14 EXERCISES FOR STRONGER ABS

FAST 19 WAYS TO
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Jonny Wilkinson
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INJURY-FREE with Tour de France
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BALANCE-BOOSTING TIPS
GET INTO BOULDERING
EDITOR’S LETTER ISSUE 269
SEPTEMBER 2022
EDITORIAL

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Art Director Xavier Robleda
ost the will to work
out? Resenting your Editorial postal address:
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Once you’ve taken that advice
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we’re bringing you two lots of extensive reviews: the very best home dumbbells, for those days Chief Operating Officer Phil Weeden
where you want to work out but can’t make it to the gym; and our pick of the best light-and-fast Managing Director Kevin McCormick
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Also in this packed issue: how to track calories properly, bouldering for beginners, and a
Print Production Manager Georgina Harris
feature-length interview with Tour de France legend Geraint Thomas. And in the Trainer section
you’ll find 14 of the most effective Swiss ball exercises to build a bulletproof core; a single-dumbbell Print Production Controllers Hayley Brown
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Information given is not a substitute for medical advice,
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or relevant qualified professional before making any
changes to your healthcare, diet or exercise routine.
Get motivated Track calories Find your zen Use a Swiss ball Check the latest government guidelines before
Coach- and science- Trying to lose or gain Rugby great Jonny Unlock your abs with participating in the activities mentioned in this magazine,
backed strategies for weight? Calories are the Wilkinson explains how this often-overlooked and always adhere to coronavirus restrictions.
reigniting your passion critical factor – here’s how he’s found a greater sense but incredibly effective
for fitness (p32). to keep count (p64). of calm post-playing (p74). bit of kit (p86). Kelsey Media 2022© all rights reserved. Kelsey Media
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4 SEPTEMBER 2022
 CONTENTS ISSUE 269 SEPTEMBER 2022

46 74

UPDATES IN FOCUS
06 Science says… 32 Motivation stations
It’s OK to be a weekend warrior 19 ways to rediscover lost fitness mojo

08 News 40 Holistic health MENTAL FITNESS

Hot heads and cardio research Your 360-degree roadmap to full-body wellbeing
12 Health check 72 Chasing the Stigma
All you need to know about skin cancer 46 Bouldering basics One man’s attempt to unify the UK’s approach
Take your strength to new heights to mental ill-health

52 Geraint Thomas 74 Jonny Wilkinson

PERFECT FIT The Tour de France legend talks brutal training The biggest name in English rugby on finding
days and Ironman ambitions fulfilment post-playing
20 Best dumbbells
Our favourite weights for home workouts

26 Best 5k shoes TRAINER

Fast and light trainers for smashing your
parkrun PB 82 Ask the expert
How to boost proprioception for better athletic
performance

20 84 How to build…
Training adherence for consistent improvements

86 Swiss ball exercises

Unlock your abs with these excellent core moves

FUEL 92 One-dumbbell
workout
62 Nutrition news Burn and build with this
Facts and findings from the world of food full-body complex

64 Calorie tracking 96 EMOM workout

Common mistakes to avoid whether you’re Two moves, 20 minutes,
tracking calories to lose or gain weight one highly effective session

SEPTEMBER 2022 5
 NEED-TO-KNOW FITNESS NEWS

WEEKEND
WARRIORS
A new study suggests time-pressed
modern men can bag major health
gains even if they cram all their
training into the weekend
f you find that work commitments and
I a packed social calendar mean you
tend to squeeze all your exercise into
the weekends, don’t feel guilty. A new study
published in the journal JAMA Internal
Medicine found that people who fit in one or
two workouts at weekends enjoy pretty much
the same life-extending benefits as those who
train regularly (with three or more sessions)
during the week.
The research – which followed 350,000
people for 16 years – found that as long as you
get 150 minutes of moderate exercise, or 75
minutes of vigorous exercise, per week,
weekend exercisers can experience the
‘same benefit’ as people who spread their
exercise throughout the week.
The study backs up previous research by
Loughborough University and the University
of Sydney, which tracked the weekday and
weekend physical activity of 63,591 adults
from England and Scotland over a 12-year
period. That particular study also found that
weekend workouts, such as a long
150-minute hike, offered the same benefits as
regular weekday chunks of activity – habitual
30-minute lunchtime walks, for example.
This new line of research has mostly been
Words: Mark Bailey | Photography: Shutterstock

focused on the all-important issues of physical

health and longevity, so it doesn’t account for
other key issues – such as sleep quality, injury
risk or mental health – all of which can be
enhanced by regular doses of exercise during
the working week. And vigorous activities are
best completed in shorter, sharper bursts,
followed by recovery days – a routine which
is easier to follow when your training is spread
out throughout the week.
But if you get to the weekend and still
haven’t done any exercsie, all is not lost.
Getting out for a weekend run or bike ride will
still unlock powerful long-term health benefits.

6 SEPTEMBER 2022
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●UPDATES

HOT HEAD
Just like computers and machines, your brain
heats up when it’s active, but the maximum
temperature is much higher than previously
believed. According to new research in the journal
Brain, parts of the deep brain can reach 40°C
(104°F), whereas the average oral temperature
of the body is typically under 37°C (98.6°F).
“The most surprising finding from our study
is that the healthy human brain can reach
temperatures that would be diagnosed as fever
anywhere else in the body,” explained biologist
John O’Neill, from the UK’s Medical Research
Council (MRC) Laboratory of Molecular Biology.

CARDIO KINGS
Men with high

Words: Mark Bailey | Photography: Shutterstock | 1. Annals of Epidemiology

cardiorespiratory
fitness (CF) benefit
from a 26% decrease
in all cancer
incidences,
compared to those
with low CF fitness.
The men were
SMELL YOU LATER studied on average
Your close friends probably share a few core interests, but did you know over a 12-year
they might smell like you, too? New research by the Weizmann Institute period. Men with
of Science suggests similarities in body odour may contribute to human average CF were
social bonding and indicate whether we are likely to click with other people.
Amazingly, the researchers were able to predict the quality of social
also associated with
interactions between complete strangers by first checking their smell with
a 14% reduced risk of
a device known as an electronic nose, or eNose. Individuals who had more cancer compared to
positive interactions smelled more like each other. t h o s e w i t h l o w C F. 1

8 SEPTEMBER 2022

FOOD RAGE
Feeling ‘hangry’ – hunger-induced anger
– appears to be a normal and natural
emotion when we’re in need of food,
according to new scientific research. The
study, published in the journal Plos One,
found that hunger triggers significant
feelings of anger and irritability and
less feelings of pleasure. It may simply
be that as biological creatures we are
conditioned to feel uncomfortable until
our most urgent primal needs are met.
But at least you can forgive yourself next
time you lob a dumbbell across the room
when your pizza is half an hour late.
3 WAYS TO…
IMPROVE YOUR STRIDE LENGTH
Lewis Moses, advisor for INCUS Performance, reveals how to boost
your running stride for maximum efficiency
Strengthen your spring Stiffen up Don’t over-stride
Boosting your ‘spring’ will “When looking at stride “Trying to do excessive
eke out extra distance length, stiffness around strides can lead to heel
from every stride. “Stride the ankle joint can actually striking, which causes a
length is influenced by be beneficial,” says braking motion that will
how we hit the ground and Moses. “It helps your slow you down,” warns
how much force is reactivity to ground Moses. “It is better to land
applied,” says Moses. “So contact. You don’t want to your lead leg underneath
by improving the spring in spend too much time on your body – directly below
your legs you generate the ground, and you want your pelvis and hips –
more force down to use stored energy from with a nice mid-foot
onto the ground, leading the achilles tendon to ground contact. Drills such
to more spring off the spring forwards. as A-skips and B-skips will
floor.” Do regular squats, Plyometric drills, such as help you to develop this
hops and single-leg calf pogos, hopping and box habit.”
raises to add spring to drops, will help boost your
your lower legs. stiffness.”

EAT WITH
YOUR EYES
You already knew that the sight
of food could make you drool,
but scientists at the University
of Basel have found that the
sight and smell of food can even
trigger the release of glucose-
controlling insulin. The
anticipation of food somehow
stimulates cells in the brain
known as the microglia, which
help to spark the secretion of
insulin from the pancreas.

FATHERLY DUTY
Addressing your mental health is
important for you but also for your kids.
A new study, published in the journal
Development and Psychopathology,
found that paternal depression can
contribute to the depression and
behavioural problems of children.
Interestingly, the results were the
same even for
parents with
adopted children,
which suggests it’s
the accompanying
behavioural issues
and conflict caused
by depression that
are the problem,
rather than any
genetic
transmission.

SEPTEMBER 2022 9
●UPDATES
TOO GOOD
TO BE TRUE?
A mythical ‘exercise pill’ could soon become a reality,
thanks to new research by American researchers
Experts at Baylor College of Medicine
and Stanford School of Medicine have
identified a specific health-boosting molecule
in the blood that’s produced during exercise.
This key molecule appears to effectively
reduce food intake and obesity. The findings
– currently limited to mouse studies, but
which have shown promising insights in
human trials – are helping to reveal the
physiological triggers which link exercise,
hunger and obesity and could be used to
create an ‘exercise pill’ in the future.
“Regular exercise has been proven to
help weight loss, regulate appetite and
improve the metabolic profile,” explained Dr.
Yong Xu of Baylor. “If we can understand the
mechanism by which exercise triggers these
10 SEPTEMBER 2022
benefits, then we’re closer to helping many
people improve their health.”
The key molecule triggered by exercise
was identified as a modified amino acid called
‘Lac-Phe’. Mice subsequently given a high
dose of Lac-Phe suppressed their food intake
by 50%, leading to lower body fat and
improved glucose tolerance. Data from the
human tests suggests that sprinting induced
the biggest increase in the molecule, followed
by resistance training and endurance
training. According to Professor Jonathan
Long of Stanford, this research is helping to
‘capture’ the benefits of exercise, so people
“may one day benefit from taking a
medication that can slow down osteoporosis,
heart disease or other conditions.”
Words: Mark Bailey | Photography: Shutterstock
 “ I’ve a lways tru ste d
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i s a to p p ri o rity.”

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●UPDATES HEALTH
“HOW CAN I PROTECT
MYSELF AGAINST SKIN
CANCER?”
THE EXPERT
Marc Donovan is chief pharmacist
at Boots. For ‘convenient
care without the hassle’, visit
onlinedoctor.boots.com
WHAT IS SKIN CANCER?
Skin cancer is one of
the most common
cancers in the UK, but
if detected early it can
often be successfully
treated, which is
why it’s important to
recognise the signs and
symptoms. There are
two main types of skin
cancer: non-melanoma
and melanoma. Non-
melanoma skin cancer
is more common than
melanoma, is usually less
serious and affects more
men than women.
12 SEPTEMBER 2022
HEALTH CHECK:
HOW CAN I SPOT THE SIGNS? WHAT DOES
The first sign of non-melanoma skin cancer is usually a
lump, lesion or discoloured patch that does not go away TREATMENT INVOLVE?
and often progresses slowly over months or even years. Surgery is the main
It often develops on areas of skin regularly exposed to the treatment for non-
sun, with overexposure to ultraviolet (UV) light being the melanoma and
main cause. Other risk factors include having pale skin that melanoma skin cancer.
burns easily, lots of moles or freckles, a family history of It involves removing
skin cancer, or a previous non-melanoma skin cancer. the cancerous
tumour and some
of the surrounding
skin, although
that will depend
HOW SERIOUS IS IT? on your particular
circumstances.
Melanoma is often more serious and may spread to other
If melanoma is
organs in the body. The most common symptom is the
diagnosed and treated
appearance of a new mole or a change in appearance of
at an early stage,
Photography: Shutterstock | *Eligibility criteria and charges apply. Subject to availability.
an existing mole. The back is the most commonly affected
surgery is usually
area in men, while the legs are the most affected area
successful, so don’t
for women. You should speak to a GP if you notice a new
forget to regularly
mole or changes to an existing mole – that could be taking
check your skin and
a different shape, or if it starts to look uneven, changes
remember early
colour, starts itching, crusting, flaking or bleeding.
diagnosis is key.
You can also visit
your pharmacist for
advice about moles
HOW CAN I REDUCE THE RISK? or use the Mole
Scanning Service that
To reduce the risk, it’s important to try and limit the amount is available in a number
of time you spend in the sun during the hottest part of the of Boots pharmacies*.
day, and cover exposed skin – especially if you have lots The service doesn’t
of moles. You should also regularly apply a high-factor provide a diagnosis
sunscreen (minimum SPF30), especially after swimming. of skin cancer,
but ScreenCancer
Dermatology Specialists
will analyse images of
WHERE SHOULD I GO TO GET CHECKED OUT? the moles or lesions
and can help identify
You should see a GP if you have any skin abnormality any that might be
such as a lump, ulcer or lesion that has not healed after suspicious and need
four weeks, or if you notice a new mole or a change to an further investigation
existing mole. The GP may refer you to a specialist clinic from a GP.”
or hospital if they think it should be checked out.
 “You should see a GP if you have any skin
abnormality such as a lump, ulcer or lesion
that has not healed after four weeks”

SEPTEMBER 2022 13
WANT IT
TODAY?
GO DIGITAL

In the next issue...

If you’re lacking the time or inclination to hit the gym three times a
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in serious shape from home – with smart full-body protocols, some
basic kit and whatever space is available to you. We also look at the
serious science behind the quest for a miracle hangover cure, go
on an Alpine adventure by way of via ferrata climbing, and introduce
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Also from the publishers of Men’s Fitness

NEW! Get Outdoors Guide

The aim of this guide is to showcase some of the great outdoor
sports you can take on in the UK. Whether you want to take on
one of the UK’s many road-running or cycling events, try open-
water swimming in one of the nation’s picturesque swimming
lakes, or combine all three in a triathlon, we’ve got you covered
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 PICTURE
PREVIEW
Hear the name ‘Jonny
Wilkinson’ and there’s a good
chance you think ‘World Cup’.
Thanks to his 2003 drop-goal
heroics, Wilkinson’s legacy will
always be defined by that kick.
From such highs, however,
come inevitable lows, and
though his glittering career
spanned many years after that
moment, since retiring,
Wilkinson – obsessive
perfectionist – has described
2003 as sparking frequent bouts
of depression and anxiety. When
you achieve the material goal,
where do you go from there?

Today, Wilkinson is calmer

– happier. That’s thanks in large
part to his discovery of
Buddhism, the teachings of
which have helped him create
a kinder inner voice and new
perspectives on success
and fulfilment.

Photography: Shutterstock

To read our full chat

with Jonny Wilkinson,
turn to p74
PROMOTION
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How this game-changing
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etabolic testing provides information
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It’s the type of insight many gym-goers
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What happens during the test?
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There are several wearables like
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The vision of metabolic testing is you
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SEPTEMBER 2022 19
●PERFECT FIT BEST DUMBBELLS

DUMBBELL BUYER’S GUIDE

Looking to upgrade your home gym set-up? The humble dumbbell should be
your first port of call, but with so many to choose from we’ve narrowed down
our favourite options

Photography: Shutterstock

20 SEPTEMBER 2022
 imple, supremely effective and
S beginner-friendly. Almost every
man starts his fitness journey
with a set of dumbbells – and for good
reason. Small enough to tuck under a bed
or sofa, dumbbells are easy to use and
massively versatile, with a huge range of
dumbbell exercises for every body part.  they aren’t all created equal. Generally
Whether you’re grabbing a pair, just
the one, or you want a set to choose from,
the value of lifting this strength and
conditioning staple goes beyond building
Eleiko Vulcano dumbbell
£27-£349 / eleiko.com
Eleiko’s Vulcano dumbbells don’t come
cheap, especially as they’re sold
individually. You do get what you pay for
though: a well-constructed dumbbell
that will work for whatever workout you
throw at it.
The dumbbells feature chrome steel
handles that are sloped and knurled to
make sure you can get a good grip even
with sweaty hands, while handle length
and diameter are accommodating for
both smaller and bigger gripping styles.
The ends are coated in protective
polyurethane, which softens the sound
if you accidentally drop the dumbbells
onto the floor. That makes them better
suited to home workouts, particularly if
you’ve got hard floors and are worried
Reasons to be cheerful:
✔ High-grade appearance
✔ Floor-friendly design
Reasons to be fearful:
✘ Expensive for a set
muscle. Training with dumbbells on a
regular basis can increase calorie burn
during HIIT workouts, and build the type
of strong foundations to help you power
through your other athletic pursuits.
But while the dumbbell is one of the
easiest bits of home gym kit to snap up,
speaking, for most people’s home
workout needs ‘fixed dumbbells’ are
going to be the best bet. As the name
implies, the weight can’t be altered,
about potential scuffing. It’s a nice
bonus that the polyurethane outer
shouldn’t give off any bad smells when
sweat comes into play.
From curls to squats to bent-over
rows, you have something well
equipped to cover the key dumbbell
exercise bases, and with weight options
ranging from 1kg to 40kg, you have the
scope to go light or lift heavy.
It’s going to be pricey to assemble
a set, but if you just need a single or pair
which means you will need a bit of extra
room to store multiple sets, but the
advantage is that it’s quick and easy to
use your desired weight. If you do invest
in a set, try to get ones with hexagonal
ends, because they can be used on the
floor without rolling around. They’ll be
easier to stack and store, too.
That said, beginners might favour
the plate-loaded ‘spinlock’ variety,
which tend to be lighter in weight but
have the benefit of being adjustable.
for home use, Eleiko’s Vulcano stands
out for all the right reasons.
Grip ★ ★★ ★ ★ Durability ★ ★★ ★ ★
Weight range ★ ★★ ★ OVERALL ★ ★★ ★ ★
SEPTEMBER 2022 21
●PERFECT FIT BEST DUMBBELLS

Blk Box Rubber Hex Dumbbells

£12-£150 / blkboxfitness.com
These heavy-duty fixed hex dumbbells go all the
way up to 60kg, making them strong options
for anyone that wants serious weight to
hand. The cast iron frame is covered in
rubber to protect floors, and there’s
chrome-plated knurled handles to get
a good hold of.
That hex-style design means
they’re not going to roll around
– making them well suited for
press-up style exercises. The
lighter weights won’t break the Reasons to be
bank, although the dumbbells are cheerful:
✔ Huge weight range
sold individually, so a pair of the ✔ Sturdy hex design
heavier options is going to set you ✔ High-quality build
pack several hundred pounds (£300 for
two 60kg weights). However, compared Reasons to be
to other options in this list that is fearful:
surprisingly good value. ✘ Sold individually
✘ Pairs of heavier
Grip ★ ★★ ★ Durability ★ ★★ ★ ★ weights can be expensive
Weight range ★ ★★ ★ ★ OVERALL ★ ★★ ★ ★

Jordan Fitness Premium

Urethane Dumbbells
£42-£1,260 / jordanfitness.com
Another option that will reduce the risk of
scuffs and damage to your floor, these
durable urethane dumbbells can be picked
up in pairs all the way up to a monstrous
75kg (if you have £1,260 to spare), or sets
ranging from 2.5kg-25kg to 65kg-75kg.
There’s steel underneath that urethane,
which has been heat treated with a handle that
offers plenty of metal to grab onto. These are
going to appeal to experienced gym-goers who
Reasons to be cheerful: want to lift big, but there’s also a good range of
✔ Excellent weight range lighter weight options for beginners.
✔ Floor-friendly design
Grip ★ ★★ ★ Durability ★ ★★ ★ ★
Reasons to be fearful: Weight range ★ ★★ ★ ★ OVERALL ★ ★★ ★ ★
✘ Expensive

22 SEPTEMBER 2022
Decathlon Corength Hex Dumbbell
£10-£155 / decathlon.co.uk
Ideal if you hate the idea of dumbbells
rolling around your floor, this fixed
dumbbell from Decathlon wraps its iron
frame up in rubber for a more stable
design compared to round plates. It
works well for dedicated weight training
and functional workouts.
There’s a good-sized metal, knurled
handle to wrap your hands around,
although weight options range from
2.5kg-15kg, so these sit at the lighter
end of the weight spectrum. The hex
plate design makes Decathlon’s range
ideal for floor-based dumbbell exercises
like renegade rows and dumbbell Reasons to be cheerful:
press-ups, because the flat sides of the that when you put them down and away ✔ Affordable
weights will stay put as you work away. after a session, they’re still going to be ✔ Stable design perfect for floor exercises
The all-black design gives it an there when you need to go again.
attractive, low-key look, they feel built Reasons to be fearful:
Grip H HH H H Durability H HH H H
✘ Light weight range
to last and you’re safe in the knowledge Weight range H HH H H OVERALL H HH H

Bowflex SelectTech 552i dumbbells

£385 / fitness-superstore.co.uk
Perfect if you want the option to move
between weights but don’t have the
space to accommodate an entire set,
Bowflex’s adjustable dumbbells can
move from 2kg up to 24kg – all with the
twist of a dial.
The rubber and steel grip is well
designed for more explosive
– potentially hazardous – exercises and
fast-paced HIIT-style workouts.
Bowflex offers on-demand strength
classes via an app, so you can put the
dumbbells to work with prescribed
exercises. And there’s a tray to store the
weights and drop them back when you
need to add or lose some plates.
Grip H HH H H Durability H HH H H
Weight range H HH H OVERALL H HH H H

Reasons to be cheerful:
✔ Space-saving design
✔ Accompanying app

Reasons to be fearful:
✘ Expensive

SEPTEMBER 2022 23
●PERFECT FIT BEST DUMBBELLS

Mirafit Rubber Dumbbell Set

£34.95-£199.95 / mirafit.co.uk
These come in pairs, with the heaviest
weighing in at 35kg per dumbbell. The
rubber coating on the weights mean
they’re kinder to hard floors and the
knurled steel handle offers a strong,
durable place to grip.
You can also pick them up in sets
if you want a greater variety of
weights (a set of 5kg-30kg at
2.5kg increments will set you
back a cool £999.95) and Mirafit
even makes racks to give you
that proper gym feel at home.
Grip H HH H H Durability H HH H H
Weight range H HH H H OVERALL H HH H H

Reasons to be cheerful:
✔ Good grip
✔ Sturdy design

Reasons to be fearful:
✘ Expensive for heavier weights
✘ Weight range could be better

DKN Rubber Hex Dumbbells

£22.99-£239.99 /
dkn-uk.com
DKN’s hex dumbbells come
in pairs up to 30kg per
dumbbell. That hex design
means they’ll stay put
in-between sets and there’s
solid steel handles with
a knurled pattern to
provide a reliable
grip even when you
start to sweat.
That rubber
coating ensures
a good amount of
durability, too, and
won’t do damage to
your floor should
accidentally drop them. Reasons to be cheerful:
Grip H HH H ✔ Stable design
Durability H HH H H ✔ Look good
Weight range H HH H H
OVERALL H HH H H Reasons to be fearful:
✘ Limited weight range

24 SEPTEMBER 2022

Opti Cast Iron Dumbbell Set
£30 / argos.co.uk
An option for those on a tight budget,
this is a good beginner-friendly pair.
They max out at 20kg with spinlock
collars to add and remove plates,
though they can have the tendency
to still rattle around slightly.
The steel bar features rubber grips
that are comfortable to hold, but sweaty
hands can compromise grip. The weight
on offer makes them well suited to curls,
Words: Mike Sawh
raises and shoulder presses, though
you won’t want to be dropping that
metal exterior on hard floors too often.
The pointed end of each dumbbell also
York 20kg Cast Iron Dumbbell
Spinlock Set
£109.99 / yorkfitness.com
York’s iron pair are a good fit for
beginners, with 0.5, 1.25 and 2kg weight
plates to make those incremental
changes when you feel more confident
to lift a heavier load.
They use plastic metal spinlock
collars to help stop the plates from
rattling around (although explosive
movements have the potential to affect
that), with high-grip chrome bars
designed to offer a strong grip.
You do have the capacity to
purchase more plates to bolster the
lifting weight, and if you don’t mind
spinning off those collars every now
and then they make for a solid first set
of dumbbells.
Grip H HH H H Durability H HH H
Weight range H HH HH OVERALL H HH H
Reasons to be cheerful:
✔ Extra plates can be bought
✔ Good for beginners
Reasons to be fearful:
✘ Not as secure as hex dumbbells
✘ Plates can rattle around
✘ More faff than fixed-weight dumbbells
puts paid to some floor exercises.
They’re cheap, but they’re solid for
Reasons to be cheerful:
someone new to strength training who ✔ Affordable
wants to dip their toes into the world of ✔ Easy to add and remove plates
dumbbell training.
Grip H HH H H Durability H HH H Reasons to be fearful:
Weight range H HH HH OVERALL H HH H ✘ Not for hard floors
✘ Impractical for multi-weight workouts
SEPTEMBER 2022 25
●PERFECT FIT 5K SHOES
QUICK KICKS
These light and fast running shoes are your best bet for putting in Kudos-worthy
performances over any distance up to 5k
f you’re pushing for a parkrun PB,
I your knackered old to-the-shops-
and-back trainers aren’t going to
cut it. Running as fast as you can over 3.1
miles (5k) is – as anyone who’s tried it will
Saucony Endorphin Speed 3
£165 / saucony.com
The clue is in the name here in terms
of what you can expect from one of
the newest members of Saucony’s
Endorphin range. The Speed 3 is
designed to get you running your
fastest, but also feels more stable than
its predecessor.
There are a few things that make it
a standout option, starting with a mesh
upper that’s both breathable and more
accommodating than the one on the
Speed 2. There’s also a good amount of
space up front in the toe box – important
26 SEPTEMBER 2022
know – very hard, and you’re going to need
all the help you can get. That means light,
fast and responsive trainers that can
propel you forward with every step –
crucially, without weighing you down.
for effective toe-off and power transfer.
Saucony’s special sauce comes
from combining its soft PWRRUNPB
midsole foam to provide an enjoyable
bounce and its Speedroll shoe design
that gives you that feel of being pushed
forward onto your toes.
The outsole is built for road runs,
with a pattern that’s designed to grip
well to pavements. When you’re ready
to progress beyond the 5k distance,
there’s also a nylon plate to promote big
energy returns on longer runs.
So whether you’re chasing a
sub-20-minute time, or just want
something to help you finish your first
5k, here’s our pick of the best shoes to
do the job.
If you’re just sticking to the short
stuff, this really is a standout shoe.
Speed H HH H H Comfort H HH H H
OVERALL H HH H H
Reasons to be cheerful:
✔ Spacious upper
✔ Durable outsole
✔ Just as at home over longer distances
✔ Good amount of grip
Reasons to be fearful:
✘ Wide fit may be a little loose for some
✘ Pricier than the Speed 2
Hoka Rocket X
£155 / hokaoneone.eu

If you’re all about bringing that
speed and don’t want to spend
big for a shoe that feels nice to
run fast in, Hoka’s Rocket X is
one to consider. Shop around
and you can pick it up for closer
to £80 than the usual £155 price
tag, and that represents a bit of
a bargain.
It wraps the feet up with a
light upper that hugs close to
your feet and offers a strong
locked-down, racing-flat fit. Hoka
matches up a 1mm carbon fibre
plate with a slightly firm midsole
foam and an early-stage meta
rocker to offer stability in the
forefoot, which delivers an
aggressive and enjoyably
smooth ride from start to finish.
The outsole prioritises the heel
and forefoot to cover key impact
areas, further reducing the
Reasons to be cheerful:
overall weight of a shoe that’s
✔ Makes fast running feel good
a great go-fast option. ✔ Lightweight design
Speed H HH H H Comfort H HH H Reasons to be fearful:
✘ Fit may be too narrow for some
OVERALL H HH H

Nike ZoomX Vaporfly Next 2 Reasons to be cheerful:

✔ Built for speed
£229.95 / nike.com ✔ Suitable for a range of distances
✔ Snug upper
A shoe you can expect to see
lined up at the front of every Reasons to be fearful:
race start line, Nike’s latest ✘ Some will need more support
Vaporfly includes its ✘ Expensive
responsive ZoomX midsole
foam and a full-length carbon
plate to help make this a shoe
to run a zippy 5k in.
The snug upper is built to
hug all the right places. with a
lightly padded tongue and
lacing that keep the weight
down and also takes the
pressure off your racing feet.
The grooved outsole,
meanwhile, is one to reserve
for road runs.
Speed H HH H H Comfort H HH H
OVERALL H HH H

SEPTEMBER 2022 27
●PERFECT FIT 5K SHOES

Puma Velocity Nitro 2

£100 / uk.puma.com
The Velocity Nitro 2 performs way above what its price tag suggests. It’s an
excellent shoe for partnering your 5k efforts. Reasons to be cheerful:
The upper is plush and comfortable, while the Puma Grip rubber outsole can ✔ Versatile
handle both wet and dry running conditions with ease. Puma uses its Nitro foam ✔ Great value for money
✔ Comfortable upper
midsole to provide a responsive and pleasantly bouncy ride that makes it work
✔ Grippy outsole
at easy, moderate and quicker paces. It offers stability at the heel, too, for anyone
concerned the ride might be too excitable and want that added protection. Reasons to be fearful:
Speed H HH H H Comfort H HH H H OVERALL H HH H ✘ Not the most breathable
✘ Could be lighter

Asics Metaspeed Edge+

£225 / asics.com
The Edge+ is expensive, but if you’re a
quick runner and looking for something
to fight for a podium finish, then it’s got
plenty going for it.
Asics keeps the weight down with
a recycled polyester upper, including
skinny braid laces and a wafer-thin
tongue. There’s more of its FF Blast
Turbo cushioning than the first Edge
and a carbon plate that helps get the
feet turning over quickly and efficiently.
The AsicsGrip outsole is well built
for wet roads and, while pricey, it’s a
Reasons to be cheerful: shoe that can help chase down those
✔ Nice and bouncy
✔ Works best going quick big 5k PBs.
Speed H HH H H Comfort H HH H H
Reasons to be fearful: OVERALL H HH H H
✘ Expensive
✘ Not the most durable

28 SEPTEMBER 2022
Skechers GoRun Speed Elite Hyper Brooks Glycerin 20
£165 / skechers.co.uk £150 / brooksrunning.com

Skechers is beginning to roll out some really good running Brooks has a lot of great shoes that work well at this distance,
shoes, and in the Elite Hyper it has one with a need for speed. but the Glycerin 20 is the comfiest of the lot. It features
If you like to run quick, this is the shoe for you – coming alive impressive new cushioning technology and offers a level
when you up the pace. of durability that means it can eat up a lot of running time.
The mono-mesh upper is thin and light, while Skechers’ You’ve got your pick of medium or wide-fit options, with
Hyper Burst foam and carbon plate – which sits primarily in an engineered mesh upper that offers ample snugness and
the forefoot – combines to give this shoe a slightly firm, but an outsole that gives you a big landing base for pavement
unexpectedly peppy ride. pounding. The Glycerin 20 also includes Brooks’ new,
Reasons to be cheerful: That’s topped off with nitrogen-infused DNA Loft v3 foam, providing a soft
✔ Fast and light a Goodyear outsole that cushioning to protect
✔ Barely-there upper gives the Elite Hyper Reasons to be cheerful: legs when you decide
✔ Excellent grip strong traction even if ✔ Comfortable to take them beyond
it’s a bit wet underfoot.   ✔ Durable that 5k distance.
Reasons to be fearful:
✘ Ultra-responsive feel won’t Speed H HH H H Reasons to be fearful: Speed H HH H H
be for everyone Comfort H HH H H ✘ There are quicker 5k options Comfort H HH H H
✘ Best for short distances only OVERALL H HH H H ✘ Better suited to training than racing OVERALL H HH H

Asics Novablast 2
£130 / asics.com
The Novablast is another versatile option that works at
a range of paces and distances, but is pacey enough to
push the envelope over 5k. Asics packs this latest
iteration with its FF Blast cushioning technology which
– matched with a wide, trampoline-inspired outsole –
helps to give the Novablast 2 a noticeably bouncy ride.
There’s additional support provided at the back of the
shoe through a TPU heel stabiliser, and Asics’ AHARPLUS
outsole is fit to eat up plenty of road-running time before
you need to think about buying a new pair.
Speed H HH HH Comfort H HH H H OVERALL H HH H H

Reasons to
be cheerful:
✔ Stable and
enjoyable ride
✔ Strong outsole
durability

Reasons to
be fearful:
✘ On the heavier side
✘ Cushioning will be
too soft for some

SEPTEMBER 2022 29
●PERFECT FIT 5K SHOES

Hoka Mach 5
£125 / hoka.com
Like the excellent Mach 4, Hoka’s Mach
5 is designed for daily training runs with
the capacity to speed
things up. There’s a quite
narrow jacquard mesh
upper to keep feet
securely locked in place
and it’s been upgraded
to Hoka’s latest ProFly+
midsole foam to deliver an
overall enjoyable ride.
The outsole remains similar to
the one used on the Mach 4 to offer
good grip on roads. It’s a shoe that
works for 5ks, but will easily manage
longer outings, too.
Reasons to be cheerful:
✔ Versatile shoe Speed H HH H Comfort H HH H H
✔ Responsive ride OVERALL H HH H H

Reasons to be fearful:
✘ Not the most durable outsole
✘ Narrow fit

New Balance Fuelcell RC Elite V2 Reasons to be cheerful:

£210 / newbalance.co.uk ✔ Built for speed
✔ Suitable for training and racing
Another 5k racer option, the RC Elite 2 packs an energy-
returning carbon plate, making it tailor-made for fast running. Reasons to be fearful:
New Balance plants its bouncy FuelCell foam inside the ✘ Not enough stability for some
midsole and there’s an outsole that prioritises heel and forefoot ✘ Heavier than the original
areas to improve durability. Its knit upper, meanwhile, is
designed to help keep the shoe’s weight down and offer
a sock-like fit.
Shop around and you can grab it for much less than RRP,
making it a great buy that works even when you move from
speedy 5ks to half and full marathons.
Speed H HH H H Comfort H HH H H OVERALL H HH H H

Words: Mike Sawh

30 SEPTEMBER 2022
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IN FOCUS MOTIVATION

32 SEPTEMBER 2022
 MOTIVATION IN FOCUS

MOTIVATION
STATIONS
Stuck in an exercise-related slump? Here’s your
guide to boosting fading fitness mojo

SEPTEMBER 2022 33
IN FOCUS MOTIVATION

M
otivation is a
funny old thing.
The driving
force behind any
behaviour or
action you do, it
can push people
to get up at unsociable hours to train, lift
beyond their assumed limits, and in elite
cases dedicate their whole lives to fitness.
But when it’s not working in your favour,
it can make working out feel the hardest
thing in the world.
Fortunately, there are plenty of ways
to get things moving in the right direction
again – whether it’s been a while since you
trained or you’ve simply hit a bit of a rut
in your progress. From science-backed
strategies to coach-approved techniques,
here are 19 different ways to rediscover
your fitness mojo.

01. Find your ‘why’

“I get my clients to write down five reasons
why they want to do exercise on a small
postcard and have that pinned up in the
kitchen over the chopping board,” says
sport and exercise mindset coach and
psychologist Matt Cunliffe.
“It doesn’t really matter what your
five reasons are – they could be getting
shredded or feeling more confident, but
if you don’t have those reasons, you’re
going to lose motivation quite quickly.”

02. Break it down

“Once you’ve set yourself a long-term
goal, break it down into smaller, bite-sized
pieces,” explains personal trainer Ty Paul.
“Psychologically, it will help because you’re
constantly achieving those small steps,
which will cumulatively help you achieve
your long-term goal.
“It’s all about dissecting whatever
your target is and being specific with your
plan. If you’re aiming to improve your
general fitness, you can get a really good
turnaround in three months. Set yourself
three-monthly targets that will get you
to your goal, and then break these down
further week-by-week.”

34 SEPTEMBER 2022

03. Get competitive online
Getting some love on a gym-related post,
or receiving Kudos on Strava is all well
and good, but the dopamine hit you get
every time your phone pings has less of
an impact on your motivation than you
might think.
Research from the University of
Pennsylvania highlighted how it was
in fact the social comparison available
through social networks, rather than
support received, that drove exercise class
participation. In fact, attendance numbers
were 90% higher in the group who had
access to the rest of their group’s data than
those who were going alone. Swerve the
likes and dig into your peer’s data fields
instead.
04. Set regular reminders
“Everyone has their reasons for working
out, but too few remind themselves of
them regularly,” says Cunliffe. “I ask my
client to put their ‘whys’ onto their phone
and have those pop up every day, to give
them a nudge about why they’re exercising
and what their reasons are.
“When it gets tough and the dark times
come – it’s raining and you’ve got to go for
a run or you’ve got to go to the gym and
you’re hurting – you have those essential
reminders of why it’s important you.”
MOTIVATION IN FOCUS
05. Reward yourself en route
“It’s impossible to fulfill all the results
that you want straight away, but we don’t
have a lot of patience with anything –
everything has to be instant,” says Paul.
“To counter that, when you achieve
a small goal, be sure to reward yourself.
It doesn’t always have to be food either
– it could be going for a massage or a
treatment. Regularly doing this gives you
some time to recharge and reflect on how
far you’ve come.”
06. Listen up
Addicted to true crime podcasts? Or is
there a new album you’re itching to listen
to? Try reserving it purely for when you
work out.
Research conducted by the University
of Pensylvania found that participants who
self-restricted themselves to listening to a
tempting audiobook when they worked
out visited the gym 29% more frequently
than those who tuned in whenever they
wanted. Known as ‘temptation bundling’,
reserving that solid-gold for pumping iron
could provide that added incentive to go
work out.
Everyone has “
their reasons for
working out, but
too few remind
themselves of
them regularly
”
SEPTEMBER 2022 35
IN FOCUS MOTIVATION
07. Have a mantra
“I ask people to have a phrase that they
can say to themselves when things get
tough,” says Cunliffe. “The one that I used
for over a year when I lost six stone was,
‘It’s days like these that count.’”
“Whenever I got out of bed and had
sore muscles, or was really tired, I’d say my
mantra. That was often enough to push me
to get out the house and put in a session.”
08. Distance yourself
Could changing the way you speak to
yourself make you more likely to exercise?
Research in the European Journal of Social
Psychology suggests switching from ‘I’ to
‘You’ has the power to do just that.
It found that thinking and speaking
to yourself in the second person helped
increase people’s focus on positive
attitudes toward working out. So next
time you’re struggling for motivation,
remember that ‘you got this’.
09. Map out your schedule
“When given the option, we love taking
the easy route,” says Paul. The best way to
counter that? Plan your workouts in your
calendar or diary like you would meeting
up with friends or work calls.
“If you plan your workouts at the
beginning of the week, you take out the
enemy of choice,” he adds. “It stops you
waking up on a Monday morning and
thinking, What should I do today?”
36 SEPTEMBER 2022
10. Boost your ego
Look down as well as up, according
to research published in Nature
Communications, which discovered that
when looking into what makes exercising
contagious, it’s better to fill your feed with
those who are a rung below you rather
than wall-to-wall washboard abs.
While elite-level athletes might
inspire your own self-improvement, the
study looked at the data from more than
a million runners and found that you’re
more likely to push yourself further or
faster after seeing a slightly slower peer’s
recent activity to subconsciously keep
your superiority.
11. Go beyond goals
Goals are great, but can easily change
day-to-day or even minute-by-minute
– especially if you’re not training towards
something tangible like an event.
Fortunately, there’s something else you
can tap into if you’re struggling to find
your why.
“A value is a deep-rooted part of you,”
explains Cunliffe. “Try to identity one or
two related to exercise, fitness and health.
It could be, ‘I want to be healthy in my old
age’ or ‘I want to test myself ’. These values
can be much more motivating than a goal:
they’re part of your being and you’re more
likely to work towards something you
truly believe in.”
“
If you plan your
workouts at the
beginning of the
week, you take
out the enemy
of choice
”
12. Write stuff down
“You see a lot of bodybuilders in the gym
carrying a notepad with them, recording
every set, and they know exactly where
they left off last time. It’s because they have
a game plan,” says Paul.
The technique shouldn’t be restricted
to weight-room regulars though. “By
monitoring everything, you can see exactly
what progress you’ve made, even in just a
week. The progress you make is completely
measurable and factual, and can provide
the satisfaction and motivation you need
to keep going.”
13. Keep it social
Over the last couple of years, it’s likely that
the way you’ve worked out will have had
to change and adapt at some point. But
if your cobbled-together home gym has
started to lose its allure, it might be time
to return to the real thing.
“Human beings are exceptionally
sociable and being sociable motivates most
of us,” explains Cunliffe. “We find that
if you have relationships – even if it’s just
a small one like a smiling at the person
working behind the counter in the gym
– you’re more likely to get up and go and
do it.”
14. Train with stronger people
While a training partner is a well-known
tactic for staying motivated through
accountability, could your perception of
their physical ability actually push you to
work harder?
Research from Kansas State University
supported this idea. By buddying up
with peers they saw as fitter, participants
increased their workout time and intensity
by as much as 200%. And the optimal
partner? Someone who is approximately
40% ‘better’.
 MOTIVATION IN FOCUS

SEPTEMBER 2022 37
IN FOCUS MOTIVATION

15. Focus on your strengths

“Motivation is commonly linked to
confidence, and if you feel like you’re good
at something, you’re more likely to do it,”
says Cunliffe.
“If you don’t enjoy the gym, find a
sport, game or activity you do like. What
you might find is that you’ll need to go to
the gym in order to improve at the activity,
which in itself is a really good incentive,
because then you’ve got something to
strive towards.”

16. Make time for reflection

“At the end of every week, reflect on how
your week has gone and ask yourself a
couple of questions: ‘How did I do this
week?’ and ‘How can I be better next
week?’,” says Paul.
He explains that it can be easy to fall
into the trap of just focusing on your last
session and associated negative thoughts

“
if it didn’t go well, but by taking a week-
long snapshot you’re able to balance out
the negatives with positives.
“You can look back at last week and Regardless of how you feel, put
say, ‘Well, I did a personal best on my
chest press, but I didn’t do as well on my your gear on, get out your front
deadlift so I need to improve on that. It door and go. It sounds simple,
but it works almost all the time
helps you understand where you stand.”

17. Identify variations on success

“Visible results from exercise can be
quite slow, which actually is really
demotivating,” says Cunliffe. “Instead,
you have to train yourself to identify
successes that are not related to how you
look or the individual day in the gym. You
might go and lift one day really well and
then the next day, go to the gym and lift
again but be quite sore and not perform
as well.”
Rather than focus on the performance
of the lift, he recommends taking
confidence from the effort of pushing your
limits: “The results are not always as clear
cut so we have to be able to take successes
from elsewhere, and remind ourselves that
those successes are still making progress
towards a certain goal.”
”
18. Prep the night before
“Planning the night before will give you extra impetus to follow through
with your intentions,” says Paul. “That could be getting your clothes Words: Charlie Allenby | Photography: Shutterstock
lined up, packing your gym bag ready for the morning, or putting your
banana and your protein shake in your bag so it’s all set to go.
“When you wake up, you can just get up and go and the decision is
already made. This technique works if you’re doing a session after work,
too. After all, if you fail to prepare, you’re preparing to fail.”
19. Just do it
“One final thing I find nearly always works is simply going to the gym,”
says Cunliffe. “Regardless of how you feel, put your gear on, get out
your front door and go. It sounds ridiculously simplistic, but it works
almost all the time. When doing this myself, nine times out of ten I
complete my workout.”

38 SEPTEMBER 2022
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IN FOCUS HOLISTIC HEALTH

GO
FULL
CIRCLE
James Davies is an internationally renowned osteopath,
performance coach and recovery specialist. Here’s his
roadmap for achieving full-body, 360-degree health,
fitness and wellbeing

40 SEPTEMBER 2022
 HOLISTIC HEALTH IN FOCUS

H
e’s known as ‘the
man with the
healing hands’.
A performance
coach, osteopath
and massage
therapist, if you’re in pain or looking
to find a route to full-body health,
James Davies is the real deal. Team
GB’s team therapist for the 2016
Olympics Games in Rio, Davies has
worked with the best Premier League
footballers, elite England rugby
players and stars of track and field,
helping them all to become the best
version of themselves.
David Beckham says Davies “has
revolutionised the way I feel about
my body.” Joe Wicks calls him “my
body coach.” And England centre
back Tyrone Mings says, “He has
been essential in my recovery from
injuries, games and improving my
performance.”
Now, he’s written a book, Body,
a practical guide for those looking
to achieve full-body health and
wellbeing. It details the importance
of warming up, warming down and
how to care for ourselves as we age.
“I want people to take a step
backwards and analyse everything in
their life,” says Davies. “And see that
tweaking small things here and there
can make a massive difference.”

SEPTEMBER 2022 41
IN FOCUS HOLISTIC HEALTH
TAKE
A 360
APPROACH
At the heart of Body is what
Davies calls his ‘360 road
map’: an approach that
considers every aspect of
wellbeing. The aim, he says,
is to ensure we recognise
when injury might occur
and not wait until the last
minute to fix issues which
have the potential to become
serious in the longer term.
“The 360 approach is
about looking at the bigger
picture,” explains Davies.
“So it’s a holistic approach.
I first saw this in athletes.
The best athletes had the
360 approach. So it wasn’t
just about giving them
treatment, it was the finer
details of things – measuring
their sleep, their posture.
The best athletes, four years
away from an Olympic final,
will be training at that stage
to find out what they’re
going to do in terms of a
warm-up and what they’re
going to eat.”
It is, he adds, about
looking at every aspect of
our lives and seeing how
different habits impact
physical wellbeing.
42 SEPTEMBER 2022
USE THE Taking a 360 approach might feel
daunting, so Davies has created a
SPACE special method which encompasses
METHOD all the things he considers to be
important for those who want to
get to full-body health.
“I wanted to look at everything,” he says, “because you
can give someone the best therapy, but if they have the
same habits on a daily basis – say they’re not getting enough
sleep – it’s always going to creep back to the pain that they
came in to see me for. I only have two hands, so I can’t treat
everybody. So I made the acronym SPACE: sleep, posture,
activity, calm and energy.”
Davies highlights the importance of getting enough
sleep. As a father of small children, he’s aware that this isn’t
always possible. It is, he says, about finding ‘windows of
opportunity’: “I’ve got a routine now that I will wake up
a little bit early and have an ice bath or sauna. I know that
not everyone will have that, so maybe wake up a bit before
the kids and go and find somewhere to rest and get ready
for the day.”
“My motto is that something is better than nothing
– even if that’s means stretching while you’re
making toast”
DISTINGUISH
PAIN AND
DISCOMFORT
Davies says there is a fundamental
misunderstanding of pain, requiring a
wholesale re-evaluation from those who
want to become pain-free or minimise their
chances of getting injured.
“We need to understand what pain is,”
he says, “because there’s a grey area there.
Pain has layers. Pain is different to feeling
discomfort. Many people don’t understand
that and they get put off from exercising
and working out. When you’re training,
discomfort is a natural thing.”
MULTITASK
When considering posture and activity,
Davies says it’s important not to try and
overthink when we address these issues.
Rather, he says, it’s all about multitasking:
“My motto is that something is
better than nothing – even if that’s means
stretching while you’re making toast. I want
people to think, When are the quick times
in my day I can practise doing a stretch or
warming up? If you’ve only got ten seconds,
make that ten seconds effective.”
For office-based workers, Davies
recommends working on areas that feel
stiff and sore after hours sitting in the same
position. He also highlights the case, in his
book, of a tiler who found they were sore in
the same place after working in the same way
for years:
“He didn’t listen to the clues and aches
that his brain and body were giving him,
then all of a sudden the pain came. I want
people to actually look at what they are
doing. And try and think of realistic things
[to do]. So if you’re sitting down, just get up
and stretch your back. Stretch when you’re
brushing your teeth. If you’re going to be
tilted to the left for a couple of hours, tilt
to the right beforehand.”
Davies adds that delayed onset muscle
soreness (DOMS) is to be expected,
especially if you’re working muscles that
haven’t been used in a while or are getting
back into training after some time off: “Even
athletes, when they go on holiday and they
come back from preseason, they aren’t used
to it so they’re getting those aches and pains.
They aren’t going full throttle after spending
two or three weeks in Ibiza!”
Davies advises a similar approach if
you’re taking up a new sport or trying a
new exercise in the gym. Being kind to your
body and understanding that a few aches are
normal, is key.
HOLISTIC HEALTH IN FOCUS

SEPTEMBER 2022 43
IN FOCUS HOLISTIC HEALTH

PUT
YOURSELF
FIRST
Davies says that by
prioritising your body and
your wellbeing, you aren’t
just doing yourself a service,
but also those around you.
“It’s actually to make you
a better parent, partner and
person at work,” he says.
“It’s going to help your
performance in daily life.”
Going for a regular holiday to enjoy themselves,
massage, for example, can or to take care of themselves
help towards the ‘calm’ or they wait to go on a
aspect of his SPACE retreat, or they wait for when
method. The main thing, they fully retire and say that’s
he adds, is not to wait: when they're going to start to
“That’s a trend in take care of their bodies. I’m
private practice that I’ve trying, through this book, to
seen so many times. People get people to actually think,
are waiting to go on a big OK, there is time.”

“By prioritising your body

and your wellbeing, you
aren’t just doing yourself
a service, but also those
around you”

44 SEPTEMBER 2022
 HOLISTIC HEALTH IN FOCUS

CONSIDER Davies believes

YOUR that part of
caring for
MENTAL our bodies is
HEALTH considering our
mental health,
too. Without this holistic approach, it can
be easy to go too hard and get injured.
“In terms of mental health, I think
there are times when we let too much
energy out,” he says. “And me as a
therapist, when I first initially worked,
I was never physically tired. I was drained
emotionally because people had negative
stress and I was giving them positive
energy and, at that time,
I didn’t know how to
deal with all that baggage
coming back at me.”
Davies says he has
worked with a psychologist
to help him deal with the
mental side of things, but
that simple tactics can help
us calm down and use our
energy in a positive, more
targeted way. “You need to
make sure that you have
a reset button,” he says.
“That can just be sitting in
silence, setting time aside
and thinking about you.”

DON’T TRAIN “I see this so often,” says Davies. “So many people have started
going to the gym, and then they do too much in one session
TOO HARD and they get achy, they haven’t warmed up well or cooled
down well, and then they go off it. They feel really upset
saying, ‘I’m not made for this.’”
Instead, he advocates a less absolutist approach to working out: “It’s effective to just do
20 minutes if you’ve got that time, rather than an hour. And it’s realistic, too. Something is
Words: Joe Minihane | Photography: Body (HarperCollins)

better than nothing. Even among athletes at the highest level, there are people that train too
much, and that’s why they're always getting hurt.”
Davies says it’s all about being the best coach for yourself: “The best coaches are always
calm and they know how to give the right dosage to athletes. Anyone can follow a workout,
but being a good coach to yourself is about being kind.”

Body by James Davies is

published by HQ, HarperCollins in
hardback, eBook and audiobook

SEPTEMBER 2022 45
IN FOCUS BOULDERING

When
Rotimi Odukoya
got bored of
the gym he built
his own inner-
city bouldering
community.
Here he
explains how
indoor climbing
can take your
own strength
to new heights

46 SEPTEMBER 2022
 BOULDERING IN FOCUS

SEPTEMBER 2022 47
IN FOCUS BOULDERING
R
otimi Odukoya has the kind of
physique that millions of men
strive to achieve in the gym
– which is where he started
his strength journey. But
somewhere along the way the
The North Face athlete started
to look for more than just lifting weights.
That was then he discovered the sport of
indoor climbing.
Bouldering’s combination of a physical
and mental challenge, a sociable scene and
a shared experience that helps you face your
fears, was such a draw that Odukoya’s friends
were soon joining him to climb. It prompted
him to set up his own climbing community,
Climbxr, which has many black members
and welcomes people from all backgrounds.
So what are the benefits of bouldering,
how can anyone get involved, and what
are Rotimi Odukoya’s tips for nailing the
technique? Men’s Fitness writer Matt Ray
went to train with him, at Yonder bouldering
wall in North London, to find out…
Social setting
“I used to go to a gym in West London,
but I’m quite an extrovert and the gym just
felt very standoffish – like headphones in,
no one really wants to talk. I just found it
boring,” says Odukoya. In contrast, within
15 minutes of starting to climb together,
he and I are chatting to a complete stranger
about the best way for Odukoya to tackle a
bouldering problem that he’s been working
on for a few sessions, but is near his max
strength limit.
Climbing culture is just like that – it’s
such an engaging sport that you can’t help
but strike up conversations to offer (or ask
for) ideas on how to unlock a tricky section
– and it never feels awkward.
“When I came climbing for the first
time and somebody saw me struggling with
something, they were like, ‘Hey, maybe you
didn’t see this’,” says Odukoya, “or, ‘There’s
a hold around the corner.’ And they’d be
willing to demonstrate it for me, too. You
don’t really get that in a gym setting.”
Essential movements
Unlike with most sports, humans spent
millions of years evolving into climbing
machines, which means that our bodies
are primed to be able to climb. You could
48 SEPTEMBER 2022
say that climbing is the ultimate, full-body,
functional-strength workout. It highlights
any gaps in your strength and mobility.
“When you go climbing for the first time
you realise that your forearms are weak,” says
Odukoya. “But then you get finger strength
that you’ve never had before and you develop
more mobility, especially in the hips. You’re
forced into these positions to climb that you’d
never get into otherwise – unless you were
playing Twister.”
Odukoya does still hit the weights to
supplement climbing, tennis and swimming,
but he focuses mostly on the legs and dynamic
strength. “People don’t realise that climbing is
mostly in the legs,” he adds. “And even when
I’m squatting I’m thinking about pausing and
hip mobility. I do things like pistol squats
and plyometrics, too – I’m thinking about
climbing and moving swiftly.”
Crash course
Bouldering is the specific flavour of climbing
that focuses on your max strength. Most of
the bouldering problems in Yonder are only
a handful of moves, which you need to tackle
with intensity over the space of a few seconds
– just like lifting heavy.
The added spice comes from the fact
“You get finger
strength that
you’ve never
had before and
you develop
more mobility,
especially in
the hips”
that if you fail, you’re going to fall. “You’re
going to be in positions where you have to
commit,” says Odukoya. “You think, If I do
this, I’m either going to make it or I’m just
going to fall off. But if you do fall you realise
it’s not that scary.”
Odukoya, like most climbers, very
quickly learned how to fall safely onto
the crash mats. And climbing with him
in Yonder we both soon get drawn into
multiple attempts on boulder problems,
pinging off the wall when we fail, but not
really thinking about it as we chase the buzz
of getting to the top.
“You do need to tackle the fear factor,”
he says, “but it makes it fun, because you get
this mad adrenaline rush after you complete
a climb.”

These are the techniques that can unlock the more technical boulder problems and speed up your progression
Foot placement
Beginner climbers often
stand on footholds using the
underside of the foot. However,
the correct and more secure
method is to use the very end
of the climbing shoe, which
is designed to grip better and
the part you can put more
force through.
MASTER THESE MOVES
The push/pull The flag
Rotimi Odukoya says this Your legs always matter when
move helped to unlock you’re climbing, even when
his own climbing ability. they’re not on the wall. The flag
Rather than pulling on is when you free hang your foot
every hold, find ways to as a counterbalance to gain
palm off where possible. more reach, inject momentum
into a move or stop you
swinging out from the wall.
BOULDERING IN FOCUS
The toe hook or heel hook
Just as you can use your arms
to both pull and push, so you
can use your feet. Either hook
your heel around a hold, or
hook your toe under one, and
use your leg muscles to pull
you into the wall, which will
help you to make the next
move with your arms.
IN FOCUS BOULDERING

Community feel GET A GRIP

There are new bouldering gyms being built all the time in Knowing the different types of climbing handholds and how
the UK’s cities. It’s helping to change the face of the sport they’re best used is vital to avoiding frustration on the wall
and bring in new climbers. Bouldering gyms are becoming
more diverse and more representative of the streets around
them, partly through communities like Climbxr, but that’s
not the reason Odukoya set his group up in the first place:
“I didn’t see anyone else I knew climbing when I went
for the first time, so I posted on social media, and then my
friends were like, ‘Hey, that looks really fun, can I come too?’
“I’m not hardwired to think, OK, there’s only white
people in this room. Do I enjoy this? No, that’s not me,
I just enjoy the sport. Then when I started bringing my
friends, it clicked that we’re actually the only black people
in this space, climbing.” The Jug The Pinch
Odukoya adds that around 300 people from many It’s big, it’s deep, it’s safe, so A harder hold to master but
different communities have climbed for the first time grab it! A good hold to rest on a good one for strengthening
and shake your arms out. your grip.
through Climbxr, which has made the sport more visible.

Beginner basics
After introducing so many people to the sport, Odukoya
has a good idea of the main things holding back newbies:
“It’s mainly people believing they don’t have enough upper-
body strength to climb. But climbing is a full-body sport
and I always say that if you can climb a ladder, then you
can climb.”
One beginner error that you see all the time on the
climbing wall is people trying to bicep curl the holds.
“The best way to hold on is to be relaxed, with straight The Sidepull The Sloper
arms,” he adds. “If you’re holding heavy shopping bags, This hold may only ‘work’ when You will need to use an open-
like you’re doing a bicep curl, then you’ll fatigue easily. your body is in the right position handed grip here – get as much
But if you hold it like you would naturally, at arm’s length and pulling against it, sideways. skin in contact as possible.
by your hips, it’s much easier. It’s the same with climbing.”
Another key aspect to being a good climber is ‘reading’
the route or bouldering problem, and it’s a step that beginner
climbers often get frustrated by. “I always visualise how I’m
going to climb a boulder before I do it,” says Odukoya.
He likens the process of working out the ‘beta’ of how
to do a climb to his previous career as a coder: “You can be
stuck on a bouldering problem for ages. Sometimes you just
have to move away and to see it from a different perspective,
because there isn’t just one way to complete a climb. You can
nail a problem by solving it in a different way.”
The Pocket The Undercling
These are often only big A powerful hold that uses your
enough for two or three fingers. biceps and usually precedes
Don’t cut your feet loose. a swing up to a higher hold.
Words: Matt Ray | Photography: Matt Ray

Rotimi Odukoya is a
The North Face athlete
(thenorthface.co.uk). Find
out more about Climbxr
on Instagram @climbxr
or clmbxr.co.uk. Thanks
to Yonder Climbing Wall
(thisisyonder.com)

The Crimp
A crimp hold is a small edge
that you can only fit your
50 SEPTEMBER 2022 fingertips onto.
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IN FOCUS GERAINT THOMAS

52 SEPTEMBER 2022
 GERAINT THOMAS IN FOCUS

Cyclist Geraint Thomas discusses his incredible

transformation from powerful indoor track champion
to ultra-endurance Tour de France winner – featuring
brutal training days, cutting-edge sports science and
finding comfort in discomfort

SEPTEMBER 2022 53
IN FOCUS GERAINT THOMAS

54 SEPTEMBER 2022

I
n the electrifying
final of the team
pursuit at London
2012 – ten years
ago this summer
– Geraint Thomas
and his track
cycling teammates
raced around the
indoor velodrome
at speeds of over
60kph, covering 4km in
a world-record time of
3 minutes and 51.659
seconds, to claim a
memorable gold medal.
The explosive event – in
which teams of four pedal
in synchronicity just inches
from each other’s wheels
– saw Thomas unleash a
brutal display of power in
a short but excruciatingly
intense effort. The intensity
of the action is so high
that riders’ brains become
starved of oxygen and
black dots drift in front
of their eyes.
Just six years later,
Thomas was excelling in
a very different event. At
the 2018 Tour de France
– the famously gruelling
three-week endurance race
over the French Alps –
Thomas pedalled 3,351km
(the equivalent of cycling
from London to Tbilisi in
Georgia); completed half-
a-million pedal revolutions;
torched 125,000 calories
(an energy expenditure so
great he’d need to eat 416
McDonald’s cheeseburgers
to replace it); and climbed
50,000m, the equivalent of
cycling from sea level to the
summit of Mount Everest
five-and-a-half times.
After 21 days of pain and
suffering, Thomas became
the first ever Welshman to
win the race.
Extraordinary evolution
To casual observers,
this transition might
seem natural enough –
and certainly Thomas’
track training gave him
great speed, power and
technique. But sports
scientists know that what
Thomas achieved was
seriously impressive:
switching from track to
road is a bit like an 800m
runner evolving into an
ultramarathon champion.
“When my race was
over 4km on the track, our
record time was 3 minutes
and 51 seconds,” Thomas
tells MF. “But when I won
the Tour de France, which
is over three weeks, I won
it in a time of just over
81 hours, so it’s quite a
difference.”
The 36-year-old is
speaking to us from his
home in Monaco, where
he lives with his wife Sara
and son Macs. “Initially,”
he says, “when I went
from track to road, the
first months were hard.
On the track you use
your carbs straight away
for energy and it’s really
punchy and intensive
over a short period. But
moving to the road, you
lack that real endurance
and you have to eat a lot so
you’re not blowing up after
three hours on the bike.
Power-wise, it’s different
as well, because if you’re
going uphill at the Tour
de France the effort might
need to be for two-and-a-
half hours.”
Built for power
Based purely on
physiology, Thomas
shouldn’t be a Tour de
France champion. Road
cyclists are typically short
and lean: when you’re
cycling over the Alps every
additional kilo of weight
is like hauling an extra
bag of sugar uphill. But
Thomas is 6ft tall and naturally powerful.
At Whitchurch High School in Cardiff
(which has a habit of producing world-
class athletes, including Gareth Bale and
Sam Warburton), he thrived in power-
based sports like rugby and swimming.
After discovering track cycling aged
ten, and joining the British Cycling set-up
aged 18, he initially focused on the power-
based track events – and with Olympic
golds at both Beijing 2008 and London
2012, didn’t do too badly...
When he sampled his first Tour de
France in 2007, with Barloworld, he
finished 140th out of 141 riders. But after
deciding to commit fully to road cycling
in 2013, he initially worked as a support
rider at Team Sky (now rebranded as Team
Ineos Grenadiers), before becoming team
leader in 2018 – the result of an amazing
physical transformation.
“It was a massive challenge,” admits
Thomas. “In Beijing I was a lot bigger.
I was just all muscle and power back then.
Power-to-weight never came into it for us.
On the track, it was more about repairing
the muscles and being able to go again
“My attitude has always
been that if I don’t get
home from training
nailed and on my knees
I haven’t worked hard
enough”
the next day, rather than trying to be lean
and thinking about your power-to-weight
ratio. Now when I line up for the Tour
I’m 69 kilos, whereas in London I was
73-74kg.”
But Thomas insists that new fitness
goals and challenges are what keep us
motivated over time. “If you have goals in
mind that you are working towards, that is
what gets you out of bed in the morning,”
he explains. “You’re always training for
something.”
Forced adaptation
To kick-start his transition from power
to endurance athlete, Thomas used a
winning combination of science and
suffering. Drawing on cutting-edge advice
from Ineos Grenadiers’ impressive sports
science team, he performed long, seven-
GERAINT THOMAS IN FOCUS
to eight-hour rides to
teach his body to burn its
own fat for fuel. He did
heart-pumping ‘spiked’
interval sessions in order
to force his fitness levels
– and his pain threshold
– ever higher. And during
insanely tough training
camps in Tenerife, he
repeatedly rode up the
high-altitude Teide volcano
to develop more oxygen-
carrying red blood cells.
He also committed to
low-carb training rides,
eating a protein-rich
omelette or Greek yogurt
for breakfast – without any
carb-rich toast or oats – to
keep his weight down and
force his body to burn fat.
It was a brutal
endurance-building
regime. But Thomas says
he relishes the suffering.
“It’s kind of the norm now,
I guess,” he explains. “You
go through so much pain
and suffering in training.
But it’s all worthwhile
when you’re at the front
of the race. You get a buzz
off that.”
As he gets older and
savvier, Thomas is starting
to do things differently.
“I’ve always been someone
who responds well to
high volume,” he says, “so
I’ve kept that in, but my
training over the last few
years has changed a bit,
with more fresh efforts.
My whole attitude since
I was a kid was that if
I don’t get home from
training nailed and on my
knees or starving I haven’t
worked hard enough.
Whereas with my new
coach Conor (Taylor) it
is more about being fresh
for the big efforts, so I get
more out of them. I still
do long, low-carb rides,
but they’re not as extreme
as they used to be.”
SEPTEMBER 2022 55
IN FOCUS GERAINT THOMAS
Go-far fuel
Smart nutrition has also
been a key component
of Thomas’ physical
transformation. As a
general rule, he adheres
to a monkish diet of fish,
salad, vegetables, rice and
quinoa, with healthy fats
coming from avocadoes,
salmon and olive oil.
“I’m not naturally
a 69kg person,” he says,
“so getting down to
that weight is hard. I
really push my body to
extremes, whereas some
of the other riders are
naturally smaller climbers
with smaller physiques.
That’s the hardest part
for me, for sure. It’s
something I won’t miss
when I stop.”
Although Thomas
counts the calories at
mealtimes, in recent
years he has been eating
more during his training
rides and races. And new
research from his team’s
56 SEPTEMBER 2022
sponsor Science in Sport
now also suggests riders
“I’m not naturally a 69kg
can absorb 120g of carbs person, so getting down to that
per hour – 30g more than
the 90g per hour typically weight is hard. I really push my
targeted by pro cyclists – body to extremes”
by combining different
but complementary
sources of carbs. That continued for another six for, I think for my mental
can be achieved through months really,” he laughs. health it would be hard.
liquids, gels, chews or “It was a mad time. But Training for an Ironman
solid snacks, with Ineos I just wanted to make the will certainly wean me
riders typically glugging most of it because I was off professional cycling.
Science in Sport’s Beta 32 and you really need I’m not looking to do it
Fuel drink, which to enjoy the good times. too seriously, but I know
combines maltodextrin I made sure I did.” as soon as I start running
and fructose to optimise or swimming I will start
in-race carb intake. Ironman ambitions chasing times.”
“You need to train Fresh from his impressive
your gut to be able to – and unpredicted –
absorb more carbs,” adds third place at the 2022
Thomas, “so we have Tour, Thomas is already
days with hard efforts in considering taking his
training when we try to power-to-endurance
take on 120g an hour. transition even further, by
Just doing it in training doing his first Ironman
helps you to be able to event when he eventually
absorb it in a race.” retires from road cycling:
When he won the “If I were to just
Tour in 2018, he happily retire from cycling and
ditched his restrictive not have a goal to strive
regime and enjoyed a
blow-out with beers and
pizza. “The celebrations
 GERAINT THOMAS IN FOCUS

ROAD TO GLORY

2004
WINS JUNIOR PARIS-ROUBAIX,
AND THE SCRATCH RACE AT
THE JUNIOR TRACK WORLD
CHAMPIONSHIPS.
2007
CLAIMS HIS FIRST SENIOR TRACK
CYCLING WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP
GOLD IN THE TEAM PURSUIT, BUT
FINISHES 140TH ON HIS TOUR DE
FRANCE DEBUT.

2008
STORMS TO DOUBLE
TRACK GOLD IN THE TEAM
PURSUIT AT THE BEIJING
OLYMPICS AND WORLD
CHAMPIONSHIPS. 2010
JOINS THE NEWLY FORMED
TEAM SKY ROAD TEAM AND
TRIUMPHS IN THE NATIONAL
ROAD RACE.

2014
WINS THE ROAD RACE AT
2012 THE COMMONWEALTH
GAMES IN GLASGOW.
WINS HIS SECOND OLYMPIC
TRACK GOLD IN THE TEAM
PURSUIT AT LONDON 2012,
AND HIS THIRD TEAM
PURSUIT WORLD TITLE.

2015
FINISHES 15TH AT THE
TOUR DE FRANCE – HIS
BEST POSITION YET.
2016
PLACES FIRST AT
PARIS-NICE.
2018
WINS THE TOUR DE FRANCE
TO BECOME THE FIRST EVER
WELSH CHAMPION.

2019
FINISHES SECOND
AT THE TOUR.
2020
PLACES FOURTH IN THE
WORLD TIME TRIAL
CHAMPIONSHIPS.

2021
WINS THE TOUR DE 2022
ROMANDIE.
WINS THE TOUR
DE SUISSE.

SEPTEMBER 2022 57
IN FOCUS GERAINT THOMAS

CARB CYCLING
Aitor Viribay, lead performance nutritionist at Ineos Grenadiers, reveals the huge difference
between Geraint Thomas’ training and race-day nutrition plans

TRAINING DAY RACE DAY

Easy day with 2-3 hours of Zone 1 training Lots of hard efforts, typically over a 200km stage

Breakfast Lunch Breakfast Lunch

Kcals: 630 Kcals: 700 Kcals: 1,000 Kcals: 900
Carbs: 55g Carbs: 70g Carbs: 180g Carbs: 160g
Protein: 35g Protein: 35g Protein: 30g Protein: 40g
Fats: 30g Fats: 30g Fats: 15g Fats: 10g

On the bike Dinner On the bike Dinner

Kcals: 360-400 Kcals: 550 Kcals: 1,800 Kcals: 850
Carbs: 30-40g per hour Carbs: 50g Carbs: 80-120g per hour Carbs: 130g
Protein: 20g Protein: 40g Protein: 0 Protein: 35g
Fats: 0 Fats: 20g Fats: 0 Fats: 20g

MF ANALYSIS
Although Thomas’ overall calorie intake is relatively low on an easy training day,
he gets a winning mix of slow-release carbs, protein and fat throughout the day.
He needs just 30-40g of carbs per hour during low-intensity training rides, but
he eats balanced meals before and after so he is not depleted the next day.
His biggest meal comes after his morning ride, when his body is repairing itself.
On easy days he targets plenty of fruit, salad and vegetables to support his
body’s overall health and recovery.
MF ANALYSIS
Tour riders can burn 6,000 calories a day, so it’s no surprise that Thomas’s race-day
diet doubles his calorie intake compared to an easy training day. His focus is on
quick-to-digest carbs: from white versions of rice, bread and pasta, or Science in Sport
chews, gels and drinks. He targets 80-120g of carbs per hour when racing, but avoids
protein and fat on the bike, which can slow digestion. With his body under stress,
and carbs a priority at mealtimes, he gets his vitamins and nutrients through easy-
to-digest smoothies and veggie soups when he’s finished racing.

“Tour riders can burn 6,000

calories a day, so it’s no surprise
that Thomas’s race-day diet
doubles his calorie intake”

Words: Mark Bailey | Photography: Science in Sport / Charlie Crowhurst

Part of the
revolution in endurance
fuelling, Geraint Thomas
and the INEOS Grenadiers
are a proud partner of
Science in Sport. Visit
scienceinsport.com/
betafuel

58 SEPTEMBER 2022
 PROMOTION

TIME TO
GET FRUITY
Whitworths’ range of dried fruit
is perfect for any time of day

asy, robust, tasty and convenient, dried

E fruit is the perfect way of adding not
only fibre, but also a five-a-day portion
to your daily tick list. Here are some simple
ways you can get more of it into your life…

Snack smart
Whether you’re out on the trails, clocking-
up kms on the bike or are just in need of
an afternoon snack at work, dried fruit can
provide a fast-digesting hit of energising
natural sugars. Pack Whitworths SHOTS
in your kit bag as a delicious, go-to goodness
snack with a mix of dried fruit and chocolate
pieces. With under 100 calories per pack,
they’re a great addition to your healthy routine.

Bulk up your breakfasts

Put more fibre and muscle-building protein
into your breakfast porridge by adding
Whitworths Peanuts & Raisins to the mix.
You’ll not only add some nutritional bulk
to that first meal of the day, but you’ll also
sweeten its flavour – without processed sugars.

Embrace dates
Dates and prunes, naturally, are incredibly
sweet. If you add 100g of dates to two to
four tablespoons of boiling water, the fruit
softens to a paste – which can then be used
as a replacement for sugar. Add a tablespoon
into curries, or swap out sugar with the paste
in a sponge cake. The paste creates a toffee,
sweet, malty note to any dish – it’s a must-try.

Go against the grain

Sultanas and chopped apricots add texture,
fibre and flavour to Moroccan couscous.
Adding Whitworths Apricot Slices is another
way dried fruit can boost the textures and
flavours easily, bringing meals to life in the
process. Equally, plump, juicy raisins can be
stirred through a spicy pilaf rice to balance
and add a hint of sweetness.

To find out more about Whitworths – including its convenient

on-the-go SHOTS snack packs – check out whitworths.co.uk
PROMOTION

RUN WITH IT
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247 Run is the latest capsule from Represent,
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Represent 247 Chest Rig

At the forefront of the range is the 247 Chest Rig, the ultimate wearable
utility for running. The 247 Chest Rig has two zip pockets with the ability
to add a hydration pack to the back, enabling wearers to maintain their
performance over any distance. The rig body is crafted from four-way
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as well as reflective 3m lines running throughout the piece to ensure
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247 Active Jogger

and 247 Seamless
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Also in the collection
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 GET FIT IN THE KITCHEN

BOWLED OVER
Swap your insulin-spiking bread and
butter for this high-protein blueberry
smoothie bowl
ike having a healthy ice cream for
L breakfast, smoothie bowls are perfect
in the summer heat. They take just a few
minutes to prepare, but allow you to take in
a huge variety of fresh fruits, vegetables,
protein and healthy fats, all of which can
be lacking in the first meal of the day.
Recipe taken from The Plant-Based Power Plan by TJ Waterfall (published by Penguin Life) | Photography: Shutterstock

TIME: 5 minutes
DIFFICULTY: Easy
STORAGE: Best consumed immediately

INGREDIENTS (serves 1):

- 1 frozen chopped banana
- ½ cup frozen blueberries
- 1 cup fresh spinach (approx.
30g)
- ¼ fresh beetroot
- 1 tbsp ground flax seeds
- 1 scoop plant-based vanilla
protein powder
- ½ cup plant-based milk

METHOD:
Blend all the ingredients in
a high-powered blender until
thick and smooth.
If you like, you can then
scatter your favourite toppings
over, like more fresh fruit, nuts,
seeds, or nut butter.

PER SMOOTHIE Kcals: 294,

Protein: 27.9g, Carbs: 42.4g,
Fat: 4.8g, Fibre: 10.2g

SEPTEMBER 2022 61
●FUEL NUTRITION NEWS

BLUE BOLT
Blueberries are a nutrient
powerhouse, rich in bioactive
compounds known to benefit both
health and performance. And a
recent study has shown that
blueberry supplementation can not
only increase treadmill performance
and VO2 max, but also decrease
levels of inflammation, indicating
improved recovery.4

Holy is the 100%

plant-based, gluten-
TRY free, organic meal
THIS: plan company
delivering fresh
food cooked by
some of the best
vegan chefs in the
UK. Its aim is to
revolutionise the
way nutrition is
delivered: through
meticulously
planned meals
that contain the TRI M THE FAT
exact vitamins and New research shows that high-fat
minerals your body foods not only add to your waistline,
needs to thrive. but can also impair the central nerv-
Holy offers a range
ous system, contributing to cognitive
of plans to suit
different needs
decline and mental health problems
and goals, from like anxiety and depression.1 While
slimming down healthy fats from whole foods can be
to building muscle. protective, it’s the added fats in fried
Find out more at and highly processed foods that are
eatholy.co.uk particularly problematic.

LESS THAN 7% PROTEIN POSITIVES

of adults have optimal cardiometabolic health,
according to research from Tufts University.
Researchers assessed five components of health:
blood pressure, blood sugar, cholesterol, body fat,
and presence of cardiovascular disease like heart
attack or stroke. They found that only 6.8% of
adults have optimal levels of all five components.
While these results were found in the US, similar
rates are likely to exist in the UK. Luckily, the
conditions are largely preventable through
improved diet and more daily exercise.
You know that a high-protein diet during weight
loss can help to preserve muscle mass, and it’s
now been shown that increasing protein intake
even slightly can also substantially improve the
quality of food choices made. A review of studies
published in the journal Obesity showed that
those getting 20% of their calories from protein
chose significantly more green vegetables, while
consuming less sugar and refined grains than
those getting 18% of their calories from protein.

62 SEPTEMBER 2022
 GUT REACTION
Western-style diets – rich in red
and processed meat, sugar and
refined grains – are known to
increase the risk of colorectal
cancer. New research in over
130,000 participants adds to
the case that this link is brought
about, at least in part, by
changes to the gut microbiome
caused by these foods.3 In the
study, those eating the highest
amounts of red and processed
meat and sugar had the highest
levels of E. Coli strains, which
produce enzymes known to
cause mutations in human cells.

ABOUT A SOY
Words: TJ Waterfall | 1. Metabolic Brain Disease; 2. JISSN; 3. Gastroenterology; 4. Iranian Journal of Public Health; 5. Reproductive Toxicology

Soy foods like tofu, tempeh and edamame

have a long history of health benefits, and
are packed with high-quality protein that
can support muscle growth. But some
remain worried that they might
affect hormones in men. However,
PRE-D RINKS a large review of 41 clinical trials
shows that soy intake does not
Most pre-workout supplements
are made with caffeine – an
affect testosterone or
effective performance oestrogen levels in men,
e n h a n c e r, b u t o n e t h a t ’ s n o t regardless of dose or duration.5
well tolerated by everyone. If
you find yourself with the jit-
ters or anxiety after caffeine, BETAINE
a new study – in 24 col- is a compound found in nutrient-rich foods like spinach and whole grains, It’s been shown to
increase muscle endurance, helping participants perform more reps on the leg press and bench
lege-aged, resistance-trained press after just 14 days. On top of that, betaine helped to reduce post-exercise cortisol and increase
adults – showed that a non- testosterone, both markers of how well athletes are recovering from their training. The study used
caffeinated pre-workout, 2.5mg of betaine a day – equivalent to around 400g spinach, or 200g wheat bran.2
containing electrolytes,
citrulline, beta-alanine, betaine
and l-theanine – was effective
at increasing maximal force
production during an isometric
s q u a t t e s t . H o w e v e r, i t d i d n ’ t
improve ratings of energy
compared to an otherwise
identical caffeinated pre-
workout.

SEPTEMBER 2022 63
●FUEL CALORIE TRACKING

COUNTING
CALORIES
Whether you want to bulk up or slim down, calories
are crucial, and using an app like MyFitnessPal is the
obvious way to track how many you’re consuming.
Here’s how to get it right

W
hile the process can feel impossibly hard, the
concept of either losing or gaining weight
couldn’t be simpler. If you consume more calories
than you burn, you will put on weight; if you
burn more than you consume, you’ll lose it. Easy.
Of course, tracking those calories in a reliable fashion
requires some attention to detail. Which is where a calorie-
tracking app like MyFitnessPal (MFP) can help. Undoubtedly
the most renowned food-tracking app on the market, MFP
has around 200 million users. And the concept is pretty
straightforward: you build a profile, MyFitnessPal gives you
a calorie and macro target, and by adding in the foods you
eat each day, the aim is to hit this target in order to see results.
Naturally, though, if it seems too good to be true, it
probably is. Many of us are using MyFitnessPal incorrectly,
or may simply encounter problems. So we checked in with the
experts to hone in on the errors that might be derailing your
calorie-tracking efforts...

MyFitnessPal isn’t always 100% accurate…

If you type ‘brown bread’ into MFP, or ‘lasagne’, you’ll be
inundated with brands and wide fluctuations in calorie counts.
Different brands will add different ingredients to their seemingly
similar foods. It may seem easier to pick the lowest-calorie
option from the choices available, but that can lead to a flawed
calorie count.
Added to that, Charlotte Fisher, nutritionist at Marvin’s
Den, says there are often inaccuracies on food labels: “There’s
a 10% tolerance on food labelling, and even seasonal variation
in the energy content of your food. These factors make tracking
a ‘best guess’ at most.”

64 SEPTEMBER 2022
SEPTEMBER 2022
65
*Stock image not representative of MyFitnessPal
●FUEL CALORIE TRACKING

Liquid calories count, too calories also need to remember that people then overlook the quality and
Unfortunately, the calories in certain while an avocado and a Kit Kat nutritional value of foods.”
drinks can be pretty high. That full-fat Chunky might have similar calories, For good health generally, we
milk on your cereal? Around 150 the calories coming from a chocolate need to be consuming nutritionally
calories. A cup of orange juice? That’s bar are much higher in sugar. So be dense foods, but MyFitnessPal won’t
another 100kcals. The ‘one’ beer after aware of macronutrients and that an know the difference between the
work? Each pint packs in 200 calories avocado contains much healthier fats.” carbs in an apple and the carbs in
or more. a croissant. We don’t need to tell
“It’s easy to ignore liquid calories Quality can trump quantity you which one contains the greater
as they’re quick to consume,” says Which leads to this point: “When amount of health benefits.
Rob Hobson, Healthspan’s head of focusing on calorie intake,” says Dr Processed food lacking in
nutrition. “But these calories do count Aria, a high-performance psychologist nutrition can also leave your body
and if you’re tracking seriously, they and behaviour change expert, “some craving more food as it seeks out the
need to be included.”
Instead, measure your liquids
out into measuring cups before
you consume them and input to
MyFitnessPal. Hobson also adds that
these liquid calories normally come
from sugar, which can obviously play
havoc with blood sugar levels –“That
can lead to hunger pangs and might
promote mid-afternoon tiredness
and snacking.”

“It’s easy to ignore liquid

calories as they’re quick
to consume. But they need
to be included”
MyFitnessPal treats all calories
and people the same
Of course, fundamentally calories
are the same. But the way food reacts
in your body – and the impact it
has on hormones and energy – isn’t
taken into account on MyFitnessPal.
According to Hobson, while there is
truth to the fact that creating a calorie
deficit can lead to weight loss, the
concept is somewhat misguided:
“How your body burns calories
depends on lots of factors including
the type of food, metabolism and even
gut bacteria. That means everyone
is different, so you can eat the exact
same number of calories as someone
else but get a different outcome when
it comes to weight loss.”
Patrick Dooley, trainer at John
Reed, adds that “Those who track

66 SEPTEMBER 2022
vitamins and minerals it needs. In one
metabolic study, participants were
split into two groups and given meals
with an identical number of calories,
DO THE MATH
sugar, fat, fibre and sodium, with one Use this formula for working out your own
group tucking into ultra-processed personal calorie needs
foods, and the other, unprocessed.
“Whoever was in the ultra-processed
Rob Hobson recommends the Harris Benedict
group tended to eat 500 calories more
per day and gained weight,” explains equation, which works out your basal metabolic rate
Dr Aria. (BMR): the number of calories you would need if you
Put simply, as Hobson says, “Food simply slept all day. To work it out, follow the equation
quality should be made a priority below...
when choosing what to eat.”
BMR = 66.5 + (13.75 x weight in kg) + (5.003 x
The exercise issue height in cm) - (6.75 x age)
Upon joining MFP, you’ll typically
be asked to enter your daily activity
So, if you were a 30-year-old, 75kg, 180cm tall man,
levels from sedentary (zero exercise),
it would look like this:
to very active (tough gym sessions and
an active job, for example). So, your
‘exercise’ has technically already been BMR = 66.5 + (13.75 x 75) + (5.003 x 180) - (6.75
accounted for in your daily calorie x 30) = 1729.29
suggestion.
Plus, when most people track Then, multiply that number by your level of activity
exercise, Dr Aria says they often to calculate your daily maintenance calories (but
overestimate the number of calories be honest about just how active you are…):
they burn: “Researchers in Canada
found that ‘normal weight’ men and
women who expended 200 calories Sedentary or light activity x 1.4
by walking briskly estimated that they
had burned 825 calories on average. Moderately active x 1.7
When asked to then eat the number
of calories that they thought they
Vigorously active x 2
had used up in a buffet-style setting,
participants ate two to three times
more calories than they burned,
overeating by around 150-550
calories.”
Of course, if your goal is to
increase strength and muscle size,
eating at calorie maintenance or
surplus will help achieve your goals
– with around 1.2g to 1.7g of protein
needed per day per kilogram of fullback in football, for example, more on a hot day, or a particular
bodyweight. This protein-for-strength will tend to do more running than food might leave you bloated and
scenario might not be factored into a centre back.” carrying extra water weight. Illness
your MyFitnessPal calorie equation. As for resistance training, Fisher and stress can also impact your
Certain exercises do also need says it burns relatively few calories weight, and naturally these aren’t
more calories than others, which in comparison. Also, the ‘afterburn factored into MyFitnessPal. Any
might not necessarily be noted when effect’ (EPOC) – calories burned after fluctuations on the scales can then
adding into MFP. Fisher says that working out – “isn't as exaggerated as lead to the unnecessary increase or
endurance exercises like running, some might like to think.” decrease in calories.
swimming, and cycling tend to use Hobson says it’s best to weigh
the most calories, while different Daily changes yourself in the morning, at the same
positions in various sports also For many reasons, weight fluctuates time, every week. If you’re sure you’re
have different energy requirements – a from day to day. You might sweat tracking correctly and consistently,

SEPTEMBER 2022 67
●FUEL CALORIE TRACKING

to a correct calorie count, you will the numbers can lead to obsessing and restricting calories to nourishing
see results. over hitting those numbers, cancelling your body with healthy foods that
social occasions for worry over not you love to eat.”
Careful what you cut hitting those numbers, only eating Protein at every meal, alongside
Ultimately, the question you need a limited range foods that are easy fruits, vegetables, complex
to be asking is, how sustainable is to track, and falling into disordered carbohydrates and controlled portions
your new low calorie count? For eating habits like bingeing and of ‘healthy’ fats, is a good way to
months at a time? It’s unlikely restricting in the worst cases.” ensure you’re eating a nutrient-rich
you’ll keep it up, especially with There are also alternatives to MFP. diet. Fisher adds managing portion
side effects of low mood, fatigue, “Research from Stanford University sizes is also a good alternative to
and also potential physical issues shows that having an eating pattern in tracking.
such as hair loss and acne. which you don’t feel deprived and can
stick with – and that has more whole,
Is calorie tracking for you? natural foods and fewer refined,
Cooking, eating, tidying – these processed ones – is most important
take time in themselves. Throw in for weight loss,” says Dr Aria. “You
weighing, measuring and logging can shift your focus from counting
and calorie tracking can feel like
another job in itself. “Tracking is
incredibly time-consuming,” says
Fisher, “meaning that people are
likely to get bored and frustrated
with the process and more likely
to rush through it, making errors
in the process.”
So should you be calorie
tracking on MyFitnessPal? It’s
certainly not for everyone. Fisher
says that some people simply
don’t want to do it. You may soon
become resentful of something
that causes further stress and
depletes you of even more time.
“People with a history of
disordered eating or eating
disorders shouldn’t be encouraged
to track either,” she adds. “Food
is about so much more than just
numbers. Focusing excessively on

“People with
a history of
disordered
eating shouldn’t
be encouraged to
track calories”

68 SEPTEMBER 2022
HOW TO TRACK CALORIES
Track as you eat. It’s easy to forget
the handful of nuts you demolished or
the two biscuits you ate mid-morning.
Focus on quality food. Ultimately,
your health comes first. Carbs from
quinoa benefit you more than carbs
from cake.
Go slowly. Rome wasn’t built in a
day, and your body goals will take time.
Slow and consistent over fast and
unachievable, any day.
Track using the scanner if you
can. It can be useful for accuracy on
branded products.
Add in treats at the start of the day.
If you’ve got a sweet tooth, or you know
you’ll be out boozing that night, adding
it in early means you know what
remaining calories and macros you
have to work with.
Add exercise. MFP won’t factor
in the macro requirements of your
particular training.
You’re not a robot. MyFitnessPal
is a useful tool, but you don’t need to
be a slave to it if you’re particularly
ravenous one day.
Guesstimate. A job worth doing is
worth doing well. Weigh, measure and
log food correctly. You’re only lying to
yourself otherwise…
Forget liquid calories. They. Always.
Count.
Beat yourself up if you fail to hit your
macro targets to a tee. Calories in vs.
calories out is the underlying weight
loss/gain formula.
Words: Lucy Gornall | Photography: Shutterstock
SEPTEMBER 2022 69
 TRY A SUBSCRIPTION TO

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 SUPPORT, AWARENESS, UNDERSTANDING

CHASING
THE
STIGMA
How one man is seeking
to unify Britain’s fight
against mental illness
Words: Joe Minihane | Photography: Deana Kay

SEPTEMBER 2022 71
●MENTAL FITNESS CHASING THE STIGMA
didn’t know anything
I about mental health if
I’m being honest,” says
Jake Mills. “I didn’t know
anything about signs or
symptoms. It wasn’t something
that I was taught about in school
or something that I talked about
with friends or family. So I didn’t
know that what I was feeling was
a thing. I didn’t know it was to
do with my mental health or
that I could get better.”
Mills is an award-winning
stand-up comedian and the
founder of Chasing The Stigma,
a national charity with the aim
of normalising the conversation
around mental health. What
Mills was feeling was anxiety
and depression, which became
so acute that, in 2013, he
attempted suicide.
He chose to share his story
on social media, beginning a
conversation about something
which remains a difficult and
at times taboo topic.
“Every time I did an
interview, people came to me
asking me for help. There’s
absolutely nothing unique
about me or what I was doing
or saying. But there was a power
of that lived experience where
people thought, well, ‘Here's
somebody who gets it. Here’s
somebody who understands how
I’m feeling.’”
It led to him and his partner
setting up Chasing The Stigma
and now, the Hub of Hope, a
one-stop shop for mental health
services accessible online and as
an app for iPhone and Android.
Support on the doorstep
“I decided to create the Hub of
Hope as a directory of services to
make help as easy as possible to
find,” says Mills. “It started off
72 SEPTEMBER 2022
just as an Excel spreadsheet
on my computer in my bedroom
in my mum’s house. Now it’s
turned into the biggest and most
comprehensive mental health
signposting tool of its kind in
the UK.”
To date, Hub of Hope has
directed more than 200,000
people to life-changing and life-
saving help. Mills says around
20,000 people a month are now
using the service. A dedicated
‘Need Help Now’ button points
users straight to Samaritans and
Crisis Text Line’s messaging
service.
“People are coming to us
looking for help and support
“People may be talking more,
but that doesn’t mean that
people are receiving help
more, or recovering more”
and finding support that is
actually on their doorstep,” says
Mills. He likens the approach
he’s taken with Hub of Hope to
big-name apps like Deliveroo
and Uber.
“It’s not rocket science
bringing this together,” he says.
“If we travel anywhere in the
country and we want a takeaway
or a taxi, we go on an app and
we find the options available
and we get what we want, when
we want it. We wanted to take
that same concept and put that
into mental health support,
because being on a waiting list is
not good enough and it doesn’t
mean that you can’t access help
elsewhere.”
Vital action
Providing this support is more
vital than ever, says Mills: “We
are seeing the conversation
happening a lot more, but the
truth of the matter is that mental
health provision in this country
is lacking. People may be talking
more, but that doesn’t mean that
people are receiving help more,
or recovering more.”
He cites a number of
worrying statistics about suicide,
in particular the fact that it’s the
biggest killer of men under the
age of 45, all people under 34,
and mothers with children under
the age of one. More than 200
school children a year die by
suicide in the UK.
“Of all the people who die
by suicide every year, almost
three quarters of those people
are not known to mental health
services, or haven’t been seen
within a year previous to death,”
he adds. “People are dying
without any help.”
Culture shift
Fixing this issue is difficult and
requires long-term thinking, says
Mills, with education key:
“We all have mental health,
like we all have physical health,
but we’re not being prepared to
know and understand how to
deal with that. We need a culture
shift, where we talk about mental
health every day, everywhere, not
just talking about mental illness.
Often we look at the words
mental health and associate that
with mental illness. And that’s
why it separates people: it
becomes people who are well
and people who are unwell.”
Mills says that the training
courses he and his colleagues
from Chasing The Stigma
run are focused on educating
everyone in an organisation
rather than select members
of staff. The aim is to ensure
everyone is able to spot the signs,
whether they or someone they
know is struggling:
“What we try to say is that
if you start noticing something
not quite right, whether that's
in yourself or in others, then it’s
really, really important to have
a conversation to try and work
out what it might be. Your role
is not to fix somebody’s problem.
It’s not to be the mental health
expert, but to be a bridge between
your friend or family member
struggling and getting them
to the help and support of the
experts who are out there.”
Photography: Shutterstock

Hub of Hope is available on the App

Store and Google Play, as well as via
chasingthestigma.co.uk

SEPTEMBER 2022 73
●MENTAL FITNESS JONNY WILKINSON

“It ended up so
fairytale-like
for me compared to
what I could have possibly
imagined.
You become
attached
to it.
And then it
stops”
74 SEPTEMBER 2022
SEPTEMBER 2022 75
●MENTAL FITNESS JONNY WILKINSON
Despite being the biggest
name in English rugby,
Jonny Wilkinson suffered
mental health struggles
throughout his career. Here
he explains the Buddhist
ideas that have helped
him find a greater sense
of contentment since
hanging up his boots
H
e’s the player
who transcends
rugby. His
iconic drop
goal in the
dying minutes
of the World
Cup final
in 2003 ensuring he would forever be
remembered as the man who won England
the trophy they’d been after for decades.
But for Jonny Wilkinson, this moment,
along with countless others – in a career
marked by the outward success of four Six
Nations championships and two Heineken
Cups to go alongside that World Cup
winner’s medal – was just part of a wider
story. One in which he was battling anxiety
and depression despite, from the outside,
appearing to have it all.
“It ended up so fairytale-like for me
compared to what I could have possibly
imagined,” says Wilkinson, who works as a
mental health ambassador for health insurer
Vitality and has long been a practising
Buddhist – something which he has
previously said helped him make sense of his
76 SEPTEMBER 2022
own mental health. “You become attached
to it [the fairytale],” he adds. “And then it
stops. You come out the flow state into the
material, physical experience of the world.”
Success doesn’t buy happiness
These attachments to success, says
Wilkinson, did little to improve his mental
health. Winning could never ease his low
mood or sense of constant worry. He was,
he says, only able to start improving his
wellbeing by opening up about his feelings
and being vulnerable.
“When it becomes a practised habit,”
says Wilkinson, “it’s no longer really being
vulnerable and opening up. It’s recognising
that it’s about facing challenges and
understanding why things are there – going
deeper and, I think, getting better.”
He says that, while he feels the
conversation around mental health is
improving, we need to start considering what
life looks like beyond those first ‘beautiful’
moments when we tell someone else about
how we feel.
“So much of it is about coping and
getting through,” he says. “I get that, because
 “I coped and survived
my way through matches,
because I put so much fear
of failure onto myself ”

I’ve been in that space. But by their very
nature, coping and managing, for me, are
a survival state. It’s actually what I did with
so much of my life in terms of my rugby
career. I coped and survived my way through
matches, because I put so much of a fear of
failure [onto myself ].”
These techniques became more and
more reinforced, however, leading to further
anxiety. So instead, Wilkinson began delving
deeper, considering how people believe they
need to suffer to succeed, as well as exploring
spiritual ways to become more grounded
in the present moment. This is where his
Buddhism really comes to the fore.
His passion for the topic is every bit
as powerful as his urge to win when on the
rugby pitch, albeit from a more rounded
place and without the need, as he sees it,
to become attached to specific achievements
and goals.
Goal setting
It’s these goals, he says, that we need to get
better at understanding:
“If they’re an attempt to fill a hole, or
have a lack of connection to self-worth or
fulfilment… then it just doesn’t work. It’s
almost like you put all your eggs in one
basket and say, ‘When I get this, everything’s
going to be good.’ Then when you get it, you
go, ‘Oh god, what now?’ Then you think,
Well, maybe the next one will do, but you
already have your evidence [that these kind
of goals don’t work].”
This is where Wilkinson believes being
more reflective and honest with ourselves
is key. “When challenge becomes the
understanding of growth,” he says. “that’s
opportunity, that’s connecting more with
who you really are and connecting more with
life. Challenge doesn’t come in the form you

SEPTEMBER 2022 77
●MENTAL FITNESS JONNY WILKINSON

78 SEPTEMBER 2022
 want it, otherwise it’s just not challenging.”
Facing up to failure, rather than
searching solely for success, is what
Wilkinson is driving at:
“If you had a big sports tournament
coming up at the end of the year and you
‘What Wilkinson is
said, ‘Right, we’ve got a year to plan our
fixtures before that,’ who would you choose
espousing is a kinder,
more gentle approach
to play against? You’d pick the best teams in
the world. Some might say, ‘You’re going to
lose.’ But that’s the point.
Wilkinson continues with the rugby
analogy:
“What we’re actually saying to ourselves
to life. One which
is, ‘Give me the 80-nil games, give me those
games when everything happens exactly doesn’t put its store
in material success
as I wanted, so I don’t have to grow.’ But
then as soon as you sit in that space, the
unfulfillment level is huge. The inner voice
that says, ‘It’s my nature to expand infinitely
and to explore my boundless truth,’ is saying,
‘I’m not OK with this.’
or achieving endless
Wilkinson believes even when taking
the route of safety and comfort, challenges
will still present themselves: “That challenge
goals without really
will be unrest – enormous unrest. That was
how I played my entire rugby career. It was, exploring why we’re
trying to attain them
‘Someone’s trying to take me on, I need to
win this. I need to win this battle. I need
to win it.’ The problem is, if you win every
battle, you don’t go anywhere.
“Losing, and in that way suffering, is still
so challenging and so painful and tough, but
in the first place’
it’s no longer suffering if you are able to view
it with perspective.”

Reframing stress and anxiety
There’s also, says Wilkinson, a need to try
and understand that we can positively frame
stress and anxiety when facing challenges:
“In the Zen Buddhist tradition, [you]
pose conundrums with people that take them
into a level of anxiety. The whole point being
in that space, there is growth, because it’s the
shedding of ‘what I had and what was giving
me some kind of comfort was essentially
stopping my expansion... Do I release it and
Words: Joe Minihane | Photography: Vitality
anywhere. There’s no destination, it’s an
adventure. Life deepens, it doesn’t go linear
from here to there. Now is all there is.”
Understanding suffering
Ultimately, what Wilkinson is espousing is
a kinder, more gentle approach to life. One
which doesn’t put its store in material success
or achieving endless goals without really
exploring why we’re trying to attain them
in the first place. This, again, comes back
to accept that what he has gone through,
and what we all go through, is part of a
deeper exploration of life.
“It’s not my life, it’s life working through
me,” he says. “My job is to get out of its
way so I can experience the intuition, the
wisdom, inspiration, the creativity, the
beauty, the love – all that stuff, which is
inclusive and universal.”
To some it may sound a bit out there
for a man who became known for his

go into the unknown or do I hold onto it
and stay with what I do?’”
Wilkinson believes that embracing
such challenges is fundamental, but he isn’t
naive enough to think it’s easy. Rather, he
highlights that our challenges and attempts
to understand our lives and mental health
are a never-ending processes. Understanding
that, he says, has been key for him:
“It’s not a journey because it’s not going
to suffering, something which in the past
he has claimed he felt was essential in order
to achieve his goals as a rugby player.
“The idea about suffering, the one that
I think is the one that got me [as a player],
is not so much that you have to go through
it to get what you want, but the idea that
getting what you want at the end of it is
going to be better than the suffering.
Wilkinson says he has instead come
uncompromising and professional focus
on the rugby pitch. But staying present
and being kinder about who we are,
and who we want to be, is an easy and
powerful message to get behind.
Jonny Wilkinson was speaking as Mental Health
Ambassador for health insurer Vitality as part of
Mental Health Awareness Week.

SEPTEMBER 2022 79
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personal details and these will only ever be used as set out in our privacy policy which can be viewed at shop.kelsey.co.uk/privacy-policy. You may unsubscribe at any time.
 YOUR BLUEPRINT FOR SUCCESS

BURN
BABY
BURN
Need an effective fat-loss
challenge? Try one of these
belly-busting protocols

TABATA
HOW Pick a movement – rowing, cycling,
kettlebell swings (pictured) and dumbbell
thrusters are all good options – then go all-out
for 20 seconds, rest for 10, and repeat a total
of eight times. It only lasts four minutes and if
you aren’t exhausted afterwards, you didn’t
go hard enough.
WHY Originally developed to improve the VO2
max of pro cyclists, this short, sharp workout
packs a lot of work into very little time and will
leave you burning fat for hours afterwards.

AMRAP
HOW Standing for ‘as many rounds as
possible’, this workout format popularised
by CrossFit sees you do as many rounds as
you can of a circuit of moves in a set time.
Classic CrossFit WOD Cindy, for instance, is
an AMRAP of 5 pull-ups, 10 press-ups and 15
squats, done for 20 minutes.
WHY You’ll always go harder with a target to
beat, and you’ll do more work as you get fitter.

EMOM
HOW Pick an exercise (or two, or three), and
aim to complete a certain number of reps
Photography: Shutterstock

every minute on the minute (EMOM). Get them

done fast and you’ll have more time to rest.
WHY It’ll keep you honest, and it’ll also fit a
high volume of work into a relatively short
space of time – leading to better conditioning
and fat loss – while still including enough rest
to allow for proper form.

SEPTEMBER 2022 81
 ●TRAINER ASK THE EXPERT

PRO TIPS
Training your proprioception will
make you a sharper, faster and more
durable athlete – here’s how

Words: Mark Bailey | Photography: Shutterstock

82 SEPTEMBER 2022

THE EXPERT
Mike James is a former
military PT, a specialist
musculoskeletal
physiotherapist,
and an advisor to
INCUS Performance
(incusperformance.com)
Proprioception is your
body’s invisible skill. Put
simply, it’s your ability to sense
the movement, action and
location of your limbs in space.
It’s what enables you to dribble
a football without looking down,
rapidly change direction on the
rugby field, return a tennis
serve, run over rocky or uneven
terrain, or lift weights with
fluency and precision. It’s the
reason you can touch your
knee even when you’ve got
your eyes closed. And it
remains one of the most
mysterious and neglected
sporting attributes.
“Proprioception is the
awareness of a body or joint's
position in relation to its
environment,” explains physio
Mike James, an advisor for
training data specialists INCUS
Performance. “This
proprioception is achieved via
several different receptors in
structures surrounding the
joint, such as muscles and
ligaments, which send
messages back to the brain to
let it know the position of the
joint. When you move, the
receptors send detailed
messages to your brain about
your positions and actions.
Your brain processes these
messages and works with your
vision, nervous system, and
vestibular system to create
your perception of exactly
where your body is and how
you’re moving.”
Whether you lift weights,
play squash or run up hills,
well-honed proprioception is
going to seriously boost your
balance, efficiency, reaction
times, coordination and agility.
“Proprioception is vital for
developing and refining
movement patterns and
control. It helps improve sports
performance and activity
execution,” continues James.
“An intact sense of
proprioception is crucial to
learning a new skill, and
achieving the movements and
activities we wish to perform
with skill and confidence.”
As proprioception
conditions your muscles,
tendons and joints to adapt to
quick movements, it can also
help you to avoid injury. A major
six-year study published in the
Journal of Strength and
“Proprioception is vital for
developing and refining
movement patterns and
control. It helps improve
sports performance”
Conditioning found that athletes
who participated in regular
proprioceptive training
experienced an 81% decrease
in ankle sprains.
And best of all, with a few
simple at-home training drills,
you can work on your
proprioception any time you
want…
01. Go out on a limb
Simple balance and agility drills
– like bending forward on one
leg to pick up cones, juggling
tennis balls, or hopping over
small hurdles on one leg – can
boost your proprioception.
“This generally involves
standing on a single limb, or on
an uneven or unstable surface,
and performing a task that
would usually be performed
on both limbs or a more stable
surface,” explains James. “The
aim is to go slowly, with your
main focus on remaining
controlled throughout.”
You can also use wobble
boards and Bosu balls for
single-leg drills – such as lateral
lunges or single-leg squats
– but easy at-home drills are
often just as efficient. “Think of
wobble boards, gym balls and
other unstable surfaces as a
novel progression that may
be useful sometimes, but not
a mandatory tool for everyone,”
says James. Skipping is also
an incredibly powerful tool for
improving proprioception.
02. Shut your eyss
Next time you’re doing some
balance exercises, try digging
out that fancy dress pirate eye
patch. “Visual cue removal
involves the execution of a
given task with one eye or both
eyes closed,” explains James.
“The body is then required to
gain its feedback from the
proprioceptive system.”
The exercise could be as
simple as doing lunges or
single-leg squats with one or
both eyes closed. “You can also
use other kinds of visual
disturbance,” adds James,
“such as working out in a dimly
lit or dark room.”
03. Add new stimulus
To really turbo-charge your
proprioception, take your
routine squats and lunges up
a gear with some complex task
training. “Complex task training
requires adding additional
variables to a familiar task to
make it more testing,” explains
James. “That could be
performing a bodyweight
squat while catching a ball,
for example.”
Other complex task drills
include performing a press-up
with your feet suspended in a
suspension trainer, standing on
one leg while lifting a dumbbell,
or throwing a ball against a wall
and catching it while standing
on a wobble board.
04. Get specific
Whatever proprioception
exercises you devise, try to
make them as relevant to your
sport as possible. If you play
racquet or catching sports,
do drills which develop
proprioception in your arms.
If you’re a cross-country runner,
focusing on leg drills is a better
priority.
“Always integrate real-
world activity,” says James.
“Training proprioception should
be specific to the task. For
many, the development of
balance and proprioception
will be to facilitate a return to
a sport after injury, or simply
to improve performance. Make
sure the training is gauged
appropriately to progress in
that particular activity.”
05. Keep it consistent
To truly improve your
proprioception, make sure the
specific training you’re doing
becomes a regular part of your
weekly workout regime.
Consistency is a skill which
needs to be honed.
“Improvements and
refinements in your balance
and proprioception occur
through repetition,” says
James. “It’s much more than
simply trying these things a
couple of times and hoping for
a miracle reaction. Practice
and practice some more to
see tangible improvements.”
SEPTEMBER 2022 83
●TRAINER HOW TO BUILD

HOW TO BUILD…

TRAINING ADHERENCE
If you feel like you blow hot and cold with your exercise
routine, The Movement Blueprint’s Harvey Lawton is here
to show you another way

You might associate training
adherence – in simple terms,
showing up and doing the work when
required – with the times when other life
stuff isn’t getting in the way. As a result,
adherence is usually categorised as
being either ‘on’ or ‘off’.
On equals an all-in approach and
everything at once. That might mean
more training, higher intensity workouts
and less food on a calorie-restricted diet.
Off equals a lack of routine and little
to no intentions. You can’t make time for
training. Diet? No point. Adherence?
Never met them.
Don’t panic
What’s largely unspoken, however, is the
art of flexibility and the ‘dimmer switch’
analogy. Life is a balancing act:
sometimes opportunity presents itself to
turn up training intensity, and other times
around external pressures we have to
learn to be able to dim that switch –
without turning it off completely. As one
switch is more on, others tend to be more
off – be that socialising, work pressures
or business travel.
Successful training adherence is
achieved once you master consistency,
as well as learn how to reset and go
again if something gets in the way.
Equipping yourself with a foundation
of know-how, either through reputable
sources and applying these to your life,
or through enlisting the support of a
coach, will see you make proactive
choices, instil positive mindset habits
and be able to (and want to) bounce
back to routine quickly. This feeds into
your training, your nutrition, your sleep
and your broader lifestyle habits.
So if one thing doesn’t go to plan,
don’t let everything else disappear
– maintain the rest but simply dim the
switch. Then dial it back up tomorrow.
That is still adherence, and it’s the sort
of flexibility that will see you gain
consistency without playing pinball
with your fitness gains.

“Life is a balancing act: sometimes

opportunity presents itself to turn up training
intensity, and other times around external
pressures we have to learn to be able to dim
that switch”

84 SEPTEMBER 2022
The Movement Blueprint offers both one-on-one
training and nutrition coaching, designed to help you find
adherence for long-term success and results.
Visit themovementblueprint.co to find out more

SEPTEMBER 2022 85
●TRAINER SWISS BALL EXERCISES

SWISS BANK
Dust off your long-forgotten Swiss ball for serious core strength benefits

In the late 90s to early 2000s, leisure
centres and exercise videos
everywhere were invaded by very large,
bouncy balls. Nowadays, Swiss balls are
dotted around nearly every gym in the
world – usually gathering dust in the corner.
Who knows, you might even own one. But
these big, bouncy inflatables are far more
than just a gimmick. Used right, they can be
a genuinely useful training tool.
Initially used by physiotherapists for
rehabilitation, they quickly became
mainstream. Why? Because Swiss balls
are an excellent tool for developing
functional, ‘real-world’ strength.
With a machine, you can only move
in one direction, therefore you tend to
be limited to recruiting the main muscle
groups. Swiss balls, on the other hand,
enable you to work the prime movers, plus
all the stabiliser muscles that support the
movement in question.
Why is that important? Your body only
uses what it needs to when exercising.
Training mainly on machines may increase
your muscle mass or strength, but it will be
to the detriment of your stabilisers –
ultimately making you weaker on free
weight exercises. It’s like putting a bigger
engine in your car but not upgrading your
brakes or suspension. When required to
go faster the brakes and suspension could
be out of balance and cause a crash.
The following moves will help you work
key muscles, as well as all the crucial
stabiliser muscles surrounding them...

SWISS BALL CRUNCH SWISS BALL CRUNCH TWIST

TARGET AREAS: Abs, lower back TARGET AREAS: Obliques

Lie on your back over the Swiss ball, with your fingers by Lie on your back with your fingers by your ears.
your ears. Tuck your chin into your neck and pull your stomach muscles in.
Place your tongue in the roof of your mouth and roll your Lift your head and shoulders off the ball while rotating the right
neck forward into your chin. elbow to the left-hand side of your body.
Pull your stomach muscles in and lift your head and Pause at top, then slowly lower. After your designated number
shoulders off the ball. of reps, swap sides.
Pause at the top, then slowly lower.
COACHING CUE: Try not to lead with your elbow, but pull from your
COACHING CUE: Make it harder by holding your arms stomach. Imagine your upper body is fused together.
straight behind your head.

86 SEPTEMBER 2022
SWISS BALL
DECLINE PLANK
TARGET AREAS: Abs,
lower back, glutes

Place your feet on the

ball and your hands in
a press-up position.
Suck your belly
button into your spine
to maintain core
activation.
Ensure your back
doesn’t bow, as that
will recruit incorrect
muscle sequences.

COACHING CUE:
To make it harder,
move your feet closer
together.

SWISS BALL JACKKNIFE

TARGET AREAS: Abs, lower back, shoulders

Place your ankle on the ball and your hands on floor in a press-up position
with your elbows locked out.
Draw your belly button in towards your spine.
Maintain a flat back posture.
Pull your knees in towards your chest, hold, then slowly return.

COACHING CUE: Move your hands closer together to make it more difficult.

SEPTEMBER 2022 87
●TRAINER SWISS BALL EXERCISES

SWISS BALL
JACKKNIFE TWIST
TARGET AREAS: Obliques, lower
back, shoulders

Place your ankles on the ball and

your hands on the floor in a press-up
position, with elbows locked out.
Draw your belly button towards
your spine.
Maintain a flat back posture.
Draw your knees diagonally from
the right side to the left hip.
Once you’ve completed all reps
on one side, switch.

COACHING CUE: Balancing on your

toes on the Swiss ball increases the
challenge.

SWISS BALL PIKE

TARGET AREAS: Abs, shoulders, hip flexors

Begin in a press-up position with your toes on

the Swiss ball.
Bring your hips up to the ceiling.
Maintain good back posture.
Slowly lower back down.

COACHING CUE: Do one leg at a time to make it harder.

88 SEPTEMBER 2022
SWISS BALL PLANK
TARGET AREAS: Abs, shoulders, glutes

Place your elbows on the Swiss ball and your feet hip-width apart
on the floor.
Keep your back flat and your hips in line with your body.
Hold for as long as you can maintain good postural alignment.

COACHING CUE: Close your eyes to make it more challenging.

SWISS BALL ROLL-OUT

TARGET AREAS: Abs, lower back

Place your elbows on the Swiss ball and your feet hip-
width apart on the floor.
Keep your back flat and your hips in line with your body.
Push your elbows upwards.
Hold, then draw them back to starting position.

COACHING CUE: Try to draw out your name with your

elbows for an added challenge.

SWISS BALL V-UP

TARGET AREAS: Abs, glutes, hip flexors

Lie on the floor with the Swiss ball between your feet.
Maintain tightness in your core.
Lift your legs and your arms upwards.
Hold at the top, then slowly lower.

COACHING CUE: If too difficult, bend your knees to shorten the lever.

SEPTEMBER 2022 89
●TRAINER SWISS BALL EXERCISES

SWISS BALL PRESS-UP

TARGET AREAS: Abs, chest, glutes

Begin with your hands shoulder-

width apart on the Swiss ball and
your legs on the floor.
Bend your elbows to slowly lower
your chest until it touches the ball.
Pause, then push back firmly.

COACHING CUE: To add variety and

an extra challenge, target one pec
at a time by pressing further towards
one side, then the other.

SWISS BALL LATERAL CRUNCH

TARGET AREAS: Obliques

With your feet anchored against a support, place

your hips sideways onto the ball.
Have your hands gently resting behind your head.
Keep your body side on, then contract upwards as
high as you can go.
Pause, then return slowly. Change sides after set
number of reps.

COACHING CUE: Make it harder by holding your arms

straight overhead.

SWISS BALL GLUTE BRIDGE

TARGET AREAS: Glutes, hamstrings,
lower back

Lie on the floor with your heels

on the Swiss ball.
Lift your hips off the ground,
pushing them upwards.
Keep your back flat and aligned
throughout the movement.
Slowly lower to the start position.

COACHING CUE: If you feel the

exercise too much in the hamstrings,
stretch them out in-between.

90 SEPTEMBER 2022
 SWISS BALL
HAMSTRING CURL
TARGET AREAS: Hamstrings, glutes,
lower back

Lie on the floor with your feet on

the Swiss ball.
Keep your hips up and draw
your knees towards your chest.
Pause, then slowly return.

COACHING CUE: Change the angle

the knees are pulled in – i.e. both
inwards or outwards – to hit the
three different hamstring muscles.

SWISS BALL
COSSACK SQUAT
TARGET AREAS: Hip adductors,
quads, glutes, hamstrings

Stand upright and place one foot

on the Swiss ball.
For the foot that is on the floor,
maintain alignment especially during
movement to prevent your knee
dropping inwards.
Hinge your hips back, while
maintaining a flat back.
Drop as low as you feel
comfortable, then push back up to
the start.
As you get more comfortable with
the movement, you can descend
lower into the squat.

COACHING CUE: Fix your eyes

on one spot in front of you to
Words: Nolan Sunnassee, personal trainer and strength coach (evo-fit.co.uk)

maintain balance.

SEPTEMBER 2022 91
●TRAINER DUMBBELL WORKOUT

ONE-KIT WORKOUT
Grab a single dumbbell to develop core strength and full-body muscle in six moves

Workouts don’t need to
be lengthy and
complicated to be effective.
For optimum fat loss, grab a
single dumbbell and bash out
this quick-fire routine.
The workout is a ‘complex’
– which is actually fairly
straightforward. Simply pick up
a piece of equipment – in this
case a dumbbell – and don’t let
go until you’ve performed every
rep of every exercise. It’s an
effective protocol for ramping
up your metabolism to burn
more calories, not to mention
building an iron grip.
This unilateral session will
also strengthen your abs, by
creating instability that they’re
forced to resist. “When you
move with just one side of your
body – which you do with every
exercise in this workout – your
core activates, stabilising the
spine and pelvis, transferring
power across your body,” says
Alex Gildea (pictured left), who
created the session.
Doing the moves as a
complex also keeps the intensity
high enough to rev your
metabolism and torch body fat.
HOW TO:
Holding the dumbbell in
your right hand, do all the
reps of all six exercises before
restarting with the weight in
your left hand.
Do 5 reps (each side) for
each exercise.
Rest for 60 secs at the
end of one round.
Do 5 rounds in total.

WEEK 1 SETS 3 REPS 5 each side REST 60 secs WEEK 2 SETS 3 REPS 5 each side REST 45 secs
WEEK 3 SETS 4 REPS 5 each side REST 30 secs WEEK 4 SETS 5 REPS 5 each side REST 15 secs

1a. DUMBBELL CLEAN AND PRESS

Choose which arm is going to take the punishment first.
Keep the weight in this hand for all six exercises before switching.
Grab the dumbbell with legs bent and your eyes looking forwards.
Drive up and pull the weight from the floor to chest height, then
drop under it to ‘catch’ it at shoulder height.
Straighten your legs to stand and press the
weight overhead.

COACH’S COMMENT: “Exhale during the clean,

then inhale, then exhale again on the press to
brace your core and stop lateral flexion of your
spine,” says Gildea.

92 SEPTEMBER 2022
 1b. DB REVERSE LUNGE
With the weight by your side, take
a big step backwards with one foot.
Brace your core to keep your
balance and keep your torso
upright, then lower until your knee
is just off the floor.
Drive back up to the start.

COACH’S COMMENT: “This is a

great stretch for your hip flexors.
Remember to engage your core
first, then move to stop your pelvis
rotating.”

1c. DB BENT-OVER ROW

With a slight bend in your legs,
hinge forwards at your hips until your
back is almost parallel with the floor.
Keeping your core tight to keep
your pelvis level, row the weight up
towards your armpit so you feel a
squeeze in your upper back, then
lower to the start.

COACH’S COMMENT: “Push your

hips back to straighten your back
and engage your core – it should
feel like you’re wearing a tight belt.”

SEPTEMBER 2022 93
●TRAINER DUMBBELL WORKOUT

1d. DB FRONT SQUAT

With the dumbbell at shoulder height, keep your
core tight and bend your legs to lower into a squat
with your chest up.
Keep your knees wide and drive your hips
forwards to generate power as you stand.

COACH’S COMMENT: “Squeeze your free hand into

a tight fist to increase tension in your body to keep
your torso strong.”

1e. DB CURL
AND PRESS
Keeping your elbow
tight to your side, curl the
dumbbell from your hip to
your shoulder, then press
it overhead until your arm
is completely straight.
Reverse the move back
to the start.

COACH’S COMMENT:
“Contract your glutes and
core to stop your back
hyperextending during
the press.”

94 SEPTEMBER 2022
1f. DB ROMANIAN DEADLIFT
With the weight in front of your thigh and a very slight bend in your knees, lower the dumbbell
down your leg until you feel a stretch in your hamstrings.
Drive your hips forwards to return to the start. That’s half the battle.
Switch the weight to your other hand and repeat all the exercises, then – relief – you can rest.

COACH’S COMMENT: “Progress to doing this on one leg. Contract the glute on your free leg
to improve balance and allow a deeper stretch on the working hamstrings.”

SEPTEMBER 2022 95
●TRAINER EMOM WORKOUT

WAIT A
MINUTE
Light up your legs,
lungs and back with
this two-move EMOM
Every minute on the minute
(EMOM), as mentioned on
p81, is a protocol that keeps the
intensity high and rest low to
challenge your power of recovery
and force your body to adapt. It’s
especially good at improving strength
endurance, because you’re going to
need apply as much effort in the last
minute as the first.

HOW TO:
This workout consists of two
exercises: wide-grip pull-ups and
burpees.
Complete 5 reps of the pull-ups,
then rest for the remainder of the
minute.
Now complete 10 burpees,
resting for the remainder of the
minute.
Repeat this pattern, completing
10 rounds in total (20 minutes of
work).
The quicker you get through
the reps, the more rest you’ll have
before the next set starts.

1a. WIDE-GRIP PULL-UP

REPS: 5
REST: Remainder of minute

Grasp the bar with an overhand

grip so your palms are facing away
from you and your hands are more
than shoulder-width apart.
Contract your upper back muscles
to pull your sternum towards the bar.
Lower under control to return to
the start.

Point your elbows towards ‘10’

and ‘2’ on an imaginary clock
face. With your elbows facing
forward in that way, you will be
able to effectively engage your
lats for a more efficient pull-up.

96 SEPTEMBER 2022
 1b. BURPEE
REPS: 10
REST: Remainder of minute

From standing, drop down and place your

hands on the floor outside your feet.
Jump your feet back so you’re in the top
press-up position, then back to between
your hands.
Jump up, clapping your hands overhead.

Make it harder by dropping your torso

all the way to the floor at the bottom of
the burpee.
Photography: Ben Knight

SEPTEMBER 2022 97
●TRAINER FINAL THOUGHT

STRETCH
YOURSELF
Regular yoga can make
you smarter and happier
Taking up yoga and meditation
can strengthen your cognitive
skills and even help to combat
age-related mental decline,
according to research published in
the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease.
Subjects in the study were split into
two groups: one followed a 12-week
yoga and meditation programme,
while the others did a dedicated
brain-training programme. When
scientists conducted cognitive tests
on the entire group, they all
experienced an uplift in their mental
performance, but only those in the
yoga group experienced happier
moods.

Photography: Shutterstock

98 SEPTEMBER 2022
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1. C. González de Vega, C. Speed, B. Wolfarth, J. González. Traumeel vs. diclofenac for reducing pain and improving ankle mobility after acute ankle sprain:A multicen-
tre, randomised, blinded, controlled and non-inferiority trial. Int J ClinPract. 2013. doi: 10.1111/ijcp.12219.
2. Zell J, Connert WD, Mau J, Feuerstake G. Behandlung von akuten Sprunggelenksdistorsionen: Doppelblindstudie zum Wirksamkeitsnachweis eines
homöopathischen Salbenpräparats [Treatment of Acute Sprains of the Ankle: A Controlled Double-Blind Trial Test the Effectiveness of a Homeopathic Preparation].
Fortschr Med. 1988; 106(5): 96-100. (English translation available in: BiolTher. 1989;VII(1):1-6).
3. Böhmer D, Ambrus P. Behandlung von Sportverletzungen mit Traumeel-Salbe – Kontrollierte Doppelblindstudie [Treatment of Sports Injuries with Traumeel Oint-
ment: A Controlled Double-Blind Study]. Biologische Medizin. 1992;XXI(4):260-268. (English translation available in: BiolTher. 1992;X(4):290-300).
4. Orizola AJ, Vargas F. The Efficacy of Traumeel® Versus Diclofenac and Placebo Ointment in Tendinous Pain in Elite Athletes. A Randomized Controlled Trial. Med Sci
Sports Med Exerc. 2007;39(5,Suppl.): S79, abstract 858.
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