of this book? with the evidence That’s evolutionary, isn’t it?
I wasn’t planning to write about rest It’s a cultural evolution. The problem
MYTH 01
and inactivity. But to write about is that we tell people that if they don’t
physical activity, I needed to write
We evolved exercise, there’s something wrong
about the other side of the coin. I was
to exercise with them. But it’s not a natural
Lieberman’s Law
as surprised as anyone when I read instinct. We have to choose to do it.
We evolved to rest,
the literature on sleep, because I so it takes work to When I go to my office, which is on
always thought that you needed make exercise fun the fifth floor of a Victorian building
eight hours of sleep. You don’t. And and appealing. on the Harvard campus, I guarantee
I was very surprised to read just how Staying active you that, every single time, I want
requires finding your
hyperbolic a lot of the arguments own motivation. to take the elevator. It’s my instinct,
about sitting are. The evidence right? The reason I don’t do it is that
suggests that the sitting position MYTH 02 if anybody catches me, they’ll label
doesn’t really have any effect on Sitting all day me a hypocrite.
your back. There’s a tonne of data on is dangerous
that. Hundreds of papers. I emailed Lieberman’s Law Isn’t the point here to reach the
the guy in Ireland who is the world’s Sitting for up to 10 people who don’t ever take the stairs
expert. He told me, “Yeah, I’ve hours a day is entirely because it’s too hard for them?
normal and natural,
written, like, 20 papers on this and so long as we We have to understand that all
nobody, nobody, pays any attention”. remember to get up of us struggle with these
and move instincts. I’m still better
So, are you saying we can slouch in periodically. off if I take the stairs
any old chair and that’s okay?
What’s associated with poor
health outcomes is leisure-time
sitting. If you’re sitting all day at
work, then you come home and
sit, you’re not getting any physical
activity. Interrupted sitting is
really important. Hunter-gatherers
evolved to sit in a periodic way, to
get up to run after a child,
or tend the fire. Now, we can sit for
hours watching a movie, staring at a
computer screen, or whatever. That
kind of uninterrupted sitting has
negative metabolic consequences.
Is our behaviour counter-
evolutionary, in that we
aren’t doing what our
bodies are designed
to do?
My previous book,
The Story of the
Human Body, dealt with
that: why our bodies are not
necessarily adapted for the
kinds of environments in
which we now live, and that
explains why we get so many

rather than the elevator, even if I went
for a five-mile run in the morning.
It’s normal to want to be physically
inactive, and we now have to make
choices that we never evolved to make.
And that’s hard.
Do you still run barefoot?
Most of the time, I wear shoes.
I occasionally enjoy taking them off.
I did a good run this morning: I did
the virtual Boston Marathon.
Another thing that’s considered
common knowledge is that exercise
is good for your mental health. Why
can’t people use that as a first step
on a journey to better health?
Clearly people still struggle with
those messages, and we need to
understand why they struggle.
Furthermore, a lot of people don’t
understand why and how the
benefits accrue. If you’re unfit and
you take the stairs, you just feel
awful. It doesn’t make you feel
any better. Sometimes, the
benefits can come 20 years
“WE NOW HAVE TO MAKE
CHOICES THAT WE NEVER
EVOLVED TO MAKE”
MYTH 03 later. The medical profession often
You need eight doesn’t understand how to tell people
hours’ sleep how and why exercise is healthy. It
lowers your cholesterol level, yes. But
Lieberman’s Law
If you clock more almost nobody really grapples with
than six hours, sleep how exercise affects your energy
between 2am-4am balance and how it turns on repair
and don’t nod off and maintenance mechanisms that
during the day, rest
assured. are silent and invisible. And why,
as we get older, physical activity is
MYTH 04 more important, not less important.
Men should be big So, I think understanding why
and strong things are the way they are is very
Lieberman’s Law empowering and useful.
Bodybuilding is
a pastime, not How does this help people who
a prescription. Power
and agility are more want to be healthier?
useful than strength. The first step is for us to start to
think differently about exercise
MYTH 05
– to understand why our bodies
Laziness will evolved to be physically active, but
kill you also how and why we evolved to be
Lieberman’s Law inactive. Physical inactivity is a
While staying active fundamental adaptation: we evolved
has many benefits,
you can lead a to save energy, and that’s something
reasonably healthy we don’t discuss. We have all these
life without ever myths about our ancestors being
going to the gym. incredibly fit people. The evidence
says they weren’t. They did as much
as we do. They weren’t particularly
strong, they weren’t particularly
fast, and they weren’t particularly
virtuous. They had no choice but to
be hunter-gatherers. But they only
worked a few hours a day. Typical
hunter-gatherers did moderate
activity, on average, for about two
and a quarter hours a day. I mean,
that’s not a lot. And they didn’t have
perfect health.
Is there an equivalent in the
modern world?
There are almost none
left. The Hadza in
Tanzania are pretty
much the only ones,
so there are a lot of
researchers
going out
there
and, I
FI TNE S S
think, changing the way the Hadza
live. I only went there once and
have read all the other research. I
do work with subsistence farmers,
studying people in Kenya, Mexico
and elsewhere. They are not hunter-
gatherers, but they are like them.
The research from them is that
they’re not doing large amounts
of strenuous activity.
One of your conclusions is
that we need to make exercise
“necessary”. How?
You can never really coerce adults
to do anything in a modern Western
society. But what we can do is figure
out ways to incentivise ourselves.
The other morning, I met a friend
for a run at 6.30am. I’d given myself
a reason to go when I wasn’t pleased
to be out there. When I got back at
7.15am I felt good. All people who
exercise have found ways to get
themselves to do it, right?
True, but you didn’t have to meet
your friend. It’s just nice to run with
someone, isn’t it?
No, it’s a social obligation. We’re
coercing each other. We made it
necessary, socially. I think that’s
very much part of the “necessary”
part. When, as humans, we are
responsible to each other, we change
our behaviour.
What if your friend bails? How do
you coerce yourself?
You sign up for a race, or you just tell
somebody to act as a kind of referee
for your exercise plan. There are all
kinds of ways to do it. One argument
in the book is that we should treat
exercise like education. Education is
a modern, strange thing. Universal
literacy didn’t happen until the
Industrial Revolution. The vast
majority of people who ever lived
never read anything in their whole
lives. Now, we send our kids to
school, and we do it by making
it necessary, and we also try to
make it fun, and we use rewards
and incentives. I think we should
treat physical activity and exercise
in exactly the same way. Make it
necessary, fun and rewarding.
MAY 2021 97
F IT
I T NNEE SS
SS

9988 MEEEN
MEN
M N’S H
HEE AAL
ALTH
ALT
LLTT H
LTH
 TACT IC S

“ALEX
DO
YOU
BELIEVE
IN

GOD ?
“

AL KILMER
embodied confidence, competence and an eerie kind of cool playing icons like
ICEMAN, JIM MORRISON, DOC HOLLIDAY and BATMAN.
Behind all the mythic roles was a man grasping for meaning wherever he could find it.
Here he riffs on cancer, strength, honey badgers and the cosmic uncertainty of death
BY A LE X PA PPA DEM A S PHOTOGR APHY BY TOM S TR AT TON

MAY 2021 99
 ome years ago, Val Kilmer began selling his
original artwork on the Internet. Kilmer has been
making art for a long time. He takes photographs
and creates scrapbook-style media collages with
atmospheric abstract paintings resembling
blooms of underwater lava. His neon
sculpture of a dyspeptic-looking Mahatma
Gandhi hung for a while in the restaurant
of a fancy hotel in South Beach, and he
once cast a tumbleweed in 22-karat gold.
sense of his own relationship to a
postmodern character called “Val
Kilmer”, who is less a person than
a collection of symbolic echoes, and
who casts a long shadow over the real
Val Kilmer’s life despite existing solely
in the media landscape and the public’s
mind. There is nothing inherently interesting
about a piece of steel with a stenciled image
of Val Kilmer as Batman on it, but a piece
of steel on which Val Kilmer himself has
painted a stenciled image of Val Kilmer as
But the project he’s become most famous Batman as part of a project involving the
for is an ongoing series of quasi-self-portraits painting of dozens of Val Kilmer-as-Batman
- Warholian pop-art images of Kilmer in images becomes an act of introspection, a
character as Batman or Doc Holliday or commentary, a reflection on reflections and
Jim Morrison, rendered using stencils and the indelibility of iconicity.  a fateful turn.
brightly coloured enamel paint on 30cm-by- One afternoon I discussed all of this with
30cm squares of reclaimed steel. Sometimes Val Kilmer over the phone.  “Yes,” he said.
he’ll superimpose a stenciled word like ‘love’ “By repainting the exact same thing using
on the image, or a variation of a quote from a stencil, it was a way of contemplating the
one of his movies, such as ‘chicks dig the car’. subject while being very strict with what I
His website didn’t have any Doc Holliday was inviting myself to do.”  called 911.” Eventually, he endures two
paintings at press time, but for a fan-friendly I asked him if the paintings were a way
$150, you could still acquire a portrait of for him to work through the feeling of being
Kilmer as Tom “Iceman” Kazansky – Tom known without being known, to process the
Cruise’s nemesis and beach-volleyball rival weirdness that comes with everyone looking
in Top Gun – in a range of colours from neon at you and seeing Iceman or the Lizard King.  my joy and lifeblood, has become an hourly
green to red and blue to eerie red-on-black.  “It’s not so much me thinking about myself,”
These are not the most technically he said. “It’s more about the icon. The icon of
complex or conceptually weighty paintings. the warrior. Or the gunslinger – that black-
They are not even technically complex or and-white justice that’s part of American
conceptually weighty by the standards of history. That’s Doc Holliday. And then Jim
other paintings by Val Kilmer. But there’s an Morrison is an iconic rock ’n’ roller, a poet.  suggested we could talk in person, but
additional layer of meaning to them, because “I also found there was a surprising
they’re portraits of Val Kilmer by Val Kilmer.  number of fans who wanted original
The pictures feel like a sincere effort on his paintings,” he continued, as if to puncture the
part to use the tools at his disposal to make self-importance of talking about this work in
100 MEN’S HE ALTH
this way. “I sold an embarrassing number
of them.” 
I think he laughed when he said this; I’m
not positive. It was a strange conversation,
because there was no way for it not to be.
Kilmer, now 60, was diagnosed with throat
cancer in 2015. In the opening pages
of his new memoir, I’m Your Huckleberry, he
has lost his New Mexico home as a result of
the 2008 financial crisis and finds himself
convalescing at an ex-girlfriend’s place. This
is a book of absurd juxtapositions; the home
happens to be an Italian Renaissance–style
palazzo in Malibu overlooking the ocean,
because the ex-girlfriend happens to be
Cher. He is there when his condition takes
 
“Cher dipped out for afternoon errands,”
he writes. “Night fell, and I fell asleep.
Suddenly I awoke vomiting blood that
covered the bed like a scene out of The
Godfather. I prayed immediately, then
tracheotomies. “The cancer miraculously
healed much faster than any of the doctors
predicted,” he writes, but adds, “It has taken
time, and taken a toll . . . Speaking, once
struggle”. He describes his new voice as
sounding “like Marlon Brando after a couple
of bottles of tequila. It isn’t a frog in my throat.
More like a buffalo”. 
Kilmer and I both live in Los Angeles. I
he wanted to speak over the phone,
through an interpreter – his high school
friend and business partner, Brad Koepenick.
I would ask a question, I’d hear some

indistinct buffalo growls on the other end
of the line, and then Koepenick would repeat
Kilmer’s response to me in his own voice. We
spoke to each other this way for about an hour.  through the world with the ease of someone
At first there were a few people speaking
in the room, and I asked Koepenick if he
could identify himself. “I’m Brad Koepenick,”
he said. After that, I heard Kilmer speaking
– rarrrggh rarrrggh rarrrggh – and then,
speaking for Kilmer, Koepenick said,
“I am Spartacus”. For all his responses,
for clarity, when Koepenick is speaking
Kilmer’s words, I’ve attributed them to
Kilmer, and I’ve attributed Koepenick’s
occasional comments to Koepenick.  about turning down the lead in David Lynch’s
To understand Val Kilmer, in all his
incarnations, it’s important to recognise
that he has been a Christian Scientist since
the age of seven or eight. Founded in 1879
by the author Mary Baker Eddy, Christian
Science is a form of metaphysical
Christianity whose adherents believe,
among other things, that physical illness and
infirmity result from mental misconception
or “negative thinking”. All of Kilmer’s
answers to questions regarding physical
matters reflect these beliefs – as he writes
in his memoir, his physical difficulties have
led him deeper into spiritual practice:
“When one sense weakens, another grows
strong. I have more time to play in the
metaphysical forests”.  Kilmer walked away or was released from his
It says something important about
Val Kilmer’s mind, however, that the only
historical figure who seems to loom as large
in his personal pantheon as Mary Baker
Eddy is Mark Twain. Twain was a
contemporary of Eddy’s, and while he spoke
approvingly of Christian Science’s core
principles on occasion, he saw its founder
as a charlatan. 
In 2012, Kilmer began portraying Twain
– whom he views as “the first media-literacy
educator” – in a one-man stage show,
Citizen Twain, and has spent years
working on the script for a movie depicting a
fictional meeting between Twain and Eddy,
which he still hopes to direct. “Twain is the
antagonist in the story,” Kilmer says.
“Mary Baker Eddy is the protagonist.
Mark Twain can’t help his pride and ego,
his madness.”
I asked if this was what Kilmer
related to about Twain as a character.
PHOTOGRAPH: JESSICA KATZ
“His madness?” Kilmer asked, and
then Koepenick, the interpreter,
laughed. Sure, I said. His pride, his ego,
his madness. “Yeah,” Kilmer said. “We
all have pride to work through.” 
Foolish Pride?
I wanted to ask Kilmer about pride. When
he was young, he was beautiful and moved
beautiful, from school plays to Juilliard to
the movies, such as 1984’s Top Secret!, which
instantly made him a movie star for playing a
rock star. One year later, with Real Genius, he
was already a hyper-opinionated pain in the
arse on set – he admits as much in his book
– and a year after that came Top Gun, and
with it great fortune.
Kilmer was a stage-trained actor with
grand aspirations – he writes with chagrin
Blue Velvet due to the script’s sexual content
and cops to badgering Stanley Kubrick for a
meeting he never got. But by the mid-’90s,
he’d become an A-list leading man who was
reportedly receiving $6 million per picture,
which was a different kind of grand.  goals, and I have a solid two decades’ worth of
His movie career hit its zenith in the first
five years of the ’90s, when he played Jim
Morrison in Oliver Stone’s The Doors, Elvis’s
ghost in True Romance, the gunfighter Doc
Holliday in Tombstone, Robert De Niro’s
demolitions-expert partner in Michael
Mann’s bank-heist epic Heat, and Batman
in Joel Schumacher’s goofy, garish Batman
Forever. Those last two came out in 1995,
and after that the going got weird. Whether
“I DESCRIBED MYSELF AS A MAN WITH LOFTY GOALS AND I HAVE
TWO DECADES OF WORK I’D DESCRIBE AS LESS THAN LOFTY”
Val Kilmer training in a
Suzuki Method class at
the Juilliard School, New
York. In 1981, at 17, he
was the youngest drama
student ever admitted.
TACT IC S
contractual obligation to play Batman again
due to difficult behaviour is unclear. His next
projects were the film version of the 1960s
TV series The Saint – in which he disappears
behind a series of increasingly ludicrous wigs
and glasses like somebody who really, really
wants you to know he went to Juilliard – and
a remake of The Island of Dr. Moreau, which
became one of the decade’s most infamously
cursed productions.
In the pages of Huckleberry, Kilmer
is equivocal about his reputation as a
temperamental collaborator (“In an
unflinching attempt to empower directors,
actors, and other collaborators to honour the
truth and essence of each project . . . I had
been deemed difficult and alienated the head
of every major studio”), but he talks straight
about much of the work that followed (“I have
here described myself as a man with lofty
work that I’d describe as less than lofty”).
There are true gems in Kilmer’s post-
Moreau filmography, like the David Mamet
human-trafficking thriller Spartan, Shane
Black’s manically inventive Kiss Kiss Bang
Bang, and MacGruber, in which Kilmer
plays a Bond-style villain named Dieter
Von Cunth. His hazy-eyed performance as
the doomed ’70s porn star John Holmes in
2003’s Wonderland is a riff on his Morrison
but funnier and sadder, the Lizard King as
MAY 2021 101
REAL GENIUS TOP GUN
(1985) (1986)
lost soul. But for all intents and purposes,
Batman was his farewell to franchise-hero
parts. Having grown up watching Kilmer in
blockbuster movies and then appreciating his
work in smaller films, I never thought of him
as a cautionary tale about hubris or ego, but
Huckleberry points in that direction. His last
thought on turning down Lynch is a poignant
plea: “Maybe it’s not too late,” he writes.
“Maybe one day we can finally work together.
A character who lives up on Mulholland and
doesn’t speak much? David, I am so sorry I
never explained myself.”  Joanne Whalley, Kilmer steps outside his
We never got around to talking about
Lynch, though, because we started talking
about death, which led us to God, which left
no time for much else. Shortly after a 17-year-
old Kilmer left his home in L A for Juilliard,
his younger brother, Wesley, suffered an
epileptic seizure in the family’s Jacuzzi and
died on the way to the hospital. I asked Kilmer
about how he managed to avoid letting this
loss define him.
“You have to not see it as a loss,” Kilmer
told me. He writes in the book that he’s heard
Wesley’s voice on occasion, admonishing
him from beyond the grave: “No one wants to
see or hear a handsome, successful, talented
writer-actor-director who gets the most
impossible-to-get girls in the world complain
about a damn thing.”  to Kilmer as a question: “Kanye forever?”  “Like honey badgers, you know? Impossible to
“I’ve had experiences with lots of people
that are departed,” Kilmer said on the phone.
“For instance, my mother passed on recently,
and a few days after, I was aware of her – you
could call it her spirit. And she wanted me to
be happy, because she was having a reunion
with her son Wesley and the love of her life,
Bill, her second husband. And they were just
all so happy. It was a great release of a burden
– because my mum, I felt, wasn’t so happy
sometimes, here on Earth.”  “I think so, yeah,” Kilmer said. “I mean,
Kilmer’s access to the unexplained and
extrasensory is a major through line in his
book. At 24, in New Mexico, he encounters
102 MEN’S HE ALTH
WILLOW
(1988)
a black-robed figure in a vision, whom he
recognises as the Angel of Death’s opposite,
the Angel of Life, who pulls out Kilmer’s heart
and gives him a bigger one. At a comic-book
convention, across a table where he’s signing
Batman stuff for Batman fans, Kilmer
meets a Native American fan who asks him,
“What is acting?” – a question that unlocks
the meaning of a recurring dream Kilmer’s
father had about dying in battle with another
Native American man on the frontier. On a
backpacking trip in Kenya with his then wife,
tent, and there’s a three-metre-long monitor
lizard sitting there.  over until he was right in front of me. And
I asked Kilmer if he’s thought much about
why these messengers and symbols appeared
to him, if he believes they were put in his path
for a reason, and if all of us could interact with
the metaphysical world in this way if we paid
closer attention to its manifestations.  very specifically putting his nose in the air,
“Yes,” Kilmer said. “I do think it has to do
with paying attention. And also asking for
[those signs]. I’ve always had a very strong
relationship with wild animals, especially
animals like the kudu, which are very hard to
spot, or the badger, or the black leopard, or the
black panther.”
Kilmer said something else after this,
and Koepenick, confused, repeated it back
Kilmer said the words again, clarifying, and
Koepenick, to me, said, “Wakanda forever”.  daytime and the nighttime.”
“My translator’s higher than hell,”
Kilmer said.
“I’ve got to lay off the ganja, you’re right,”
Koepenick said.
Is it possible, I asked, to summon these
things into your life? To seek out these
encounters with animals and other
spiritual beings?
I’ve never been interested in hunting. But
at the same time – this is a true story that
sounds unreal, but I’ve been back to the same
THE DOORS THUNDERHEART
(1991) (1992)
spot in South Africa, a hunters’ spot that you
have to rent. It’s very expensive because all
the animals there are very mature, so their
horns are very big. And I’m not a hunter, but
I rent the whole area so I can have as wild an
experience as possible with very big game.
And the most vindictive animal out there
is the Cape buffalo. The Cape buffalo has a
phenomenal memory, much better than the
famed elephant. 
“And I’ve been to the same spot three
times. And the second time I went there, [a
Cape buffalo] smelled me, even though I was
the third in a line of humans, and he trotted
then he stared at me for half an hour, as if
to say, ‘Your move – I’m ready’. And then
the third time I went, he did the exact same
thing. Except it was more extreme because
the wind was blowing harder. And he was
as if he was displaying – I’m smelling, I’m
smelling. But this time it was almost like a
playful kind of dance over to me. And I had
the same guides [as before], and the guides
were freaking out. They were babbling in their
native tongue: he knows you, he knows you.
He’s coming to say hello. They were freaking.
And I was like, ‘I know’.
“But that happens a lot,” Kilmer said.
see in the daytime. I’ve seen them in both the
 
PHOTOGRAPH: SONY PICTURES HOME ENTERTAINMENT; ALAMY
Defined by Faith
You’ve played all these heroes over the course
of your career, I said to Kilmer. There’s a
tendency in our culture to frame illness in
heroic terms, as a fight for life or an occasion
for bravery, particularly when we’re talking
about someone we think of as heroic in
another context. We make shirts about
kicking cancer’s arse and write headlines like
Val Kilmer Battles Cancer. For someone who’s
been through it, is the idea of a brave battle

TOMBSTONE TRUE ROMANCE
(1993)
“SOMETIMES YOU HAVE TO BE AGGRESSIVE
ABOUT FINDING A WAY TO BE COURAGEOUS”
with cancer the wrong way to think about it?  He quoted what turned out to be a line from
Kilmer answered without really
answering. He talked about mental attitude.
“It’s half of the healing – making sure the
mind is free, in the morning, of limitations.”
Later, at the end of the call, Kilmer gave
me his email address in case I had any
follow-up questions. After a week or so, I wrote
him an email in which I asked him a few fact-
checking questions about the timing of his
diagnosis and his recovery, and whether it was
difficult to balance his Christian Scientist
beliefs with traditional medicine. He didn’t
answer, though this might be because I also
asked him, very gently, if he had any regrets
about being a jerk on movie sets.
That day on the phone, I let the
conversation go where it wanted to, reluctant
to steer it back to Moreau’s island. I asked
Kilmer if it was hard to get to that place of
being free and clear, if it was something he
had to cultivate. Kilmer said no, that his
spiritual practice had been part of his life
since childhood. Then he asked, “Alex, do
you believe in God?”
I stammered something about being a
skeptic, because suddenly I felt guilty telling
Christian Science Batman that God does not
play a role in my life.   my body while I was at the hospital”.
“The infinite,” Kilmer said. “Have you had
a sense of the infinite?”
I confirmed to Val Kilmer that I have
had a sense of the infinite and stammered
again about psychedelics and the notion that
something must exist outside the boundaries
of our consciousness.  happy I was back. He wanted me to be happier.
“And I think the physical science is
catching up with that,” he said. I asked Kilmer
if having cancer tested his faith, if there were
moments when he wanted to give up hope.
BATMAN FOREVER
(1993) (1995)
the Gospel According to Mark, about faith
in the face of doubt, about doubt as a specific
crucible for faith: “Lord, I believe. Help thou
mine unbelief”.  Christian Scientists believe any malady
What you can tell about Kilmer even
throughout an odd and stilted back-and-forth
is that he’s been through something and
emerged from it that much more certain of the
one thing he believes most strongly, which is
that mental attitude can have transformative
effects. As an inveterate doubter, I wanted
Kilmer to express doubt or regret or otherwise
admit to a sense of powerlessness, which I
suppose is contraindicated in a worldview
based on the importance of mental attitude.
It was the paintings conversation all over
again – I wanted him to talk about the gulf
between our heroic notion of the movie star
and the actual flawed human behind it, but he
couldn’t, or wouldn’t, see it in those terms.  It’s extremely human, when faced
So I asked him what the most surprising
thing was about his illness. He paused for a
minute and then said, “Well, something that
was reaffirmed to me – on such a level, it was
almost shocking – was a sense of universal
love, a kind of power and a different sense of
love. It was coming into my consciousness and
At one point, Kilmer said, one of his
doctors saw him and became animated,
even overjoyed. This specific doctor, he said,
turned out to have been present during a
moment when Kilmer almost slipped away.
“He lost me for a while, and he was just so
I was grateful, but I was not surprised.”  Kilmer interjected.
Why not?
“Because I don’t believe in death,”
Kilmer said.  feathers, so they’re not on fire.”
TACT IC S
HEAT
(1995)
I asked him how he managed to shake a
belief that defines life itself in a fundamental
way for so many people on this planet. He
spoke again about his little brother’s death,
how even though he’d spent years by that
point reading and thinking and praying on
the Christian Scientist concept of death as an
illusion, “having to live it out becomes quite a
different proposition”. 
can be overcome through mental effort, death
included. “And this is what Mrs Eddy meant
when she talked about reinstating primitive
Christianity. That’s how she thought Jesus
was teaching – teaching others to heal
themselves. And that’s what made him a
dangerous man. Because he taught people
how to be independent, and that’s always a
very, very radical thing to do in society.” 
I don’t know enough about science, less
about faith, to argue with Kilmer. And yet,
there on the phone, I realised I envied his
ability to believe, his confidence in the face
of cosmic uncertainty. I envied the security
he derives from what he thinks he knows. 
with adversity, to fall into wallowing and
selfishness and sadness and not wanting
to go on, I said to Kilmer. How do you avoid
surrendering to those feelings?
“Sometimes you have to be aggressive
about finding a way to be courageous,”
he said, “and not believing what your
physical picture may be demanding you
accept as real. Like if someone came into
the room, and they were sleepwalking,
and they were screaming that their
feathers were on fire, what would
you do?” 
Well, you’re not supposed to wake a
sleepwalker, I started to say, and then
 
“You have to find a way to wake them
up,” he said, “because they don’t have
MAY 2021 103
 IR O U
N S LTIM THE

104 MEN’S HE ALTH

M A AT
CK E
DO
WN

DUMBB
VS
ELL
 FI TNE SS

The great kettlebell-and-dumbbell shortage

of 2020 taught you one thing: you definitely
need one of these training tools in your
home gym. But which one? We settle this
classic grudge match once and for all
BY MILO F. BRYA NT
PHOTOGR APHY BY JEFFRE Y WES TBROOK

For whom the bell tolls:

which iconic piece of kit
will live on?

MAY 2021 105

 SHOWDOWN NO 1

GRIP STRENGTH
T’S THE GYM equivalent of hot

I
POPEYE-SIZED forearms don’t
sauce versus tomato sauce and just make you look strong.
a question that trainers have Research shows that a strong
argued about since the dawn grip correlates with longevity
of strength-training time. and resistance to disease.
Which hunk of muscle-building, Dumbbells, says Samuel,
fat-blasting iron is better: the work your forearms most
dumbbell or the kettlebell? effectively. Most people don’t
Both weights share DNA from aggressively grip weights with all
the same ancient training tool, their fingers. Too often, people
Greek halteres, a pair of crescent- squeeze their index and middle
shaped stones with handles. fingers hard but relax their
Ripped Olympians first lifted pinkie and ring fingers.
them more than 2500 years The fix: the farmer’s walk with
ago, swinging them to enhance dumbbells, focusing on keeping
performance in the long jump. the bells level. For as long as
To MH writer Ebenezer you’re walking, says Samuel, no
Samuel, (at right), halteres are forearm muscle can relax.
proof that the dumbbell is your Booooring, says Leija. Why
perfect training tool. “There’s a think through all that when a
reason dumbbells are in every series of kettlebell moves (say, a
single big-box gym,” he says. “If swing to a snatch) forces you to
you want targeted muscle – and squeeze the bell so that it
that’s what all guys want – then doesn’t go flying out of your
you want dumbbells.” hands? “It’s way more fun being
Not so fast. Kettlebells are able to free-flow into different
having a moment. They first positions due to the handle and
garnered an underground the position of the weight.” But
following in the late ’90s as the Leija’s plan doesn’t
training weapons of choice for the pile up time
Russian special forces. They went under tension
mainstream more recently with like Samuel’s
the rise of functional fitness. does. Dumbbells WINNER!
“Kettlebells are exciting and win here.
versatile, especially in flows,
chains of explosive exercises
done in succession,” says trainer WEIGHTY MATTERS!
PHOTOGRAPHY: ANDRE L. PERRY; DUSTIN HAYUNGS; LYMEL BIVENS JR

Once you’ve chosen the best style of bell for your training goals, choose the right weight
Eric Leija (opposite). “I can
do anything I want to do with
FOR YOUR DUMBBELL FOR YOUR KETTLEBELL
kettlebells that I’d do with Think humility when you purchase dumbbells, Technique is critical, so beginners should find a
dumbbells. But kettlebells are Samuel says, and focus on a weight you can weight that doesn’t feel too heavy, something
way more fun.” roper form. “20 pounders between
good starting point,” More adv
So what’s the better way
he says. Top bran The
to reach your goals: fun or : Rogue bells hav
fundamentals? To find out, r-encased and are a
we assessed both training tools are super of weight
in five key situations that are d available in and finish
kg increments
critical to building muscle and
to 60kg.
burning fat at home.

106 MEN’S HE ALTH


SHOWDOWN NO 2
PRESSING MOVEMENTS
IF YOU’VE EVER chased strong,
powerful, boulder-shaped
shoulders, then you’ve likely
tried the military press, which
has you holding weights at your
shoulders, then driving your
arms overhead. The military
press is a classic strength move,
requiring core stability, shoulder
power and shoulder mobility.
It’s also a movement that
works far better with kettlebells
than with dumbbells. The
ILLUSTRATION: PETER SUCHESKI
reason: shoulder-blade stability
and control. On most exercises,
you want your shoulder blades
to depress (move downward
toward your butt) and retract
(squeeze tightly together near
F IT NE S S
THE KETTLEBELL
CRUSHER
Do this 3-move workout from Leija to build
total-body power and muscle
1/ Kettlebell Swing
Grasp a KB handle with both hands, feet set
wide, knees bent. Keeping your core tight,
hike the kettlebell back between your legs.
Stand explosively and squeeze your glutes,
propelling the kettlebell forward. Let the
momentum return it to the start. Repeat for
30 seconds, then rest 30 seconds. Do 3 sets.
2/ Goblet Alternating Reverse Lunge
Hold the kettlebell at your chest with both
hands, core tight. Step back with your
right leg, lowering into a lunge until your
left thigh is parallel to the floor. Explosively
stand back up. Repeat on the other side.
Do reps for 30 seconds, then rest 30
seconds. Do 3 sets.
your spine). The kettlebell places
your shoulder and shoulder blade
in those natural positions, says
Dan John, a veteran trainer and
fitness historian. “It’s rotating
around the back of the wrist,
and it sets [your wrist] in place.”
There’s uncertainty in pressing
a dumbbell overhead, adds John,
and that can lead you to arch your
back or press slightly in front of
your torso, placing excess stress 3/ Single-Arm Push Press
on your shoulder joint. Even Hold the kettlebell at your right shoulder,
Samuel can’t argue with that. core tight. Bend your knees and hips
slightly, then explode up; press the kettlebell
“I’ll give on this one,”
overhead. Lower it to your shoulder and
he says. “The
repeat. Do 30 seconds of reps on 1 side,
kettlebell is the best then 30 seconds of reps on the other, then
pressing implement rest 30 seconds. Do 3 sets.
out there.” WINNER
!
MAY 2021 107
 THE DUMBBELL
DESTROYER
Build definition and strength with
this 3-move set from Samuel

1/ Floor Press
Lie on the floor, holding dumbbells in both
hands directly above your shoulders, feet flat
on the floor, core tight. Tighten your shoulder
blades. This is the start. Bend at the shoulders
and elbows, lowering the dumbbells until
your elbows touch the floor. Press back up,
squeezing your chest.
Do 3 sets of 10 reps.

2/ Single-Arm Farmer’s Carry

Hold a dumbbell in your right hand, core tight, SHOWDOWN NO 3

ISOLATION EXERCISES
making sure your torso doesn’t tip to either
side. Walk forward 10 steps. Walk backward
10 steps. Do this for 30 seconds, making sure
to keep the dumbbell fully level in your hand.
Repeat on the other side.Do 3 sets, resting 30
seconds between each set.
3/ Dumbbell Row
Stand with your feet shoulder-width apart,
a dumbbell in your right hand. Hinge
forward, keeping your core tight, and place
your left hand on a bench, box or chair for
support. This is the start. Keeping your hips
ISOLATION EXERCISES, such as
biceps curls and triceps skull-
crushers, target specific areas,
pushing those muscles to growth
by limiting the involvement of
other muscles. If your goals are
aesthetic, isolation moves should
have a place in your routine. “You
need to spend some time doing
isolation training to grow those
arms,” says Samuel.
Dumbbells are superior,
especially when it comes to the
nuance of biceps curls. Your
biceps has two responsibilities.
You know the first: it flexes your
arm at the elbow. But your biceps
also drives another motion called
supination, turning your palm
upward toward the ceiling.
If you grab a 10 kg kettlebell
and do a biceps curl, yes, you’ll
still have to flex your arm at
the elbow. But the physics of
the dumbbell, with one weight
on either side of the handle,
forces you to think about
supination. “That’s
a biceps-growing
mechanical challenge
you can only get with WINNER!
a dumbbell.”

84.7% 15.3%
and shoulders square to the floor, pull the
M E N ’ S H E A LT H P O L L
dumbbell upward toward the right side of
your rib cage. Pause, then lower. ‘WHEN TRAINING,
Do 3 sets of 10 reps per side. WHICH DO YOU PREFER?’ DUMBBELLS KETTLEBELLS

108 MEN’S HE ALTH

 F IT NE S S

SHOWDOWN NO 5

LEG EXERCISES
IT’S FITTING that the kettlebell-dumbbell battle comes
down to the thing many gymgoers avoid: leg training.
But whether you’re chasing big arms or full-body power,
you must train your legs, because you’ll build total-body
muscle and burn fat.
Leija insists that kettlebells are the best way to light

SHOWDOWN NO 4 up your quads in front squats, thanks to how natural it is to

EXPLOSIVE
hold them in a front rack. Simply standing with dumbbells
or kettlebells at your chest turns on your lats and abs, but
the position is easier to hold with kettlebells. That means
better squats and lunges, but kettlebells fall short in a third

EXERCISES
WHILE ISOLATION EXERCISES help grow targeted muscle,
explosive movements, such as cleans, snatches and swings,
help you develop full-body strength. They teach muscles to
work together, elevate your heart rate and build power.
“You can be explosive and powerful with a kettlebell, just
grabbing and swinging,” says Leija. “And controlling that
momentum builds total-body muscle.”
Samuel points out that you can do a snatch and even a
swing with a dumbbell, too. But the benefits are not as great,
leg exercise, the Romanian deadlift, says Samuel.
“I love the front rack with kettlebells,” he says. “But
dumbbells are far superior when it comes to deadlifts.”
The reason: a deadlift, which works your hamstrings
and glutes, functions best when you can lower the
weights over a greater distance. Kettlebells are bulkier
below your wrists, so they hit the floor sooner as you
lower in a Romanian deadlift, costing you a few centimetres
of range of motion.

Tie!
explains Paul Fabritz, a performance coach who works with
NBA Houston Rockets star James Harden. You can do
explosive exercises with both tools, but which one
is more comfortable? The kettlebell. “Kettlebells
give me more options for power-based
movements,” Fabritz says. WINNER
!

THE VERDICT
It’s a tie! Both weights have advantages, so choose
the one that best suits your training goals

Go with dumbbells if: Go with kettlebells if:

1/ You’re a beginner. 1/ You’re advanced in
Dumbbells are easier your training.
to use, and you can
2/ Your main goal is
find them more easily.
athleticism. You’ll
2/ Your main goal is develop the explosive
muscle. You can’t beat strength and leaping
dumbbells for time ability that you’re after
under tension on better with kettlebells.
iso moves.
3/ You’re looking for more
3/ You’re building a beach excitement and fun in
body. You’ll sculpt the your workouts.
arms and torso you
want with the precision
offered by dumbbells.

MAY 2021 109

 SALMON BURGER
WITH WASABI MAYO >

110 MEN’S HE ALTH

 NUT RIT ION

THE

DI E T

How to fuel up, slim

down and build muscle
and power with every
flavour-packed meal
BY PAUL KITA PHOTOGR APHY BY CHRIS TOPHER TES TA NI

DIETING IS FOR LOSERS. Keto, Paleo, Atkins:

everyone loves a fad diet, and some of them
may even help you lose weight. Except that
weight loss is only one of many reasons to
eat a healthy diet. The other reasons include
fighting disease-stoking inflammation,
keeping your cholesterol in check, fortifying
your immunity, nourishing your brain,
elevating your energy and building strength.
For people who are serious about getting
in shape and building muscle, that last word
is critical. “Diet is a key piece of building
strength,” says Brian St. Pierre, director of
nutrition at Precision Nutrition, a company
whose clients include the San Antonio Spurs.
“Without adequate calories, macronutrients
and micronutrients, you will not be able to
maximise strength, adequately recover or
perform at your peak.”
And that kind of strength doesn’t just
apply to your workouts but to everything in
between: at work, with your family, during
downtime. Will you likely lose weight on
this program, too? For sure. Will you gain
muscle? Absolutely – although a strength
diet considers not just mass but other factors
in overall health. The true strength of the
Strength Diet is less about what you lose and
more about what you gain: vitality, longevity
and simplicity. It takes just four steps.

MAY 2021 111

 STEP

DIVERSIFY
1
YOUR FUEL
Crash diets slash certain foods and burn
entire food groups as a way to kilojoule-
shock your system into weight loss. To
strengthen your entire body, you have to
eat a range of nutrients, says St. Pierre.
Specifically, these nutrients. (Fear not,
we’ll turn these into delicious meals later.)

PROTEIN
It helps your muscles recover,
which leads to enhanced strength.

Especially: ZOONUTRIENTS
(nutrients, such as creatine, that occur
only in animal foods, to further stoke
muscle power and strength)

QUALITY SAVOURY OATMEAL BOWL >

CARBOHYDRATES
They help you work out longer and harder,
and keep your hormones in check.

Especially: PHYTONUTRIENTS
(nutrients that occur only in plant foods,
with distinct colours signifying
different types, to boost health and manage
training-induced inflammation)

Especially: MYCONUTRIENTS
(nutrients that occur only in mushrooms
and other fungi, to avoid deficiencies that
hamper physical function and strength)

HEALTHY FATS
They lower inflammation, improve
immunity and boost your health.
(So you never miss a workout.)

112 MEN’S HE ALTH

 NUT RI T ION

THE

DI ET
STEP 2
CALCULATE
HOW MUCH OF
THESE FOODS
YOU SHOULD
EAT DAILY
It involves (a very little bit of)
maths. The rest is way, way
more delicious. Promise

SET YOUR KILO JOULE S

If you want to maintain your current
bodyweight but add strength, your total
daily kJ goal should be about 135 times
your current bodyweight. So if you weigh
70 kg, that’s 9450 kJ daily (70 x 135).

PRIORITISE PROTEIN
The Big P builds muscle and fills you
up. The oft-cited target of eating about 1
gram of protein per 450g of bodyweight is
the gold standard. So if you weigh 70 kg,
that’s little over 150g of protein, spread
throughout the course of the day.

FILL IN YOUR FATS

You need at least 20 per cent of your kJ to
come from fats in order to maintain your
hormone levels, says St. Pierre. (We do the
maths for you on the following page.)

ADD CARBS
Start with a base of 20 per cent.
St. Pierre recommends diversifying the
carbs you eat, making sure to include
phytonutrients and myconutrients. You
can tinker with the percentage as you
adapt the diet to your tastes and needs.

EXPERIMENT
You’ll notice you have some kJ left over,
WHAT’S about 3000. From here, how you allocate
“HEALTHY” those nutrients is up to you. St. Pierre says
FAT? to play around with adding more fat or
more carbs until you find a balance that
Delicious. Turn satisfies your stomach and your taste
to salmon, eggs
buds. (If you’re not sure where to start,
(and egg yolks),
pistachios, hummus, split the remaining kJ into carbs and fat
mackerel, almonds, and see how that feels.)
coconut and
sunflower seeds.

MAY 2021 113

N U TR I T I O N

STEP 3 APRICOT PORK CHOP

EAT YOUR
WITH KALE- CHERRY-
QUINOA SAL AD >

FORMULA!
Eating grams is boring. On the Strength Diet,
eating should be enjoyable. Here’s how to take
the numbers you calculated in step 2 and turn
them into a plan for really tasty daily meals

THREE GUYS, THREE PLANS

70KG 80KG 95KG
GUY GUY GUY
Daily needs 9414 kJ 11,297 kJ 13,180 kJ

PROTEIN-
RICH FOODS 6
palm-sized
7
palm-sized
8
palm-sized
(meat, poultry,
fish, eggs, Greek portions portions portions
yoghurt, tofu, (180g (215g (240g
seitan, etc.) protein) protein) protein)

NON-STARCHY
CARBOHY-
DRATES
6
fist-sized
7
fist-sized
8
fist-sized
(spinach, portions portions portions
peppers, snap peas)

STARCHY
CARBOHY- 6 7 8
DRATES cupped cupped cupped
(beans, whole handfuls handfuls handfuls
grains, fruit, (combined (combined (combined
potatoes, etc.) 180g 240g 275g
carbs) carbs) carbs)

FAT-RICH
FOODS 6 7 8
thumb-sized thumb-sized thumb-sized
(extra-virgin oils,
nuts and seeds, nut portions portions portions
butters, avocados, (85g fat) (100g fat) (115g fat)
cheese, etc.)

AN APP FOR YOUR MEALS

At precisionnutrition.com/nutrition-calculator, just plug in your
data and choose “Body Recomposition” as your goal. Select your
eating style and customise your macros (balanced, low-carb, low-fat,
etc.). The formula will spit out a plan to maximise your strength.

114 MEN’S HE ALTH

 THE

DI ET
STEP 4
BUILD YOUR
MEALS
How you enjoy your Strength Diet
is up to you. But here’s what a
typical day might be for a soon-to-
be-strong-as-hell 70-kg guy

BREAKFAST
Savoury Oatmeal Bowl
2 soft-boiled eggs; 2 cups sauteed spinach;
4 cremini mushrooms (quartered); and
2 slices torn prosciutto (sizzled) over 1 cup
cooked oatmeal, drizzled with olive oil and
topped with freshly ground black pepper.
NUTRITION: 1879 kJ, 30g protein,
38g carbs (7g fibre), 21g fat

SNACK
3 large pieces beef jerky
NUTRITION: 1029 kJ, 20g protein,
7g carbs (1g fibre), 15g fat

LUNCH
Salmon Burger with Wasabi Mayo
115g cooked salmon tucked inside a whole-
grain burger bun and loaded up with 1 cup
pea shoots, ½ avocado (sliced) and 1 Tbsp
mayo mixed with ½ tsp wasabi powder.
Serve with a ripe Asian pear.
NUTRITION: 2586 kJ, 37g protein, 47g
carbs (14g fibre), 33g fat

SNACK
2 scoops protein powder in water
NUTRITION: 920 kJ, 48g protein,

PROTEIN 4g carbs (0g fibre), 1g fat

OR
POWDER?
DINNER
Apricot Pork Chop with
Whenever possible,
Kale-Cherry-Quinoa Salad
try to eat your 115g pork chop seared with ½ red onion and 3
protein in the form apricots. Serve with 1 cup quinoa mixed with
of real food. That’s 1 Tbsp olive oil, 1 cup kale, 1 Tbsp apple-cider
because real food,
vinegar, ½ cup cherries (pitted and halved),
unlike protein
powder, contains and salt and pepper to taste.
other vital nutrients. NUTRITION: 2732 kJ, 39g protein, 76g
For instance, salmon carbs (11g fibre), 23g fat
has protein but
also heart-healthy
omega-3 fatty acids.
Target: Actual:
Most protein powder
has none. That said, 9414 kJ, 9146 kJ,
protein powder 180g protein, 174g protein,
is cost-effective 205g carbs, 172g carbs,
and requires less 85g fat 93g fat
preparation.

MAY 2021 115

 MH Essentials
A DV E RTI S I NG F EAT UR E

Your monthly guide to what’s happening and what’s new

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 120 TIME TO TRAIN FOR SIZE 126 FITNESS SECRETS OF THE GOATS 129 THE BENCH IS CALLING YOU

B E C A U S E F I T I S T H E N E W R I C H

FISTS OF FURY
COVID-19 has cramped the style of many
a committed trainer. For men who savour
combat, that’s a big problem
STORY BY BRE T T WILLIAMS
CREDIT HERE: NAME HERE

MAY 2021 117


SOMETIMES YOU JUST
WANNA PUNCH SOMEONE
When the pandemic closed my martial-arts gym, I was left with a growing sense of
aggression. My search for an outlet led me to find out a few things I didn’t expect
THE SECOND WEEK of
March 2020 was the last
time I had a chance to
hit someone.
I remember agonising
over what I then thought
was a tough choice: go to
Elements Athletics, my
Brooklyn mixed-martial-arts
gym, for my weekly Muay
Thai training session – the
one socially acceptable
activity that allows me
to act on my aggressive
streak – or take the evening
118 MEN’S HE ALTH
off. I was burned out at
work, my right hand was
recovering from a sprain
I’d suffered in my first
exhibition fight months
before, and I was starting
to worry about the
coronavirus, cases of which
had recently been
confirmed in the US.
I stayed home to rest
and unknowingly gave up
my final opportunity to train
at Elements. By the end of
that week, my office closed,
Governor Andrew Cuomo
banned public gatherings,
and New York City declared
a state of emergency.
Come the first week of
June, the fate of the gym
was clear: when the city
eventually reopened,
Elements would not.
Martial-arts training can
never be done two metres
apart. To properly practise
Muay Thai and Brazilian
jiu-jitsu, physical contact
isn’t just unavoidable – it’s
the whole point. You’re
going to hit, get hit and roll
(which is jiu-jitsu parlance
for wrestling).
“When you are sparring
or rolling with somebody,
you’re breathing very
heavily – this virus is
transmitted via respiratory
droplets,” says Dr Darragh
O’Carroll, an emergency
physician in Honolulu who
has also served as an MMA
ringside physician and as a
medical consultant on
Netflix’s Pandemic
docuseries. “It’s one of the
highest-risk activities I think
we could participate in at
this time.”
According to O’Carroll,
normal practice of martial
arts and similar pursuits will
remain dangerous until
there’s an effective
treatment or the various
vaccines have been widely
rolled out – which, of
course, will probably be
a while.
Each successive blow to
my ability to practise Muay
Thai made me so frustrated
that I wanted to hit
someone even more. I
know these urges indicate
some toxically masculine
tendencies that I should
handle through nonviolent
mental outlets. But the
controlled aggression of my
martial-arts practice had
helped me find balance.
Now I felt stagnant, stuck.
A void had opened – and it
was growing wider.
“I think people are
struggling overall because
the thing that they’re
enthusiastic about they
cannot do, and there’s a
psychological and
physiological component to
that,” says Jonathan Fader,
a sports and performance
psychologist. “One way
to think about it is, the
whole world is injured
right now. Everybody’s
a downed athlete.”
When I stopped playing
American Football after 15
years, I grappled with a
similar existential challenge.
For me, “meaning” is the
order I feel in my life when
I’m participating in
disciplined training,
especially in a group. But
there are also real physical
effects of losing my
practice. “Athletics and
physical activity bring
endorphins,” Fader says.
“They bring in adrenaline.
And the absence of those
things is actually a brain
change. When that’s
removed, most people
are going to feel some
sort of withdrawal.”
This means that
downed athletes like me
have nowhere to find what
O’Carroll calls “that drug”
some athletes need to take.
And for grapplers and MMA
practitioners, the dosage is
even higher. “There’s more
adrenaline involved in their
types of exercise,” he says.
“For a lot of people, that’s
something that they need
to have involved in their life.”
Not want. Need.
During my football
career, which spanned
college and a professional
season overseas in
Germany’s GFL, I prided
myself on being aggressive
in the game. I feel at my
best when I’m pursuing
a goal and there is some
potential for collision, if not
conflict. I need to know that
if someone brings force
against me, I can stand
against them, holding my
ground to defend myself or
whomever they threaten.
Without martial arts in
my life, particularly during
arguably the most
tumultuous period in a
generation, I felt frustrated
and angry. Yes, I wanted to
hit someone. But maybe,
more importantly, I wanted
to have the feeling that
someone might hit me
back – that I could have a
chance to counter the blow,
instead of the reality of
COVID-19, where danger
comes from the invisible
spectre of a deadly virus.
I can blame my
caveman brain for my aggro
inclinations, according to
Fader. He believes that
some people feel the need
for battle and are built for
it more than others.
“Especially people who
are built for being leaders,”
he says. “When facing
danger, they have a very
tough time remaining
stagnant. My view of sports,
especially contact sports,
is they are a societally
acceptable way of
sublimating those desires.”
A Personal Oasis
“I got a freestanding
heavy bag at the start of
the pandemic to give
me something safe to
punch,” says the author,
shown here.“I take out
my stress by piling on
the strikes, one three-
minute round at a time,
just like a UFC fight.”
He continues: “I would
bet that if you took people confrontation since March are more resilient when that
who were big-wave surfing, has been at protests opportunity to compete is
you would find a similar against police brutality, removed,” he says.
neurological response. I where any aggression I’ve wrestled with
think it’s the extremeness would put myself and self-definition throughout
rather than the actual others at risk. the pandemic, more so
contact action.” You need to figure out since the shifting conditions
Despite knowing this, what else you can do to have made any type of
the biggest risk I’ve taken find meaning, Fader certitude laughable. I
is getting a bike. I haven’t suggests. “What we find is constantly return to my own
gone extreme. The closest that athletes that have pillars: my family, my friends
I’ve come to this several pillars to the way and the satisfaction I gain
adrenaline-fuelled state of that they define themselves from doing good work,
often and consistently.

4 WAYS TO
CHANNEL PENT-UP AGGRESSION
You don’t always need an opponent or even a punching bag to blow off steam.
Here’s how to thrive instead of just survive when there’s no one to fight
TRY NARROW
THE TRI YOUR FOCUS
Triathlons require long If you’ve always wanted to
hours of solo effort (and run a sub-25min 5K or bench
solo virtual racing, these your bodyweight, now’s
days), but the mixture of the time. Setting a
sports can offer a sense of numerical goal, and then
“newness” that your brain working towards it, can help
craves, says Jonathan scratch the competitive itch,
Fader, a sports and even if the competition is
performance psychologist. with yourself.
CHASE
ATHRILL
Contact sports often deliver
an adrenaline rush. Try to
replicate it with social-
distance-friendly
alternatives like surfing, rock
climbing and trail running
– all activities that trigger
what Fader calls the “fight,
flight or freeze” response.
FINDSOMEONE
TO LEAN ON
Athletes who are benched
often get strength from
other areas of their lives,
says Fader. So, try giving a
workout to your picking-
up-the-phone muscle and
call (note: not text) a friend
or family member. Talk for
15 minutes. Rest. Repeat.
During the pandemic,
my tiny Brooklyn backyard
has served as an oasis from
the turmoil of the outside
world. The space is just a
few square metres of dirt
with a small concrete patch
I use for exercise, complete
with a standing heavy bag
in the corner.
When I’m at my most
frustrated, I go outside,
envision the pandemic and
the challenges it presents
as my opponent, and
start swinging.
Even if I’m not dodging
any real blows, the punches
I throw have a real effect
– in my head, I’m taking on
the worst that the world can
throw at me, and I’m striking
back, hard.

MAY 2021 119


YOUR HARDCORE
TRAINING PLAN
FOR MAXIMUM
MUSCLE GAIN
Ditch your mediums and prepare to go large.
Our four-week program aims squarely at the
big hitters of high-impact muscle: your
shoulders, back and arms. But it comes at a cost
– you’ll need a new wardrobe
YOUR FITNESS GOALS are
nobody’s business but your
own, and chasing
a six-pack is as legitimate
an aim as any. Yet if it only
takes a T-shirt to hide any
visible evidence of your
hard work, perhaps a
smarter approach to training
is necessary. After all, as we
have addressed in these
pages before, there’s
nothing wrong with wanting
to show off your gym-based
accomplishments. You’ve
earned them, right?
A divide in the fitness
industry has created the
illusion that a sleeve-
stretching set of arms
is to be found only in the
realm of bodybuilding.
There’s an assumption that
if your goal is to stay strong
and fit all year round by
120 MEN’S HE ALTH
prioritising functional fitness,
the only thing you should
strive to show for your efforts
are Strava screenshots, or
Instagram videos of your
clean and jerk.
Fortunately, we have
found a way for you to have
your cake and eat it (then
use those carbs to build
some serious gains). Using
a smart combination of
size-building principles and
lung-searing protocols,
targeting the muscles that
are your biggest hitters
in your conflict with cotton,
you can build a physique
that’s not only imposing
when you a hang a T-shirt
on it, but also has an
impressive ratio of show
to go. The war on your
wardrobe has begun. Let’s
get to it.
1B
2B
1A
2A
WORKOUT #1
BACK IN ACTION
You may not be able to see it in a mirror, but a
wide back builds an eye-catching V-taper
from your shoulders to your hips, while
creating a three-dimensional physique that’s
impressive from any angle. Perform these
four movements at the top of every minute,
switching between exercises every 60
seconds for a total of 10 rounds.
PHOTOGRAPHY: PHILIP HAYNES; WORDS: ANDREW TRACEY; ILLUSTRATIONS: ANDREA MANZATI
1 2
Wide-Grip Pull-Up Dumbbell Row
(6 reps) (12 reps)
Kick off with a bodyweight staple Holding dumbbells across your
that builds serious width. Grasp a thighs, hinge at your hips so your
pull-up bar with a wide overhand torso is facing the floor, and
grip. Lift your feet from the floor straighten your arms so the
and hang freely with straight dumbbells are hanging just above
arms (A). Pull yourself up by the ground (A). From here, row
flexing the elbows while pinching the weights into your hips (B),
your shoulder blades together. thinking about pulling your
When your chin passes the bar, shoulders back before calling on
pause (B) before lowering to the your arms to complete the rep.
starting position. Lower under control.
 BUILDING BLOCKS

GRIP IT LIKE
A GYMNAST
Your biceps and t
get all the love –
without grip stren
those curls won’t
to much. Direct fo
and grip training
be an afterthoug
Upgrade now wit
quick hacks
3A 4Ai

Towel-Grip
Pull-Up
6 reps as part
of your circuit
Wrap a towel over yo
pull-up bar several t
leaving two ends of
roughly 15cm hangin
down, shoulder-wid
apart. Grip an end wi
each hand and perfo
your pull-ups. The m
towel you grip, the
gre
reate
ater the challeng

Pinch-Gripp Row
12 pss as part of 
your circuit
3B Grab two pairs of weight
plates, the sum of each
4B
pair being comparable
to the weight of your
dumbbells. Hinge at your
hips and grip a pair in
each hand, pinching the
plates together between
your thumb and fingers.
Perform your rows,
focusing on keeping the
plates together.

3 4 Towel-Grip Triceps
Extension
20 reps at the end of 
each circuit
Inverted Row Iso Pull-Up Hold With a resistance band
(18 reps) (30-50 seconds) anchored on the
Hang below a bar, handles or Finish each round with ground, fold a towel in
anything solid at around waist a forearm-building hold. half and pass it through
height. Position yourself with Grasp a bar with an overhand the band, creating a
your heels out in front and your grip, lifting your feet from the handle. Grip both ends
arms fully extended. Maintain a floor, hanging with straight of the towel and turn
long, rigid plank from your ankles arms (A). Pull up by flexing your body so that the
to your shoulders (A). Now flex at the elbows while pinching band is behind you.
the elbows to pull your chest up to your shoulder blades Perform your
the bar, pause (B), then lower together. When your chin extensions, squeezing
yourself back to the start position passes the bar, hold for 30-50 the towel as hard as
under control. seconds (B). you can.

MAY 2021 121


A
1B
1 2
Dumbbell Push Press
(6 reps)
Kick off with an explosive,
compound effort. Use a full range
of motion for maximum benefits.
Hold a dumbbell in each hand at
your shoulders. Bend your knees
slightly (A), then explode up,
driving the weights above your
head. Lock your arms out at the
top (B); pause with your biceps
almost touching your ears. Lower
the dumbbells under control and
repeat for the required reps.
122 MEN’S HE ALTH
2A
2B
Dumbbell Clean
(12 reps)
Now that your shoulders are fully
fired up, get pumping with a
weightlifting hybrid that gives
your biceps a wake-up call. Hold
the dumbbells at your sides (A),
bend your knees slightly, then use
momentum to pull the dumbbells
up to shoulder height (B), locking
your knees when you’re at
the top. Take a breath at
the summit of each rep to
fight burnout.
WORKOUT #2
BROADEN YOUR APPEAL
Nothing does more for a summer
body than a solid set of shoulders
that
To bu
visi
fou
minute, alternating exercises
every 60 seconds for a total
of 10 rounds.
3
3A
3
Push-Up
(18 reps)
Place your hands on the floor at
shoulder width and assume a
strong push-up position with
your shoulders stacked above
them (A). Keeping your arms
close to your body, slowly lower
your chest down to the ground
until it reaches the floor (B).
Explosively press back upwards.
Repeat for the required reps.
 THE MASTERY MATRIX

4A
THE MUSCLE PILGRIM’S PROGRESS
THE KEY TO CONTINUAL IMPROVEMENT IS TO GO AT YOUR OWN PACE.
USE THIS MATRIX TO IDENTIFY YOUR OPTIMAL MOVEMENTS

PILGRIM DISCIPLE MONK MASTER

TW RESISTANCE CONSTANT LOADED

TENSION TENSION
Dumbbell Perform a Perform a Perform a press
p dumbbell Z-press, “see-saw” press: with an iso hold:
(as shown) seated with your hold a dumbbell hold one dumbbell
legs open on the overhead, while overhead while you
floor you press the complete all reps,
second, alternating then switch arms
each rep

3B

Perform light Du Perform cleans Perform cleans

dumbbell front c from a seated from a seated
raises (as position position: hold
a dumbbell on your
shoulder and do all
reps with your
other arm, then
switch

3 Wrap a band
around your upper
arms, providing
Perform a push-up
with hands
elevated
Push-up
(as shown)
Wrap a band
around your back
and under your
you with a bounce hands to increase
out of the bottom the difficulty

Overhead Dumbbell Hold

(30-50 seconds)
Now, turn up the burn with
some high tension. Clean your
dumbbells up onto your
shoulders and press them
overhead. With your eye on
4 gle
rhead,
and
Over
dum
ho
Perform a
wall-facing
handstand hold
Perform a
handstand hold,
with alternating
a clock, try to push the
dumbbells further overhead ( shoulder taps
for 30-50 seconds, or until your sho
shoulders give out. Rest for the
remainder of the minute before
returning to presses.

MAY 2021 123

 WORKOUT #3
THE ARMS RACE
From Arnie to Hulk Hogan, there’s no
getting away from the fact that a physique
is not complete without a decent set of
1A pipes. Work through the following
movements as quickly as possible while
maintaining perfect form, performing
the reps of each exercise in 3A
a circuit for a total of 10 rounds.

2A

3B

1B

2B

1 2
Iso Dumbbell Curl
(10 reps)
Stand tall with the dumbbells at
your sides (A). Curl one dumbbell
up towards your shoulder, rotating
your palm inward, and hold the
dumbbell at the top of the
movement (B). Curl the second bell
up to the top position, and hold it
here, returning the first dumbbell
back to the start position. Repeat,
alternating your arms until you
reach 10 reps on each arm.
Renegade Row
(20 reps)
Assume a strong plank on the
dumbbells (A). Shifting your
weight onto your left hand, row
the right dumbbell towards your
hip (B). Pause briefly, then lower
the weight under control. That’s
one rep. Alternate sides, focusing
on holding a rigid plank
throughout. Maintaining good
form, complete 20 reps.
3
Dip
(10 reps)
Your triceps account for the bulk of
your sleeve-filling potential, so
give them some tough love. Jump
up on two parallel bars with your
palms facing inward and your
arms straight (A). You can use two
boxes or the backs of two sturdy
chairs if you’re at home. Slowly
lower until your elbows are at right
angles, ensuring that they don’t
flare outward (B). Drive yourself
back up to the top and repeat.

124 MEN’S HE ALTH

 PROGRAMMING GRID

CUSTOMISE YOUR STRATEGY

USE THIS TABLE TO CHART A FOURWEEK PLAN TO FIT YOUR SCHEDULE.
NO MATTER HOW OFTEN YOU TRAIN, FOLLOW THE SESSIONS IN SEQUENCE,
AIMING TO BEAT YOUR TIMES AROUND EACH CIRCUIT ON EVERY ATTEMPT

WORKOUTS PER WEEK

2X 3X 4X 5X 6X
MON

4A Workout Workout Workout Workout Workout

02 02 02 02 02
TUE

Workout lower-body Workout

REST REST
01 session 01
WED

Workout Workout lower-body

REST REST
01 01 session
THUR

Workout lower-body lower-body Workout

REST
01 session session 02

4B
lower-body Workout Workout Workout
FRI

REST
session 03 03 01

4
SAT

Workout
REST REST REST REST
03

Triceps Dip
(20 reps)
Finish the circuit with another
SUN

high-rep burner. With your REST REST REST REST REST

hands on a solid surface, support
your weight with your arms (A).
Shift off the edge, lowering your
body until you feel a stretch
across your chest (B). Push back
up hard. Try a count of three
down and one back up.

MAY 2021 125

FITNESS SECRETS
OF THE GOATS
Sports science is helping elite athletes excel
into their late 30s and beyond. We talked
to top trainers to learn the moves that will
enable you to extend your peak, too

BY MICHAEL E ASTER AND ANDRE W HEFFERNAN

1 GENERATE SERIOUS BOUNCE

LEBRON JAMES turns 37 this year, but he’s
still crushing it because of his focus on muscle
elasticity and explosiveness. Maintain yours with
these moves from basketball trainer Paul Fabritz.

ELASTICITY Muscle elasticity — which helps you

accelerate and brake — deteriorates as you get older. A
go-to for ageing athletes should be low-impact jump-rope
drills. Jump rope from side to side, and add rotational
hops. Focus not on leaping high but on feeling “bouncy
and rhythmic,” Fabritz says. Jump for 1 minute, then rest
for 1 minute, for 3-4 sets daily.

EXPLOSIVENESS Instead of heavy, joint-pounding

2
power moves, do full-body med-ball throws. Start
standing, holding a 10kg med ball at your chest, then
squat down, lowering the ball to the floor. Explode upward,
SCORE H.O.F. DURABILITY
throwing the ball as high as possible. Do 5 sets of 3 reps,
TOM BRADY, 43, has played in 10 Super Bowls—and won
seven - over 21 NFL seasons. He sustains peak performance
3 times per week.
thanks in part to daily foam rolling and dynamic body work from his
trainer, Alex Guerrero, as well as a regimen of functional core-
strength moves that help his body absorb hits. Do this circuit 4 times.

Banded Pallof Sumo Squat to Split-Stance

Reverse Lunge Rotation Press High-to-Low Chop
ILLUSTRATION: BEN MOUNSEYWOOD

Standing next to a handle
band’s anchor, extend your
arms straight out and step back
into a lunge position. Return to
the start. Do 10 concentrated
reps on each side.
Holding a handle band with one
hand, squat, and as you rise,
pivot on your back foot, turn and
punch your arm out. Return to
the start and repeat. Do 10 reps
on each side.
Attach a handle band above
head height and set up in a
lunge. Bring your hands down
to your opposite pocket and
back to overhead. Do 10 reps
on each side.

126 MEN’S HE ALTH

3 GET BIG-WAVE BALANCE
Eleven-time surfing world champion
KELLY SLATER, 49, still schools rivals half
his age, partly because of his cat-like balance.
Use these tactics from movement guru Drew Morcos
5 FORGE GRACE
AND POWER
SERENA WILLIAMS,
39, has won 23 Grand
Slam singles titles.
to sharpen yours. Credit a combination
Balance, like other physical skills, erodes as you age, says of flawless footwork
Morcos, who works with some of the world’s best surfers. and lights-out power,
The good news: most people don’t intentionally balance, says Kacper Owsian,
so a little bit of work will go a long way. “Balance comes owner of LA Tennis
from our eyes, inner ear and nerve endings,” he says. A Coaching Academy.
stable core and hips that are strong on both sides are also Williams’ physique
critical. Sync your balance system each morning by getting tells only part of the
a “really fluffy pillow and standing on it on one leg and story: “Body rotation
doing everyday stuff, like when you’re brushing your teeth,” on the ground strokes
he says. To square your hips, do the following move, the hip is mainly responsible
drop, a handful of times throughout the day. for power,” says
Stand with your right foot on a step or a thick book, your Owsian. Muscles
left leg hanging off the side. Keep your right leg perfectly help, he adds, but
straight as you drop your left hip, then raise it as high Williams’ capacity
as you can. That’s 1 rep. Do as many as you can while to rotate her hips,
maintaining good form. You should feel the exercise in turn her upper body,
your right hip. Repeat on the other side. then whip her racket
in lethal arcs is a skill
you can’t develop with
//
MOST PEOPLE DON’T INTENTIONALLY BALANCE, bench presses.
Instead, he says, try

SO A LITTLE WORK WILL GO A LONG WAY // these drills.

Superhero Bird Dogs

Assume a push-up position.
Slowly raise your left hand and
your right foot off the floor as
far as possible and hold for a
2-count. Lower, repeat on your
other side, and continue for 60

4
seconds. Do 2-3 sets.

ELEVATE YOUR
MENTAL GAME
TIGER WOODS,
45, has won 15 major
golf titles, including the
Masters in 2019, when
he was 43. Yes, after his
recent car accident, he’s
in a bad way physically.
But it seems his focus
remains resolute. To
boost your own mental
game, use these tips
from psychologist
Jonathan Fader, who
works with pro athletes.
IGNORE DISTRACTION
By concentrating on
your breath, you can alter
your heart rate, empty
your mind and achieve
an optimal level of clarity.
Feeling the coolness of
the air coming in and the
warmth of it going out
centres you.
TRUST YOUR PROCESS SS
Late-model Woods has Woods chews gum,
been more stoic on the wn to
course. Elite performers enhance attention. Other
like him have a precise sensory tactics can also
Skater Jumps
From a wide stance, jump back
mental and physical help you tune in. Clenching and forth repeatedly from one
routine before every shot, a fist and releasing it is a foot to the other, covering as
timed to the second, way to bring your mind to much ground as you can side
to side and landing softly with
and it often includes a where your body is – in the
each jump. Do this 3 times for
visualisation component. here and now. 20 seconds each.

MAY 2021 127

 IN OUR INSPIRING

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ABOUT LIFE, SUCCESS,
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 PREPARE TO
RAISE THE BAR
Lie down on the
job for the ultimate
upper-body blast.

After months of push-ups and table rows,

we expect that you’re longing to get back
under the bar. Make a triumphant return
to the bench press with these tips

POWER YOUR PECS

The bench press is a gym staple for good reason:
strong,
to make
rly is
aks to
build a chest you’ll treasure.

L ACTION
ench with a slight arch in your backk
pressed down, holding dumbbells a at
Drive your feet into the floor to creatte
ush the weights to full lockout. Low wer
to your chest, while holding the oth her
ss the lowered dumbbell up to mee et
ating with the other arm. Alternate
mpleted eight reps with each arm.

BARRED FOR LIFE

Though ostensibly simple, it’s easy to get wrong. Avoid
PER the common mistakes of the bench-press blasphemers
WORDS: ANDREW TRACEY; ILLUSTRATION: HARVEY SYMONS

ed dips will help you learn to contro

ol
your own bodyweight through space. Jump onto
a set of bars, 60cm apart, locking out your arms
and supporting your weight. Bend at your elbows
and lower yourself for a count of four seconds,
aiming to get your chest as close to your hands as 
possible. Pause at the bottom before pressing
back up explosively. Aim for five sets of 10.
HUMAN TRAMPOLINE HALF-REP HENRY MAD MAX-OUT
He lets the bar He begins pressing He works to a heavy
drop with reckless the bar back up single every
abandon from the again before it’s session and usually
HEAD TO THE BAR top of each rep, even within 15cm of requires a spot for
Now, it’s time to pump it up. Lie on the bench with bouncing it off his his chest, and the majority of his
a slight arch in your back, your hips pressed down. chest. He’s wasting refuses to lock out sets. Unless you’re
Lift the bar using an overhand grip and position his time. Lower the at the top. a competitive
bar under control Remember that the powerlifter (or a
it above your chest with your arms extended.
and pause lightly muscle that is show-off), you may
Drive your feet into the floor, creating tension.
on your chest stretched the most never need to test
Lower the bar until it touches your chest. Pause with each rep grows the most. Use your one-rep max.
before explosively pressing back to lockout. for maximum a full range of For optimum
Repeat until peak swoleness is achieved. gains – and motion to ensure growth, keep it
minimum bruising. maximum gains. above five reps.

MAY 2021 129

 THERE’S A BACKSTORY to all garlic naan (which was the only But Pete replied, “Oh no, he
this. I was at Melbourne thing I could afford from the doesn’t live here – he lives in
University studying Arts/ university food court). But this Sydney. But he comes back to
Commerce and I was really bad whole time I was, in fact, utterly Melbourne next year. When he
at Quantitative Methods. distraught that I couldn’t be in returns, I’ll introduce you”. I was
Unfortunately, if I failed it, I’d this tutorial. I just knew it would like, “Okay, weirdo. That seems
have to repeat the subject so I be better for the group. very peculiar, but I appreciate
couldn’t just ignore it. My other The tutor ended up laughing it”. And off I went about my day.
problem was that I hadn’t been and said, “I’ll give you 10 per Sure enough, in March the
to any of my lectures for the cent for saying that”. And following year, Pete walks
entire semester. Nor had I been somehow I actually ended up across the Commerce
to a single tutorial, of which passing Quantitative Methods courtyard and says, “This is the
there are 10, and you got one with 51 per cent. But the 60 guy I was telling you about – it’s
per cent of your total mark for seconds that changed my life Hamish”.
each of the tutorials that you really started as I was leaving “Nice to meet you, Hamish,”
attended. So I thought, well, I that tutorial and was walking I said.
better go to the final class then. across the Commerce By making that single
During the roll call, the tutor Department courtyard. This guy introduction, Pete probably
just glossed over my name and called Pete suddenly turned to deserves 80 per cent of all our
marked it as a “no” because he me and said, “Hey, that was earnings, to be honest. Because
was so used to me never really funny. You actually if I hadn’t met Hamish then my
coming to class. So I went, “No, remind me a lot of a friend of future would’ve been
no, no! I’m actually here today.” mine. You should meet him. completely different. At the time
“Welcome to your first-ever His name’s Hamish”. I actually wanted to be an
tutorial,” he replied. “You get I was like, “All right, yeah, accountant. I certainly hadn’t
one per cent for the semester sure. What are you doing now?” thought about diving deep into
for turning up today.” TV and radio. But then Hamish
“On that,” I said, “I was and I met and started making
wondering if I could please each other laugh. That’s when
make a brief presentation to that whole world suddenly
the class?” The tutor was a little became a real possibility.
bemused, but he agreed. And
so I walked to the front of the
classroom and presented a
speech to shed some light on
why I hadn’t been coming to
any classes.
I explained to everyone that
the reason I hadn’t attended a
single tutorial was actually for
the good of them all. I explained
that I could be a very distracting
person to be around and
so selflessly, for the overall
learning of every single other
person in the tutorial, I’d
decided to fall on my sword
and not come solely for the
betterment of all my fellow
students. Sure that
meant I might’ve
been off having
a beer instead
DATE:
PHOTOGRAPHY: SUPPLIED BY NETWORK 10

or eating some
3:58pm, October 24, 2000
NAME:
ANDY LEE
FEAT:
“YOU REMIND ME
A random conversation after a OF A FRIEND OF MINE.
university tutorial derails Andy HIS NAME’S HAMISH”
Lee’s career as an accountant.
The Cube with Andy Lee airs Tuesdays & Wednesdays at 7.30pm on 10.

130 MEN’S HE ALTH

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