dr6u dtht

MENSHE ALT H.COM.AU

Audi Vorsprung durch Technik

Beauty. Beast.

RS 7

The Audi RS 7 Sportback Uncompromising power. Irrepressibly beautiful design.

The Audi RS 7 Sportback is a force of nature.

Overseas model with optional equipment shown.

CON T E N TS 1 0 / 21

68 More than a Superhero SIMU LIU is the best kind of trailblazer, with his starring role in this month’s Shang-Chi making him the first Asian to lead a Marvel movie.

Fortunately, no one knows better than him that with great power comes great responsibility.

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COVER GUY:

SIMU LIU

PHOTOGRAPHED BY:

MENSHE ALT H.COM.AU

PETER YANG

INSIDE THIS ISSUE TACT I CS

p09 Girl v. Gym

How to play it when your partner resents your training load.

76

For Argument’s Sake

Remember when two men could bring opposing views to a discussion without it degenerating into a dispiriting bout of personal abuse and mutual contempt? Here’s the path back to civil discourse.

41 History of Violence

Conforming to the male ideal has always meant balancing your aggressive instincts with your softer side. But what if behind that aggression was an emotion you haven’t faced up to: fear?

p16 Mark of a Man

How Mark Philippoussis has found purpose beyond the tennis court.

LONGEVITY

p14 Orange Theory

Why the old halftime staple is the fruit of choice for age-defying men.

p102 The End of Ageing

Science is unlocking the answers to turning back the clock.

FATHERHOOD

p36 Desperate Dads

As your kids grow and mature, try not to cling to who they once were.

p108 Welcome to the Hood

Four prominent men reveal how being a dad has changed them forever.

HEALT H

p34 Train Like RZA

How the rapper is rethinking ‘working out’ to achieve total wellbeing.

p50 Healthiest Body Now

Stride towards supreme good health with these expert, easy-to-follow tips.

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115

The mixed messages and confusion around what we should eat are enough to make a man throw up his hands and scoff Fruit Loops for breakfast. We cut through the static with this cut-out-and-keep tip sheet.

If you’ve been labouring in the gym for results you can barely detect, strength coach Nick Cheadle has the knowledge and practical experience you need to turn things around. The proof? His own rig.

50 Best & Worst Foods For Men

Brawn Builder

FI TNE SS

p22 High Resistance

Build killer lats with the band-distracted dumbbell row.

p118 Sweat at Home

To get you through lockdown, Joe Wicks gifts this do-anywhere workout.

OCTOBER 2021

5

COVER GUY’S LETTER

menshealth.com.au

Interviewing Simu Liu will go down as a career highlight. As you’ll learn in this issue (p.68), Liu embodies all the Men’s Health man should aspire to be. And with such a creative powerhouse gracing the cover of this issue, it made perfect sense to share the editorial reins with the Shang-Chi star himself. – Scott, Editor

EXTRA-ORDINARY

Men's Health Australia

@menshealthaustralia

@MensHealthAU

AUSTRALIAN

SCOTT HENDERSON

Editor

First of all, thank you for having me on board for this historic issue. Yes, I’m the first Asian to appear on the cover of Men’s Health Australia, so I think it’s just a great moment.

But please just think of me as an Australian local. I spent more than a year shooting Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings in Sydney at Fox Studios, which was a fantastic experience. Hopefully, God willing and fingers crossed, we’ll get to do another movie there soon. Even just hearing an Australian voice is so comforting. I really do miss the cadence of Australian speech and the fact you don’t refer to breakfast as breakfast – you just call it brekkie. It’s like nobody there takes themselves too seriously, right down to your endearing use of the c-word. In Australia, everyone’s a c-word – and that’s fine.

Heading to Australia, I was worried about the food because I love my Asian fare. You never know going into a new country whether the food is going to be an issue, but the Asian food in Australia is fan-freaking-tastic. I found myself in Chinatown literally every weekend at some sort of Korean barbecue joint or the like. Korean barbecue, hot pot, bubble tea, and then I eventually found my way to Chatswood, where there was even more amazing Asian food.

I will say the one thing that surprised me is that although there’s a ton of Asian people in Australia, I found the lack of diversity in the Australian media very similar to the situation in my home country of Canada. We’re both small markets and so we operate very much like a small market. Decision-making is often the preserve of the few people who have always done it, so it can be very difficult to change the culture. There are a limited number of networks and media outlets that continue to set the trends, making it very difficult for new voices to break through.

Look, no country’s perfect. And that’s certainly the case with where I’m from. But I do think there’s a lot of promise in Australia, just from the everyday interactions I had. A heap of Kim’s Convenience fans – white Australian families – came up to me and were like, “Hi, we love your show. We see you on Netflix all the time. When’s the new season going to come out?” They were so enthusiastic, so incredible and totally ethnicity agnostic.

What I personally want to achieve is to expand people’s preconceived notions of what Asian men can do. I know so many people who are taller than me, who are more ripped than me and have that iconic Marvel body, or are better martial artists or more handsome. I just had so much uncertainty and insecurity going into the Marvel Universe.

I think the thing that clicked for me was the idea that cover men – our inspirations and our heroes – shouldn’t be chosen purely on the basis of how they look, but rather on what they do and the choices they make. I think a hero decides to do the thing that is right rather than the thing that is easy. Up until recently, MH cover men have been celebrated as these giant, broad-shouldered, ‘cape-wearing’, almost god-like figures. But really, they’re ordinary men who, finding themselves in extraordinary situations, have risen to the occasion time and again.

As members of the Men’s Health community, we need to stop thinking about masculinity as something fixed and instead start defining it for ourselves. For me, masculinity means listening. It means being emotionally open and aware. It means respecting women. Masculinity doesn’t have to be this toxic, rigid thing where everyone puffs out their chest and works out as though the body is all, while nobody talks about their feelings.

I would hope that by providing a platform from which a more diverse range of men can tell their stories, the gates to greater freedom and self-acceptance will be flung open to all. I hope that streamers and networks and magazines and websites will be more open to taking risks and making bold decisions and trying new ways of doing things that are fun and inventive. And hopefully that allows people who look like me, and others who don’t look like your average Joe, to have their moments as well, and to have their stories told.

BEN JHOTY

Deputy Editor DANIEL WILLIAMS

Associate Editor JASON LEE

Creative Director CHRISTOPHER RILEY

Contributing Editor

NIKOLINA SKORIC

Digital Editor

JESSICA CAMPBELL

Digital Content Writer HANNAH CHAPMAN

Contributing Designer

IAN BROOKS

Chief Executive Officer LLOYD O’HARTE

Executive Director RACHEL SULLIVAN

National Partnerships & Integration Manager LUCY MOLLISON

Victorian Parnerships & Integration Manager CHRIS MATTHEWS

Partnerships & Integration Manager JORDAN LOZINA

Partnerships & Integration Manager JULIA PASCALE

Content Activations Coordinator LEE MCLACHLAN

Creative Services JULIE HUGHES

Subscription Manager subscribe@paragonmedia.com.au

DEBI CHIRICHELLA

President, Hearst Magazines

INTERNATIONAL EDITIONS

Australia, China, Germany, Italy, Japan, Korea, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain, UK, US

KIM ST. CLAIR BODDEN

SVP/Editorial & Brand Director CHLOE O’BRIEN

Deputy Brands Director

PARAGON DCN PTY LTD

Simu Liu

Marvel Universe

Scott Henderson

scott@menshealth.com.au

Men’s Health acknowledges the Cammeraygal people, Traditional Custodians of the land on which this publication is produced, and pay our respects to their Elders past and present. We extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today.

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ABN 73 627 186 350. PO Box 81, St Leonards, NSW 1590 14/174 Willoughby Road, Crows Nest NSW 2062 Ph (02) 9439 1955, paragonmedia.com.au Published and Distributed by Paragon DCN Pty Ltd by Permission of Hearst Magazines, Inc., New York, New York, United States of America. Printed and retail distribution by Ovato Limited. Published 12 times a year. All rights reserved. Title and trademark Men’s Health © Hearst Magazines International. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written permission. Men’s Health is a registered trademark and the unauthorised use of this trademark is strictly prohibited. issn 13293079. © 2021 Paragon DCN.

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BOSS.COM

HUGO BOSS AUSTRALIA PHONE +61 3 9474 6310 BOSS.COM/AU

AS K MH THE BIG QUESTION

Since WFH became the norm, work has taken over my home life. How do I separate them? – SH

According to data from business support company NordVPN Teams, we’re now working an extra two hours each day – and working from home has a lot to do with that. As the spectre of unemployment looms over many of us, taking your foot off the gas might not feel like a viable option. But there’s a simple way to streamline your day without risking a termination notice: quit multitasking.

Writing a report while prepping for a meeting might seem timeeffective, but the mental demands of switching back and forth will stack up. The same goes for

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replying to emails in the squat rack. “Task-switching interferes with both tasks,” says Professor Joe Devlin, neuroscientist at University College London.

“Schedule time for crucial tasks, including exercise and socialising.

And turn off your notifications.”

When you pause to read a LinkedIn message or check out a new Instagram follower, it takes roughly 23 minutes for your mind to re-focus, the University of California found. “Switching back to the original task means reloading information into your working memory, and configuring your mind afresh,” says Devlin.

“The problem is that interruptions often provide tiny rewards. Tweets and likes all cause squirts of feel-good hormone dopamine.”

Try rewarding your hard work at random. “You could literally flip a coin and if you see heads twice in a row: boom – you get a treat,” says Devlin. But don’t do it after every task. “Intermittent rewards provide a stronger motivation through larger dopamine release than predictable rewards.”

So, if you’re struggling to clock out on time, neutralise your notifications and hack your reward system with a well-timed YouTube break.

WORDS: ANNIE HAYES; PHOTOGRAPHY: ROWAN FEE

Know when to tune in, and log off.

ANCIENT SOLUTION TO A MODERN PROBLEM Q Lockdown is driving me crazy! I need to see my friends. I need to party again.

A What the superior man seeks is in himself; what the small man seeks is in others. – Confucius; b. 551 BC

Thursday 7:30pm My stomach and bank account are at odds. Am I stuck with packet ramen?

No, just shop smart. Frozen fish, in particular salmon ($3-7 per portion), is a smart option, because it’s swimming with protein and dietary fats.

Makes sense … But I’m not into fish. Is there anything else?

Eggs are another good source of protein and healthy fats. How about a frittata or Spanish omelette? You can pack in lots of veg – whatever’s in the fridge.

Ah, yes, there’s a ropey-looking rattling around in the bottom drawer…

Or see if the supermarket has a “wonky” section. It can be a cost-effective way to add greens to your meals. And check the frozen aisle. Arguably, you should eat everything fresh, but frozen food does keep a lot of nutrients locked in.

I spoke too soon. The shop is fresh out of eggs. But I’ve found a reduced tub of guacamole for $3. Any pointers?

Yep. Scour the aisles for chilli ingredients.

Rice and beans are easy on the wallet and, when they’re mixed together, serve as a complete protein source.

Nailed it. Cheers!

NICK JEFFS Nutritionist at Hero: herowellbeing.com

ASK THE GIRLS IN THE OFFICE Ask the MH girls the questions you can’t ask anyone else. They’re three women who speak their mind, so don’t expect sugar-coated answers

My girlfriend says I devote too much time to my training. I don’t get it. Don’t women want their partner to look good? – BD Lizza: My husband had that issue with ex-girlfriends.

He thought they liked the way he looked because of the gym but resented the time he spent there.

Nikolina: If your partner’s not a gym-going person, it’ll be hard for her to understand why you’re virtually living there. Can you create a balance? I mean, maybe try to get her involved – do a few sessions with her. Otherwise, you might want to cut back a little bit, right? Or else work out at home now and then.

Becky: I think you need to communicate with her about why this is important to you. Because, yeah, if the gym is not her thing, it would be hard for her to understand why you – why anybody! – could be so passionate about it. Also,

encourage her to tell you what she’s passionate about and try to get involved in that with her. Or at least take an interest in it or enjoy her excitement.

Lizza: There could be something underlying her attitude. Maybe she feels she’s not getting enough attention and that’s the real issue, rather than your chest-and-back days.

Nikolina: What’s too much, though? How much time are you spending in the gym, BD? Lizza: Yeah, exactly. This makes me think about my husband and me. We have a baby, but I just know how much training means to him, so he goes off and does it every day. If I were a different person, if I didn’t understand the need to do it, then I’d be

Got a query? DM us via Instagram @menshealthau

like, “What about me and the babies?” But now every morning I’m out of there to train and he understands I need to go because otherwise I’m a certifiable crazy woman.

Becky: Also, BD, be careful generalising.

Everybody wants and needs different things from a relationship – and physical appearance is not numero uno for most of us.

Nikolina: Maybe even a dad bod’s okay?

Becky: We love a dad bod! There’s really nothing wrong with a dad bod.

B ECKY NI KOL INA

LI ZZA

OCTOBER 2021

9

A DVERTO R IA L F EATU RE

reboot your

love life

Download the app for free from iOS or Android App Store or use the QR code.

Visit fitafy.com

Fast-track your way to a happily healthy ever after with Fitafy, the fitness dating community Permission to delete those other dating apps off your phone. The new app for the fit community looking for their soulmate is Fitafy. When your whole world revolves around a wellness intent, wouldn’t life be that much better with a workout buddy you get to snuggle up to? Instead of hoping a chance encounter in a sweaty gym becomes something much more, Fitafy allows you to handpick a partner who values healthy living just as much as you do.

It’s the Aussie owned and designed app that’s got more to do with shared interests and real connection rather than just looks.

How is Fitafy different?

The Fitafy app uses detailed bespoke filters and a high-tech intuitive interface allowing users to opt-in and share their favourite activities, dietary preferences and fitness levels on their profile. On display is a snapshot of their active lifestyle from their profile, right down to the average calories burned per day or the time and distance of their most recent activity.

Safety, too, is in-built with our gold-standard facial recognition software confirming your identity with a blue tick, so there’s no chance of catfishing. And in a world first for dating apps, our high-tech integration seamlessly connects with apps on your Apple Watch, Fitbit, Strava, Google Health, and Apple Health programs. Giving Fitafy the chance to find you a partner in both lunges and love.

Find your match at fitafy.com the Fitness Dating Community

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10 21

YOUR MONTHLY DOWNLOAD OF THE LATEST LIFE ENHANCING RESEARCH

TURN MUSCLE GAIN ALL THE WAY UP TO 11

WORDS: LOUEE DESSENT-JACKSON; PHOTOGRAPHY: PETER CROWTHER AT DEBUT ART

But not in the way you expect. Your cool-down playlist has the most potent effect on your progress in the gym. So chill YOU DON’T NEED reminding that cranking up the volume of Workout Hype Tunez Vol 3 can enhance your physical performance. You’ve doubtless experienced the boost that a well-timed drop gives you when you’re under a loaded barbell, helping you squeeze out an extra rep – or an extra 1.7, according to researchers at Samford University. Listening to music you like reduces your perception of effort and even masks pain, so you won’t notice the burn in your pecs. But intriguing new research suggests that this is merely the support act.

Switch to a down-tempo playlist once you’ve finished your final rep and you can press play on the recovery process right away. During strenuous activity – such as one of our hardhitting newsletter workouts – your body produces the stress hormone cortisol.

This helps you generate more energy, so you can cope with the physical demands of exercise. But afterwards, having too much cortisol in your system delays your muscles’ repair phase. What you need, say scientists at Brunel University, is soothing music to calm this effect and pave the way for growth. Students were asked to cycle intensively for a short period, then use headphones during a gentle, 30-minute recovery ride. While

Fire up your growth strategy with slowburning tunes.

stimulating, high-tempo music proved to be worse than no music at all, “reverse” tunes helped to bring the subjects’ heart rates down quickly and avert the cortisol spike, allowing muscle growth to begin more quickly and effectively. It doesn’t have to be whale sounds or pan pipes, either: just say “Alexa, play chill playlist”.

And let the gains begin.

SLOW JAMS

Introduce these instantly calming cool-down tracks to your playlist to kick-start your recovery and aid muscle growth

“MOMENTS IN LOVE” ART OF NOISE 138bpm

“AT THE RIVER” GROOVE ARMADA 136bpm

“PORCELAIN” MOBY 95bpm

“TEARDROP” MASSIVE ATTACK 76bpm

“WEIGHTLESS” MARCONI UNION 71bpm

OCTOBER 2021

11

1021

THE FEED

Indulge in a new way to throw oil on the fat-burning fire.

In lockdown, weight gain can seem inevitable. Except, we’ve sniffed out a rather luxurious way to keep your gut in check

HEAVEN SCENTS

Essential oils help to boost performance, speed up recovery and burn fat. Find the scent that will fire up your goals

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MEN’S HE ALT H

MINT

Rub this into your hands before your next parkrun and breathe it in deeply. It can potentially increase your endurance by improving lung function.

Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition

EUCALYPTUS

This oil can help to reduce the pain and inflammation associated with a variety of conditions. It is also thought to be helpful to those experiencing back pain.

MedlinePlus

ORANGE

Applying this to tired muscles after a tough workout could help to prevent the build-up of lactic acid and speed up recovery.

Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine

WORDS: LOUEE DESSENT-JACKSON; PHOTOGRAPHY: MICHAEL HEDGE

MASSAGE THE FAT-LOSS STATISTICS

FOR ALL OUR best-laid plans, the balance of kilojoules in and kilojoules out all too easily tips the wrong way when you’re largely confined to your home. After all, that’s a lot of incidental exercise out the window. The obvious prescription is to put less on your plate at meal times. But for those whose pleasures have shrunk enough already, that sounds a bit dispiriting.

Gratifyingly, scientists may have found a soothing alternative. Book in for a COVID-secure massage and ask your therapist to add a few drops of grapefruit essential oil to the lotion.

That might sound far too decadent to be a certified weight-loss technique, but Japanese scientists have discovered the beneficial effects of the scent of grapefruit.

In a rodent study, they recorded electrical activity in the nerve pathways to the animals’ fat tissue and observed that the smell seemed to activate “good” brown fat – the type that breaks down blood sugar and fat molecules to maintain body temperature. Furthermore, a component of grapefruit essential oil called limonene was found to suppress appetite. If you’re sceptical about whether these effects will translate to humans, fret not. All it takes to get the fat-burning benefits is to lie on a massage table.

Another study, published in the Journal of the Korean Academy of Nursing, found that people who massaged grapefruit oil onto their bellies twice a day for six weeks experienced a significant decrease in abdominal fat. This means a relaxing session on the massage table could help you recover your physique, as well as your senses.

Not something to be sniffed at, we think you’ll agree.

1021

UNPEEL THE GIFT OF A LONGER LIFE

FOOD FILLIPS

New research suggests that your everyday citrus could help you squeeze out extra zest as you grow older. The future’s orange

THOUGH ONCE CONSIDERED an exotic luxury, citrus fruit won’t fill you with much excitement if you catch sight of it on special at the grocer. But the lifeextending properties of this halftime staple make it a fruit that deserves a standing ovation.

Nutrition scientists at the South China University of Technology tested the effects of supermarketbought oranges on nematodes – tiny, transparent organisms commonly used in anti-ageing research – by adding different concentrations of orange extract to a test solution. They noticed that the higher the concentration to which the nematodes were exposed, the longer they survived.

Compounds in the festive fruit inhibit the “ageing gene” age-1 and increase the production of detoxifying and protective enzymes, such as superoxide dismutase (SOD) and catalase. When released, these enzymes get to work cleaning up aggressive molecules, preventing them from damaging cells. But that’s not all.

The MAPK pathway is also activated, encouraging healthy cells to develop, grow and divide. And, of course, oranges are full of vitamin C, which stimulates the production of collagen to help keep your skin supple.

Which all adds up to a strong case for restoring oranges to your diet, rather than consigning them to history as something you sucked on when your team was down 0-3 at the interval back in the under-7s.

Forget counting kilojoules and feast on the benefits of a square meal

TURKEY

Rich in protein, this also contains vitamins B3 and B6 for brain health and energy.

Hack your ageing genes with the humble orange.

BRUSSELS SPROUTS

These contain zeaxanthin and lutein, which support eye health.

GRAVY

Make this out of meat stock to soak up some extra B vitamins, including B2 and B3.

PARSNIPS

This high-fibre root veg contains falcarinol, which has been shown to reduce cancer risk.

CRANBERRY SAUCE

Cranberries are firmly linked to a lower risk of heart disease.

RED WINE

In moderation, wine boosts levels of “good” HDL cholesterol, aiding heart health.

STEAMED FRUIT PUDDING

The fruit is packed with fibre, while cinnamon helps control blood sugar.

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MU-X

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The All-New Isuzu MU-X – EXTRAORDINARY.

ALL-NEW MU-X Apple CarPlay is a trademark of Apple Inc. Android Auto is a trademark of Google LLC. Not all devices will be compatible & functionality will vary depending on the device. #IDAS features are designed to assist the driver, but should not be relied upon nor used as a substitute for safe driving practices.

NEW HORIZONS: PHILIPPOUSSIS PLANS TO ACE COMPETITORS IN THE GARMENT INDUSTRY.

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MEN’S HE ALTH

MARK OF A MAN Former tennis star MARK PHILIPPOUSSIS played a fullthrottled game that mirrored his approach to life. Today, at 44, the man known widely as “Scud” is less an explosive force than a battle-hardened survivor, keen to leave his mark in areas far removed from sport

BY DANIEL WILLIAMS PHOTOGR APHY BY MONIK A BERRY

OCTOBER 2021

17

TO KEEP HIS BODY FIT AND HIS MIND HEALTHY, PHILIPPOUSSIS TURNS TO THE OUTDOORS.

IT’S A WEDNESDAY morning when I speak by phone with Mark Philippoussis, who it so happens is coming down from a surfing-induced high. The previous day he’d struck it lucky at his local beach of Jan Juc, southwest of Melbourne.

“It was getting to low tide and that spot is best in low tide,” he recalls. “It was one of my favourite breaks and super clean. Normally, there are 20 people vying for one take-off spot, but it was just me and another guy. My wife had gone for a walk with my daughter, and my son was at school, so I had nothing to rush back for. I was out there for two hours.”

We talk into the afternoon, and virtually irrespective of the topic – family, his new business venture, tennis, fitness, his recent plunge into military-style training – Philippoussis sounds uniformly enthused. He is either a singularly fulfilled and contented man or masterful at giving that impression.

On and off between 1995-2006, Philippoussis was among the world’s best and most compelling tennis players, peaking at a ranking of No. 8 in the first half of 1999.

Handsome and burly, with the chest and shoulders of a rugby forward, the 196-centimetre gentle giant owned the sport’s biggest serve, which he backed up with a power-laden baseline game and penetrating volleys. On 18

MEN’S HE ALTH

his day he could dust anyone, but because he instinctively trod a fine line between boldness and recklessness, he could also fall backwards out of tournaments at the darndest times. He reached finals at the US Open (1998) and Wimbledon (2003) and won the decisive rubber in two Davis Cup finals (1999 and 2003), and yet the hard-headed rap on Philippoussis is that he didn’t quite fulfil his potential, that a frivolous lifestyle and questionable work ethic stymied an outsized talent.

These days, he’s sometimes spoken of in the same breath as Nick Kyrgios, but that comparison is unfair – to Philippoussis. Unlike Kyrgios, Philippoussis was prepared to lose without obscuring shortcomings behind a mask of indifference, and it’s hard to recall the older man ever being querulous, much less obnoxious, on court. He seemed sad at times, and strangely vulnerable for such a physically imposing man, but he never made you want to switch off the TV in disgust.

Philippoussis is on the line because the second series of SAS Australia, in which he appears, is soon to go to air. If you’ve seen the show, you’ll know that its resident taskmasters appear to revel in subjecting participants to all manner of hardship: hunger, cold, Room 101-type scenarios, humiliation. Why put

PHILIPPOUSSIS IN THE 2003 WIMBLEDON FINAL, WHICH HE LOST TO FEDERER.

yourself through it? “I felt like for too long I’d been too comfortable,” Philippoussis replies in an accent that is an Australian-American hybrid (up until 2019, he’d spent the previous 23 years based in the US). “I wanted to be pushed out of my comfort zone in an extreme way.”

Although he went on SAS expecting a physical ordeal, he underestimated the show’s psychological demands, he tells me. For many years he had thought of himself as exceptionally mentally strong, hardened to the point of impregnability by that decade spent in the cauldron of pro tennis, as well as by the rough and tumble of life. “You’d imagine that in a journey of 44 years, you’d know yourself pretty well,” he says. “You know what I mean? But it’s amazing that I learned so much more about myself.”

He seems to be setting the stage for an admission: that he’d discovered he wasn’t as tough as he thought he was. Instead, he goes the other way. There are two types of pain, he says: one, intense physical pain that doesn’t last; and two, “personal pain . . . shit happens, and

TACT I C S

that pain doesn’t end – you just learn to accept it and live it with it, day in and day out”. The pain he experienced on SAS, he says, was the first type: ephemeral; manageable.

So, I ask, were you as stoic as you thought you were?

Yes, he says. “I honestly learnt that I’m even tougher than I thought I was. I don’t want that to sound arrogant in any way. I just want it to come from a good place.”

For him, Philippoussis explains, SAS was less a show than a test – a test from which he aimed to emerge “upgraded”.

Upgraded?

“Yeah, so I can be a better husband, a better father, a better friend, a better son, a better brother, a better listener, a better human being.

Yeah, I wanted to come out upgraded. And I wasn’t disappointed.”

S T RING T HEORY

If you rose to No. 8 in the world at something but kept hearing, even in retirement, that you’d partially squandered your talent, do you reckon that might get to you? I ask Philippoussis whether he gave tennis his all.

There’s no sign the question bothers him. On the contrary, he says he can understand why people might have their doubts about how hard he worked. “But I’m very comfortable [addressing] this, because it’s simple.”

As a boy of Greek and Italian heritage growing up in Melbourne’s western suburbs, he says, he “ate, slept and breathed tennis” – and it was a good thing he did, he adds, because nothing less would have been enough.

Preposterous, really, he says, in hindsight, the idea of aiming to make it on the absurdly competitive ATP Tour. “They say ignorance is bliss, and it honestly was for me and my father.”

When Philippoussis was about 20, doctors gave his cancer-stricken dad and coach, Nick, six months to live. And while Nick ended up pulling through, the son’s perspective on tennis had been realigned for good. “You look at things differently,” he says. “When you lose a match, you’re not so upset about it anymore.”

But just because he had learned to keep defeats in perspective, it doesn’t follow he cut corners. “When it came to training, I woke up in the morning and I trained my arse off,” he says.

“Don’t get me wrong, man: I trained my butt off.

But as soon as my training was done, I also went and enjoyed myself, whether that was something I wasn’t supposed to do, like motorbike riding, or getting in my car and driving somewhere for the weekend or going snowboarding.”

Why? “Because I lived life to the max and that was the same way I played tennis. Did I go for

winners when maybe I shouldn’t have? Sure, but that’s the way I played. Someone would say to me, ‘Mark, you know, you can also win points when your opponent misses a shot’. I knew that, but it didn’t feel as good for me. Do you know what I mean? I had glimpses of greatness on the court. Matches of greatness. Even tournaments of greatness. But it wasn’t consistent greatness because to have that you need to eat, sleep and breathe tennis. There has to be nothing else for you. That’s the reality.”

He tells a story about spending two weeks in Los Angeles practising with a soon-to-retire Pete Sampras, who was a leading GOAT contender before Federer/Nadal/Djokovic rewrote history.

Sampras was a phlegmatic athlete, but one morning he showed up at the courts abuzz.

“Man, I couldn’t sleep last night I was so excited,” he told Philippoussis.

“Yeah? What were you excited about?”

“I’ve got this new string in my racquet!”

Philippoussis was dumbfounded, before realising something.

“Pete, that’s why you’re Pete Sampras and you have 14 grand slams,” he said. “Because when I can’t sleep at night, it’s not because of a new string.”

Another time, Philippoussis arrived at a tournament venue to play a night match and was surprised to find his compatriot, former world No. 1 Lleyton Hewitt, kicking around in the dressing

room. Hewitt, he knew, had played the first match of the day; he should have been long gone. “I’m like, What the fuck!” Philippoussis recalls. “I said, ‘What the fuck you doing here?

Go home!’ But he was like, ‘Ah, nothin’, mate, just hangin’. See, he loved it. He still does. You can see it. He still eats, breathes, sleeps it. That’s just not me and it never was me.”

You could say that as a sportsman, Philippoussis lacked this or lacked that, but what you’d really be saying is that he was a little too normal, insufficiently descended into obsession.

“But it doesn’t mean I was lazy,” he says. “I wasn’t lazy.”

Something else I’d like to know is whether Philippoussis carries any bitterness from his days on the tour, whether he’s still angry with certain people over certain incidents or comments. It’s not worth going into specifics, here or with Philippoussis, but he gets my drift.

“Oh, God, let me say this,” he says. “I don’t carry anger about something that happened yesterday. Life’s too short.”

A QUIE T P L ACE

He keeps in good nick. At 92 kilograms, he’s five kilos lighter than he was in the 2003 Wimbledon final, where he had the honour of sorts of becoming Federer’s first victim in a grand slam decider. He’ll go occasionally to a commercial gym, he says, but his gym is really the outdoors,

WHEN DARKNESS LURKS, PHILIPPOUSSIS KNOWS HOW TO STEM THE TIDE.

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19

TENNIS STILL GIVES ME JOY. I STILL PLAY A GAME THAT I FELL IN LOVE WITH AS A KID

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TACT I C S

specifically the ocean. Surfing, he says, is his passion, his principal form of exercise – and his meditation. Six knee surgeries have turned him off running, but he briskly walks the steps of the Jan Juc cliffs two at a time in a weighted vest or backpack – up and down, up and down – and does mountains of push-ups and planks. When it comes to fitness, his mantra is functional.

He favours movements that will help him on the tennis court, because in a good year – a non-pandemic year, in other words – he’ll play up to 12 events around the world with his fellow titans of yesteryear.

“Tennis still gives me joy,” he says. “I still play a game that I fell in love with as a kid, but without all the stress and politics that come with the main tour. I re-fell in love with tennis by playing the Champions Tour.”

At these events, he’ll face off against the likes of Tim Henman, Andre Agassi, Goran Ivanišević.

Everyone still wants to win, he says, but afterwards the warhorses will bond over a drink or a meal. “And the beautiful thing is that the shield that you need to have when you’re on the main tour is down, and we talk about family, and we know each other’s kids’ names and what they’re up to. Everyone finally lets go. We’re not trying to protect ourselves anymore.”

Back in 2004, Philippoussis dated an emerging 19-year-old songbird named Delta Goodrem, who sadly around this time received a Hodgkin’s lymphoma diagnosis. The tender support he provided during her treatment inspired one of her hit songs, “Out of the Blue”.

The Scud-Delta pairing didn’t last, and Philippoussis stayed a bachelor until 2013, when he married Romanian-born model Silvana Lovin. When we talk, their eighth wedding anniversary is a few days away. From the way he speaks about her, it’s plain he adores her and still pinches himself now and then to be sure the life they’ve created is real.

They have two children – Nicholas, seven, and Maia, three – and an old Malamute cross called Myka whom Philippoussis rescued in LA. Two years ago, the family upped sticks from San Diego to settle in Melbourne, where they lived in Williamstown, not far from Philippoussis’s boyhood home, until January, when the lure of coastal living in Jan Juc, near Torquay, proved irresistible.

“Our happy place is the ocean,” Philippoussis says. “Our happy place is barefoot on the sand.”

For Philippoussis, it’s also on the tennis court, where you’ll find father and son rallying a few times a week. Nicholas is a natural athlete who’s playing better than he, Philippoussis, was at the same age, he says. Until recently, Philippoussis let his boy take the lead in terms of initiating practice, but of late he’s been pushing him just a little to hit before school, mainly to instil discipline in the lad, to get him in the habit of firing up early in the day.

I ask Philippoussis whether his dad, who to my eye always looked stern, even a little

forbidding, pushed him. “No, or not until I told him at the age of 12 that I wanted to become a professional tennis player, and even then, not until physically I could be pushed, like 14 or 15,” he says. “Then he started to push me, and I’m glad he did. But he always gave me the option.

He’d say: ‘You can stop playing whenever you want, but if you stop then you’ll go to school and when you’re finished, you’ll get a job and be like everyone else. This is your shot at something better. And if you choose this, I’m going to push you’. And I never wanted to stop.”

From the courts of pro tennis to family life, Philippoussis has recently split-stepped into the rag trade, launching his own label, AS WE CREATE, marketed as “consciously made luxury essentials” that include block-colour tees, sweatshirts and hoodies. After joining the pro tour in 1994, he tells me, he would sketch a lot in his spare time, which conjures up an intriguing image of a strapping figure in tennis whites bent over a pad. “I’ve always had a very strong creative itch. I’ve always had an appreciation for design, whether it’s a motorcycle, a car, a house, a building, whatever.”

When he returned to Australia in 2019, intent on getting his teeth into something, he decided

that creating high-quality, ethically and locally made clothing was the ticket. “It’s early days,” he says, “but I have a big vision for this.”

SH A DE S OF GR E Y

As upbeat as he sounds, his reference to “personal pain . . . shit [that] happens” that never really leaves you, echoes in my head. For Philippoussis, life took an awful turn in July 2017, when the San Diego County Sherriff’s Department charged his father with child sex offences. The following year, a California judge dismissed the charges after Nick Philippoussis suffered a stroke while in jail

PHILIPPOUSSIS ON SAS AUSTRALIA . FOR HIM, THE SHOW WAS A “TEST”.

awaiting trial. Gingerly, reluctantly, and only because I have some pretensions to being a proper journalist, I ask Philippoussis about his dad. How is he and what’s your relationship these days?

There’s a brief silence, during which I realise there’s every chance I’ve ruined a fellow man’s day. “Look,” he says, “the only thing I’m going to say is my dad had a stroke and he’s in an aged care facility close by us, and of course I visit him all the time.”

Earlier, after Philippoussis had described surfing as his meditation, I’d asked him whether he was prone to bouts of melancholy. Sure, he said: now and then, as they do for everyone, things get to him. “But I won’t let it last long.

It might be 30 minutes. It might be an hour.”

The alternative, he says – dwelling on something upsetting or perplexing – is a shortcut to torment, where one negative thought can trigger a cascade of gloom. “I’ve been there,” he says, “and I don’t want to go down that road again.”

And when our time’s up, the impression I’m left with is that Philippoussis truly is, by and large, a happy man, one who’s been able to let go of the thrills of top-level sport and settle for the quieter pleasures and arguably deeper satisfactions of family life.

It’s the mark of a man. The mature man.

“I’m blessed,” he says.

“Like, what is there not to be happy about? I’m married to a woman who, in my younger years, I could only have dreamt of meeting, and she is the mother of our two incredible children, who happened to be born healthy, and we live in a beautiful place in a beautiful country. Yes, my tennis career is over. But I still have the potential to build whatever I want. And so long as I have my wife and kids by my side, man, I’m capable of anything.”

SAS Australia airs this month on Channel 7 and 7plus.

OCTOBER 2021

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MUS C LE

TAKE THE PATH OF

START HERE

HIGH RESISTANCE THE

Sometimes, the future of your fitness depends on what’s behind you. The BAND-DISTRACTED DUMBBELL ROW has your back

EXERCISE YOU’RE NOT DOING

3 TO THE TOP

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V-SHAPED TORSO

2 BAND AID

With tension in the band, lift the bell by squeezing your shoulder blades together. This will prevent you from rounding your upper back and shrugging the weight up.

Using your back (not your biceps), row the dumbbell up to your left side with control, maintaining tension, until your upper arm is parallel to the floor.

Tense your arm at the top of the move.

4 RETURN

JOURNEY

Maintaining tension in the band, slowly return the weight to the start.

Check that you’re still squeezing your shoulder blades together. Do your reps on one side, then switch to the other.

What You’ll Gain

BOULDER SHOULDERS

Attach your band to a fixed object and secure the other end around a dumbbell.

Lean one hand and a knee on a flat bench.

Reach down and grab the dumbbell.

BETTER DESK POSTURE

WORDS: WESLEY DOYLE I PHOTOGRAPHY: PHILIP HAYNES

BUILDING A BIGGER BACK can be tricky. “Many people have trouble with the posterior chain in general,” says personal trainer Andrew Tracey. “It’s a case of ‘out of sight, out of mind’.” Yet neglecting the muscles you can’t see will only result in bad form.

“We’re so mid-back dominant,” says Tracey. “The first thing we do when we pull something towards us is shrug up and shrink our bodies. It can be difficult to know how to switch on our lats.”

Working a band into this gym staple will set you straight.

“When you’re performing a dumbbell row, the angle of resistance is up and down,” says Tracey. “The band distraction adds horizontal resistance. This creates a cue to switch on our lats and use them to move the weight.”

Perform three sets of 10 reps on each arm with a light weight; go heavy once you’ve mastered it. You’ll hit all the muscles – lats, rhomboids, rear delts – needed to bring your back to its best.

BEST

1HANDS DOWN

NU TRI TION

LOW CARB

HIGH CARB

65%

25% But keto-style diets have been linked to digestive benefits, too. In a study at the University of California, a high-fat diet reduced intestinal inflammation.

vegetables and grains tend to be high in fibre, associated with a lower risk of heart disease and bowel cancer.

Research in the Lancet suggests that high-carb diets (70 per cent of kJs) raise mortality risk by a fifth. The risk is lowest when carb intake is 50-55 per cent.

23%

STAYING ALIVE

INCREASE

20%

INCREASE

The same study found that those with the lowest carbohydrate intake (less than 30 per cent of total energy) were also more likely to suffer from all-cause mortality.

KEY TARGETS

Powers HIIT

Feeds endurance

Fuels muscle

A carb-based snack four hours before bed can help you nod off. But avoid refined carbohydrates, which can raise levels of sleep-interfering cortisol.

Supports LISS

SLEEP SCORE

Burns fat for energy

Speeds weight loss

Sticking to a low-carb, high-fat plan can help beat daytime drowsiness, swerving blood-sugar dips and spikes. Studies into its effects on sleep offer mixed results.

Supports nutrient uptake

Decreases food cravings

Increases testosterone

Improves “good” cholesterol

Manages type 2 diabetes

Reduces abdominal fat

THE MH VERDICT: IT’S A DRAW! The science on carb intake is, well, complex. But if your goal is long-lasting, full-body health and fitness, avoid the extremes. Incorporate slow-burning, fibrous carbs and nutritious whole-food fats into your diet to give your body the best tools to handle your training.

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WORDS: KIERAN ALGER; PHOTOGRAPHY: STUDIO 33

BONUS GAINS

ADVERTO RI A L FE AT UR E

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DUCK, YEAH! There’s a wide world of delectable poultry out there beyond chicken. Duck is a powerful source of nutrients like protein and iron – and, let’s not forget, flavour. Round out the meal with two southern-inspired, fibre-rich sides BY

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KEVIN BELTON AND PAUL KITA

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NUT R IT I O N

30g

THE PROTEIN

A 170-gram serving of roasted duck breast with the skin has about 42 grams of protein and 1440 kilojoules. If you’re worried about kilojoules, the same amount of duck without the skin has 37 grams of protein and 785 kilojoules. If you’re not worried about kilojoules, that fat is delicious; you should also save whatever renders when you cook. Duck fat makes for next-level hash browns, Brussels sprouts and cauliflower

10g

THE FIBRE

Either of these sides will help you get the protein you need to build muscle, the fibre you need to stay full, and the awesomeness you need to leave the table happy

BUY IT You’ll likely find three types of duck breast: Pekin (the mildest of the bunch), Muscovy (the gamiest) and Moulard (a balance of the two). The Game Farm (gamefarm.com.au) is a good online source of duck meat, which may be available at your local supermarket, too. Make sure you buy the raw, not the smoked, kind for this recipe.

Crispy Glazed Duck WHAT YOU’LL NEED

SERVES 4

PHOTOGRAPHS BY CHRISTOPHER TESTANI

• ¼ cup hoisin sauce • ¼ cup mirin (rice wine) • ½ tsp five-spice powder • 1 nch piece of ginger, peeled, sliced • 4 cloves garlic, coarsely chopped • 4 duck breasts, 225g each *Consuming raw or undercooked meats, poultry, seafood, shellfish or eggs may increase your risk of foodborne illness.

METHOD 1 In a food processor or blender, combine the hoisin, mirin, five-spice powder, ginger and garlic. Pulse until it forms a runny paste. Pour into a 30-cm baking dish.

Pat the duck dry with paper towels and add to the marinade, skin side up. Divide ½ tsp kosher salt between the breasts. Marinate, uncovered, in the fridge for a couple hours to overnight. Remove the duck from the fridge and let it come up to room temperature, at least 20 minutes.

2

Preheat the oven to 220°C. Pat the duck dry with paper towels again and score the skin with the tip of a sharp knife in a 1.5-cm diamond pattern. In a cast-iron pan over medium, add the duck, skin side down, and cook until golden brown, 6-8 minutes. Flip the duck and sear, 3-4 minutes. Flip once more, transfer the pan to the oven, bake for 8 minutes, flip to skin side up, and bake until the skin is dark brown, 6-8 more minutes. Transfer the duck to a big plate, skin side up. Rest about10 minutes before carving and serving.

3

Roasted Okra and Corn

Preheat the oven to 230°C. In a large bowl, combine 4 cups okra (sliced), 3½ cups corn kernels, 2 medium onions (diced), 2 Tbsp olive oil, 2 Tbsp Creole seasoning, and 1 tsp kosher salt. Spread the mixture onto a large rimmed baking sheet. Roast, stirring twice, until the veg are tender and browning, 20-25 minutes.

Feeds 4 Nutrition per serving: 950 kilojoules, 7g protein, 36g carbs (7g fibre), 9g fat

Nutrition per serving: 1750 kilojoules, 43g protein, 13g carbs (1g fibre), 19g fat

30g 10g

Wait, what’s 30/10?

30/10 delivers healthy, filling meals to help you get 30 grams of protein and 10 grams of fibre. For an entire month’s worth of recipes, head to MensHealth.com/30-10.

Bacon and Greens

In a large pot, add 220g bacon (chopped) and heat over medium. Brown the bacon, 12-15 minutes. Add 1 cup onion (diced) and cook until beginning to sweat, 1-2 minutes. Add 1 small garlic clove (minced) and cook till aromatic, 1 minute. Pour in 4 cups chicken broth; turn the heat to high. When it reaches a boil, add 200g each of the following (cleaned and roughly chopped): collard greens, mustard greens and turnip greens.

Add ½ Tbsp Creole seasoning, ¼ tsp ground black pepper, 1 Tbsp white distilled vinegar and 1 Tbsp sugar. Cover the pot, lower the heat to medium and simmer till tender, about 1 hour, stirring occasionally. Feeds 4 Nutrition per serving: 1510 kilojoules, 17g protein, 22g carbs (7g fibre), 25g fat

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27

FOR THE PAST 18 months, I’ve listened to my patients talk about their struggles with adapting.

First to locking down, then to changing how they work, forming new friendships in new ways, or starting over in a new city. One of the most useful things the pandemic has taught us is the importance of being flexible. So why, now that it’s time to adapt again – to contemplate ‘living with the virus’, to getting back to being social, to moving forward – do so many of people want to dig in their heels?

I’ll be honest: I’m not the guy who readily embraces change,

THE SECRET

either. (My wife gets annoyed with me for ordering the same boring thing – grilled fish with basmati rice and vegetables – every time we go to our favourite Mediterranean restaurant.) Although adapting can be challenging, not having strategies to deal with the stress of change (from new office protocols to a significant life change) can lead to major depression, adjustment disorder and even PTSD over time.

Becoming better at adapting helps you move through your chaotic days with more ease, more energy and less stress.

Some business consultants use a short quiz to measure your adaptability quotient – your ability to adjust, change course or learn to perform better by performing differently. It’s not an official diagnostic tool, and I like the idea

TO BETTER FLEXIBILITY With the world constantly in flux, you have to be open to change.

The trick is knowing when to adapt and when to dig in

BY GREGORY SCOT T BROWN

BE READY TO STRETCH YOUR BOUNDARIES WHEN LIFE PULLS YOU IN ALL DIRECTIONS.

of thinking about how adaptable you tend to be, especially since most of us can improve. But that doesn’t mean I think we should fall for the notion that adaptability equals being flexible about everything, all the time. You need to be stable in certain areas so that you can be flexible in others and not end up breaking. Use this tool kit to help find the right balance.

1

When change is everywhere, it can feel as if there’s nothing secure in your life to hold on to.

This can cause you to start resisting change altogether, which also may close you off to opportunities that might make life better. The way to manage

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DAN SAELINGER/TRUNK ARCHIVE

E S TA BL ISH A S TA BL E B A SE

MI ND

security and change at the same time is to keep a few aspects of your life – like your morning coffee routine – consistent.

Habits and routines buffer the effects of emotional stress.

Choose more than one area of consistency so that if you need to adapt in one, you have something else to fall back on.

2

UNL E A R N S OME T HINGS

When tech investor Natalie Fratto is deciding which start-ups to support, she looks for signs of adaptability. One clue: adaptable entrepreneurs are willing to unlearn what they think they know. To figure out what needs to be unlearned, look at uncomfortable situations in which you’re being challenged to do things differently and are tempted to shut down the idea

core values – keeps you from losing yourself in the process of change. Ask yourself questions like: why did I decide to take this job in the first place? What originally attracted me to my partner? Why did I choose to live here? Change can quickly lead you in the wrong direction if you let it pull you away from these values.

Being intentionally adaptable means reinventing yourself on your own terms. While I’m not sure what changes lie ahead in my office, the next time I’m at the Mediterranean restaurant, I still know what I’m having for dinner.

“Knowing your core values keeps you from losing yourself in the process of change”

WHAT’S YOUR ADAPTABILITY QUOTIENT? Use this mini quiz to assess your skills as a change agent. Answer honestly!

SCORE YOURSELF

1: NEVER / 2: SELDOM / 3: REGULARLY 4: FREQUENTLY / 5: ALWAYS I am able to shift gears with minimal complaints. immediately. Before COVID, some of my patients asked about online visits, and it always felt awkward saying I didn’t offer them. Even though the question kept coming up, I thought everyone preferred meeting with a psychiatrist in person. Since I’m not always quick to adapt, I had to challenge what I thought I knew about what my patients wanted. When you use resistance as an opportunity to unlearn, you can then relearn at a pace that works for you. It makes adapting easier, because no one is forcing it on you.

3

FOCUS ON YOUR C OR E

Understanding what’s most important to you – knowing your

I challenge myself to question what I presume to know.

I am frequently on the lookout for new ideas to consider and test.

My habit is to reach out for help and acknowledge the assistance.

My failures present opportunities.

ADD UP YOUR RESPONSES:

5-8

You likely struggle with change and would benefit from mentoring and other forms of guidance.

9-12

You’re somewhat adaptable but have room to improve.

13-19 You’re open-minded yet could stand to sharpen your adaptability skills.

20-25 You’re change-agent material and should be mentoring others.

SOURCE: EXECUTIVE AGENDA

OCTOBER 2021

29

H E ALT H

AN OPHTHALMOLOGIST’S GUIDE TO

SHAMPOO YOUR LIDS

YOUR EYES

Most people have never heard of “eyelid hygiene,” but hear me out. Our eyelids collect oil all day long. After hours of screens, the oil glands along the lashes get clogged.

Tears evaporate more quickly, and the eyes become crusty and irritated.

I put a little baby shampoo on a washcloth, apply it on my lids, and rinse with water.

This is my version of a digital detox at the end of the day.

Along with quarantine weight gain and FOMO, the pandemic has introduced another strain into our lives: Zoom-itis, aka the digital eyestrain that results from staring at screens all day. If there’s a good thing about this, says Dr JERRY TSONG, it’s that it’s prompted people to be more aware of their eye health. Here’s what he does to keep his eyes comfortable and in working order

I keep my phone from intruding on my night, disabling notifications and turning on “do not disturb” so texts don’t wake me up.

In general, extra “awake” time means you’re doing more bad things to your eyes, such as staring at screens. And you’re depriving your body of the sleep that helps your eyes regain moisture, which protects them from infection and abrasions and keeps them comfortable.

SWEAT TO SAVE YOUR RETINAS After reading a recent study that found that exercise may help maintain good eye health, I’ve done 100 push-ups daily and I fit in a Peloton session three times a week.

Physical activity may stave off some of the cell aging that leads to issues like macular degeneration. And being active can also help prevent diabetes, which damages the blood vessels that feed your retinas.

GIVE YOUR EYES A LUNCH BREAK The popular 20-20-20 rule says you should look away from your screen every 20 minutes at something 20 feet (6 metres) away for 20 seconds to relieve digital eyestrain. I find that’s impossible to follow. Instead, I close my eyes for 10 minutes on my lunch break and listen to a meditation app. Your eyes get tired with intense use. Closing them is like taking a break between sets of an exercise.

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BLOCK ULTRAVIOLET RAYS I’m really obsessive about putting on my Ray-Bans as soon as I step outside. UV light is linked to aging diseases such as cataracts and macular degeneration (the number-one cause of blindness in the developed world) and harm can start adding up in your 40s. Indoors, I don’t wear glasses to block blue light – I haven’t seen any research that shows they help with eye fatigue.

NOURISH YOUR PEEPERS I jumped on the Mediterraneandiet bandwagon in a serious way when research found it might reduce the risk of age-related macular degeneration (AMD) by 41 per cent. This produce-filled diet can help prevent the inflammation that may contribute to AMD. It’s a cliché, but I love avocado toast for breakfast and often have a kale quinoa salad for lunch.

AS TOLD TO SARAH E. RICHARDS; ILLUSTRATION BY ADAM VOORHES / GALLERY STOCK

BAN SCREENS FROM THE BEDROOM

CHARLOTTE CASLICK The 26-year-old Queenslander may just be the best women’s rugby sevens player on the planet, winner of a historic gold medal in 2016 with the Australian team in the first-ever Olympic rugby sevens contest. After a repeat triumph eluded the side in Tokyo, Caslick is now gearing up for the Dubai 7s in December

BY LIZZA

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GEBILAGIN

MEN’S HE ALTH

PHOTOGRAPHY BY

STEVE BACCON

W O M E N

IN

SP O RT

THE WORLD ACCORDING TO CHARLOTTE CASLIK MH What does being an athlete mean to you? More specifically, a female athlete?

CC Being an athlete to me is living a childhood dream. I think I always grew up loving sport and it was such a big part of my life, and now I get to do it as a full-time career. I’m just so blessed to be able to do that and to be a woman doing it as well. When I was young, I didn’t have female role models to look up to who were professional athletes, but now you see them at the top in so many different sports.

And I’m really proud that I’m at the forefront of that movement.

MH Who do you look to for inspiration?

CC I think I admire a lot of female athletes. But

for me, coming from touch football, there are a lot of girls I looked up to who played touch and have never been paid to play their sport – they just do it because they love it. One of them is Emily Hennessey: she just had her fourth baby and she’s still at the top of her league. I find her really inspiring.

MH Was it hard making the switch from touch league to Rugby 7s?

CC The transition from touch to rugby was a little bit challenging at the start, but it was the challenge that really excited me. And although it was difficult, I think I’ve really enjoyed every part of it. Obviously with [rugby] being a maledominated industry for such a long time, there were challenges in regards to that. But Australian Rugby has always been such a huge supporter of the women’s game, and I have such great family and friends who’ve supported me as well.

MH Rugby 7s crowds are famously vocal

and passionate. When you’re competing, do you sense the energy?

CC When I compete and I’m out on the field, there’s definitely times that you hear the crowd and you can use them to gain, I guess, excitement, and really draw on their energy.

Especially at the Olympics in Rio, our Australian supporters were amazing. I think we really felt that while we were out there.

MH So how has it been competing during a pandemic, playing in empty stadiums?

CC I guess we’re there to do a job, and no matter what, we just want to go out there and do our best. And we know that people will be watching us on their TV screens, so we’ll be wanting to make them proud. We’ve got a job to do, so we focus on that.

MH What’s your secret talent?

CC My secret talent! I’m actually really good at

skipping – jumping rope. Which is pretty random, but I did that at primary school for the Heart Foundation. I can do over 100 doubleunders in a row.

MH How strict are you vis a vis nutrition?

CC I’m actually very relaxed around what I eat

“I think I rise to pressure and use it to my advantage“ and drink. I think because [normally] we travel all over the world so often, you never really know what you’re going to get depending on what country we’re in. I try and have a fair bit of carbs and protein . . . make sure I get that in. On game day I don’t eat that much in between games. I sort of just snack.

but we were there pretty much from 7am till 3pm most days of the week. [During the pandemic], we haven’t had a chance to play many tournaments, but we’ve got a few coming up, which will be really exciting. It’s sort of just every day, training with the girls.

MH Afterwards, do you have a cheat meal?

CC I think I have a pretty balanced diet so I

expectation, in particular backing up the Olympic performance of 2016?

CC I think every time I pull on the Australian jersey, I carry the expectation that I have to make my country proud. So it doesn’t really matter if it’s a World Series, if it’s an Oceania tournament or an Olympic Games, the jersey will always carry the same weight to me. And I don’t really look at it as bad pressure. I think I kind of rise to that pressure and use it to my advantage.

For me, I just focus on my own role and make sure that I’m really well prepared within the team [structures]. I have to lead the girls around, so I make sure that I know my role inside and out, so that if they need to look to me for guidance at any time I can give that straight away without losing track of my own goal and focus. My dad always told me to control the controllable. So that’s always something I come back to, as well. Because, in our sport, there are so many things that are out of your control.

don’t really restrict myself too much. That’s probably one of the benefits of playing a sport like rugby. But something that I had to restrict was probably ice cream. And I love rum and cokes when I go out at night. So if I’m on athlete time, I have to drink gin and soda or vodka sodas instead.

MH If you weren’t in athlete mode as you are now, what would you want to be doing with your day?

CC On my day off in Sydney, I usually try and get to the beach or spend time with my partner, Louis, if our days off align – he also plays rugby.

We spend a lot of time at the beach, or on a really lazy day, I just sit at home and watch Netflix.

MH Heading into Tokyo, what did your training schedule look like?

CC We were training about five days a week.

Sometimes we’d do an extra Saturday session,

MH How do you deal with the pressure of

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Lots of guys focus on their pecs, biceps and abs.

But for creative powerhouses like RZA – a rapper, music and film producer and actor (see: next year’s Minions: The Rise of Gru) – the most important performance happens above the neck. Here’s how the 52-year-old WuTang mastermind keeps his eyes, ears and brain in optimal shape

T HE E A RS 1

2

3

Train your range: sit indoors and focus your hearing on low or high frequencies for 30 seconds. (Think appliances for low frequencies, chirping birds for high frequencies.) Break the silence for 10 seconds by counting down from 10 to 1. Do 3 sets.

Listen to quiet sounds to nourish your hearing.

While sitting, cover both ears with your hands to block out noises.

Hold for 30 seconds or until you begin to hear your breathing and heartbeat. Remove your hands. Repeat for 3 sets.

Sit and play some music at normal volume for 15 seconds. Play it again at half that volume. Continue the process until the music is at the lowest volume that’s audible, all the while focusing on hearing it as if it’s at the original volume.

Do 2 sets.

ME DIC A L OP INION

“RZA is training his mind and body to work for and not against him,” says Dr Gregory Scott Brown, the founder and director of the Center for Green Psychiatry.

“It’s about starting small, being consciously aware of breath, balance and movement. Techniques like hatha yoga have stood the test of time and are great for improving physical and mental health.”

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To sharpen your memory, sit down and close your eyes. Think of a person, place or thing you know. Say the name in your head while envisioning the person, place or thing.

Choose 5-9 different images. Repeat for 3 sets.

3

To hone focus, play chess, sudoku or another computational strategy game for 10-30 minutes a day.

You can also solve equations throughout the day in your mind or on paper.

T HE BR A IN 1

RZA uses breathing exercises based on Shaolin kung fu to increase oxygen and chi to the brain. Sit in a comfortable position and press your tongue to the roof of your mouth behind your front teeth.

Close your mouth and breathe in through the nose for 5-9 seconds.

Slowly exhale through your mouth for 5-9 seconds. Repeat 9 times for 1 set; do 3 sets.

T HE E Y E S 1

To expand your field of vision, stand and close your eyes for 3 seconds. Open them and fix your focus in 8 directions, 2 seconds each, moving clockwise and then counterclockwise.

Repeat for 3 sets.

2

Improve your eye for detail: place a book 1 metre away. Close your eyes for 3 seconds, then open them and look at the title font for 3 seconds.

Repeat with the next-smallest font until you reach the smallest font that you can read.

Do 3 sets.

3

To train perception, stand outdoors and close your eyes for 3 seconds. Open them and set your gaze on the closest thing. Next, gaze at the farthest object (say, a hill), then fix your sight on the object as if you’re piercing through it.

Repeat for 3 sets.

PHOTOGRAPHY: LUKAS MAEDER / REDUX

TRAIN LIKE RZA

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FATH E RH OOD

WITH KIDS, IT’S A CASE OF, HOW CAN THEY MISS YOU WHEN YOU WON’T GO AWAY?

DIALING BACK THE DESPERATION Acceptance seems like a simple concept, but sometimes it’s the hardest thing in the world BY

MARLON WAYANS AKEEM S. ROBERTS

ILLUSTRATION BY

I’M A SUPER TOUCHY-FEELY kind of guy, and before I had kids, I had all these dreams about being around them constantly. With my 19-year-old son, Shawn, I hoped that we’d be going to sports events, playing video games and just hanging out all the time. With my 21-year-old daughter, Amai (aka “Sweetness”), I had dreams of meeting her boyfriend and the three of us all being cool, with him almost becoming like a surrogate son. But you know, life throws you curveballs. My daughter’s gay. My son doesn’t think I’m cool.

My kids are so aloof. It’s bad, man. On their birthdays, I’ll post a photo of them on Instagram 36

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and say so many beautiful things about them that I wind up running out of characters. But with me, on Father’s Day, my daughter might post eight measly words. Happy Father’s Day, Dad. You a good dude. My son gives me three letters: #HFD. I didn’t know what it was – Hillsdale Fire Department? I told myself, next Father’s Day I’m going to write six measly words: Dear kids, Fuck you. Love Dad. But that was me being sensitive.

I just wanted my kids to be more like me.

I grew up getting a heap of affection from my mum, who was all kisses and coddling and sweet words, while my dad was the disciplinarian. But my children’s mum, she’s more emotionally neutral. And because I worked so much, my kids turned out to be 65 per cent her, 35 per cent me – almost like they didn’t get the affection part.

When their mum and I split when they were younger, they lived with me. For a while, it was great. I would bathe them and there would be

bedtime stories. I would sit up with them, hang out and play with them in the yard. But then when they went to live with their mum, I could have only so much influence. On the one hand, it was so frustrating. But on the other, I was working so much – and you know guys like me, I don’t just have one job – it was like, The nerve of me to think that I actually have time to be an overbearing dad! But that wouldn’t stop me from coming off as desperate anyway.

I just felt like I always had to be “on” for them.

I’d put all this energy into all these plans, flying back and forth across the country to be with them for a day, maybe two. And then I’ll stop for a second and realise I’m wiped out, exhausted, on the ride at the amusement park or in the cinema or at my son’s game or at Christmas, after filling the room with gifts.

Eventually, when they got to be teenagers, they were like, “Thank you, Dad - we love you – but this is a lot.”

That’s when I started to take my foot off the gas and realise that not only are these kids with good hearts who love and trust me but that God gave me exactly the kind of children I needed to accomplish the things I wanted to in life. I’m realising that just a little can go a long way. Now that I’ve accepted how they love me and that their love language is understatement, I can sit down with my son and my daughter and her girlfriend and have a nice dinner and talk about school or relationships or flaws or bare our souls.

We’re, like, great friends. It’s so cool.

MAN’S BEST THERAPIST There’s plenty of science about what pets can do for your wellbeing. And then there’s what you – and I – didn’t expect BY

DR GREGORY SCOTT BROWN

LAST YEAR, LIKE SEEMINGLY every other person you know, I adopted a pandemic pet – Kai, a rambunctious 10-month-old Lab-golden mix. After a year of watching cats’ tails meandering by patients’ screens or hearing puppies barking in the background, I realised I wanted a pet, too. Perhaps I needed one.

Any mental-health professional will tell you that part of our job involves appreciating the therapeutic benefit of pets. In fact, I’m asked to write letters all the time to authorise emotionalsupport animals for patients who have been diagnosed with illnesses such as depression, anxiety and PTSD. Having a pet can reduce stress and help you feel a sense of connectedness. Part of what’s happening likely involves the bonding hormone oxytocin, which is associated with intimacy. When you pet your dog, for example, the levels of oxytocin released in your brain rise, stress hormones like cortisol tend to fall, and there can also be a noticeable decrease in blood pressure – all of which may contribute to an improved sense of wellbeing. In addition to these mental benefits, pet ownership is generally linked to better overall health, including lower cholesterol and triglyceride levels.

Although I was aware of the science, I really just wanted a dog to run with me and play an occasional game of fetch. I’d had pets before.

My parents took me to adopt my first dog when I was nine. So as an only child, I still had playful company around, even if it meant throwing a Frisbee to a bug-eyed Chihuahua, hoping she would bring it back. I was aiming for a sportier breed this time around. I found myself thinking, Having a pet will be fun!

To be completely honest, the first few weeks didn’t feel therapeutic at all. While I was trying to teach Kai how to sit, she was more interested in chewing up my wife’s shoes or peeing underneath my desk.

I soon realised that I still had a thing or two to learn about having a pet – and about what she’d do for me. Friends in the mental-health field have said the same. We’ve seen that there’s what science tells us pet ownership does, and there are the subtle ways pets make us better:

T HE Y P LUG YOU IN

I noticed that training Kai by using hand gestures, giving out treats and raising my eyebrows to get her to bark actually improved my nonverbal communication and active listening not just with her but also with my very human patients. When I

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M I N D

adopted Kai, I was told she’d likely been through some trauma in her early life. She was naturally timid, so when she darted away from me, I knew that running after her was a bad idea. The only way to get her to come back was to pay attention to her and to actively listen to what she was trying to communicate. When I’d kneel and motion for her, she’d settle down and walk back to me. It reminded me that plugging in to subtle nonverbal cues from patients gets us further: a head nod may tell me when to dive deeper; a long pause before answering a question suggests I might want to avoid that topic.

HOW I KEEP IT TOGETHER Most days, Hrishikesh Hirway, the 42-year-old host of the Song Exploder podcast and its two-volume, eight-episode Netflix adaptation spends his time breaking down the complex arrangements of popular songs. But when the pandemic hit, Hirway found peace of mind . . . in a galaxy far, far away. Here’s how he forges Jedi-like mental strength

T HE Y P ROV IDE S T RUC T UR E

It’s a given that caring for another being – a pet or a kid – requires some structure in your life.

But I was impressed by how much Kai put me back into a good rhythm. Now, instead of hitting snooze or scrolling through Instagram, I awaken to the Kai alarm every day at 7:30. If I don’t, I know I’ll be scrubbing the floor. And, of course, I have a running buddy who always wants me to run.

T HE Y P U T T HE NE WS IN IT S P L ACE

A psychotherapist I know, Dixon Parnell, says his two cats don’t care much about his work or the news. Neither does Kai; when she’s ready to play, she starts barking regardless of what’s on my to-do list. Although being interrupted isn’t always convenient, a playful three-minute ball-throwing challenge gets me away from the computer and allows me to return refreshed and better focused.

Pets are on a totally different rhythm, and it’s one of wanting scratches, treats, playtime and new places to sleep. Dixon tells me that seeing his cats be all about what’s really important – sleep, nutrition, exercise, interaction with people who love them – keeps him from being thrown off-balance by things like work stress or a toxic news cycle.

T HE Y HE L P YOU SL OW DOW N

Kai is a great companion, but for some people, caring for an animal fosters an even deeper connection. For psychiatrist Drew Ramsey, the time he invests in grooming his horse, Cinco, “helps me settle down and check in,” he says.

That’s especially important with an animal that’s more powerful than you by a factor of at least 20, he adds. There’s no fighting his power or staying on if the horse decides he’s done with you. You need to be able to read each other.

After almost a year of looking after – and being looked after by – Kai, I’m finally able to take her for those runs I always imagined, and when I throw a tennis ball, she’ll bring it back (at least most of the time). I’m not going to say pets are better therapists than we are for complicated issues, but don’t overlook all that they can do for you.

8:30AM BREAK A SWEAT Hirway begins each day with a high-intensity workout. Heart disease and diabetes run in his family, so he’s conscious of his health. During quarantine, he would boot up his laptop and join a group fitness class via Zoom. “I have a really serious sweet tooth, so at some level, I’m working out just so I can keep eating,” he says. “But every year, I have this abstract goal: that year will be the year I’m in the best shape of my life.”

1:15PM WALK IT OFF Hirway occasionally works 14-hour days out of his makeshift podcast studio to produce two Song Exploder episodes a month. That kind of hustle requires consistent breaks.

Hirway finds solace in his backyard.

“Sometimes I’m zeroed in on a little section of audio. I end up feeling like my brain is being wrung out like a sponge.

When I walk outside, it lets my brain return to its normal size.”

6:45PM BINGE-WATCH After hours of splicing and mixing audio, Hirway decompresses with a deep dive into the Star Wars universe.

He recently binged all seven seasons of Star Wars: The Clone Wars and four seasons of Star Wars Rebels.

“You can spend so much more time with those characters and in those worlds,” he says. The one genre he can’t stomach: true crime. “I find the news hard enough.”

11AM SPREAD OUT Recording multiple podcasts and filming a Netflix series means organisation is everything. Hirway has a simple hack for maintaining order: a spreadsheet. It’s a combination checklist, calculator and chart that helps him keep track of his day. “I really believe in the power of a spreadsheet, because it’s the hub of almost everything I’m working on,” he says.

3:30PM PHONE IT IN Hirway’s an extrovert.

After all, he spends his day interviewing musicians of the Dua Lipa and LinManuel Miranda sort.

Once the pandemic struck, he realised how important those social connections were to his mental health. Hirway sees a therapist and calls friends on the phone.

“Some people aren’t phone people. But it’s helped keep me feeling connected.”

8:30PM MEAL-PLAN During lockdown, Hirway developed a love of cooking. He even created a podcast with chef Samin Nosrat, Home Cooking, dedicated to solving listeners’ dilemmas in the kitchen. He says it allowed him to stay present and learn to cook everything better. “So many people were feeling helpless. [The podcast] was something to occupy my time and help me feel like I’m engaging in the moment in a positive, constructive way.”

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A BRIEF HISTORY OF

VIOLENCE

I’m supposed to be aggressive.

And I have been. But what I’ve mostly been is scared. Regardless of how tough you are – or think you are – my guess is that you know exactly what I’m talking about

BY MICHAEL IAN BL ACK

EVERY NOW AND AGAIN, my wife will hear a noise in the middle of the night.

“I heard something downstairs,” she’ll say, waking me.

I strain my ears to listen.

“Did you hear it?”

“No,” I’ll say. I never hear it, but then again, my hearing is ruined from my high school punk-rock band, and I know that my ears are not a reliable indicator of anything. I already dread the question I know is coming: “Will you go downstairs and check?”

Oh, God. I really don’t want to go downstairs, because it’s the middle of the night and I’m comfortable and, most importantly, because even though I didn’t hear anything, I’m suddenly terrified. What if, this time, somebody actually is in the house? Why is she sending me downstairs to confront my murderer? What I want to say is “You go downstairs”, but I can’t say that because it would violate the ancient contract between man and woman, the one that says men will be the first to face danger. And because it would be such a dick move.

So then I have to get out of bed and creep downstairs and wander around in the dark praying that nobody’s there. Left unanswered is the question of what I’m supposed to do if I should come face-to-face with an intruder. In theory, I guess I’m supposed to kick his arse.

In practice, we would most likely have a very awkward conversation.

“Excuse me.”

“Oh, hey.”

“So . . . are you robbing us or what?”

“Yeah. Would you mind giving me a hand with the flat-screen?”

And I would help him. What else could I do?

The options are violence or nonviolence. In that

FIRE AT WILL ON THE MULTIPLE CAUSES OF MALE VIOLENCE.

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“Male violence, whether justified or not, is most often rooted in fear“

situation, I would much rather take the nonviolent route. On the other hand, if the situation should turn more menacing, I would be forced to defend myself and my family to the best of my limited (nonexistent) abilities.

Ultimately, when my wife sends me downstairs, she’s relying on my willingness to use violence if the need should arise even though I am ill-equipped to do so. When things go bump in the night, my only real utility is having the honour of being the first one killed.

Which seems unfair.

Look, I’m certainly willing to do whatever I can to protect my family, but if it’s true that I should learn the craft of violence to do so, it follows that all men should do the same, and then we are back where we started, with men being trained for general mayhem because any one of us may decide, at any moment, to start throwing barstools around. This is the paradox of modern manhood: the culture simultaneously demands men’s “civilisation” while asking us to retain our capacity for manly violence at the squeak of a floorboard.

We despise violence and revere it. Of course,

we are a (cough) civilised society, a society in which violence – except in times of war – is officially condemned but unofficially celebrated.

Even today, violence sometimes carries a certain nobility. Watch any video of a neo-Nazi getting punched in the face and you’ll see what I mean. People love it. Hell, I love it.

Why? What do we get out of it? Research has shown that animals may be similarly drawn to violence. One study, from Vanderbilt University, found that aggression in male mice activates the same reward pathway in the brain as sex. Mice might pick fights with each other because it feels good to rumble. Aggression appears to fulfill a primal need in animals.

As boys, we grow up understanding that, at some point, we will almost certainly have to confront violence. Whether it’s wrestling or play-fighting or actual punches being thrown in the parking lot after school, boys know that violence, in some form, will play a part in our childhood. It did in mine. Once, a boy I knew pulled a switchblade on me and called me a kike. Once, a high school classmate jumped me in the hallway because I wouldn’t let a joke go. In camp, a bigger kid told me I was on his “hit list” and that he would be coming for me in the night. He never did, but I didn’t sleep the rest of the week. Once, as a young adult on an inner-city street, I got coldcocked in the face because I stepped between a tourist with limited English skills and the three-card-monte dealer who was trying to rip him off. I haven’t had many fights in my life, but I’ve had some, and I don’t think it will shock you to learn I lost them all. Those incidents startled me, scared me, hurt me.

After I got punched in the face, I couldn’t fully close my mouth for two weeks. Violence, and the threat of violence, deflates you. Not, I think, because it causes physical pain but because it steals part of your soul.

Anger thrives on being ignored, says Jeremy Tyler, an assistant professor of clinical psychiatry at Penn Medicine. Here’s the range of emotions “anger” can cover and how each level stacks up in terms of damage – self-inflicted and collateral

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If you were never annoyed, that would be unhealthy. “We all get annoyed every day,” says Tyler. “Don’t sweat the small annoyances, and try to let them roll off your back.”

[TOTALLY NORMAL]

E P IS ODE S OF V IOL E NCE

Worse than the times I received violence, though, are the times I inflicted it. Three times from my childhood trouble me to this day.

The first was when I was about five.

My brother, Eric, had just come home from the hospital after a surgery to correct his cleft palate. His mouth was swollen and tender; he had stitches in his lip. He must have been in pain. My brother and I rarely argued, even as kids, but for whatever reason, we got into it that day, and before I knew it, I’d punched him as hard as I could in the mouth, exactly where he’d just had surgery. I remember how satisfying it was to hit him, and how that satisfaction immediately turned to horror when he recoiled from the punch, howling.

The second time was when I was maybe nine. My dad and his wife, Beth, had just bought their first house together. It was in a new development in an old field torn up for spec houses. All that upturned soil had left rocks everywhere. Right after they moved in, Eric and I were visiting, wandering the new neighbourhood footpaths, when we ran into a group of kids around our age on the other side of the street, maybe three or four of them. I don’t know why, but we started taunting each other.

Insults flew back and forth across the road.

Before I knew what I was doing, I’d bent down

Annoyances come and go. Frustration can fester. “You might feel tense or fatigued if frustration continues,” Tyler says. “Respond to your body and try relaxation strategies.”

“Anger is normal and healthy – if it gets a healthy outlet.”

Exercise. Talk about it.

Go pat your pet.

Problem-solve instead of letting your emotions get the best of you.

[ D A N G ER O US]

It can take the form of passive or physical aggression, towards yourself or others. “This can be especially problematic, as aggressive behaviour will almost always make the situation worse,” Tyler says.

You feel like a victim and may be seeking retribution for harm done. Reverse course by asking, “Why am I feeling this way and what do I need to do to resolve it?” says Tyler.

This is unbridled and chronic aggression.

“Rage can push people away and lead to more problems that will only perpetuate more resentment and aggression. Check out cognitive behaviour therapy, if you haven’t already.”

together on our brown carpeted stairway, the house was still, and I slapped her.

She looked so puzzled. I wanted her to cry. It took a couple slaps. Once the tears came, I left her alone in the house and walked to the ball field to tell Elaine that Susan was crying for some reason, wouldn’t stop, and that she needed to come home. It’s the worst thing I have ever done.

I’ve never told anybody about that. Not my wife or my brother or the occasional therapists I’ve visited over the years. I’m not holding myself apart from the worst impulses of other men. I have them, too.

M A S CULINE FAULT L INE S

and reached for one of the rocks, grabbed it, and thrown it as hard as I could at one of the kids. It hit him square in the head. I can’t remember if he fell or not. Eric and I ran away. Later, the boy’s father came to my dad’s door with his son.

Thankfully, he was okay, but they wanted an apology. They got one.

The third time was the worst, unforgivably bad, even though the actual level of violence was the smallest. Because my sister, Susan, has Down syndrome, she’s always needed somebody to keep a careful eye on her. When we were kids, that duty fell to us boys. I was probably 10 years old or so, and we were on summer vacation. Susan and I were the only ones home, so I was on Susan duty for a couple hours. The only adult nearby was Elaine, my mother’s partner, who was coaching her son’s Little League team at a field about a five-minute walk from our house. It felt unfair that I had to sit there on a gorgeous summer day and babysit my sister. Little League practice seemed to be going on forever, and I was eager to go out and play. I waited for what felt like hours. I grew angrier and angrier. Why did I have to watch my stupid sister when everybody else got to play outside? I just wanted Elaine to get home so I could be released, but there was no sign of her.

Finally, out of frustration, I slapped Susan in the face. I remember it so well. We were sitting

When the #MeToo movement started, a famous line from writer Margaret Atwood began circulating: “Men are afraid women will laugh at them. Women are afraid men will kill them”. I was just a boy when I slapped my sister, but in that moment, I was one of those frightening men.

One of the unspoken truths about being a man is that fear of men isn’t confined to women; men are also afraid that men will kill them. Everybody is afraid of men for the simple reason that men commit the overwhelming majority of violence.

One half of our species does most of the hurting and killing and one half does not.

Male violence, whether justified or not, is most often rooted in fear. Think of the types of fear as a pyramid. At the base is the fear of loss of life, your own life or the lives of those under your care. Above that is the fear of scarcity, which is the fear that somebody is going to take your limited amount of stuff, thereby endangering your life or the lives of those under your care; I think most hate-based violence lives in this broad area. At the top of the pyramid are two brother fears: the fear of diminishment in other people’s eyes, which is the fear we call “pride”, and the fear of letting others down, which is the fear we call “honour”. Activating any of these fears may move a man to violence. Another way of saying this is that traditional masculinity itself might be rooted in fear.

If Real Men are locked in a perpetual game

of ¿Quién es más macho?, it stands to reason that our fear is a massive vulnerability. How many times have you seen some movie character spit into the dust and mutter something like “I ain’t afraid of nuthin’ ”?

I’m here to tell you, that man is a goddamned liar. The Real Man can’t admit his fears because doing so would leave him emasculated. If he admits to being hurt, then he is vulnerable to further hurt. If he allows his pain to show, he fears his enemies will attack him at his weakest.

The Real Man is beset by enemies, always.

Always there are others out there threatening to destroy him, to destroy his family, to take everything. It’s a bleak way to go through life.

Here we men are, supposedly strong, yet not strong enough to tell the truth.

The language of traditional masculinity is an endless series of smoke signals we send up warning the enemy we are not to be trifled with.

“Here is a man,” we say in the way we drink our coffee (not the more feminine tea). “Here is a man” with the ute we drive, the clothes we wear, the curt way we nod to each other in the elevator. It’s every niggling, exhausting detail of our lives informing all who dare gaze upon us that we are men. Not because we are strong but because we are scared others will think we are weak. We have heard so many women amplify their voices on this subject in the last couple of years, women who have suffered at the hands of men, been overwhelmed by men, feel exhausted and defeated by men. Not all men, we say, stupidly. But when these women tell their stories, they are almost always about men. To say that men do these things is not to condemn all men, but from the perspective of a survivor, that matters very little. It’s you and me. It’s men.

Beth used to play an album of Kenny Rogers’ greatest hits all the time when we were kids.

There’s a song on there called “Coward of the County”, about a regretful father on his deathbed cautioning his son against the violence that ruined his life.

Pretty good advice from ol’ Kenny. Then again, at the end of the song, the son drops three guys in a bar fight for sexually assaulting his girlfriend. “Sometimes,” the son decides, “you gotta fight when you’re a man.”

Here, outside the world of country songs, you will almost never be in a situation where you have to choose violence, but when something goes bump in the night, whether you like it or not, it’s still your job to confront the danger. It’s what you do as a man for the people you love.

Then, when you get to the bottom of the stairs, take a breath, and step into the darkness.

Michael Ian Black is a comedian and the author of A Better Man: A (Mostly Serious) Letter to My Son, out September 15. This essay was adapted from that book.

OCTOBER 2021

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WHAT HAPPENS WHEN

…I TRAIN IN THE SUN? As the saying goes: the sun’s re-emergence demands the exposure of your biceps brachii.

Here’s how to do it right

04

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05

01

TIME TO SOAK UP THE HOLISTIC GAINS OF OUTDOOR TRAINING.

01

02

03

04

05

RISE AND SHINE

SWEAT STATIONS

BRIGHTER MINDS

GLOW UP

BETTER HABITS

Training under the sun raises your vitamin D levels, giving you more than just a mood boost.

“It supports the immune system and is essential in the absorption of phosphorus and calcium,” says Andy RomeroBirkbeck, founder of We Are Wellbeing*. It aids bone health, helps weight loss and is a crucial ally in fending off illness.

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By making your body work harder to keep cool, outdoor training can boost cardio fitness in as little as five days. A study in the Journal of Applied Physiology suggests two theories why: one, heat improves the body’s ability to deliver oxygen to tissue that needs it; and two, it increases blood flow, causing adaptation to our blood vessels.

Get up from your desk and go outside at lunchtime. “Breathing in fresh air improves your ability to think clearly,” explains RomeroBirkbeck, “as well as helping to alleviate stress and anxiety.” Really up the ante with a group or partner workout: “Exercising with others releases serotonin” – AKA the feel-good hormone.

The combination of oxygen and sunshine acts as a kind of muscle Miracle-Gro. Breathing in fresh air increases our blood oxygen levels, accelerating muscle repair, while sunshine ups testosterine production, explains RomeroBirkbeck. Heading outside can also bring to life a routine that had begun to feel stale.

Making gains in the sun could also help those who struggle not to devour double helpings of their post-workout refuel. To regulate temperature, your body cuts back on digestion, reducing your appetite.

“We’re likely to rehydrate more often, too, and choose foods that complement our training,” Romero-Birkbeck says.

WORDS: TOM WARD I ILLUSTRATIONS: PETER GRUNDY I *LEVEL-3 PT WITH A SPECIALISM IN MENTAL HEALTH AND WELLBEING

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AL ERT

ASK

AUSTRALIA

N

GROW, TRANSFORM & REINVENT YOURSELF

with lessons from the

Ask Men’s Health Podcast IN THIS BRAND NEW PODCAST, THE MEN’S HEALTH TEAM CHATS TO INDUSTRY EXPERTS AND EXTRAORDINARY THOUGHT LEADERS ABOUT THE ISSUES THAT MATTER MOST TO MEN. FROM FITNESS AND NUTRITION TO MENTAL HEALTH, WE LEAVE NO QUESTION UNANSWERED.

Download Ask MH on your favourite streaming app or visit menshealth.com.au

THE BAND PLAYS ON When severe illness struck two old friends, shared pain brought them back together while a shared passion made them feel like they’d never been apart BY

CAMERON WILSON

ANDY’S CANCER WAS BACK. It was early 2012, he’d been cancer-free since surgery in 2004 but now they’d found an eight-centimetre tumour in his chest. So it was back to Sydney’s North Shore Hospital, this time for chemotherapy.

Around the same time, I was becoming deaf in my right ear. I went to my GP, who referred me to an ENT specialist. “You don’t fit the profile, Cam, non-smoker, too young, too healthy. But we’ll get an MRI, rule out anything sinister.” The MRI result came back. An acoustic neuroma grows around your facial nerve right behind your ear, hence the name. The specialist and I looked at the computer screen, where we could see the threecentimetre tumour that was now crushing my brainstem – too big for treatment other than surgery.

So it was that in early 2012, I sat with Andy and the other patients in North Shore Hospital’s chemo ward and watched while the nurses hooked him up to bags of poisonous chemicals. Back then, chemotherapy targeted cells non-discriminately, killing everything – hopefully Andy’s tumour, too. Meanwhile, I had one of my own, growing in my head.

Within a couple of months Andy’s treatment was over and the outlook was good. His hair and

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eyebrows were growing back. My op was scheduled for July 2012.

It’s an odd thing – although in some way perhaps it’s not: our shared cancer journey had brought Andy and me back together after more than a decade of living altogether separate lives. I’d been at school, North Sydney Boys’ High, with Andy (keyboards) and Rick (bass guitar), playing music with them and Dave (guitar and vocals) at church, my younger brother Damon joining us on drums. These were the guys I spent my teens with, playing sport, learning guitar.

In the early ’90s, Dave, Damon and I even spent a few nights busking, belting out John Mellencamp, Paul Kelly, Midnight Oil and Hothouse Flowers tunes for the drunken punters and starry-eyed girls on Darlinghurst Road.

Since those days they’d become family men, living what I thought of as normal lives in Sydney. My brother Damon, who’d stuck with the drums, was a successful touring and recording musician based in London. I stayed resolutely single, carved out a path as a travel writer, spent four years in Perth doing a Communications degree at Murdoch University. In 1999, I’d joined Damon in London,

edited guidebooks, and in 2000 went off to North America to write The Rough Guide to the Rocky Mountains.

My surgery in 2012 in Sydney included four days in hospital. I lost all hearing in my right ear, while my motor skills on my right side when I woke up were rubbish. My brain remembered guitar scales, but I had to re-wire it and learn to pick notes fluently on a fretboard again.

One day in 2013, Andy suggested we get in touch with the other guys and have a studio jam for old times’ sake. It had been years since I’d seen any of them, but I could see this was more important to him than it was to me.

Privately I was holding on to an attitude: “We’ll be a bunch of clichéd middle-aged guys trying to relive glory days of rock’n’roll and lost youth.”

The studio Rick had booked, Housefox at Brookvale in Sydney, was being renovated by its owner, Ryan, a carpenter, death-metal screamer and as nice a guy as you’d ever hope to meet. We arrived, said our hesitant hellos

after the intervening years, plugged in amps, guitars and keyboards and started to play.

And the strangest thing happened.

It was as though those years didn’t exist. They just melted away.

Familiar songs and playlists came easily – Pink Floyd, The Church, Hoodoo Gurus, Men at Work, Dragon, Matt Finish, Sunnyboys, Elvis Costello, INXS, Bad Company, Joe Walsh. The music of our youth – and boy, were we having fun! The studio had beautiful new timber flooring, Persian rugs, soft-mood lighting and its own PA system with five microphones and stands. I had ordered a hand-carved Eastman El Rey3 flame-maple electric guitar from a music store in Florida, a post-surgery present to myself that I didn’t actually need. Now I had a reason to play it.

Three or four times a year since, whenever we can wrangle a bunch of blokes who have kids and

M A N

jobs and marriages in various states, we rent the studio at Housefox. We’ve reconnected around music, so much so that the only other time we’ve gotten together was a BBQ at Andy’s place in April 2021.

The reason why we haven’t met up more often is difficult and personal. In 2019, I again started feeling numb on the right side of my face. Acoustic neuromas don’t often regrow (only in seven per cent

of cases), but mine had. My motor skills with a guitar pick were fast deteriorating, and an MRI scan in April 2020 showed a 3.5-centimetre tumour – just like in 2012, too big for anything but surgery.

On October 22, 2020 I had another 10-hour operation, this time complicated by pulmonary embolisms and a stroke. I was in hospital (Prince of Wales in Sydney) for a month. I’m still an outpatient there. When I got home, I was still

I WAS HOLDING ONTO AN ATTITUDE: WE’LL BE MIDDLE-AGED GUYS TRYING TO RELIVE GLORY DAYS OF LOST YOUTH

learning to walk and talk again, and the right-side muscles in my face were paralysed. My right eyelid was non-blinking, permanently open.

Today I’m slowly rewiring those motor skills. You can find me jogging laps of Coogee Beach, regaining my balance trotting up and down the south stairs, doing lots of toss-catch and juggling with tennis balls. At home I’m either playing guitar scales or filling notebooks with shaky handwriting: “The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog”.

Andy is tumour free, but he still has an annual MRI to check.

My memories, personality, sense of humour are all here and unaltered, so I consider myself a lucky stroke survivor. Recovery will be a while – especially as my facial nerve hasn’t reanimated and the follow-up surgery I’ll have later this year is just to make talking,

TO

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eating, drinking, swallowing easier.

Singing, too, I hope. My right eyelid will have a platinum weight inserted in it.

We all need goals, and as the anniversary of my surgery is this October, Rick has booked us in to Housefox. I’ll be there, playing songs with the guys I grew up with, the same guys playing the soundtrack to our collective lives.

Andy and I are past the worst and will soon enough get back in the gym, back to swimming and bodysurfing, back listening to live music, doing the things we love.

Meantime we have a band of brothers waiting for us to show up and play…

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THE HIDDEN HEART PROBLEM It’s claiming fit men’s lives now. It’s all about rhythm, and here’s how to keep yours in order BY

JULIE STEWART

WORKING OUT IS ONE of the healthiest things you can do for your heart, so imagine exercising intensely for a decade – like cycling at least 25 hours a week – and then finding out you have, of all things, a heart problem. That’s what happened to Dr Fabian Sanchis-Gomar. At 26, he was diagnosed with atrial fibrillation, or AFib. It’s a heart-rhythm disorder that increases your risk of a stroke or heart failure, and it’s killing nearly 40 per cent more people in developed countries than it did just two decades ago.

For Sanchis-Gomar, it announced itself with “palpitations, dizziness and shortness of breath”, he says. The diagnosis was frustrating, since he led a healthy life. Now he’s a researcher at Stanford University and the University of Valencia, seeking to fill a gap in modern medical knowledge. Currently, experts can’t pinpoint who will get AFib, or how dangerous it will be, and Sanchis-Gomar is furiously trying to identify genetic markers that can help change that. That’s critical because the earlier you catch it, the more treatment options you have, from meds and surgery (see “Rhythm Restorers,” far right) to everyday lifestyle tweaks.

To understand how to prevent and detect it, you need to know how things should go in your heart, and what goes wrong. Normally, the heart’s electrical system coordinates the rate and rhythm of your heartbeats, which pump blood through the chambers.

When someone has AFib, those circuits become faulty, says cardiologist Aseem Desai, author of Restart Your Heart: The Playbook for Thriving with AFib. “The chambers on the top quiver, beating rapidly and out of sync with the bottom two chambers.” You might have palpitations – anything from flutters to thumps – or become dizzy, tired, light-headed or short of breath. Some guys feel fatigued; others feel nothing. AFib episodes can weaken the heart, which can be fatal. Researchers like Northwestern University’s Dr Sadiya S. Khan aren’t sure what’s causing the recent increase in deaths – they’re grasping at rising obesity rates and increased stress.

But what is clear now is that the following precautions and preemptive practices can keep your risk for AFib down and help you detect it early.

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HIGH-LEVEL FITNESS CAN CLOUD A SERIOUS TICKER PROBLEM .

LIS T E N T O YOUR HE A R T

Today, many guys are spotting signs of AFib early thanks to heart-monitoring apps and alerts on smartwatches.

They’ve been useful, since AFib is episodic and won’t show up on an EKG unless it’s happening right as the test is being taken. If you see an abnormalpulse alert, call your doctor but don’t panic. Mayo Clinic research found that only about 15 per cent of people who received this alert from an Apple Watch required treatment.

CHECK FOR SL E E P A P NOE A

This is likely an underrecognised AFib risk factor in young and obese men, says Dr Desai. The drop in oxygen when you stop breathing at night can trigger AFib episodes and alter the electrical system in your heart over time. “I’ve had patients who have failed every treatment for AFib that we have, and finally, when someone discovers they have sleep apnoea and they’re treated, the AFib goes away,” he says.

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I F YO U ’ V E B E E N D I AG N O S E D

RHYTHM RESTORERS

“There used to be this notion that AFib was an incurable disease, and that there weren’t really a lot of treatment options out there,” says Desai. “That’s completely untrue.”

Your options will depend on the frequency and severity of your AFib. Common treatments include:

MEDICATIONS Anti-arrhythmic drugs can be administered through a pill or IV to bring your heart’s rhythm back in order and/or prevent episodes. You may also get blood thinners to reduce your stroke risk.

CARDIOVERSION This procedure, used for people with continuous AFib, is administered in a hospital and shocks your heart back into rhythm through electrodes placed on your chest. It’s really important to know about this. If your doctor doesn’t mention this option, ask!

CATHETER ABLATION Through a tiny tube, a doctor applies either

extreme heat or cold to tiny areas of your heart, scarring locations that were making your electrical signals go haywire. Sanchis-Gomar had this at age 34, and at 42 he’s symptom-free.

ON THE HORIZON: A QUICK FIX FOR EPISODES “Patients have no real options to have their hearts return to normal rhythm within a few minutes,” says Grace Colón, president and CEO ofInCarda Therapeutics.

The company is working on an oral inhalable version of an existing drug (flecainide) that can reach the heart quickly to stabilise its rhythm.

InCarda estimates approval is a couple of years away.

“ AFib episodes can weaken the heart” K E E P DOING W H AT YOUR HE A R T L OV E S

What helps keep heart attacks away also helps stave off AFib. That means: keep your blood pressure and diabetes under control; quit smoking if you haven’t already; find a way to manage stress. Drop kilos if you need to – obesity may throw rhythms out of whack by enlarging your heart or causing fatty tissue to form around it that interferes with its complex circuitry.

C ONSIDE R A DIFF E R E N T P OUR

The news that nonalcoholic beers are better than ever pleases more than your taste buds. Landmark research in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology suggests that every drink you consume per day increases your risk of an episode by about 8 per cent. “Alcohol causes you to lose potassium and magnesium, two electrolytes in particular that are very important for your heart rhythm,” says Desai.

E X E RCISE IN T HE S W E E T SP O T

There’s a U-shaped curve with AFib – people who don’t exercise are at higher risk, people who exercise moderately have the lowest risk and then there’s highly trained athletes like SanchisGomar, who are also at higher risk. Aim for 150 minutes per week of moderateintensity aerobic activity – lace up a pair of Ecco ST.1 Lite Men’s Sneakers, $149, au.ecco.com. If you’re doing way more than that, ask yourself, why?

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2

TO DO RIGHT BY YOUR HEART:

FOCUS ON HIGH-IN-FIBRE CARBS

YOUR HEALTHIEST BODY STARTS NOW September is the new January, say health and wellness pros, who see a flood of new patients and clients when the cold and gloom of winter are over and the urge to live well and train hard kicks in. Set yourself up to finish the year strong BY

JESSICA MIGALA

1

TO FEEL YOUNGER:

DROP AND DO 40

A study of more than 1100 firefighters found that those who could crank out more than 40 push-ups had a lower risk of a cardiovascular event, like a heart attack or stroke, over the next decade compared with guys 50

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who could do fewer than 10. The ability to hammer out those reps is a sign of total-body muscular strength, which is associated with good blood pressure and metabolic health. Can’t do 40 in a row? No sweat. Do as many as you can in a row, then rest for 10 seconds and go again; repeat this until you’ve done 40 total reps. Do this three times weekly; you’ll soon build the strength to do 40 straight.

Pro tip: “I start most days with 150 push-ups,” says Dr John P. Higgins, a professor of medicine at McGovern Medical School in Houston. He uses the Perfect Push-up tool. “It has handles that rotate on a base, which helps me be more stable and use correct form,” he says. “Ever since doing 150 a day, my upper body, breathing and abs are better.

And it really wakes me up.”

Pro tip: Dr Spencer Kroll, a lipodologist (an expert in treating cholesterol issues), noticed that his patients with unhealthy blood sugar and insulin function also had more dangerous blood fats. So he revised his own diet, taking out simple carbs like bread and pasta to cut carbs from 40-20 per cent of his kilojoules. The remaining carbs are high in fibre. For instance, at breakfast, “I’ll eat a small bowl of nuts, berries and a barley cereal,” he says. He's also switched to high-fibre snacks. “I’ve seen significant improvements in my LDL cholesterol,” Kroll says.

“My triglycerides are better, and my insulin function is, too.”

PHOTOGRAPHY BY JACOB LUND; PAVEL DORNAK; DAVID SYKES; SUN LEE

You might love doughnuts and muffins, aka simple, or refined, carbs – ones that are low in fibre and nutrients and raise your blood sugar quickly – but your heart does not. A new study in the New England Journal of Medicine showed that people whose diets contained the most of these foods had a 14 per cent higher risk of a major cardiovascular event over 10 years (and a 25 per cent higher risk of death from any cause) than people whose diets had the least.

In terms of heart health, too many simple, low-in-fibre carbs may lower “good” HDL cholesterol while increasing triglycerides and unhealthy LDL cholesterol.

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TO CONTROL YOUR BLOOD PRESSURE:

TACKLE STRESS

One of the best ways to be healthier is to get your blood pressure under control. When it’s high, it can damage nearly every organ in your body. And one of the most overlooked ways to help it stay low is to manage stress.

All-day stress may push your BP high while you’re awake, says cardiologist Dr Christopher Kelly.

Even if it becomes normal overnight, it still taxes your system.

Stress may also lead to overdrinking, smoking and other choices that don’t help BP, he says.

In addition to seeing a doctor about high BP and exploring the DASH diet, carve out time to reduce stress. Meditation and yoga are far from the the only ways to do it.

Lean into your own stress shedders, even if they’re quirky, like making playlists or solving a Rubik’s cube.

Pro tip: “I love going to Costco when I need a break,” says Dr Jamin Brahmbhatt, a urologist. “Something about that place is calming. I look at the new TVs and might buy something that I may not always need. It’s been a ritual since high school, when my friends and I would go once a week. It brings back memories of those times.”

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TO STOP LANGUISHING:

FIND WHAT FOCUSES YOU

As COVID lockdowns drag on, maybe you feel . . . absolutely effing blah. You’re stagnant.

Aimless. You’re not depressed but not excited, either. The term for this is languishing, and “I’m seeing an epidemic of it in my practice,” says psychotherapist Allison Abrams. Recognising and naming it is important and helps validate what you’re feeling. One way to help clear it up is to do

TO STICK WITH YOUR WORKOUTS:

HAVE A TWO-MONTH PLAN

4

TO FINALLY GET SOME SLEEP:

RELAX YOUR BRAIN

A big reason we toss and turn is that “we are really good at learning how to get pumped up, but we are sometimes not particularly good at winding down and don’t give it its proper space,” explains Dr W. Christopher Winter. “The wind-down process doesn’t need to be elaborate; it’s just important to have a process.” Shut down screens at least 30 minutes before bedtime – their light can suppress your body’s production of sleep-inducing melatonin – and do something relaxing. Stop thinking of that time as doing nothing and fill it with something you’re into: a podcast, sex, music, jotting down a few great things about your day or your partner.

Pro tip: As a technology-free transition to sleep, Dr Raj Dasgupta, works with his wife on 1000-piece jigsaw puzzles for 15-30 minutes. “With each puzzle piece found and placed correctly, the puzzler gets a little hit of dopamine, which rewards the brain and, in turn, relaxes the body,” he says.

something that gets you into a state of flow – when you’re fully absorbed and focused on something outside yourself, she says. Take a step toward whatever gets you there: maybe it’s fly-fishing, rock climbing, painting or planting.

Pro tip: “I kiteboard once a week,” says Dr Alex Dimitriu, founder of Menlo Park Psychiatry & Sleep Medicine in California. He considers it “wind therapy”, which is his oceanic version of forest bathing, a tradition in Japan of recharging by spending time in

If you don’t know why you’re going to the gym today, it’s going to be harder for you to get there than for the guy who knows he wants to deadlift 100 kilos by November and has a plan to do it. You want a workout plan that sets you up for progress, explains trainer Ebenezer Samuel. “Too much workout deviation keeps you from mastering moves and movements.” And a sense of mastery is what helps keep you coming back to the gym. “A good progressive eight- or 12-week program will have you doing at least three key exercises or movements on a weekly basis,” Samuel says.

Pro tip: Random exercises and some walking on the treadmill? “That haphazard way of training doesn’t work at all.

Follow a progression that has a prescribed number of sets and reps,” says Dr Charlie Seltzer, an obesity-medicine physician.

“The positive reinforcement you get from knowing you’re getting stronger – as in, ‘I could only curl 10 kilos for five reps last week, and now I can do eight’ – makes you more likely to be (and stay) consistent.”

the woods. It requires focus, and “the feeling of wind against my body makes me feel fresh and alive, especially during days of working from home,” he says.

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NU T RI TI ON

THERE’S ONLY ONE RIGHT WAY TO...

A Start with good avocados

Unripe ones result in guacamole you have to chew. Overripe ones emit a musty, dirtlike aroma. Avoid all this by testing: gently press on all parts of the fruit; the flesh under the skin should yield slightly.

If the stem cap is still there, try to wiggle it off. If it dislodges and you see green, not brown, the avocado is good to go.

B Keep it stupidly simple

No mango (this isn’t a fruit salad). No peas (because why?). Just scoop the flesh of 2 avocados into a bowl and then add 2 Tbsp diced white onion, 2 Tbsp chopped coriander, 1 Tbsp freshly squeezed lime juice, and salt, to taste.

If you want some heat, okay, go ahead and add diced jalapeño or habanero, 1 tsp at a time.

C Tweak the texture

D Think beyond chips and dip

Serve your incredible guacamole with chicharróns (pork rinds) instead of tortilla chips for more flavour. Or skip the dipping, thin the guacamole with a little sour cream, and serve it as a condiment to grilled meats and fish. It’s also amazing dropped atop devilled eggs.

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HOLY SH!T KITCHEN TRICK!

To take the bite out of diced onion, rinse it under cold water and pat it dry with a paper towel. You’ll still have the onion taste, just less strong (and stinky).

PHOTOGRAPHY: PAOLA + MURRAY; ILLUSTRATIONS: STEVE SANFORD

Too-thick guacamole happens, even with ripe avocados. Prevent eventual tortilla-chip breakage by thinning the guacamole with a quick slug of good olive oil, which adds flavour and creaminess.

TRACK STAR: THE TYPE R BRINGS RACECAR-LEVEL PERFORMANCE TO THE OPEN ROAD.

SEX ON WHEELS The new Honda Civic Type R’s superior handling and dynamite responsiveness make driving feel like a guilty pleasure BY

STEPHEN CORBY

DO DIFFERENT CARS change the way you drive? It’s certainly an excuse I’d like to be able to use in court to get off speeding fines (“I swear, the Diablo made me do it!”), but I do believe there’s some evidence for it, and Honda’s new Civic Type R makes a great case study.

While I can’t prove that driving a Toyota Camry turns you into a semi-awake slug of a road user, nor that piloting a HSV makes it impossible for you to leave a green light slowly, I would defy anyone to drive this scintillating hot hatch without being overcome by the need to rev it madly in every 54

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gear and throw it at corners with abandon.

It’s just too tempting, too hilarious, too intoxicatingly inviting to resist. Frankly, I would spend the $54,900 this Honda costs just to get my hands on its six-speed manual gearbox (fantastically, there is no auto option available; it’s for purists only this thing).

Operated using a dead sexy alloy knob, this short-throw and extremely satisfying transmission has got to be one of the best manuals the world has ever seen, and you will use any excuse to make a gear change in it, necessary or not.

The engine it’s attached to – a 2.0-litre turbocharged VTEC four-cylinder making 228kW and 400Nm – is pretty damn impressive as well. If you’re keen to rev, everything about this power plant, and indeed this car, is just so willing. It feels like it just wants to go faster, and corner more enthusiastically, no matter how hard you’re already pushing.

The 0-100km/h sprint takes 5.7 seconds, but it feels even faster because that manual makes you so much part of the experience. Your precisely timed, silky smooth shifts are making a difference.

This Honda Civic Type R also

comes with a Comfort mode, but I think that’s a Japanese engineer’s idea of a joke. This car’s ride is best described as unforgiving, and the only thing the Comfort setting does is slightly lower the level of noise coming from the engine (Honda’s ‘Active Sound Control’ does this, apparently, while also making it stupidly loud in racier modes).

It’s so firm, in fact, that it can make some passengers feel car sick, or shout at you, threatening legal action over damage you’ve done to their spines (speed humps should be avoided at all costs in the Type R).

But that close connection with

M H

the road is what this hard-edged Honda is all about, and it’s what makes throwing it at any kind of bend such a smile-inducing thrill.

There is one enormous little issue with the Type R, of course, and if your eyes are currently open while reading this, you will have noticed it already. It’s the styling, which looks like it was the result of a team of 100 designers, all disagreeing with one another intensely. Strangely, Honda decided to include at least one of each of their wildest ideas.

Look at the car from directly behind and you’ll find that its uniquely absurd triple exhaust

is not even the strangest thing about it. Some cars have wings, the Type R appears to have a pair of dog ears.

It might be eye-catching, but it’s surely not pretty, and it’s parked several fields away from beautiful.

One of the best things about piloting this Honda Civic would be the fact that you don’t have to look at it. The police, who may or may not pull you over for driving it as its designers clearly intended it to be driven, are certainly going to notice you, however.

Good luck with your excuses about it being the car’s fault.

GA R AGE

BUCKLE UP: SPORTY TRIM CREATES AN IMMERSIVE DRIVING EXPERIENCE.

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MH

AS THE MERCURY RISES, SO TOO DO THE FASHION STAKES. BREAKOUT STAR OF NETFLIX DATING SHOW TOO HOT TO HANDLE, HARRY JOWSEY, IS ACCUSTOMED TO DEALING WITH THE HEAT . . . AND LOOKING COOL DOING IT MODEL HARRY

JOWSE Y

PHOTOGR APHY AND ST YLING BY HENRY

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STY LE

Just Breathe

Handling the heat while dressing the part is one of spring’s greatest challenges.

Luckily for men Australiawide, the linen trend is here for another season, at least.

Layering up with a light-weight linen shirt breaks up the blocky silhouette created by your tee. Stick to monochromatic tones to keep the look as fresh as your sundowners.

Opposite and above: T-shirt ($49) by COS, cosstores. com; Shirt ($218) by Mr P, mrporter.com; Shorts ($28) by ASOS, asos.com/au.

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Control Print With early 00s nostalgia running rampant, so too are large print tees. Only this time around, the in-your-face dad jokes are gone, paving the way for oversized branding. Though most often found beachside (and shirtless), when Jowsey does opt for a shirt, he favours prints as bold as his personality. Pair these with a simple jean and you’ll stay just as on brand.

Shirt ($800) by Gucci, gucci.com/au.

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Gym And Juice Sneakers have made the successful transition from the gym to the boardroom, with big brands jumping on the trend. It makes sense, then, that they’re now acceptable evening wear. If you’re going to tread in this direction, ensure they’re kept crisp (hello Scotchgard!) because while tennis shoes are acceptable off-court, dirty Volleys won’t cut it.

Shirt ($50) by ASOS, asos.com/ au; Jeans ($805) by Saint Laurent, farfetch.com; Shoes ($1490) by Balenciaga, balenciaga.com.

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STY L E

Summer of Glove Of course, your spring/ summer wardrobe wouldn’t be complete without designer training gear to match. With gyms closed for the forseeable future in many states, it’s time to take your frustration out on the bag. Stock up on premium boxing equipment made from quality materials that can withstand the force of your flying fists.

Shorts, model’s own; Gloves ($49) by ZTTY, amazon.com.au.

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Clash And Burn Jowsey made a name for himself on THTH by creating his own rules, and the same applies to his wardrobe.

Pairing bold prints with stripes creates an obvious clash that can and does work – you just need the confidence of an Aussie heartthob to pull it off. Start with tones in the same ballpark, picking either a dark green, navy or black as the base to both your print and pattern.

Shirt ($30) and shorts ($45) both

by Boohoo, au.bohoo.com.

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Skin in the Time of COVID Could reports reaching the MH desk of an unsightly side effect linked to a ubiquitous pandemic defence cause facemask hesitancy? Don’t let this happen! Here’s all you need to know about staying zit-free while warding off the bigger enemy Wallet, keys, phone. Check. Oh, and facemask. Now in its second year as the reigning must-have accessory – that’s literally must have – the facemask is second only to vaccines as our best defence against COVID. But while a necessary ally in our battle to flatten the curve (again), it seems to be doing more harm than good to our skin, triggering breakouts on previously clear complexions. Yep, that’s right: as if being an adult these days isn’t hard enough, we’re being transported back to our teenage days.

So, what exactly is ‘mask-ne’, why are we getting it and, most importantly, what can we do to get rid of it?

“Mask-ne is very much like acne mechanica,” explains Zoe Devine, a Skinstitut expert. “It’s the result of environmental factors that are exacerbated by friction, heat or pressure. Wearing a facial mask can create the ideal environment for acne mechanica to form as the warm moist air is trapped under the mask and the friction can cause clogged pores and breakouts.”

HOW TO PREVENT MASK-NE

“You must follow strict hygiene practices when wearing masks and ensure you change yours every four hours,” advises Skin Renu’s clinic practitioner, Sylvia Down.

“If you notice any dampness within the mask you should change it immediately. If you use a reusable mask, it’s best to wash it daily for maximum hygiene. When you take your mask off, it’s important to be aware of where you’re putting it down, so it doesn’t

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attract more bacteria to its cloth surface.

Once you’ve washed it, it’s also worth hanging up your mask in the sun as the UV light will help to kill bacteria. If you wear a mask for a long period of time at work, washing your face with a clean face towel and reapplying your moisturiser regularly will help to avoid bacteria build-up during the day.”

SHIT, I ALREADY HAVE IT! HOW DO I TREAT IT?

Aesthetics Rx expert Nicola Kropach says: “A gentle cleanser is critical to remove excess oil and perspiration on the skin. It’s important to keep the surface of the skin clean, without causing any additional stress with harsh surfactants and fragrances that can strip and irritate the skin’s delicate balance of oil and moisture.”

The use of salicylic acid is recommended to gently exfoliate and help purify deeper into the pores, Kropach advises, breaking down sebum, grime and dead skin cells that may lead to congestion and bacterial overgrowth. It’s also important to reinforce the skin’s protective barrier with a moisturiser to help combat damage on the surface from the constant pressure, chaffing and rubbing, she adds. This irritation can compromise the skin’s ability to protect and maintain itself, leaving it vulnerable, especially to bacteria.

G R O OMING

PRODUCTS TO TREAT MASK-NE 1/ The Ordinary Squalane Cleanser

is an ultra-gentle daily moisturising cleanser that mimics skin esters for a more soothing clean. The formula incorporates squalane, alongside other lipophilic esters that are gentle, moisturising, efficient in dissolving facial impurities and increasing the spreadability of the product.

And it’s available on The Iconic, so top up on socks while you’re there. ($13.90, theiconic.com.au)

2/ Aesthetics Rx Revitalising Foaming Cleanser gently cleanses

away oil, leaving the skin feeling fresh and clean. It’s infused with hydrating actives to soothe irritation and maintain moisture levels. ($59, aestheticsrx.com.au )

3/ Baxter of California Oil Free Moisturiser

features aloe vera and chamomile to sooth irritation and antioxidants to fight free radicals, rehydrating skin without inducing a breakout for those who are a little slicker. It helps leave skin shine-free after mask use. ($54, themistr.co)

4/ Skinstitut Laser Aid Dodge the facial eruptions that can follow masking up.

is perfect for instant relief from mask-induced irritation.

The cooling gel calms inflammation, reduces itchy sensations on the skin and tones down redness. ($49, skinstitut.com)

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TIME SENSITIVE

IN THESE BEWILDERING DAYS, A WATCH WITH A DATE WINDOW MAKES SENSE

BY

LUKE BENEDICTUS

In the “before times”, most of our lives had a certain natural rhythm. Not only was there greater demarcation between home and work, but the year was punctuated by tent-pole events, whether they were trips away, public holidays or social gatherings. In retrospect, such calendar entries were surprisingly valuable as subtle mental health boosters. As well as providing something to look forward to on grey days, they helped to delineate the weeks and months, creating indents for your mind to chisel the sprawl of existence into manageable chunks.

And then came the global pandemic. Amid this ongoing ordeal, the scaffolding of our daily lives has been demolished.

Schedules have been forcibly binned and many plans cancelled or indefinitely put on hold. Whatever your age or stage, COVID will have rubbed away some of the defining edges of your life. This is particularly true during a lockdown when the days can bleed into each other and the weekends lose their precious sheen. In short, it’s easy to lose track of time, a phenomenon that’s clinically known as “temporal dislocation”.

Disturbingly, temporal dislocation is often used by military interrogators as a form of soft torture. In the academic journal Extreme Physiology & Medicine, Dr John Leach, a former military psychologist, explains how manipulating certain stimuli can help to break a prisoner’s resistance. Temporal disorientation, he writes, alongside isolation, sensory deprivation and sleep deprivation, can pile stress onto the cognitive system. The reason that such tactics are useful for an interrogator is because they undermine a prisoner’s sense of control.

Leach unpacks the psychological effects of temporal disorientation. “Denying people the means of telling the time or even knowing day from night is a common practice designed to cause confusion and cognitive disorientation,” he explains. “This can be achieved through removal of watches and other timepieces, manipulation of clocks, sleep inversion, exclusion of natural light, broken shift patterns, allocating pseudo-random times for meals, showers and otherwise regular activities.”

It’s not too much of a stretch to suggest that anyone who’s endured a COVID lockdown will have experienced low-level temporal dislocation. When you’re stuck at home in your track-pants all week, the preceding days merge into a shapeless blur with no distinguishable features of note.

Obviously, as a Men’s Health reader you’re fairly resistant to soft torture (your mind is a fortress, after all). But if you want to further buttress your defences then may we suggest wearing a watch with a date window.

Some hardcore watch geeks tend to be a bit funny about date windows. Their placement is sometimes viewed as

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TAG Heuer Formula 1 ($2950)

adding unnecessary clutter and disrupting the balance and symmetry of a dial. From a functional perspective, however, a date window makes sense, particularly in these formless weeks of COVID where structure and routine are in short supply. Rather than get sucked into the fog of lockdown, your timepiece can help you to retain a sense of control by chronicling the turnover of days to stop you becoming psychologically unmoored. Think of it as a small act of defiant optimism every time you glance at your wrist. Yes, this may be another screwed-up year, but you’re going to stare it down in real time.

WATCH ES

Tudor 1926 ($2500)

BALL Watch Engineer Hydrocarbon Nedu ($6750)

Raymond Weil Freelancer Automatic Chronograph ($4595)

Chronoswiss Flying Regulator Day & Night ($13,750)

Montblanc Geosphere Limited Edition ($9680)

Citizen Perpetual Calendar BL8156-80E ($799)

Mido Multifort Patrimony Chronograph ($3075)

IWC Pilot’s Watch Chronograph 41 ($9800)

Hublot Aerofusion Black Magic ($21,900) OCTOBER 2021

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OCTOBER 2021

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Utility pants by Paskho; sneakers by Veja x Rick Owens; Leatherback Sea Turtle Giant watch

by Luminox.

SIMU LIU IS MORE THAN A

The star of this month’s Shang-Chi – and the FIRST ASIAN to lead a Marvel movie – talks about playing a superhero onscreen, being a change agent IRL, and the challenges, responsibilities and powers that come with those roles

OUR REFLECTION can be lonely. It shouldn’t be that way, especially not for a kid. Yet if you watch enough screens, whether phones or laptops or TVs, at some point you start to believe those screens reflect the world. And if you never see anyone who looks like you reflected back on those screens, you just might question how you fit into that world. You start to believe that the infinite possibilities you see onscreen aren’t for you.

“I was asked to present at the AACTA Awards, the Australian Academy Awards, and not only was the pronunciation of my name completely butchered, but I was also incorrectly identified as ‘a Hong Kong acting legend’, when in fact I’d never been to Hong Kong.”

This is what it’s like to be “other” – and it sucks. And Simu Liu knows this feeling well. We’re speaking about it right now in a Zoom interview while he’s sitting in his Los Angeles hotel room. Liu is clad in a slightly baggy long-sleeved tee that hides a chiselled physique, and he’s sipping boba tea, a decidedly Asian-American blend of green or black tea, milk and tapioca pearls. “I had to get some food in my stomach. Otherwise, you’d be dealing with a very cranky interview subject.”

In September, the 32-year-old will star as the titular character in ShangChi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, the first Marvel Cinematic Universe film with an Asian lead. This matters. It comes in the midst of a moment for Asian Americans, who’ve grown more and more conscious of (and vocal about) the racism and lack of representation that have long defined their American experience. It is not a new feeling for many Asian Americans, but it is a new discussion, one with new hope. As the son of a Chinese mother and an Indian father, I understand this intimately. It’s been more than two decades since a New Jersey neighbour, angry at my mum, told her to “go back to where you came from”. I’ve never spoken of it until now, because I believed that somehow my family was at fault – and because I never understood that I could speak about it. “There is something missing in Asian America,” says Liu, who is Chinese Canadian. “They’re missing people to tell them, ‘It’s okay to be who you are; you belong; just be unapologetically you; you’re not less than anybody else’. ” Liu’s embrace of equality, identity and authenticity resonates deeply in today’s pop culture, but that’s relatively new. Decades of Hollywood blockbusters, prime-time TV shows and magazine covers have narrowed our view of what a hero looks and acts like, how “strong” and “powerful” and “masculine” come together to throw impossible touchdowns, kiss Halle Berry and save the world from Thanos. Hollywood has grown increasingly aware of these issues of representation, and in the wake of 2018’s Crazy Rich Asians, Asian-American films and TV shows are on the rise.

But an Asian Marvel superhero signifies something else, because of Marvel’s outsized cultural imprint and because superheroes have always represented ideals. Not everyone wants to be Minari’s Jacob Yi, the KoreanAmerican farmer who moves his family cross-country to Arkansas, even though the film won a Golden Globe. But who doesn’t want to be an Avenger, right? Yet for all the diversity in the epic final battle of Avengers: Endgame, there was but one Asian, Wong, Doctor Strange’s . . . sidekick. Shang-Chi changes that. And never mind that the original character himself is a study in Asian representation done wrong, or that the early years of the MCU were straight from the whitewashing playbook, or that you (and nearly every Marvel YouTuber) have been pronouncing his name wrong for months. (The 70

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first syllable rhymes with “Kung,” not “Kang.”)

An Asian American is about to save the world – and look jacked doing it. Three years after the late Chadwick Boseman and Black Panther gave the MCU its first Black-led film, a different “other” now gets to be the hero.

“I am that person that struggled with my identity my whole life,” says Liu. “I am that person that’s always felt like he wasn’t enough. And those [experiences] are more core to Shang-Chi’s character than his ability to punch people.”

A Hero Is Born

When Marvel Studios announced Shang-Chi in 2018, Liu uttered the same “WTF” as every other comic-book fan. He remembers staying up late and scouring the Marvel web to learn about the character, and the more he uncovered, the more he grew disenchanted. Instead of raiding the comics for an ultrastrong hero (like Amadeus Cho, the Korean Hulk) or superhero royalty (like Namor, Marvel’s version of Aquaman), Marvel found its first Asian lead in . . . a Bruce Lee clone. ShangChi was created in the 1970s because Marvel wanted a version of Lee, and he’s the son of Fu Manchu, perhaps the worst Chinese stereotype.

Early stories had him speaking in broken-English phrases. His superpower? Kung fu. “I was almost disappointed,” Liu says. “I was like, how many opportunities do we have for Asian superheroes, and this one guy is, like, just a kung fu master? It just felt kind of reductive and, you know, not true to life and not anything that I could relate to.”

It seemed like another misstep from Marvel, which had repeatedly slighted Asians. Twice in the studio’s first decade, MCU films rewrote iconic Asian characters onscreen, first whitewashing the villainous Mandarin into Ben Kingsley in 2013’s Iron Man 3, then casting Tilda Swinton as the Ancient One in 2016’s Doctor Strange. Swinton’s casting, after 10 years of films with next to no Asian representation, was especially vexing, since the film still placed her character in Nepal, a South Asian country. Marvel initially claimed it had chosen Swinton to prevent the character

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Jacket by Z Zegna; pants by Leisure Lab; sneakers by Everlane; watch by Luminox.

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Pants by WILL-V; sneakers by Veja x Rick Owens; watch

by Luminox.

from fulfilling an Asian stereotype. Fans called bullshit. Five years later, Marvel head Kevin Feige doesn’t argue. “We thought we were being so smart and so cutting-edge,” he told me in a Zoom interview. “We’re not going to do the cliché of the wizened old Asian man. But it was a wake-up call to say, ‘Well, wait a minute, is there any other way to figure it out? Is there any other way to both not fall into the cliché and cast an Asian actor?’ And the answer to that, of course, is yes.”

Since Marvel Studios’ inception, Feige says, the studio has had a binder of “great characters who could make great movies regardless of how famous they were”. Shang-Chi was in that binder, because stereotypes aside, it’s a very Disney story: in the comics, the character discovers his father’s true nature, fakes his own death and runs away. “You break through that and become a hero,” says Feige.

“It was always a really, really great story.” Because of the character’s obscurity, Marvel could reinvent Shang-Chi in ways it couldn’t alter Spider-Man or 72

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Captain America. The MCU version can (and will) fight, but his new origin story cuts deeper. “It’s about having a foot in both worlds,” says Feige, “in the North American world and in China. And Simu fits that quite well.”

Longing For More

Fittingly, there’s a superheroic origin story behind Liu’s own journey to Hollywood, especially the way he tells it. He was born in 1989 in Harbin, China, and lived there until he was nearly five. And then one seemingly normal morning . . . “A stranger showed up at the door and was like, ‘Hi, Simu, I’m your dad’, ” he says. “So I had to say goodbye to my grandparents, the only parental figures I’d ever known, and then kind of go to this completely new life in Canada.”

Shortly after Liu was born, his parents immigrated to America but eventually settled in Toronto. The plan: create a life for Liu, then send for him, though they knew it might take several years. Liu’s first name (pronounced SEE-mu) speaks to that separation: it’s from the Chinese characters that mean “introspection” and “envy” or “longing”. “That was them knowing that I would grow up without them and without parents,” he says, “and that I would always be longing for them – and they would always be longing for me.”

That symbolism had evaporated by the time Liu was attending University of Toronto Schools. Toronto has a large Asian population, and Liu says UTS

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“It’s just very important to be a guy that stands up and says, ‘Hey, this is not okay’”

conferences revealed shaky grades. At 19, he chased validation by applying to work at Hollister, of all places. “The typical Hollister guy was, like, blond hair, blue eyes, six-pack, whatever. I had the six-pack, but I didn’t have any of the other stuff going on,” he says. “I was like, I want that for me. I can hit that standard of fitness.”

In college, he “compromised” with his parents, who wanted him to end up in a high-paying career, by attending business school and landing an accounting job at Deloitte, in part because it conjured images of slick-dressed men in fast cars. He was let go after less than a year, and he decided to try acting. His parents weren’t pleased. Liu spent the next two years barely speaking to them, his career stuck in neutral. Things started off with slight promise in 2012 when he earned a job as an extra in Guillermo del Toro’s Pacific Rim, which was filmed in Toronto. But after that, he scored only forgettable roles that had him onscreen for just seconds, like his turn as “desk officer” in an episode of the CW’s Nikita. In 2013, he played a character named Yakusa Koto in Bike Cop: Begins and only realised years later that his exaggerated, stilted Japanese accent was furthering the Asian stereotypes that had haunted him throughout high school. Liu had bartered his identity away for a caricature of his identity. “Looking back now,” he says of playing Yakusa, “I wish I could slap myself in the face.”

Unmasked

was “65 per cent East Asian”, but he still felt like an outcast in high school. Although he was a natural athlete, he spent most of his Toronto childhood home alone, watching a steady diet of American TV shows like One Tree Hill, The O. C. and Power Rangers, and falling in love with Marvel characters. Whatever Liu watched or read, the hero looked the same. He tried to mimic those personalities, joining the basketball team, which he believed would lead to instant popularity.

But he still didn’t feel accepted. “The main character is always, you know, this blond-haired, blue-eyed guy who’s the high school quarterback or the star of the basketball team,” Liu says.

“That’s all I wanted to be, really, truly. I definitely was not that.”

But it was all he wanted to be. He grew angry at his parents because they hadn’t given him a “white name”, and he briefly evaluated options for a name change (Simon, Steve or Tommy).

He fought with his father after parent-teacher

Liu still dreamed about playing superheroes but had to find other ways to perform. So there he was in 2014, walking into a Toronto apartment wearing a head-to-toe Spider-Man suit. He did a backflip, landing with legs splayed slightly, one hand on the floor. A crowd of 10-year-olds cheered. It was the classic Spider-Man pose, and this was one of his “odd jobs,” a way to pay the bills when he wasn’t earning his TV bit parts. The job: wearing a Spider-Man costume for children’s birthday parties, making a dramatic entrance, then leading them through games here, maybe doing an extra flip there. But this job had a condition: keep the mask on, because once it came off, “the whole believability would be shattered.” The rule had come to epitomise the lack of superhero representation for Asians.

Yet with Shang-Chi, Liu truly has shattered the rule, unbelievably. “That really sets us apart, aside from, of course, it being such a celebration of diversity and Asian-ness and our culture, is that my character does not have a mask. So there’s really nothing to hide behind.”

The year following his stint as Spider-Man, Liu watched a play called Kim’s Convenience, about a Toronto-area convenience store run by a KoreanCanadian family. Penned by Korean Canadian Ins Choi, it had serious prodigal-son vibes thanks to the relationship between Appa, the Kim patriarch, and Jung, his oldest son. Liu had heard Kim’s would be turned into a TV show, and he wanted to study up. He left the theatre with tears running down his cheeks. “I kind of saw [my parents’] side for the first time,” he says.

“It really just hit me how much they sacrificed to come to this new country, to speak a language that they didn’t know at all. It really made me sad for all the years that I spent resenting them.”

Liu eventually won the part of Jung on Kim’s, and the show was an instant Canadian hit that grew a loyal Netflix following. Among AsianCanadian creatives, Liu finally felt accepted. Playing a role he’d lived proved cathartic. His five seasons on Kim’s, which had its series finale in April, were “therapeutic”, he says. He’s now much closer to his parents and speaks with them regularly.

The more time Liu spent with the cast, and the more he did interviews and public appearances, the more he realised that his own journey to uncover his identity had never needed to be so solitary. Time and again, Asian Americans asked how he mended his relationship with his parents and how he found his way into acting. “Even bogan Aussies were coming up to me like, ‘Hi, we love your show. We see you on Netflix all the time. When’s the new season going to come out?’ They were so enthusiastic, so incredible and that’s totally ethnicity agnostic.”

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A generational battle was taking place among Asian Americans, one in which well-intentioned first- and second-generation parents targeted professions like medicine, law and academia for their children. Those professions have little room for subjectivity – and that can mean less chance of prejudice and racism. But the next generation, Liu’s and mine, arrives in an interconnected world that encourages trailblazing. While our parents scrapped to success, we dare to experiment. For Liu, that was acting; for me, Men’s Health’s first Asian-American fitness director, it meant writing and training. Older Asian Americans fear these untested routes because there’s more room for failure, no proof of concept, no guarantee of success. For decades, they were right.

This is changing. From Kim’s to Fresh Off the Boat to Minari, there’s increasing proof that Asians can not just survive but thrive in entertainment. In entering this world, where society crafts its new myths, young Asians are finally able to record their stories and take control of their narratives. “When I think about my parents, they wanted to minimise all of their struggle; they never enjoyed talking about what they went through coming over here,” Liu says. “In a way, those stories will be lost in time if we don’t fight for them, because white people aren’t going to write them for us.

So in a lot of ways, I feel like it’s our responsibility to kind of, to document and to expose it, what has been going on in our world and our collective world and communities, and to share that story.”

Liu believes he must shoulder the load of this storytelling. Since his awakening on Kim’s, he’s presented himself as “proudly Asian and unapologetically Asian” on social media and in appearances, talking openly about the stereotypes that lead Asian men to be viewed as weak and unattractive, and, more recently, speaking out about increasing levels of violence against Asians. “We’re experiencing harassment and violence at an unprecedented level,” he says, “and it’s just very important to be a guy that stands up and says, ‘Hey, this is not okay’. And there is a real responsibility that comes with not just anybody with a platform but with mine, specifically, of being the first of a community to be, you know, a superhero.”

You feel the Peter Parker vibes. He knows it, too. “Maybe that’s why I loved superhero movies from the very get-go,” he says. “They grapple with these big ideas of good versus evil. Once you have power, how are you going to use it?”

Answer: superheroically. “Simu is brave,” says actress Awkwafina, who plays a new character, Katy, in Shang-Chi. “Not only in the sense of a superhero but in how he chooses to come through for his community. It was a very inspiring thing to see. ”

Heroic, To A Tea

This is a story about an Asian superhero, and martial arts play a part in that, but Simu Liu did not earn the role of Shang-Chi with his kung fu skills. He earned it with his acting skills. Liu had only limited martial-arts experience before this film. This is important to Liu, and to everyone on the Shang-Chi team, and it’s critical to the conversation about Liu as an Asian-American leading man.

Liu describes himself as a “self-taught guy who likes to do flips in his backyard” and takes pride in his personal superhero transformation. He added five kilos of muscle to his 180cm frame, bulking up to 84 kilograms.

He essentially crushed three-a-day workouts during filming last year in Australia. He’d lift weights and work through fight choreography daily.

And every few days, he’d gut out a stretching session to build the flexibility needed for kung fu.

One stretch had him sitting on the floor, straight legs spread wide. A trainer mirrored that position, placed his heels against Liu’s, and gradually pushed the hero’s feet apart, driving him into a near split. He could barely walk after each stretch session, but the work he poured into playing the role serves as proof that he’s an actor, not a martial-arts curiosity. “As with any actor in any role, as Ryan Gosling did when he learned to play the piano for 74

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“That’s why I loved superhero movies from the very getgo. They grapple with these big ideas of good versus evil. Once you have power, how are you going to use it?”

La La Land,” Liu says, “what I think Marvel did, what I hope Marvel did, was they cast an actor.”

That was director Destin Daniel Cretton’s aim, and that may be why early audition tapes had Liu and other hopefuls duplicating scenes from Good Will Hunting, not John Wick.

This is not a story about kung fu. Cretton, whose earlier films include The Glass Castle and Just Mercy, calls it a story about “identity”. ShangChi will learn that his father is the true Mandarin, a character named Wenwu, who, played by Tony Leung, is being touted as Marvel’s most multidimensional villain. Shang-Chi will have to deal with this while also facing another baddie, Razor Fist (Florian Munteanu), and encountering his sister, Xialing (Meng’er Zhang). But don’t expect the film to start with brawling. “We wanted to show people a character who is distinctly Asian American right off the bat,” says Cretton.

“Before you even know anything about his past, his upbringing, his martial-arts skills, we wanted people to know that this is an Asian American.”

This approach allows Cretton, Liu and the rest of the heavily Asian-American team to invigorate the film with an energy and soul beyond the title character’s trope roots. Decades ago, Asian culture was represented in film only by Bruce Lee–inspired combat. In Shang-Chi, brawls stand alongside scenes that illuminate other parts of the Asian-American experience.

Liu holds up his now-empty boba tea, a staple of Asian-American culture, especially in San Francisco. “There are millions of people that consume this drink, like, unhealthy amounts of it,” he says. “It’s such an iconic Asian-American

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Pants by Lululemon; sneakers by Everlane.

10X YOUR

MUSCLE GAINS To play Shang-Chi, Simu Liu added five kilos of muscle to his 180cm frame while also working to maintain explosive athleticism. His secret: two kinds of supersets. The first, called a contrast superset, combines a total-body muscle move and an explosive bodyweight move to build athleticism. The second focuses on sculpting the superhero physique, adding shoulder and mid-back size

SUPERSET 1

Do 4 sets. Rest 2 minutes between each.

TRAP-BAR DEADLIFT Stand inside a trap bar, feet shoulder-width apart. Push your butt back and lower your torso until you can grasp the bar’s handles.

Squeeze your lats and tighten your core. This is the start. Stand explosively, lifting the bar and squeezing your glutes.

BROAD JUMP drink that I was like, You cannot make this movie without some sort of boba.” It was a last-minute add to the film, with the logos rush-printed on cups in Australia before shooting wrapped.

In Shang-Chi, kung fu no longer feels like a token touch of inclusion. This is Asian Americans owning their stereotype. “Kung fu for kung fu’s sake, as an aesthetic or a prop, that’s where it starts to get tropey and dangerous,” says Liu. “[But] there’s a reason why when Hong Kong action was introduced to Western audiences, people went bananas for it. Kung fu is, objectively, really cool.” I can’t help smiling as he says this. It’s the reason I’ve never minded the Bruce Lee cracks. It’s why I wouldn’t mind being called ShangChi in a few months, when the movie drops and percolates through the culture.

ILLUSTRATIONS: PETER SUCHESKI

With Great Power...

All of this, to Liu, is progress, and his job (his great responsibility, if you will) is to continue driving towards more progress after Shang-Chi. That means continuing to speak loudly about the Asian-American experience, and continuing to grow his Hollywood profile. And it means thinking carefully about his next projects.

He likely won’t do another kung fu movie soon, because what good would that do? “On the shoulders of all that’s come before me, with Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan and Jet Li, to finally be in an opportunity where we can explore uncharted territory for Asian faces, to then stay in the martial-arts realm, it wouldn’t be a good move,” he says. “I think you’ll see me in something that’s not distinctly Asian. And pretty soon you’re going to start seeing my name pop up in projects I’m not acting in.”

To truly advance Asian-American representation in entertainment, he believes he needs to produce and direct and write, too, creating opportunities for others. He spent his Sydney lockdown (the first one) writing a memoir, set to be published in 2022.

“It’s definitely a time to re-centre,” he says. “I mean, I happen to love what I do. Ultimately, when it’s all said and done, it will be more than just the roles that I took on as an actor. It’ll be what I’m able to contribute to the world in terms of stories, in terms of culture.”

Once you’ve seen yourself as a superhero, the possibilities are endless.

Stand. Bend your knees, push your butt back, and throw your arms back. Throw your arms forward and leap forward as far as you can. Land softly.

That’s 1 rep; do 3-5.

SUPERSET 2

Do 3 sets. Rest 60 seconds between each set.

STANDING LATERAL RAISE Stand holding dumbbells at your sides, core and glutes tight, shoulder blades squeezed. Without bending your elbows, raise the weights out to your sides, elbows slightly in front of your torso. Pause when your elbows are nearly at shoulder height, then lower.

That’s 1 rep; do 12.

SEATED LAT PULLDOWN Sit in a pulldown station and grasp a bar above you. Tighten your abs and squeeze your shoulder blades. Pull the bar to your chest, bending at the elbows and shoulders. Pause, then slowly straighten your arms, letting the bar move toward the top of the machine.

That’s 1 rep; do 12.

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Bubble Trouble: public figures exert enormous influence over ‘their’ dedicated flocks.

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TACTI CS

FOR ARGUMENT’S SAKE In a polarised world, in which many of us are locked in ideological bubbles, it’s increasingly difficult to engage with people whose views differ from your own.

Find out why the key to fostering ties, deepening understanding and making the world a better place, begins by getting off your high horse and resisting one of your most primal impulses: the desire to win BY

BEN JHOT Y ILLUSTR ATION BY JA SON LEE

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ery few people choose to become radicals.

In most cases their circumstances lead them to it. So it was for Dr Lloyd Vogelman. Growing up in apartheid South Africa, for Vogelman, rebellion was a logical response to the oppression of his fellow citizens. Not to actively rail against a racist regime, he believed, would have made him complicit in its policies.

“I describe myself as a recovering extremist,” says Vogelman, a former clinical psychologist, who today is the founder and executive director of consultancy firm Corteks. “I was brought up in a society that was extreme.

Apartheid South Africa was extreme, not only in its racism. It was extreme in its authoritarianism as well.”

Vogelman grew up in a small “ultraRight” mining town outside Johannesburg.

“Injustice was so obvious that you had to make a choice,” Vogelman says. “So, I think I was a rebel from a very early age.”

After being a student leader, at 23 he joined the United Democratic Front, a political resistance movement linking hundreds of anti-apartheid organisations.

When the Front was banned, he went into hiding and was later named as a co-conspirator in one of South Africa’s largest treason trials, an experience that saw him develop Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.

But while his enemy was so stark and oppressive that extremism seemed the only legitimate course of action, Vogelman wasn’t entirely comfortable in his role as a firebrand.

A self-described natural outsider, he says that within the liberation movement, he at times felt suffocated and ill at ease with its dogmatism and singular focus.

“Authoritarianism creates an injury in your psyche,” he says. “In your resistance to it, you sometimes behave like your oppressors.

You can become equally dogmatic. I think in my opposition, I became extreme as well. I became increasingly uncomfortable with the lack of questioning in myself and others.”

His growing discomfort gradually saw him

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move away from hard-line activism. At 27, he set up the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation, an organisation that focused on promoting human rights and providing treatment for victims of violence.

Today he is the host and founder, along with his cousin, Emile Sherman, an Oscarwinning film producer whose credits include The King’s Speech and Lion, of the podcast The Principle of Charity. In a unique format that’s at odds with the adversarial nature of most mainstream media forums, the podcast sees ideological opponents invited to argue the other’s cause.

For Vogelman the podcast is the latest stop in an astounding philosophical journey, one that’s seen him go from self-professed extremist to rational truth seeker, from someone who saw arguments as contests to be won, to one who prizes them as a tool in increasing understanding between groups.

But while it’s easy and perhaps reductive to cast Vogelman’s intellectual transformation as both linear and complete, the journey is, in fact, ceaseless.

“I don’t feel that open-mindedness is something that I’ve achieved,” he says, from his home in Sydney’s Cremorne Point. “For me, it’s a lifelong struggle and it’s a struggle that I enjoy as it forces me to emotionally examine myself and my biases. And it just makes me more intellectually, emotionally and socially rigorous.”

In an increasingly polarised world, the empathy and introspection required to engage constructively with people who hold different views is becoming a dying art. The nature of mainstream media – talk shows, talkback radio, opinion pages – along, of course, with social media, promotes antagonism at the expense of argument, sees polemic masquerade as passion and elevates rhetoric over reasoning.

The obstacles to good argument are formidable. The biggest of all? Your ego.

Because before you can engage and argue effectively with others you first need to do something truly heroic: get over yourself.

HIGH AND MIGHTY

Around 15 years ago I was in Queenstown on New Zealand’s South Island where I enjoyed an afternoon of mountain biking with a group of other tourists. None of us knew each other but we bonded over the thrills and spills of an afternoon hurtling down tumbling terrain.

Afterwards, myself and another Aussie, let’s call him Patrick, decided to have dinner together and then hit a local pub. Travelling alone, I was glad of the company and for the most part Patrick was just that: great company. But somewhere around our third beer together our conversation hit a previously hidden tripwire. It turned out Patrick was a passionate supporter of John Howard.

I, equally passionately, was not. Suddenly our easy conversation became awkward and stilted before getting a little heated.

Patrick argued that Howard was Australia’s benevolent grandfather. I argued that he was cunning and manipulative. Neither of us really listened to what the other was saying.

Patrick was implacable. I was immovable. We finished our drinks and said a curt goodbye, a pleasant evening with a stranger ruined because we’d left the safe conversational shores of sport and pop culture and instead run aground by choosing to talk politics.

What brought us together – our afternoon of mountain biking – was not enough to withstand the barbs and booby traps inherent in political discussion.

When I look back on the evening now, I still feel a little tightening in my chest, as I often do when reflecting on an argument. I feel frustration that I couldn’t persuade my opponent of my view, even though I refused to hear his. The other thing that sticks with me about that evening is that it was possibly one of the last times I can recall coming face to face with someone whose views so clearly clashed with my own.

The bubbles in which most of us live are filled with friends who often think like us.

Social media either functions as an echo chamber in which those with similar opinions congregate or as a digital battlefield in which

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Conversational Combatants: Dr Lloyd Vogelman and Emile Sherman, hosts of The Principle of Charity podcast.

anonymous keyboard combatants troll and deride each other.

With the community thus splintered, we’re driven inexorably towards polarisation, says social researcher Hugh Mackay, author of The Kindness Revolution.

“At one level we’re all independent, but that’s overshadowed by the larger sense of our interdependency,” says Mackay, who’s talking to me from his home in Canberra. “You can have, and you need, lots of contests of ideas, lots of robust argument and disagreement and it can all be done in a civilised way if it’s done in the spirit of, we need each other. We’re in the community together.”

The problem, Mackay believes, is that Australia and most Western societies have been reshaped over the last 40 years by a series of social trends that elevates the individual over the group.

The drivers, Mackay says, are shrinking households – within the next 10 years, every third household in Australia will contain just one person; the high rate of relationship breakdown with around 35 per cent of contemporary marriages ending in divorce; increased mobility; increased busyness; and what Mackay calls an “enthusiastic embrace of information technology”, which promises to connect us but actually makes it easier than ever to remain apart.

“You put all those things together and the cumulative effect is to make us rampantly individualistic,” says Mackay. In doing so, he adds, we’ve become less concerned about our common humanity and instead become “obsessed with identity” and how we’re different from others.

The consequences of this atomisation of society, he says, is that it creates a dynamic in which argument is framed as a battle to decide winners and losers. “We tend to come to arguments at the moment, whether it’s in politics or some other aspect of our society, from the point of view that we are individuals in competition with each other,” Mackay says.

“And that’s antithetical to good outcomes.”

Not only does this raise the stakes,

drawing emotion into what should be rational discussions, it also invites moral judgment that creates a binary of ‘good’ and ‘evil’, adds Vogelman. “When people disagree on an idea, they sometimes judge that person morally as well,” he says. “Moral superiority is good for self-esteem but not necessarily for society. Once there’s so much judgment in a conversation, people become scared to talk and hold back. It’s even worse when we see scientists holding back because they’re afraid of being ostracised. This means our society may lose out on ideas that take us forward.”

When opinions and views are freighted with moral judgment and ideological positions fossilise, they tend to become wedded to your sense of identity. The problem with that? From such a position, you can’t possibly be wrong.

DOUBLING DOWN

In 1956 researcher Leon Festinger published the first major study of cognitive dissonance.

It involved a small UFO religion in Chicago called the Seekers, who believed an apocalypse was imminent. Festinger and his fellow researchers wanted to see how members coped after the event didn’t occur, focusing on the cognitive dissonance between the members’ beliefs and actual events and the psychological consequences of unmet expectations.

“They thought the world was going to end at midnight,” says Jay Van Bavel, associate professor of psychology and neural science at New York University, who’s speaking to me as he walks through Manhattan’s East Village on the way to pick up his kids. “And then the clock strikes midnight and there’s no alien ship to pick them up and they’re just sitting there in the dark. The question is, are they going to abandon that identity and say, ‘This cult was wrong. I never should have joined’? Or do they identify with this cult so much that they’re going to double down and find some way to rationalise it?”

As you can probably guess, participants who were fringe members of the cult were more inclined to recognise that they had been misled. But committed members were more likely to reinterpret evidence to show that they were right all along. “They wanted to identify with the group so much and they were supported by the other cult members to hold onto their beliefs,” says Van Bavel, who’s author of The Power of Us. This type of behaviour, Van Bavel says, is common among committed groups, be they climate-change denialists, anti-vaxxers or QAnon, the hardening of beliefs often aided and abetted by the secure echo chambers of social media.

Similar levels of cognitive dissonance exist between cult followers and people who are ‘hyper-partisan’, says Van Bavel, who’s done extensive research on the phenomenon of ‘partisan brain’. “There’s some party members who are deeply committed to the party,” he says. “They have stickers on their car, signs on their front lawn, they would go to all the rallies. If it turns out their favourite OCTOBER 2021

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political leader is corrupt, they’re the people who are going to fight it.”

These people’s attitudes are further entrenched by confirmation bias – the deliberate seeking out of evidence that reaffirms your beliefs. This is often accompanied by the dismissal of contrary information, data, or, indeed, facts.

“They’re really motivated to find evidence that their political party is doing the right thing or is accurate and the other party is not,” says Van Bavel. “It can also lead them to believe misinformation or fake news that aligns with their party identity.”

Confirmation bias has been the subject of thousands of studies. One of the most famous was at Stanford University involving a group of students who had opposing opinions about capital punishment. The students were asked to respond to two studies. One provided data in support of capital punishment, the other against it. At the end of the experiment, the students were asked once again about their views. Those who’d started out pro-capital punishment were now even more in favour of it; those who’d opposed it were even more hostile.

Doubling down on your beliefs, even in the face of facts, is an evolved survival mechanism, says Van Bavel. “If you think about human nature, we didn’t really evolve to analyse data or read scientific articles,” he says. “We evolved to navigate in groups on the savannahs of Africa and get along with people so that they would share food and resources and help fend off predators or other tribes.

The idea of being kicked out of the group is incredibly threatening to people.”

No one is exempt from this type of corrupted thinking. As Vogelman says, biases are inherent and impossible to escape. “We are not as rational as we think we are,” he says. “There are so many things that bias our thinking and the most important thing about bias is to know that you are already biased. No matter what you say, you will be biased from the beginning. Then the question is, can you identify the bias? And how do you limit it?”

Bias is not limited to politics or social issues, of course. In recent years the debate as to who is the greatest basketballer of all time, Michael Jordan or LeBron James, has become extremely heated online, with a single post praising the merits of one player leading to 80

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“Personally, I’m a Jordan guy. I’m also biased. His career took off when I was young and impressionable” cascades of cherry-picked counter evidence and reams of abuse. Personally, I’m a Jordan guy. I’m also biased. His career took off when I was young and impressionable. For many younger LeBron fans, the same is true.

Jordan to them is just an old guy their dad bangs on about. For either party to admit the other might be right would be wounding to them, as it would invalidate one of the joys of their childhoods.

In fact, being hyper-partisan is not dissimilar to being a hardcore fan of, say, the Rabbitohs or Penrith, it’s just that in sport, your loyalty and one-eyed perspective is applauded. How many times have you blamed the umpire on a call that was 50/50? “The ref calls a penalty, the hardcore fans scream at the ref and they just think the ref got it wrong,” says Van Bavel. “They can’t admit that their team isn’t as good.” The degree to which you’ll do this once again comes down to how much the team is tied up with your identity – hint, if you paint your face, then it’s pretty intertwined. “The more casual fans are like, ‘Ah, the ref’s right. We deserve to lose’,” says Van Bavel.

When was the last time you heard a diehard fan say that? That’s right, never.

HEAR ME OUT

A few months ago, I met up with a good friend for a drink. We discussed basketball as we often do. We tend to agree with each other on most things – that’s why we’re friends – but on this night we reached a stumbling block over whether the Golden State Warriors would have beaten the Cleveland Cavaliers in the 2015 NBA finals if the Cavaliers had not

sustained injuries to star players Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love. I believed the Warriors would not have won. My friend disagreed. While normally we will retreat from an argument if we feel that it might get into dangerous territory, this time I decided to stick to my guns. So did my friend. Eventually, when it was obvious neither of us was going to back down, we moved on, yet I felt like the emotional tenor of the evening had been stained by our disagreement. Once again, I had been immovable.

The argument highlighted the importance of context in a disagreement. Friendships, unlike romantic or family relationships, are often regarded purely as “support relationships”, says Dr Harry Blatterer, a senior lecturer in sociology at Macquarie University. As such they are inherently fragile. “There’s a cultural expectation that this is what makes a friendship,” says Blatterer. “You support your mates.”

For that reason, when arguing with a friend, most of us stick to socially benign topics like sports and pop culture and refrain from fully expressing our opinion. Yet, if you know how to argue properly, it is possible to achieve a level of robustness without jeopardising the relationship.

Like many arguments that take place in bars, the one with my friend was characterised by a series of ill-conceived tactics common to ineffective disagreement.

Neither of us was prepared to back down.

And neither of us really listened to the other’s evidence. Both of us selected evidence – in my case Kyrie Irving’s clutch-ness – that was questionable. Finally, neither of

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us could keep emotion out it, hence the bad feeling afterwards.

How could we have done better? There are a number of ways. But first, you need to define what an argument actually is. “It’s hard to go past Monty Python’s definition that it’s a connected series of statements intended to establish a definite proposition,” says Dr Peter Ellerton, a senior lecturer in philosophy and director of The University of Queensland Critical Thinking Project. “It’s grounded in the giving and taking of reasons to infer and justify a conclusion. It’s a robust inference that’s well justified.”

The problem these days, says Ellerton, is that “there’s a tremendous amount of stuff that we infer without really checking the quality of our inference through a lot of rigorous analysis and evaluation”.

Crucially, you need to make your argument accessible and meaningful to other people.

If you don’t, Ellerton says, then your reasons just become another form of assertion, which is where argument is distinguished from debate. “The purpose of debating is to win,” says Ellerton. “Debating is antagonistic whereas argumentation is collaborative.

Ultimately the purpose of argumentation is social cognition, the ability to argue with each other, not against each other.”

This makes it particularly unsuited to forums in which nuance and rigour are precluded, such as debate shows and social media. “The whole thing [social media] is a minefield because you take one step in any direction and there’s some kind of inflammatory statement towards you that you then jump on,” says Ellerton.

How about in the real world, then? Should you come face to face, say at a BBQ, with someone from outside your bubble, who holds opposing views to your own, is it possible to change their opinion? The answer is yes, says Van Bavel, but rather than browbeating your ‘opponent’, you’re best to make them feel like they’ve arrived at a new conclusion on their own. “You ask questions that get people thinking, drawing their own conclusions about something and then they feel like they came up with it themselves,” he says. “And then they’re less defensive and less reactive against certain types of information.”

But as much as you need to encourage the person you’re arguing with to examine their position, to truly engage with someone, you need to look squarely at yourself and perhaps adopt the principle of charity.

“One of the unique things about the principle of charity as a method is that you have to articulate what your opponent’s arguments are, and ideally, you should be able to articulate it even better than them,” says Vogelman. “So, if I was arguing against a Trump supporter – and I hate Trump – I should be able to articulate all the good things about Trump before I reject them. But our tendency is to find the weakest arguments of the other person and then smash the argument down. The principle of charity says, ‘Can you find the strongest arguments of your opponent?’”

The principle is in some ways similar to contrarianism – arguing opposing views, often for the sake of it, even if they run counter to those you actually believe. Done in the right spirit, though, this too can

help you understand the nuance of a particular position.

“Contrarianism for the sake of it can be irritating,” Vogelman says. “But if it’s done in a generous, curious, truth-seeking way, rather than ‘let me put you down and be smart’, it can be productive. Good science involves contrarianism because it demands that you’re always looking at alternative hypotheses and new data. If you don’t close your mind off you never know what you can find.”

The final and perhaps most potent tool in making an argument productive is the one most of us struggle mightily to employ: to listen. Really listen. “The most courageous thing we humans can ever do is to listen to each other attentively and empathically,” says Mackay. “Attentive and empathic listening means that I’ll try and figure out what you really think before I react to it. And I will say as you’re telling me, ‘You reckon this? Have I got this straight?’ In other words, I’ll prove that I’ve really understood your point of view.

So, the breakthrough in civilised argument is qualifying ourselves to disagree by proving that we actually understand each other’s point of view.”

You might want to let that sink in a little. The idea that disagreement should only really begin once vigorous probing of ideas and thorough understanding of counterarguments has been achieved, essentially means applying the rigour of scientific scrutiny and philosophical inquiry to social discourse. At BBQs, no less! But here’s the thing. Extreme conditions call for radical ideas. And in such divisive times, this one is difficult to argue with.

HOW TO DISAGREE EFFECTIVELY

USE THESE TACTICS TO ARGUE WITH RATHER THAN AGAINST SOMEONE 1/KNOW YOUR INTENTION

2/UNDERSTAND YOU MAY BE WRONG

“If your intention is to win, then that’s the first thing that will stop good disagreement,” says Vogelman. “A better tactic is to say, ‘I may disagree, but my intention is to listen and understand before I do that’.”

“The best way to be open and less dogmatic is to think about all the mistakes in your life previously where you thought you were right and you were wrong,” advises Vogelman.

“Breaking down your sense of intellectual omnipotence is very important.”

3/QUIT LECTURING

4/BE CURIOUS

5/BE FLEXIBLE

“You can’t persuade people by lecturing them,” says Vogelman.

“One of the iron laws of great influence is to be a good listener. Making people feel that you are smarter than them is often a sure way not to persuade them.”

“Have a level of curiosity about the disagreement,” advises Vogelman. “To ask questions, to think about it.”

“If you’re going to be in a fixed position of any sort, you will probably create more conflict,” says Vogelman. “The harder you defend yourself, the more likely the person opposing you will become extreme.”

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Shiny Happy People

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Lustrous hair has long been emblematic of virility and youth, with balding seen as something to be masked – or, more recently, medicated.

But a growing online movement is pushing back against the stigma and encouraging men to go bald, boldly. Thinking of making the cut? It can be good for the head in more ways than one WORDS BY KE VIN

BR A DDOCK

ILLUSTR ATIONS BY KL AUS

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KREMMER Z

Have confidence and take your hair loss into your own hands.

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XISTENTIAL CRISES are not uncommon in the lives of men. Nor are they always limited to a single moment, instead unfurling silently over months or years.

But what often follows is a transformation – one in which a man overcomes the petrifying anxieties that have been torturing him and sees his life replenished with new possibilities.

For many men, the crisis originates in the discovery of hairs on a pillow, the gradual recognition of a receding hairline, or wispiness on the crown of the head – all bringing intimations of mortality and decline. In other words, it’s the realisation that they’re going bald, just as their dad or uncle did.

But for just as many men, salvation arrives in the form of a set of clippers, a mirror and the will to walk the hot coals of change by shaving it all off. Some 2000-odd years after St Paul underwent the prototypical road-toDamascus experience, Ben Bakht, a 26-year-old filmmaker, had his own moment, immediately after shaving his head.

“It’s the best thing I’ve ever done,” Bakht says today.

“Subconsciously, it unlocked a lot of things.”

Since the age of 18, he explains, he’d been living with the anxiety of losing his hair.

“I remember going to McDonald’s and a friend said, ‘Your hairline is receding a bit’.

At university, it was a running joke – ‘Ben’s going bald’.”

Male-pattern baldness, or androgenic alopecia, will affect half of men by the age of 50, though many are forced to contend with it much earlier.

“I used to quiff my hair,” says Bakht. “I’ve always had a biggish forehead. I tried using Toppik [electrostatic] fibres and wearing headbands on nights out. You do anything you can to make up for the damage: hair gel, spray.

But when your hair is thin, it’s thin. You go outside, a gust of wind hits you and it’s done for the rest of the day. But our biggest fears are in our minds.”

In a vlog entitled “Balding in My Twenties – Shaving My Head Bald”, Bakht pours out his anxieties before enlisting first his brother, then his mum, to clip his hair. The big moment comes when Bakht finally confronts

himself in the mirror, realising that he has a good-shaped head, that being brazenly bald isn’t so bad after all and, most importantly, that he likes himself again. With his eyes shining and his beard bushy, Ben Bakht looks fantastic.

Shaving his head has transformed his outlook. “I thought, ‘Shaving it off wasn’t so bad, so what other things am I overthinking in my life?’” he says. “There was a ripple effect. I became much more fearless. I also remember thinking, ‘Am I going to get more female attention?’ And you know what? I have. I think it’s because I am more confident and accepting of myself. I don’t need to prove anything. And shaving my hair was the catalyst.”

A Shaved New World

For Bakht, his days of spending $40 per week on haircuts and torturously styling his tufts with spray, gel and castor oil (an old-wives’tale preventative that, like standing on your head, is not supported by evidence) are done.

He feels like a new man – and his transformation is credit to the counsel of another man, 30-year-old Harry James.

James’ YouTube channel Bald Café has 86,000-plus subscribers and functions as a community and resource for a generation of men braving the buzzcut, with live head-shavings, discussions and outpourings of relief.

“Harry really has changed my life,” says Bakht. “He talked about a taboo that a lot of guys are afraid of.”

If this story of salvation sounds rather dramatic – after all, hair is only hair, and plenty of men lose it – it’s worth adding some context. Time and again on the Bald Café channel, men describe their experiences of hair loss as one of trauma. An exaggeration?

Not really: one marker of trauma is the feeling of helplessness that a person experiences during or after a disturbing event. It’s also true that science has yet to devise an adequate solution for hair regrowth.

Faced with these feelings of helplessness, the human ego mounts a defence, ranging (if the confessions on Bald Café are anything to go by) from the mundane to the expensive, the impractical to the nonsensical – comb-overs, comb-forwards, hat-wearing, transplants, implants, toupées, plus anti-balding

“Hair loss is a secretive thing.

Guys don’t want to admit to it”

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medicines such as Propecia and Regaine.

Then there’s sitting at the back of the room so that no one clocks your pate, or not going on holiday, because holidays often mean swimming and, sadly, hats float. The byzantine lengths to which men go to hide their baldness are matched only by the depths of anxiety to which balding can take them.

It was a shameful experience for James, an agricultural worker with an animated, Joe Wicks-like energy and looks that are half Tyson Fury and half Freddie Ljungberg: hardly the recalcitrant character one might associate with a man going to elaborate lengths to disguise his androgenic alopecia.

It’s taken him some work to embrace his baldness. All the men in James’ family are bald, but when, at the age of 25, he discovered a thinning patch, “It hit me like a train,” he says. “I’d never struggled for confidence, but there was something about hair loss that took the wind out of my sails. Life up to that point had been on an upward trajectory – you get taller, stronger, more outgoing. And then, bang: this big hit of mortality.”

He noted that a few men had posted about experiencing similar feelings online and advocated for shaving it all off. One trip to the barber’s later and his outlook changed. “I felt completely different walking out. I’d done this thing I’d been so afraid of. You’ve got absolutely nothing to hide when you shave your head. That’s the beauty and the power of it.”

Since launching his YouTube channel, James has been overwhelmed with interest.

It turns out that men do want to talk about the things they can’t talk about. “Bald Café has become about encouraging conversation.

I shared my experience and got a couple of comments saying, ‘Thanks for talking about this, because I’m really struggling with it.’ I did more and the channel grew.”

Where James led, others followed. “Hair loss is such a secretive thing,” he says. “Guys don’t want to admit to it. It’s not so much about how it looks, but about how the whole thing makes you feel. You get more and more uncomfortable until it becomes unbearable.”

Such is the need for frankness, James says, that these days it’s almost as if he answers DMs for a living. It turns out that there are a lot of balding and anxious men out there.

The Cure or the Cause?

What’s emerging could perhaps be called a “Baldy Positivity” movement. In many ways, it’s never been easier to find cool, bald role models. A glance at the billboards tells us

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Thinning on top?

Shave it off to uncover a new you.

MAKE THE GRADE Give yourself an expert shave at home with these tips from barber Denis Robinson

1 2

3 4 1 2

3 4

Taking the Plunge

Invest in a good pair of clippers (around $100). Position a second mirror, so you can see all of your head. Wash your hair and allow it to dry naturally, falling the way it normally does.

Cut against the grain – so, if your hair falls forward, cut backward. If this is your first time, start on a longer length.

If your hair is very thin on top, cut this one clipper level shorter than the back and sides to drill down wispy hairs that are harder for the clippers to grab. Shorter hair looks better when it’s sharper around the edges, so if you’re using a No. 3, use a No. 2 around the hairline.

Once you know this is the look for you, do it regularly. This will keep it sharp – and will also help you emotionally by confirming that this is a style choice, not merely a necessity.

Perfecting the Wet Shave

Novice shavers should start by clipping the hair down into stubble. Aim for around 3-5mm in length. Wash your hair/head and use a clean blade. Rinse well.

Lather up shaving cream, foam or soap and massage into the skin. Shave with the grain; most hair grows forward on top towards the forehead, so shave from the crown, sweeping forward, then down to the ears and nape.

Shave across the grain from side to side to catch bits that you’ve missed. Never go against the grain, as this can cause painful ingrowing hairs. Use your non-razor hand to stretch the skin, creating a smoother plane.

Finally, with a thorough rinse, remove all residue, preferably with cold water to shock the skin into retracting and closing the pores, and then moisturise.

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For many, losing hair is simply a part of the journey of ageing.

According to Dr David Fenton, a consultant dermatologist, “The hair follicles on the top, front and crown of the scalp are sensitive to circulating androgens. Their presence, in normal levels, can, in some people, be enough for those follicles to shrink and for the hairs to become finer and shorter, with more space in between. You don’t need any excess of the hormone, and you either inherit the tendency or you don’t.”

While brands’ websites are naturally keen to showcase their success stories, these treatments don’t work for everyone. “In 30-40 per cent of people, minoxidil lotion doesn’t work; in 20 per cent who take finasteride, it doesn’t work,” says Dr Fenton. “Finasteride is more efficient. It can put the brakes on, so you still thin, just more slowly, or halt the progression completely, or even reverse it to some degree. But you’ve got to maintain the treatments. If you stop the therapy, you start to lose the efficacy.”

Unwelcome Effects

that it’s feasible to be tough, successful and bald: consider alphas such as Jason Statham, the Rock, Samuel L Jackson, Bruce Willis and Terry Crews. Nor should baldness be any barrier to being seen as cool (see: Common and Kelly Slater) or smart (Jeff Bezos and Phillip Adams).

Make what you will of the fact that two of the world’s spiritual leaders, Pope Francis and the Dalai Lama, both rock a clean cranium.

Monks of many faiths shave their heads, suggesting that God approves of the look.

And to get even more historical, recall that it was a bald man – the Greek thinker Socrates – who almost single-handedly founded Western philosophy.

All of which begs a question: when the pantheon of bald heroes encompasses the tough, the cool, the clever and the holy, why are so many men still so reluctant to accept hair loss as a natural, normal occurrence?

Part of the blame might lie with the sudden proliferation of companies purporting to fix the issue. Google “hair loss” and your social feeds will soon fill up with adverts from male wellbeing brands, led by multimilliondollar US-based brand Hims, which, along with counterparts Keeps and Mosh, offers 86

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treatment packages centring on the two greatest masculine insecurities: hair loss and erectile dysfunction.

The presentational rubric of these brands is broadly identical: minimalist websites with cool, contemporary fonts and an approachable, hey-guys-let’s-talk-aboutself-care tone – with services combining subscription offers, digital support and nice-to-haves such as blood testing and supplementation. However, the hair-loss treatments on offer tend to boil down to two drugs: finasteride and minoxidil, which have long been marketed as Propecia, a tablet, and Regaine, a lotion.

These treatments have been proven to arrest hair loss and increase regrowth, but are not without flaws. Finasteride was originally developed to treat prostate enlargement, and hair growth was noticed as a side effect. It functions by reducing the action of dihydrotestosterone (DHT), a sub-product of testosterone, which causes hair follicles to shrink. Minoxidil was developed as a treatment for high blood pressure but was also discovered to make hair follicles wider and deeper. Both have been available as generic medicines for some time.

There are also possible side effects to finasteride. “Some people get reduced libido, erectile dysfunction, breast sensitivity and – rarely – breast cancer,” says Dr Fenton.

With this in mind, he cautions against online purchases: “I would always encourage people to go to their own GP to get the right advice and the official product.”

There is an irony in the fact that these seemingly new treatments have been available for some years, without the slick packaging and clever marketing, and a further irony in that many brands combine finasteride with treatments for one of its potential side effects: erectile dysfunction.

But problems caused by those side effects are very real. The last few years have seen a number of men come forward to report concerning testimonies on issues occurring both during and after finasteride treatments, and there is a growing momentum to have post-finasteride syndrome classified as an illness.

The Post-Finasteride Research Association in Berlin was founded by Simon Breidert, a 36-year-old physician who had been using it for two years when he noticed dry skin and insomnia. He stopped, only for more symptoms to appear.

“I tried to withdraw and that’s when things got crazy,” he says. “The insomnia got worse.

I was sleeping one hour a night for six weeks, then not sleeping at all. I felt brain-fogged and had to stop driving as it was dangerous.

I had gastrointestinal problems, and my sex

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life got really bad. I couldn’t hold an erection on Viagra. I didn’t enjoy sex. I always liked proximity, closeness and cuddling, and that was gone. I didn’t feel anything or miss anyone.”

Over time, his brain fog lifted and his sleep improved. “I can work, think and be productive,” says Breidert. “But my quality of life is lower.”

According to him, he isn’t alone in his experiences.

“PFS affects maybe one in 1000 men,” he estimates.

“But when millions of men are taking finasteride, it amounts to a lot of people.”

Breidert campaigns to raise awareness of PFS, with the ultimate aim of having it classified as an illness.

His concerns are shared by Dr Fenton. “If someone has a background of depression and anxiety, maybe they shouldn’t be taking this drug,” he says.

often play on insecurities to shift units, and in a Bald Café vlog entitled “Are Balding Men Being Shamed to Sell Hair Products?” he deconstructs the language and content of their communications.

“Guys feel like, ‘If I’m not using that stuff then I’m choosing to lose my hair’,” he says.

“You’re self-conscious and desperate, and you’ve got companies bombarding you with things like: ‘I can sort this out for you!’ But if you start using this stuff, you have to use it forever. They present it as a holy grail, but that’s not the reality.”

There is a strong case to argue that balding isn’t so much a physiological problem as a psychological one, bound up within the nexus of masculine insecurities relating to appearance, strength, youth and vitality. The male ego can be a fragile thing, and balding impinges savagely on confidence, perhaps the most prized masculine quality of all. But confidence can be rebuilt through exposure to experiences that provoke fear: in cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) “flooding” is the term used

“If I opened up about it, I’d be showing that I was weak”

Bald Decisions

James has his own views on the way that anti-hair loss drugs are marketed. Brands

STAY COOL-HEADED

There’s no “wrong way” to go bald, but an arsenal of smart tools and helpful unguents can make the transition smoother.

Here are some of Harry James’ must-haves

For a closer shave Remington Ultimate Head Shaver RX5

For a razor cut The Leaf Razor

For your aftercare

Bee Bald Clean Head

For shineproof moisture

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for confronting that which terrifies us, from spiders to heights and – yep – baldness, in a bid to overcome our fear. This is exactly what James, Bakht and others on the channel have done.

Pushing through fear to build unshakable confidence is difficult at any stage in life, but particularly so when you’re a teenager, already burdened by the insecurities that come with that territory.

Ben Spowart, now 22, used to coiffure his hair into a Justin Bieber-style sweep, and turn up to work half an hour early to make sure it stayed in place. He was 15 when he noticed his hairline was receding; by 18, the anxiety of his encroaching baldness was exacting a heavy toll on his mental health.

“My biggest fear was the wind,” he says, “because I couldn’t control the fact that my fringe would move while I’m out and this would draw people’s attention to my receding hairline.” Playing football, his mind was on his hair, not the game. The pressure he put on himself to hide his hair loss was, he says “exhausting”. But he kept quiet. “It would be the end of the world if I opened up about it, because I’d be showing that I was weak.”

On what he now calls Judgement Day, Spowart went for a run without a hat for the first time. After that, things changed. “I shaved my head in January,” he says.

“It’s down to a buzzcut. It’s a style I’m feeling confident about. I wish I had focused on my mental health and happiness sooner rather than wasting my energy on the opinion of others.”

The way James sees it, braving the shave is a way of owning what you don’t have control over. “It’s happening to you. You didn’t ask for it,” he reflects. “I had an image of how ugly I was going to look. You don’t think, ‘Will anyone find me attractive?’ You think, ‘No one is going to find me attractive’. But if you feel you look good, then you look good.”

To prove the point even more audaciously, James recently grew out his balding hair, facing yet another fear, arriving at a tufty look that might remind you of Larry David.

“I thought, ‘I have to be fully at ease’, and to do that I need to be in that position I was afraid of – looking like a guy who is losing his hair,” James recalls. “It took a couple of attempts. I got to two weeks and it felt untidy. I grew it out again and gave myself an actual haircut, a bit of a fade, and there it was. No one was bothered, and that gave me that final piece of closure. I just felt comfortable.”

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An event that might have turned Molchanov’s life upside down inspired him instead to venture ever deeper.

At 34,

ALEXEY MOLCHANOV

has broken nearly every freediving record there is. But after an unimaginable loss, he’s turned risktaking into its own kind of recovery BY PHOTOGR APHY BY

SA MI EMORY

RUSSIA N FREEDIVING FEDER ATION

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N A CLEAR MORNING in September 2019, a Russian diver bobs gently on the sparkling blue surface of the Mediterranean next to a support raft a couple of kilometres off the shore of the French Riviera. At 182cm and nearly 86kg Alexey “the Machine” Molchanov is sheathed in a golden wetsuit, his feet snug in a sleek black monofin. He looks far larger than the lean safety divers who surround him in the water, waiting for the world’s reigning freediving champion to begin his descent.

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Alexey wraps his fingers carefully around a dive line descending from the floating platform beside him. Inhaling and exhaling slowly, he prepares for the single breath he will hold for the nearly four minutes he plans to spend underwater. His target: a metal ring lined with white tags, suspended at the seemingly impossible-to-reach depth of 130 metres. Round trip, that’s a journey roughly equivalent to two and a half soccer fields. His goal is to grab a tag and then swim back to the surface before his lungs expire or his muscles give out – or both.

“Three minutes,” a judge shouts from the raft. With that, the countdown to Alexey’s gold-medal attempt in freediving’s premier open-water competition, the AIDA Depth World Championship, begins. Competitive freedivers – those compelled to dive as deep, or as far, as possible on a single breath – have several ways to distinguish themselves: with or without fins, the assistance of the dive line, or weights, or even hitched to a heavy sled.

Today’s event, known as constant weight, is Alexey’s specialty, and while most divers wear a weight belt to aid their descent, he relies solely on the weight of his monofin and his powerful mermaid-style kick.

As the time ticks down, Alexey slips on his noseclip, which has been hanging crosslike around his neck, and adjusts its tiny metal arms over each nostril. With a minute to go, he begins packing – a breathing technique that looks like the desperate cheek flapping of a fish out of water – filling his lungs in spaces most of us will never put to use.

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earlier, in another discipline, involving diving to more than 90 metres with no fins at all, Alexey blacked out briefly as he surfaced and was struck by a hypoxic fit, or loss of muscle control, known in the sport as “samba”.

The mishap didn’t discourage him from continuing. One of his favourite sayings is that these extreme competitions are “just a game for adults” – as though willfully ignoring the potential for disaster. Over the past decade, Alexey has kept that mindset while continually raising the peak of human performance. (Before fellow divers called him “the Machine”, he was known affectionately as “the Golden Retriever”.)

At age 34, he’s now ranked at the top of most of freediving’s open-water disciplines.

Among active athletes, he’s set more world records and won more championships than any other diver, yet he still heads out every year to compete – if only against himself. At a competition in the Bahamas in 2018, he pushed the world record in constant weight (held by none other than – you guessed it – Alexey Molchanov) from 129 metres to 130.

The depth goal today is the same, but the water is much colder than in the Bahamas, making this a more demanding dive.

When the judge gives the signal, Alexey waits 10 seconds and then dips his body, hovering on the surface for a moment before flipping headfirst into a duck dive, his monofin hitting the water behind him with a single delicate slap. The dive may test his physical limits, but he’s chasing something beyond records. By continuing to venture as deep as possible, he’s able to explore more of this majestic, otherworldly realm. For most of his life, figuring out how such submersions affected people was a family quest. Until it led to a loss he never expected, one that has only driven him to go deeper.

HIDDEN DEPTHS Alexey’s parents loved the water before they loved each other. Both children of the cold war, Natalia and Oleg met as teens during a swimming meet. Later, after they were married, they moved to Volgograd, along the Volga River in southwest Russia, to start a family.

Before the age of five, Alexey set a national record in his age group with his performance in the 500-metre backstroke. Soon he was a champion in freestyle and butterfly, too. On vacations to the Black Sea, he donned archaic diving gear that towered over his frame and began to explore the deep.

As Alexey neared high school, his parents separated, but his mother made sure his training continued uninterrupted. He was accepted into the Raduga Swimming Sports School of Olympic Reserve, a specialised school for Russians with gold-medal dreams.

Then, in 2002, Natalia told Alexey about a new sport she had discovered that combined their shared interests and skills: swimming, competition, the sea. It was called freediving.

In 2004, Alexey entered his first freediving competition and won, setting the Russian national record in a back-andforth pool discipline known as “dynamic” at 158 metres. That same year, he travelled to Cyprus to watch Natalia in an open-water competition. There he ventured 30 metres down through the royal-blue water to examine the Zenobia, a famous wreck with propeller blades longer than a man, entirely on one breath. “I was following her, and she took me in this exciting world, which looked like a dream,” he says.

Holding one’s breath to dive deep into the sea is something that humans have been doing for thousands of years. The story of freediving as a competitive sport, however,

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Molchanov in his signature wetsuit at the 2017 AIDA Freediving World Championships in Roatán, Honduras.

starts in 1949, when Hungarian-born Italian air force captain Raimondo Bucher dove some 30 metres to reach the seabed off the coast of Naples to win a bet against fellow diver Ennio Falco. Bucher astounded those who had been convinced that the water’s pressure would crush him to death.

By the time AIDA – the International Association for the Development of Apnea – was founded in the early ’90s in southern France, pioneers such as America’s Bob Croft, Italy’s Enzo Majorca, and France’s Jacques Mayol had pushed depth records to more than 100 metres. The sport even got the Hollywood treatment with Luc Besson’s The Big Blue in 1988.

These early freedivers also served as guinea pigs in the still-developing study of underwater human physiology. Researchers found, for instance, that Croft’s body adapted to conserve more oxygen underwater and that Mayol’s heartbeat decreased from 60 beats per minute to 27 during his dives, a phenomenon discovered previously in Tibetan monks in meditation.

Studies like these ultimately fuelled our

understanding of the mammalian dive reflex in humans. This physiological reaction, which occurs in all aquatic mammals, is triggered by immersion in water – particularly of one’s face – and apnea, holding one’s breath. The reflex allows divers’ bodies to adapt to extreme depths, if they can learn to harness it.

TAKING THE PLUNGE For the first 20 metres below the surface of the Mediterranean, Alexey works hard. He fights against his body’s buoyancy with a steady pulse of dolphin kicks. His arms are extended and snug against his ears in streamline.

Eyes closed, he wears no goggles, entering the depths blind to his surroundings. At 20 metres, he floats his arms down to his sides as, under the sea’s pressure, his lungs are compressed to a third of their surface volume.

Now negatively buoyant, he enters the opening stages of free fall and starts to sink.

The fight, for the moment, is over.

Alexey is moving at roughly one metre per second. He need only give himself a slight boost, a kick every ten metres – which he

does with an uncanny accuracy, on autopilot – to maintain his speed. This is Alexey at his most beautiful: smooth, fluid, at peace.

Mid-metamorphosis, he glides as his body mutates, his stomach hollowing as the air in his lungs divides into still-smaller fractions.

Clipped securely to the dive line by a cord attached to his wetsuit, he focuses not on navigation but rather on diligence. The main task: the transfer of air between his mouth and his sinuses to equalise the pressure in his body’s cavities in the hope of avoiding a squeeze, a pressure injury to the lungs, ears or sinuses. As he does so, he holds his mind in a rigid yet gentle state of extreme calm, keeping at bay the syrupy embrace of nitrogen narcosis, an effect of nitrogen saturation that can cause panic or giddiness or both, depending on the dive and the day. The rapture of the great depths, Jacques Cousteau called it – or, in scuba talk, getting narc’d.

Within just a year of discovering freediving, Natalia Molchanova had become a self-taught expert, with several national and a few world records to her name. And Alexey was on her heels.

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Over the next decade, the Molchanovs rose quickly through the ranks of competitive freedivers, trading national records for world records, world records for new world records. By 2005, Natalia was living in Moscow, leading the Russian Freediving Federation and running a freediving program at a university. Alexey had moved there, too, in pursuit of a software-engineering degree. With a training course that Natalia developed, they would certify more than 100 freediving instructors.

Natalia also dedicated herself to researching the potential effects and benefits of the sport. “She would give a lot of love, always,” Alexey says. “She was always taking time to talk to people, to explain, to help with advice, about anything.”

In 2009, off Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt, in the Red Sea, Natalia became the first woman to pass 100 metres, diving to 101 in constant weight. Three years later, on her 50th birthday, she broke the world record for a no-fins dive by going to 66 metres. The next year, she smashed a half dozen more world records. “Many people, when they reach 50, they think life is over,” she told the writer Adam Skolnick for his book One Breath: Freediving, Death, and the Quest to Shatter Human Limits. “I want to show them, there is more they can do.”

Deep dives always involve risk. But while dozens of freedivers, including spear fishermen and recreational divers, die each

year, among competitive freedivers fatalities are rare. The tragic 2013 death of Nick Mevoli, the subject of One Breath, remains the sport’s only fatality in official competition.

Close calls, however, are more common.

Yet Natalia and Alexey grew comfortable with the trade-off. The same year that Mevoli died, Alexey went to Greece for a then-world-record attempt of 128 metres in constant weight.

He’d recently had a cold – a punch to the sinuses – but he was feeling confident and strong. On the way up, though, at a depth of 110 metres, he was struck by a reverse block, an injury to the middle ear that scrambles a diver’s spatial awareness, and became disoriented.

At 30 metres, he passed out, and a safety diver, the accomplished Irish freediver Stephen Keenan, had to drag him to the surface. Such deep-water blackouts can be catastrophic, but Alexey escaped the whole ordeal with no more than a severely squeezed lung, which left him coughing up blood. In One Breath, Keenan recounted how, afterwards, Alexey thanked him but downplayed the accident, as if he were “in total denial”. Six days later, Alexey got back in the water and set his world record. “It just shows his resilience and determination,” said Keenan, “and the psychology of the strongest freediver.”

On August 2, 2015, just one month before the annual AIDA Depth World Championship, Natalia was in the water

off Formentera, an island near Ibiza, giving a private dive lesson to two students. During the lesson, the students watched as she disappeared below the surface in a dive later estimated to have been a little more than 30 metres in depth. It should have been routine for the Russian champion – at 53, she was now the most decorated athlete in freediving history, with 41 world records and 23 worldchampionship titles. They waited for her to resurface. And waited. They saw no signs of her ascent, and an underwater search was launched. Natalia never resurfaced.

When Alexey received the call, he flew to Ibiza and heard the report from the search party out on the water. But he knew there was little hope: going missing at sea is almost always a death sentence. There would never be an official statement, the final word on what happened to Natalia – many speculated it was a powerful current or an injury – but Alexey felt one sickening certainty. “If I had been there,” he said years after his mother’s disappearance, on a podcast called The Freedive Café, “most likely nothing would have happened.”

THE DEEP END At 129 metres, Alexey feels for the marker that will indicate he’s reached his depth.

Below this is the metal ring with its white tags, gently waving in the water like a ghostly mobile. He grabs one and turns skyward.

Unlike the journey down, a task that eases with depth, climbing out of this highpressure zone is extremely demanding, as divers fight against their negative buoyancy with bodies shot through with lactic acid and carbon dioxide.

Rather than think about whether he’ll make it or not, he trusts his body’s muscle memory to pick up the slack. As he once put it: “You need to be just performing. You need to clear your mind and you need to focus on the things you know how to do.” As he rises, Alexey switches back to manual, oscillating his body and fin in varying rhythms, as if responding to the water’s every stimulus.

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When the search for his mother was called off, Alexey flew to Egypt, to the waters of the Red Sea, his and Natalia’s preferred practice ground. Instead of paying his respects to those waters and hanging up his fins, letting sadness or fear derail his career, he was driven to do the opposite. He began to train with teammates from the Russian national team. A month later, he went forward with his plan to compete in the championship.

He came home with two gold medals. In

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2018, in addition to breaking his own world record in constant weight, Alexey set the world record in a different discipline, called free immersion, and early in 2019 he set it in yet another, bifins. In 2020, he pushed the bifins depth still further and earned a Guinness World Record for longest recorded dive under ice – nearly 183 metres. In March, he donned his monofin and an extra-thick wetsuit to plunge below the frozen crust of Russia’s Lake Baikal, setting another record, for the deepest dive below ice. And he plans to best himself once again at the AIDA world championship this month.

Before his mother’s disappearance, Alexey had been a fierce competitor and a promising young diver; after, he became the world’s best. He’s become something else, too: a kind of millennial evangelist for his sport. On Instagram, where he has more than 117,000 followers, his posts demystify and destigmatise freediving through stunning underwater vistas, free advice and quippy captions. (“Work life balance,” he wrote under a photo of himself in scrubs, cradling both his newborn son and his mobile phone.)

As he shares his mother’s philosophy on diving, he is also developing his own. “You can have a very unique experience underwater, like that you are very small, that the ocean around is very big,” he says. “And it allows you to rethink your scale, how small you are in this universe.”

As anxiety-provoking as the sport may seem to the uninitiated, freediving, when paired with mindfulness practices, can reduce anxiety and aid with depression and trauma. This kind of work has helped Alexey understand why he still felt so inexorably pulled to the water after his mother vanished.

Put simply, it was – between the sensory deprivation, the elemental immersion and the simultaneous control and surrender – an escape. His own form of therapy and his way to process the loss. “Intellectually,” he says, “I was realising what I need to do, what I have to do, to continue her legacy.”

After Natalia disappeared, Alexey continued running one side of Molchanovs, the freediving business they had started together. In 2018, he and two other big names in the sport, Adam Stern and Chris Kim, who cofounded Molchanovs, decided to relaunch Natalia’s training protocols as the Molchanovs Freediving Education System.

Its tiered courses, available in English, are similar to other established freediving programs: you start at the basics and work up to longer breath holds and deeper depths.

You can get certified to teach, and so far, more than 500 instructors have been minted.

Left: Molchanov after another win. Below: his mother, Natalia Molchanova, winning at the first women’s world championship, in 2005.

Opposite page: Molchanov atop the podium in Turkey, in 2018, after winning one of his 14 world championship titles.

“You can have a very unique experience underwater. It allows you to rethink your scale. How small you are” With training, competitions, his business ventures and a growing family, Alexey shares the same stresses as any top athlete. But in the time I spent with him, he’d stop to play tricks on his fellow competitors, splash around in the shallows or enjoy copious oysters. “He doesn’t reach high levels of performance by being this hyperintense person,” Kim says. “He reaches it by being a hyperfocused person, who is also very relaxed.”

Stern chalks this up to Alexey’s ability to keep the intensity of competitions separate from the rest. “I had been told that he was just a machine of a person, and as a diver, he is,” he says. “But as a person, he’s a big cuddly teddy bear.”

BACK ON TOP Twenty metres from the surface, the buoyancy catches Alexey, and his legs calm.

It’s just one, two kicks and then his arm is up, on the line, above water. He completes the necessary surface protocol to prove his body and brain are functioning correctly: the removal of his clip, an “okay” sign with his hand, and then, between deep,

rattling breaths, the verbal “I’m okay.”

Once he dislodges the white tag from his hood, several officials floating in the water grin to one another before flashing the white card. Alexey’s protocol has been approved; his dive is valid. The crowd on the raft erupts in applause. He’s matched his record; the gold medal is his.

By mid-afternoon, he’s back on shore, sitting in the competition’s open-air cafeteria, shoulders slightly hunched. Everyone has been talking, all day, about his dive. Now, in this rare moment of free time, he wants to see what all the fuss is about. So with the day’s livestream queued, his iPhone propped against his water bottle, he watches.

When the dive is done, he presses pause.

Smiling, he says it’s strange to see the difference between what one thinks one looks like in one’s head when one dives and what one actually looks like.

“What do you look like in your head?” I ask.

“Better,” he says with a laugh.

When surface life fades away, anything seems within reach.

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Foods For Men In The World Right Now Nutrition should be a science, but it often feels more like a popularity contest, with scores of fitness gurus and food start-ups competing to convince you of the latest cure-all. So, how to tell the superfoods from the superfads? If you’re hungry for the facts, browse our definitive list of the ingredients worth piling high and those you can leave off your plate BY

TROY DA COS TA PHOTOGR APHY BY SUN LEE

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25 Certified Health Enhancers

These underrated eats may not come with celebrity endorsements or inflated price tags – but at a time when fortifying your health and fitness feels

Currently enjoying a resurgence with the rising popularity of Middle Eastern food, this versatile sesame seed spread is packed with vitamin E, an antioxidant linked to anti-ageing – both of the aesthetic and holistic varieties. “Sesame seeds are also higher in protein than most other nuts or seeds,” says nutritionist Anne Anyia.

2 Seitan To coeliacs, its name is apt: seitan is made from gluten, the protein found in wheat. But for others, it’s a satisfying meat substitute that packs as much protein as lean meat and is a good source of the amino acids needed for building muscle.

Popular in fried chicken restaurants for its meaty texture, it’s cheap to make at home, now that you’ve conquered sourdough.

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Wood Pigeon Not only is pigeon more ethical than chicken, it’s also leaner and more muscular (largely because the birds actually have a chance to fly). Chef Andy Waugh of Mac & Wild describes it as “the gateway meat for people who think they don’t like game”.

It’s rich in minerals such as copper, which supports weight loss.

Pickles 4 Dill By which we mean preserved cucumbers, usually flavoured with dill and spices.

But not all are created equal.

Look for lacto-fermented varieties, not “dead” vinegar pickles, which are the sterilised kind. Or make your own. “They’re easier to digest and contain lots of vitamins, minerals and antioxidants,” says Anyia.

“Fermented foods boost immunity, too.” Try in tuna salads or ham and cheese toasties.

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5

Dry Cider

The antioxidant count in cider is comparable to the more celebrated red wine, according to the Institute of Food Research – and the nutrients are more rapidly absorbed into the bloodstream than those in fruit. Opt for natural ciders with a higher percentage of fruit, fewer added sugars, a longer fermentation time and a more interesting flavour. We’ll spare you the “apple a day” jokes.

6 Sprouts Much like dogs, sprouts are not just for Christmas – they’re for (longer) life. Cruciferous vegetables such as sprouts, cauliflower and kale contain glucosinolates, compounds with a healthy, anti-cancer effect. Italian researchers recently found that sprouts stimulate the development of stem cells in your muscles, helping them to repair and grow. Sauté or roast rather than boiling to preserve more nutrients.

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Kale Pesto

Kale reached cultural saturation point in 2015 (“Kale Yeah!” T-shirts?), but its popularity isn’t all hype – it’s rich in vitamins A, C and K. But let’s face it: it tastes awful in salads. Buy it in pesto form, however, and not only will the added fats boost your absorption of vitamin K, but you might enjoy eating it, too.

8 Wakame The green stuff in your miso soup is swimming in nutrients such as hesperetin and fucoxanthin (we won’t quiz you later). Rodent studies at the Korea Food Research Institute found it improved running distance by 15 per cent, as well as boosting muscle function.

9 Ackee Jamaica’s national fruit is very unfruit-like, with barely any carbs, a pinch of protein and plenty of healthy fats – a similar nutritional profile to the avocado. A study by the West Indian Medical Journal found it rich in oleic acid, linked to healthy weight loss.

“It’s a powerhouse food,” says Adnan Chowdhury, a health researcher at the University of East London.

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Potatoes

As well as potassium, spuds are a good source of antioxidants, says Anyia.

“Reheat it the day after baking. This increases its levels of resistant starch, which gets broken down into short-chain fatty acids and provides fuel for good bacteria.” Prefer chips to jackets? Cut into wedges, boil for 5-10 minutes, then throw them in an air fryer with a spritz of olive oil, a pinch of sea salt and a sprinkling of fellow superfood rosemary.

Bloody Marys

The preferred drink for short-haul flights and long-haul brunches, a Bloody Mary is good for more than just easing hangovers. Researchers at China Medical University in Taiwan linked tomato juice to a reduction in body fat, while a study published in Food Science & Nutrition linked it to lower blood pressure and LDL cholesterol. Vodka isn’t exactly conducive to these health benefits. But you were going to have some, anyway…

12 Nutritional Yeast Where do vegans get their vitamin B12? Nutritional yeast has a nutty, umami taste, which has made it popular among those craving a cheese-like flavour without the dairy. As well as B12, it’s also full of other vitamins generally found in animal products.

Do: sprinkle it liberally on your meals when you’re in need of an energy boost.

Don’t: refer to it as “nooch”.

13 Seacuterie Seacuterie was tipped as the food trend for 2020 – before the coronavirus wave washed that idea away. As you may have guessed, the name is a play on “charcuterie”, and means turning fish into sausages, salami and other cured goodies. What you’re left with is a concentrated source of high-quality proteins and micronutrients, with more omega-3 than any of your usual bangers.

Nuts 14 Tiger When is a nut not a nut? When it’s a nut-like tuber with a flavour like almonds but a lower kilojoule count. Tiger nuts are popular in Spain, where they’re referred to as chufa and used to make horchata, a sweet plant-milk drink.

You can also roast them and eat them like, well, nuts, and they’re rich in insoluble fibre, which benefits gut health and curbs blood sugar spikes.

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Artichoke 19 Jerusalem This root vegetable is neither from Jerusalem (it’s derived from the Italian word for sunflower, “girasole”), nor is it an artichoke; but don’t let that be cause for mistrust.

Roasted, sautéed or puréed into a creamy soup, it has a nutty, sweet taste. It’s also a top source of inulin, a type of fibre that the bacteria in your digestive system feed on, creating a healthier microbiome that is linked with reduced anxiety and swifter fat loss. Praise be.

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Mussels

A rich source of low-kJ protein, mussels have been shown to reduce joint inflammation, says Chowdhury. They’re also dripping with manganese and selenium for immunity, brain function and a healthy metabolism. Mussels are also relatively eco-neutral to farm – reassuring, given that seafood farming is one of the world’s fastestgrowing food production industries and increasingly unsustainable. Steam, bake in foil, or flour, fry and turn into “popcorn”.

Shots 17 Ginger A rare juicing trend

Protein 16 Pea A common addition to post-gym powders, pea protein is thought to “increase muscle strength more efficiently than whey”, according to Chowdhury.

“Plus, combining pea protein with vitamin C can help to reduce post-training inflammation.” Not a fan of dairy-free blends? Then try peas solo. A cupful contains 8.6g of protein, along with almost 40 per cent of your vit C needs and around 9g of fibre.

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worth swallowing, ginger shots have been taking root everywhere from Whole Foods to Woolies. But unlike wheatgrass et al, it seems to be the real deal.

A study at Tehran University of Medical Sciences found that 2g of ginger per day reduced blood sugar by 12 per cent in those with type 2 diabetes, a condition now affecting one in 10 people over 40. The bioactive component gingerol is known for its antiviral properties, too. Hot stuff.

Beans 18 Black “Studies have linked black beans with protection against heart disease, diabetes and weight gain,” says Anyia. They provide 9g of plant protein per serving, as well as anti-inflammatory phytonutrients and plenty of resistant starch, which offsets the digestive impact of a meat-heavy diet – so you can have your steak and eat it. Throw them in tacos or blend with lime, coriander, garlic and chilli and serve with tortilla chips.

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Pork Liver

We should all be eating more offal. Not only is going the whole hog good for minimising waste, but some of the most nutrient-dense parts of the animal are those we tend to overlook. A typical serving of pork liver contains well over your RDI of vitamin A, riboflavin and iron, plus plenty of niacin, zinc, selenium and even vitamin C. It’s essentially a multivitamin. “A study in 2017 indicated that pork liver proteins have antioxidant properties,” says Pinho. Dust with flour, season and sear.

Cottage Cheese

The 1980s diet food may not be as hip as it once was, but with the rise of trendy probiotic foods – kefir, skyr, quark – it’s worth revisiting the older, cheaper classic. Cottage cheese is low in fat (0-5 per cent) and rich in protein, with up to 10g per 100g. In particular, it’s high in casein, says Chowdhury, which digests slowly to drip-feed your muscles and thwart hunger.

Let’s leave the cabbage soup diet back in the ’80s, though.

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That beetroot is good for endurance is well known.

Tour de France athletes swear by it, due to its stamina-boosting nitrates.

But it’s also rich in glutamine, the most abundant amino acid in muscle tissue, and it’s beneficial for heart health and blood pressure management, too. Spare yourself the stained lips and roast some golden beets in salt, pepper and rosemary.

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23

Jellied Eels

This snack was once synonymous with London’s East End seafood stalls.

While it sounds disgusting, it tastes great and there are plenty of nutritional reasons to partake in this pureed protein: the jelly is rich in collagen, which supports joint health and helps skin to look younger and firmer, while eels are swimming in omega-3 fatty acids and B vitamins.

Golden Beetroot

Biltong

Don’t confuse South Africa’s signature meat snack with American beef jerky. It’s cured and air-dried, rather than cooked or smoked, and tends to contain less sugar and more tasty fats. “A 25g bag contains about 13g of protein, making it an ideal snack after a workout for maintaining muscle mass,” says Chowdhury. Beef is traditional, but antelope and ostrich are also common.

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25 Wellness Imposters

Don’t believe the hype: not all “superfoods” deliver on their promises. From oversold benefits to underwhelming ingredients, these are worth striking from your shopping list. Spend your money – and your appetite – on something better

1

“Breakfast” Biscuits

Don’t let their name fool you into thinking that these are complete and balanced meals. These are just regular biscuits with a rising sun or crowing rooster on the packaging, and low in protein. If you must eat on the move, Chowdhury recommends plant-based protein bars instead.

4

Liquorice

Now common in health food shops, liquorice is claimed to have ‘allsorts’ of benefits. But be wary of your dosage. When eaten every day, its glycyrrhizic acid can cause a reduction in potassium levels, says Anyia, leading to high blood pressure, already a problem for many Aussie men.

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Turkey Bacon

In conversations about the risks of processed meat, bacon hogs the blame.

Hence the popularity of the lean turkey variety.

But its lack of fat is often compensated for with glucose syrup. As a result, it can actually contain more kilojoules than pork.

It’s also lower in selenium. “I wouldn’t advise eating it more than once a week,” says Chowdhury.

Essential Oils

If you’re thinking, “That’s not a food”, you’re right – tell that to the internet wellness quacks who’ve been mixing them with water and knocking them back. The aromatherapystyle peppermint or citrus oils, which do not conform to food safety standards, put you at risk of poisoning, rashes and stomach upsets.

5

2

3

Raw Spinach

There’s a reason Popeye ate it tinned.

Spinach is a source of oxalic acid, which binds to minerals such as calcium, meaning less of the goodness in your veg is absorbed. Cooking reduces levels of this compound, as well as making its betacarotene up to three times as easy to absorb. It tastes ‘nothingy’ in salads. Lightly sauté instead.

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6

Cauli Steak

Ignore the marketing.

Cauliflower is not a steak, it’s a side dish. Though high in micros, it’s low in protein: a 300g serving has only 11g, compared to 50g in a 225g steak. Roasted cauli makes a tasty addition to meals, but its macro count won’t do the heavy lifting alone.

7

Ube

8

Vegan Cheese

Also known as purple yam, its bright hue has made it a breakout flavour for vegan ice cream, cupcakes and bubble tea. But, aesthetically pleasing though it may be, it won’t make hipster junk food any healthier.

Anything labelled “vegan” or “plant-based” sounds virtuous, but many of these products are made with coconut oil and modified starch. “That makes them high in saturated fats,” says Chowdhury. Cashew cream cheese, made by blending nuts with seasoning and yeast, is a natural alternative.

Salad Pots

That our grab-and-go lunch culture is fostering bad habits won’t come as a surprise. But even the seemingly healthy options can fall short. Strip away the low-nutrient iceberg lettuce and tokenistic carrot shavings and what you’re left with is a single-use tub full of croutons and dressing.

Bread 10 Charcoal From charcoal brioche to charcoal sourdough, this is a trend that refuses to burn out. But while it might look good on Instagram, charcoal has no proven nutritional benefits when used as a colouring, despite detoxification claims. “It’s a marketing thing,” says Pinho. The Italian ministry of health has even tried to stop it being marketed as “bread”.

11

Brown Rice Milk

This healthy-sounding, hypoallergenic plant milk is gluten-, soya- and nutfree. But it’s also absent of anything useful. A glass has 12g of sugar and barely a drop of protein – even unsweetened varieties.

Soya is still king for protein, but pea deserves props.

NUT RI TI ON

Bread 12 Banana The lockdown staple is good for long days on the trails, but less so when you’re shut indoors.

Over-ripe bananas contain more simple sugars and less gut-healthy starch than greener ones. It’s a cake, not a loaf. “It’ll spike your blood glucose and insulin levels,” says Anyia.

Salt 13 Himalayan That a viral tweet about licking Himalayan salt lamps got more than 74,000 likes last year is all you need to know. Now, there’s a trend for drinking “sole water”, saturated with salt of the millennial pink or black variety. It might get you likes on Twitter but it won’t alkalise your body or flush out toxins.

Butter 14 Almond The Californian almond industry has wpied out billions of bees. That’s not the only reason to switch back to PB: though comparable in B vitamins, peanut butter contains 5g of protein per spoonful, compared to almond’s 3g.

Lentil Puffs

15 Sold as a healthier alternative to chips, gram for gram their kJ count is just 10 per cent lower.

“They’re higher in fibre,” says Anyia. “But because they’re processed, most of the nutritional benefits of lentils will be lost.”

Honey 16 Manuka It’s been touted as a cure for viral infections and allergies, and even as a detoxification agent. But while it does contain antioxidants and has some antibacterial properties, most of the claims are unsupported by science. It’s also 80 per cent sugar – and 30 times more expensive than a regular jar of honey.

Substitutes 19 Egg From gloopy aquafaba to soaked chia seeds or Just Egg’s yellow-tinted mung beans, there are many ways for vegans to sub out eggs.

There’s even Wagamama’s “fried egg”, made with coconut milk and cornflour.

But none matches the amino acids, choline and vitamin D in the genuine article.

20

17 Granola Sift out the marketing and this is what you’re left with: a breakfast cereal that’s 20 per cent sugar (compared to 17 per cent for Coco Pops). It has more fibre, but so does a PB sandwich.

We know which we’d choose.

Is watermelon good for you?

Absolutely. But this is juice, not water, and a glass packs 21g of sugar – more than half of a Coke – with zero fibre. It contains a small amount of muscle-boosting L-citrulline, but not enough to have a measurable effect.

Enjoy it as nature intended: cubed, frozen in a G and T.

21

Water 18 Lemon Drinking it upon waking supposedly primes your metabolism for the day and boosts your ability to burn fat. However, there’s zero science to support this.

Half a squeezed lemon will provide you with 18 per cent of your day’s vitamin C, a deficiency of which can hinder your body’s normal functions, but that’s still less than you’d find in a quarter of a kiwi.

Watermelon Water

CBD Gummies

Evidence for cannabidiol’s benefits regarding anxiety, pain relief and inflammation looks promising. But most of us are dosing it wrong: scientific studies tend to work with amounts of between 100-600mg. Many gummy brands offer as little as 25mg in a pack of 10 – along with plenty of glucose syrup.

22

Cranberries

23

Coconut oil

24

Supermarket Sushi Boxes

Fresh is best, but even raw cranberries offer a fairly modest amount of nutrients compared to less festive fruits such as blueberries and blackberries. Dried cranberries are sweetened and can be up to 70 per cent pure sugar, with more kJs than other dried fruits.

Claims about coconut oil’s effects on weight loss are rife, usually citing its similar composition to MCT oil.

But the two oils are distinct.

A study in Physiology and Behaviour on a variety of fats, including coconut oil, found they had no effect on hunger or satiety.

Sushi isn’t an everyday swap for your sandwich.

Eating it too often risks elevating your mercury levels, while white rice can spike blood sugar. Plus, it’s ruined by long fridge times.

Swerve the meal deals.

25

Kombucha Beer

A fizzy tipple with 10g of sugar and a similar alcohol content to a pale ale. “A recent review found little evidence of health benefits in human trials,” says nutritionist Wilson Pinho.

Why not just have a beer?

OCTOBER 2021 101

WHERE AGEING GOES TO DIE

At the Aviv Clinics, based in a retirement community in Florida, doctors see physical and cognitive decline as a problem to be solved, not a natural inevitability. But can their hi-tech treatments slow the passage of time – or, better still, reverse it?

Our writer checked in to find out BY

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TRIS TR A M KORTEN PHOTOGR APHY BY BOB CROSLIN

HE A LT H

CABIN PRESSURE: Patients at the clinic take “dives” in a hyperbaric chamber mocked up to look like a sleek plane cabin.

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therapy (HBOT), in which patients breathe pure oxygen at varying pressures in a sealed chamber, potentially inducing cell growth and expanding blood vessels in the brain.

The original research centre in Israel opened 15 years ago, and the Florida site opened in March last year. If I were entering the 12-week program, I’d meet with a physical therapist, a physiologist, a doctor and a dietitian; engage with millions of dollars’ worth of machinery and submit my DNA, which would result in a 200-page book of code and genetic indicators that the experts would parse. There would be 60 sessions in the hyperbaric chamber, as well as beforeand-after brain scans. The full program costs roughly $80,000.

But is this just another get-young-quick fad for the super-rich? Or do HBOT and a customised evaluation of your physiology offer some chance to counteract declining brain and body function and help in the fight we all fight – the one against ageing?

VILLAGE PEOPLE As well as a luxurious retirement, this community for the over-55s offers the opportunity to receive a radical, potentially brainboosting course of oxygen therapy – at a cost of around $80,000.

LONG DRIVE: The Villages features 50 golf courses . . . one way to pass the time on life’s back nine.

PHOTOGRAPHY: FACEBOOK @THEVILLAGES

T’S 5:30PM on a Tuesday, and happy hour has begun at Brownwood Paddock Square inside the Villages, a 55-plus retirement community in Florida. Grey-haired couples amble along the pavements, toting folding chairs and coolers. A band is playing “Blue Suede Shoes” in the corral. Maskless throngs in windbreakers and visors shuffle out of the restaurants and bars, scoping out good spots for the concert. Customised golf carts line the curb, glimmering in the light of the setting sun.

In the past, I would have smiled condescendingly at this scene – look at these oldsters, rocking out on their new knees!

Instead, I drink it in, pondering my own mortality. I’m 55 – officially old enough to live at the Villages – and I’m here to visit the new Aviv Clinics, which offer a compelling, potentially game-changing therapy to combat the effects of ageing.

The Villages are a location but also a concept: a place where the almost old and the actually old go to feel less old. It’s where you can act young without being young, and it’s where an estimated 132,000 people and counting are testing the hypothesis that youth is more of a mindset than a number. There are 50 golf courses and more than 3000 clubs and activities, from karate to knitting. It may seem counter-intuitive, but this city/club/social experiment may offer a glimpse of the future. Your future, perhaps.

The Western world’s population is ageing. As a result of medical breakthroughs, more of us are living longer, and the baby boomers born after the Second World War are in their senior years. It is estimated that, by 2030, more than one in five people in Australia and the US will be aged 65 or over. Naturally, this is changing how we think about growing old, challenging the idea that pensioners should rest and take things easy.

Glenn Colarossi, the head of Aviv’s business development and my host, likens the Villages to a university campus for the retired. “They like to have fun,” he observes. If the Villages are reimagining our notion of the golden years, Aviv is greasing the wheels – and the joints – of this revolution. Its goal, Colarossi tells me, is to increase a person’s “health span”, not just their lifespan.

Pioneered by Israeli physician Dr Shai Efrati, the clinic studies each client down to their DNA and constructs a personalised plan for staying physically and mentally well. Its centrepiece is hyperbaric oxygen

Regeneration Game

The Aviv lobby where I check in is a cavernous expanse of white tile and polished wood. It is celestially sleek. If the designers were going for a God’s-waiting-room vibe, they nailed it.

I’m scheduled for a sample of the three-day assessment, condensed into two days. I don’t think of myself as old. I run and take boxing classes. The other day, when I barked at my teenage daughter to get off the phone and do the dishes, she muttered, “Grumpy old man”.

We locked eyes and laughed. It was funny because it was so not true.

But I do have persistent lower-back pain, and the odds are 50-50 that I’ll have to get up in the middle of the night to go to the toilet.

Then there’s the looming shadow of declining brain function, which for someone who lost his father to Alzheimer’s is too terrifying to joke about.

My first evaluation will determine my physical and cardiopulmonary state. I meet with Ankita Shukla, a trim, sharp woman who runs me through a gauntlet of tests to measure the flexion, extension, rotation and abduction of every joint in my body, zeroing in on the limited range of motion in my neck, back, wrists, hips and (sigh) knees.

In one test, to assess my “dual-task ability”, she asks me to walk briskly to a cone while counting down from 100, subtracting each number by three. I utter only two numbers, one of which is right. She recommends a serious stretching regimen for my body, neck, hips and wrists. For posture, she offers a quick cheat: stand with my back against a wall for more than a minute at intervals throughout

HOLDING BACK THE YEARS CAN’T AFFORD A FULL-BODY SERVICE? THERE ARE SIMPLER WAYS TO STAVE OFF AGEING

FROM 40 ONWARDS 1/ GET A BLOOD GLUCOSE TEST

This is a smart thing to do, regardless of your weight. A third of people over 45 are pre-diabetic.

Pre-diabetes can be reversed through lifestyle changes, but it becomes tougher to tackle if left to develop into type 2.

2/ EAT MORE FIBRE

Weight management is of paramount importance in your fifth decade, and increasing your fibre intake will help.

Plus, it reduces your risk of developing colon cancer, which can start forming at this age.

3/ WARM UP PROPERLY

By this point, your body has had a lot of time to develop bad habits. Spend 10-15 minutes stretching tight tissues (hip flexors and pecs, if you sit often) and awakening dormant muscles, such as those in your mid-back, with resistance bands.

OCTOBER 2021 105

4/ C THE DIFFERENCE

Apply a serum that contains L-ascorbic acid (vitamin C) as part of your morning routine. It will help to soothe inflammation and reduce the damage caused by ultraviolet light and pollution.

5/ BOOST YOUR POTASSIUM

Your risk of hypertension increases every year.

Potassium balances the sodium in your diet and supports healthy blood pressure. Choose whole foods – bananas, green veg, potatoes – over supplements.

6/ STACK ON WEIGHTS

You don’t need to be deadlifting your 1RM every weekend, but scheduling a couple of strength sessions each week will help you maintain muscle mass, which is linked to a longer life expectancy.

7/ GET CHEMICAL HELP

Your ability to purge dead cells slows at this age. Try a chemical exfoliator.

It’ll brighten a dull complexion. And, yes, you’ll need to moisturise, too.

8/ MAKE IT A HABIT

A study by Brigham Young University found that training for 40 minutes five times per week can reverse cellular ageing by nine years, compared to sedentarism. A brisk lunchtime walk on weekdays will seed results.

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the day. To increase my dual tasking, she suggests I count backward – numbers, months, the alphabet – during my workouts.

Shukla hands me off to physiologist Aaron Tribby, a young and fit bodymovement specialist. Tribby straps me into the Gaitway 3D, a biomechanics treadmill that measures my gait and step pressure to check my coordination and see if I’m losing functionality. I have some foot rotation, which might be caused by tight hip flexors, rigid ankles or taut hamstrings. He gives me exercises to remedy all three.

Next, I visit Dr Roger Miller, Aviv’s charming clinical psychologist. “I’ve got the best job here, because everything is controlled by the brain,” he proclaims with a smile. “I’m going to tell you five words. I want you to repeat them to me.” I find it easy.

Then I take a battery of increasingly difficult cognitive tests: the written Montreal Cognitive Assessment (at the end of this, he asks me to recite the five words again; not so easy); the NeuroTrax, to assess functions such as memory, attention and problem-solving; the Cambridge Neuropsychological Test Automated Battery (CANTAB), which looks at processing speed, flexible thinking and spatial memory.

The results: “You showed comparative strengths in your non-verbal memory, fine motor speed and coordination, and executivefunction skills.” And in a sentence ripped right from my wife’s playbook: “There were relative weaknesses in your information-processing speed and sustained attention”.

None of the testing so far is particularly cutting edge, and the advice, while sound, is mostly stuff that I already know I should be doing. I then meet with Dr Mohammed Elamir, the lead physician at Aviv who interprets all of the data from the team, including from specialised brain scans that track blood flow in the brain and identify diminished zones, to gain a holistic view of how a patient is ageing.

Elamir gives me a basic neuroscience history lesson, which, like everything else at Aviv, traces back to its co-founder Efrati.

He tells me that he was drawn to Aviv because he came across research by Efrati that indicated that central nervous system cells in the brain could regenerate and rejuvenate. “That is not what we were taught in medical school,” he says. “This was not deemed feasible.” Now, he says, thanks to Efrati’s HBOT research, there is preliminary evidence they can.

Efrati is a professor at the Sackler School of Medicine at Tel Aviv University and the founder and director of the Sagol Center for Hyperbaric Medicine and Research at Shamir

Medical Center. He has been studying the effects of hyperbaric oxygen therapy for more than 20 years, he tells me on a Zoom call. He’s 50, with close-cropped grey hair and a warm, TED Talk-polished bedside manner. Efrati says that he developed an interest when a stroke patient with an ulcerated leg wound was put in a hyperbaric chamber – an accepted wound therapy.

After a series of treatments, he noticed the woman’s neurological disabilities were improving as well. This led him to investigate the regenerative effects of HBOT on the brain. He discovered in 2007 that, indeed, “Neurons and blood vessels in the brain can be regenerated”.

He credits this to a phenomenon called the hyperoxic-hypoxic paradox. By manipulating levels of oxygen in the chamber, you can essentially fool the body into perceiving that it’s being starved of oxygen – a state called hypoxia – without harmful side effects.

During the hyperoxic stage, oxygen floods the cells. According to Efrati, this can promote the production of stem cells, which are valuable because they can develop into almost any cell in the body. Treatment can also promote the branching of new blood vessels into areas of the brain damaged by events such as strokes.

Rebooting the Brain

Efrati started treating stroke patients with HBOT in 2007, then brain-trauma patients in 2008. Today, he works with people who want to remain physically and mentally active.

RUN ON THE MILL Korten takes the VO2 max test. The results are normal.

UNDER PRESSURE A grip test is a good way of monitoring health, particularly cardiovascular.

H EA LT H

“Conscious of every inhale, I draw the oxygen deep into my lungs” “About five years ago, we decided to move forward with targeting ageing as a disease,” he says.

His recent research results are intriguing.

Notably, a clinical trial of 35 people aged 64 and older last November indicates that HBOT can increase the length of telomeres, which decreases with age. Another of his clinical trials published last July found evidence of cognitive enhancement in adults ages 64 and older after HBOT. The specific benefits were increased cerebral blood flow, resulting in an improvement in executive function, information processing speed and attention.

However, there is scepticism in the wider medical community. Usually, small clinical studies would be followed by larger, multicentre, randomised clinical trials, says Dr James E. Galvin, a professor of neurology and the director of the Comprehensive Center for Brain Health at the University of Miami.

This hasn’t happened with HBOT yet. Galvin, who is engaged in dementia prevention and therapy research, is familiar with Efrati’s work. “I think one should be cautious about over-interpreting results from very small studies performed at single sites with very small effects,” he says. “I’m not discounting the research. There’s just not a lot of research on HBOT used on patients with various forms of dementia.” He adds that the majority of studies appear to be on just one type of dementia: vascular. “I’m cautious about rushing treatments for broad commercial use before the research shows that it’s effective.”

Though HBOT therapy is new, I see about 20 other patients during my visit, mostly couples, in their seventies and eighties. I’m

reminded of something that Elamir told me: for many patients, the motivation for treatment is the fear of becoming a burden on their partner, should cognitive decline make them less independent. One patient I meet, Dr Elliot Sussman, is the chairman of the healthcare provider Villages Health. Sussman, 69, is 45 “dives” (sessions in the hyperbaric chamber) into the program. Though the initial MRI of his brain was normal, his goal, he says, is to sharpen his cognitive function.

The most notable effect for him has been “a significantly increased need for sleep”, an additional hour or more per night. This is good, the doctors told him. It’s a sign his brain is regenerating, in the same way that babies need sleep for their growing brains. Sussman feels that the investment will pay off.

Playing the Long Game

After a night observing the Villages’ social scene, I’m up early the next morning to meet registered dietitian Kathryn Parker.

She has me stand on the Seca Medical Body Composition Analyser and grip the handles.

Within minutes, a report is compiled that assesses my water composition (good, at 58 per cent), my visceral adipose tissue (fat around my organs, which is very good, at 1.9 on a scale that goes up to five), and a host of other things, including skeletal muscle mass (at 28.5kg for my 76kg body, it’s okay; she wants it to be between 29 and 38). I’m losing muscle mass as I age, and I’ll need it to help me avoid falling down when I’m old.

She suggests I do more strength training and eat more protein, recommending snacks of yoghurt, cheese and whey shakes. It’s

MIND MATTERS A pre-emptive brain scan can identify issues early.

refreshingly straightforward nutrition advice I’m happy to adopt.

Then I’m back with physiologist Tribby for a spirometry and VO2 max stress test.

He tapes on 10 electrodes for the ECG, straps a mask over my head and puts me on a treadmill. As both speed and incline gradually increase, I’m instructed to run until I can’t go any further, whatever that means. Nine minutes later, I find out. The ensuing report shows that my lung efficiency is normal for my age and gender. At 34kg/ min, my maximum oxygen intake during intense exercise is a little better than average.

But before this goes to my head, Tribby points out that elite athletes have recorded more than double that. My report is five pages of mediocrity, challenging my self-image as fit.

To improve, he recommends that I exercise three or four days a week at 70-80 per cent of my maximum heart rate, which is 165bpm.

I also need to add sessions of HIIT and an endurance workout.

Finally, I’m ready for my dive. The chamber is designed like an aeroplane’s first-class compartment, to combat the claustrophobia some may feel – and because it looks cool. I wear a mask to breathe the oxygen and sit in a very comfortable chair for an hour. The scheduled air and oxygen intervals at pressure induce the hyperoxic-hypoxic paradox. My breaths through the mask are slightly easier than breathing through a scuba regulator, but I’m conscious of every inhale and draw the air deep into my lungs. My one session won’t have a measurable effect on my brain, but I get the idea. When I emerge, I’m light-headed. That night, I sleep deeply, my brain presumably awash in oxygen.

My two days give me only a glimpse inside the Aviv process. The data I get from my biometric measurements puts me in a good place – no immediate evidence that my body is ageing faster than my brain, or vice versa, just that I am getting older.

Physically, I’m inspired to do more stretching, improve my posture, increase my exercise intensity and eat more protein.

I might even start knitting to stay sharp. My exposure to the Villages has challenged me to look unflinchingly at the future, and both play and prepare for the long game.

Mostly, I’m relieved there were no cognitive red flags. I couldn’t afford the price tag to potentially reverse a brain problem. Hopefully HBOT will be proved effective and the cost comes down. Until then, the prospect that age-related cognitive decline can be staved off gives me optimism I’ll stay active long enough to keep that smirk off my daughter’s face for decades to come.

OCTOBER 2021 107

Welcome T

YOU CAN’T ANTICIPATE HOW BECOMING A FATHER WILL CHANGE YOU. BUT REST ASSURED, YOUR LIFE WILL NEVER BE QUITE THE SAME AGAIN. HERE, FOUR PROMINENT DADS REFLECT ON WHAT FATHERHOOD MEANS TO THEM BY

BEN JHOT Y

PHOTOGR APHY BY

MELINDA CARTMER, JEREMY GREIVE, TIM ROBA RDS, KURT TIL SE

James & Scout Stewart

Matty & Marlie-Mae Johnson

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FATHER HO OD

o The Hood

Tim & Elle Robards

Kurt & Fox Tilse

OCTOBER 2021 109

atherhood is evolving before our eyes.

From pure breadwinner to hands-on caregiver, fathers today have the capacity to shape their children’s lives like never before.

“One of the greatest things about parenting these days is that dads are demanding to be involved,” says Sharlene Vlahos, Director of Education and Business Development at parenting service Karitane.

The impact of this change will be felt in the coming years. Children who grow up with strong father figures are not only more likely to be emotionally well-adjusted, says Vlahos, they also have a greater chance of building resilience. That’s because dads bring unique capabilities to child raising – a preference for physical play and a heavy reliance on humour among the most important – that can help a child forge self-esteem and deal with setbacks. “Fathers are great at doing that physical, rough and tumble style of play and children tend to be more resilient because dads do more joking around,” says Vlahos.

“So, kids learn to deal with that.”

Yes, dad jokes have a purpose.

A dad’s influence starts early, says Vlahos, with the formative years critical to brain development. “Dads can actually alter the way their child’s brain is wired,” she says, citing research that shows 90 per cent of a child’s neural connections are formed before the age of five. “So, you want to get all of those positive messages in because that’s the basis for them to then go and form relationships.”

Of course, parenting is no picnic. One in 10 dads will suffer from a perinatal mood disorder.

Many of these issues stem from the shift in identity fatherhood brings, Vlahos says. Some dads, she adds, may also put undue pressure on themselves. “If you get it right 30 per cent of the time your kids will do okay,” says Vlahos. “The best thing dads can do is be that secure and reliable figure. That makes the child more confident to try new things because they know dad has got their back.”

Whether you’re a new or soonto-be dad or just a bloke who sees kids somewhere in your future, there’s certainly plenty to learn.

And there’s no better teacher than other dads. We asked four well-known fathers what raising a child means to them.

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Matty Johnson FOR FORMER BACHELOR AUSTRALIA STAR, MATTY J, 34, THE ARRIVAL OF HIS DAUGHTERS MARLIE-MAE, 2, AND LOLA, 6 MONTHS, HAS SEEN HIM EMBRACE HIS SENSITIVE SIDE “I STILL REMEMBER the first night with Lola. She didn’t sleep at all.

Laura, my partner, and I spent most of that night awake, kind of handballing her back and forth, trying to settle her. That’s a pretty good taste of what the rest of your life is going to be like. Suddenly, your priority is somebody else.

I think I’ve always been a pretty sensitive guy, but since becoming a dad, I’m so much more in touch with my emotions. An ad on TV can be enough to make me well up.

Recently I saw a little boy on a scooter who looked a little bit lost.

And straight away I went into dad mode, where I was like, ‘Where’s his parents? Is this kid okay?’ And his dad was like 20 metres down the pavement. If ever I see a child unhappy or unwell, it hits me so hard.

Right now with Marlie, we’re actually starting to talk. I don’t know if she understands the words she’s saying but I take her to day care, and during that walk, she’ll sometimes just randomly look at me and say, ‘Daddy, I love you’.

Such simple words, but the impact they have is so huge.

Before lockdown we took a holiday to Byron and they had this great pool at the resort. Marlie was having the time of her life. And it’s funny, seeing your kid smile and be happy, there’s nothing more fulfilling than that. Now I understand why my mum used to say, ‘As long as you guys are happy, I’m happy’.

There’s a lot about parenting that’s really difficult. When you’re up two or three times in the night, it’s four in the morning and you’re exhausted and you’re trying to make a bottle and feed it to them to get them back to sleep, that is bloody hard work.

But it’s the overall juggle that’s more difficult. If your kids are happy, then you’ve got to make sure you don’t neglect your social life. And if that’s good, then you’ve got to make sure that your partner is a priority as well. And if those things are good, then the house is probably a shambles. There’s always going to be something that’s being neglected.

I think for the most part, guys are pretty lucky when it comes to parenthood. So, I think it’s really important to support your partner as much as possible. And mostly, that means just being present. It can be as simple as just asking if they’re okay and telling them they’re doing a good job. It sounds so basic, but the knock-on effect is huge for your partner.”

– Look out for Matty J’s personal finances podcast ‘The Penny Drops’, coming soon

“ UNHAPPY

FATHER HO OD

James Stewart FOR HOME AND AWAY STAR JAMES STEWART, 45, DAUGHTER SCOUT, 9, HAS MADE HIM A HUMBLER, HAPPIER MAN “FATHERHOOD CHANGED my priorities, my ideals, all of my ideas, it just changed everything. But I wanted to change. In this profession, there are healthy egos. You’ve got to have a little bit of ego to make your way. And then all of a sudden, you’ve got another life that’s as big as your forearm looking up at you and you just kind of go, ‘Hold up, now I’m thinking about more than just me’. I really like that part. When Scout came along, I just couldn’t stop thinking about her. I think every man needs that kind of lesson.

The fact that she was so small and vulnerable made me so conscious of my responsibility. I would fall asleep at night with her crib in my room and wake up the next morning and you get that big lungful of responsibility and that big feeling of, Fuck me, am I going to measure up to this? And then you turn to yourself and you go, ‘I have to’.

I come from a single-mum background. Raising Scout has made me appreciate a woman’s perspective. How is she going to get around in the world? If I tell her she can be prime minister, do I actually believe that? Being a single father for some time until my wife, Sarah, came into the picture, I had to show this perfect little human, with the sensibilities and softness of a girl, that she can do karate as well as dancing. She can put on makeup or put on footy boots.

The hardest part of parenting is consoling her when she’s hurt or she’s crying. My hand was the hand that released the bike seat the first time she got going by herself and I saw her little panicked breath of excitement. But then I was there when she fell off the first time and her face . . . man. I was there the other day when someone called her ‘Too Tall’. She’s playing mixed soccer and some of the smaller boys were saying, ‘Kick it here, Too Tall’. Just to have her come home and say, ‘Dad, I don’t know what this means’. And then she cries and you’ve got to do the sticks-and-stones quote, you do all the cliches and you console her. Of course, I wanted to go out and wring those kids’ necks, but two wrongs don’t make a right. That whole lesson has been difficult for me.

One thing I’d say to guys going into this for the first time is that your child will teach you, too. They’ll tell you when the nappy needs changing. They’ll let you know when it’s not time to look at their homework if they’re not happy with it yet. In my life, Sarah was the one who made me really realise that. ‘Step back, Jim. Let Scout teach you.’ It was a massive, massive lesson.

Ultimately, you’ve just got to do whatever it takes. My daughter is all my reasons.”

I COULDN’T STOP THINKING ABOUT HER”

OCTOBER 2021 111

Tim Robards FORMER MH COVER GUY AND STAR OF THE BACHELOR AUSTRALIA AND NEIGHBOURS, TIM ROBARDS, 38, MADE A CAREER SACRIFICE THAT ALONG WITH THE ONSET OF LOCKDOWN HAS HAD A SILVER LINING: MORE TIME WITH HIS DAUGHTER, ELLE, 10 MONTHS “LEAVING NEIGHBOURS was a tough decision but you’ve got to make those types of choices for your family. I really had to put myself, my wife and my family first. I guess that’s part of how you change as a man when kids come along.

Having a child while being in and out of lockdown has been a real blessing. It really shows you what’s important. I look back and think, I’m so lucky that I’ve actually been forced to be around in these times and be so hands-on. It’s made me think about my dad, who was always getting up and leaving for work by 7am and getting back at 7pm. It just shows how much mum had to do.

I’d heard mixed things about fatherhood but I just felt from day one, because I’ve been quite present, that it’s been the best thing in the world. We’ve been very lucky with a healthy child and I think it’s a real mix of nature versus nurture.

Consistency is a big thing, helping them sleep and to self-soothe. It’s definitely hard at times but it’s not hard work, because it’s out of love.

I’m probably raising her like a little boy at the moment and there’s definitely differences in the way that my wife and I play with her.

Sometimes I feel like if I had a boy, I’d be scared that I might put too much

pressure on them, whereas it’s a different thing with a girl.

I think Anna and I have worked really well together. It really comes down to great communication between you and your partner, trying to be on the same page and, if you’re not, having a conversation about it. If you don’t you can get frustrated, you get tired, you get emotional. So, I think being there to support each other has made things easier.

The toughest thing for me is when your child gets her first cold or falls over and whacks her head. They’re the times when you feel helpless.

Right now, she just wants to explore the world, which is good, but it means it takes so much energy to make sure she’s safe in doing that.

She literally just climbed a full flight of stairs.

If you’re about to become a dad, do your research. Read the books and work out what makes sense to you but then use your intuition. You can’t go, ‘Right, I’m going to follow this and it’s going to work’, like kids are a cookie-cutter thing. With children, if you worry and think, What if?, all the time, you’ll never actually enjoy the process. A lot of people get anxious about doing everything correctly. Trust your gut. You don’t have to do everything perfectly.”

“FROM DAY ONE, BECAUSE I’VE BEEN QUITE PRESENT, IT’S BEEN THE BEST THING IN THE WORLD” 112 MEN’S HE ALTH

FATH ER HOO D

“WHEN FOX WAS BORN, I thought there was going to be this overwhelming sense of love. But it was probably about eight months in before I started actually being able to really interact with him. That’s when I really came into the picture in his life. For the mum, they have that connection from the get-go because she feels the kicks and all of that in the womb. But for me, I just felt it took a little bit longer for that really deep, deep love to kick in. But once that connection comes, then it’s so close. And now we’re best mates. It’s exactly how I envisioned fatherhood being.

I love being able to play with him and teach him new skills. He loves jumping on the skateboard with me or we have these 1kg weights and he comes in and tries to pick them up and do biceps curls. He’s real proud of himself.

I enjoy moulding him, instilling the values that you have. Seeing and hearing him saying, ‘Thank you’ to people or ‘Sorry’, just makes me so proud.

Looking back, that first year is tough.

You have to adjust to not being able to do what you want to do all the time. It was really difficult for the both of us because it’s not as simple as, ‘Oh, we can just walk up the road and grab a coffee’ anymore.

We walk up the road with a pram and a bag full of different clothes and all sorts of things to make sure he survives that fiveminute trip.

It changes everything, even training. I used to be able to go for a surf in the morning and then train in the afternoon. Now you get one of those in a day.

We’re all so driven these days and we all want to be successful. But I think it’s so easy to get caught up in that and forget about the simple things. I think being really present with your child is more important than anything else because at the end of the day, success can just disappear. And it doesn’t really matter all that much, anyway. I think it’s important to embrace what it is to be a dad, be present with your children and just enjoy it, because it’s a really special thing – it’s probably your main purpose in life.”

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124 TRAIN LIKE AN ASTRONAUT

127 GET A JUMP ON BEACH-READY FITNESS

128 WIN THE ARMS RACE

BRAWN BUILDER

Strength coach NICK CHEADLE is across everything worth knowing about sculpting a killer physique. Not only that, he puts it all into practice.

Time to stop mucking around

OCTOBER 2021 115

Hang Tough: Building muscle requires finding extra reps when you think you’re cooked.

is imploring you to stop do you create enough mechanical tension to elicit a hypertrophic response.

In other words, “no pain, no gain” does apply to building muscle. It’s why 20- and 30-rep sets, while not intrinsically useless, are inefficient. Why not add a couple of plates to the bar and get to the money reps before nightfall?

“I love the challenge of getting within that 0-4 reps of failure,” says Cheadle.

“I say to myself, ‘I haven’t come this far only to come this far. And from now on, it’s go time’.”

NICK OF TIME

ERROR #2

You Go to Failure Too Often

If you’re committing any of these common weights-room errors, the ripped body you’re after will continue to elude you.

Fortunately, one of Australia’s leading trainers is here to set you straight

NICK CHEADLE IS AN expert you’d turn to when you’re done faffing about in the gym; when you’re sick of training without a plan or purpose besides some vague notion of ‘looking good’. He’s a guy you want in your ear when you’re ready to commit to building the body of a beast.

The owner of a thriving online business, Nick Cheadle Fitness, and co-owner (with wife Bec Chambers) of Paragon Strength and Performance on Sydney’s north shore, Cheadle, 32, has been a personal trainer and strength coach for 12 years. As a fitness pro, he has multiple points of difference, but the standout is his own physique, which has helped him amass a social media following of more than 2.5 million.

116 MEN’S HE ALTH

Cheadle first picked up a barbell as a 16-year-old student at The King’s School in Sydney’s western suburbs. “Back then, to be honest, it was all about just looking a little bit better with my shirt off,” he says.

Post-school, he became a qualified PT through the Australian Institute of Fitness before spending the next 10 years training clients at two Fitness First gyms on Sydney’s northside, all the while becoming ever more passionate about his own lifting. “It’s part of who I am,” he tells Men’s Health between clients.

“I’ve done all the dumb things,” sang Paul Kelly, who might have been speaking for generations of gym goers. Cheadle has made his share of training mistakes over the years –

and seen the full gamut committed by others. The point, however, is that he’s come to know precisely what it takes to keep the gains coming.

What follows are the most common and self-limiting muscle-related blunders that Cheadle keeps seeing and fixing.

If any or all apply to you, make the necessary adjustments – and prepare to transform.

ERROR #1

You’re Not Training Hard Enough Sounds simple. But what is ‘hard enough’?

“I see a lot of guys lifting weights that don’t even cause a change in their facial expression,” says Cheadle. “If there’s absolutely no form of bar or dumbbell slowdown as

you’re lifting, then chances are you’re not operating at anywhere near close enough to failure to build muscle. These are the blokes you see at the gym three years down the track and you think, He looks exactly the same as he did three years ago.”

While it’s okay to train with lighter weights in higher rep ranges (there’s plenty of research to show you can add beef this way), you still need to push those sets towards the brink of failure. And what does that mean? It means you don’t put down the weight until you have between four and zero reps left in the tank.

Stop short of that, Cheadle says, “and there’s a good chance that set was a waste of time”.

Only by grinding out extra reps when your body

Yes, Cheadle wants you working close to failure.

But for your own sake, avoid going all the way there too frequently.

“Working to failure is super-demanding on your body, super-demanding on your muscles and super-demanding on your central nervous system,” says Cheadle. “If you go to failure time and time again, before long you’re going to see a decline in your performance. You’re going to feel like a busted arse, for want of a better term. At the end of the day, we are not robots. We are not machines.”

Here’s your way forward.

Set yourself for a six-week training block with the goal of building total-body muscle. Then: • In week one, stop your sets four reps from failure.

• In week two, stop them three reps out.

• In week three, two reps out.

• In week four, one rep out.

• In week five, take only the last set of each exercise to failure, stopping the rest with at least one rep left in reserve.

//

• In week six, de-load, halving your volume of sets and reps, or the amount of weight you’re lifting – or both – to boost recovery and freshen up for your next six-week block.

ERROR # 3

You’re Pursuing Conflicting Goals When Cheadle starts with a new client and asks him what he’s wanting to achieve, he’ll often hear some version of this: “I want to put on muscle and strip body fat”.

Which is fair enough.

Except the smart way to proceed is to pursue those two objectives via separate programs in separate timeframes.

“The way I like to explain it is that, nutritionally speaking, those two things – building muscle and losing body fat – are at opposite ends of the nutritional spectrum,” says Cheadle. “And you can’t do both at once.”

Unless you’re uncomfortable with your level of body fat, chase muscle growth first by intensifying your lifting while adopting a kilojoule surplus to help convert your toil into gains. “A calorie surplus is the best environment to build muscle in,” Cheadle says. “It’s not impossible to build muscle outside of it, but unless you’re brandnew to lifting, it’s very

‘No pain, no gain’ does apply to building muscle//

unlikely.” The size of that surplus will depend on your physiology, but it won’t need to be massive. “The idea is you’re eating enough to gain weight and support muscle growth, but you want to do that slowly and conservatively so you can extend the amount of time you spend in surplus,” Cheadle says. “If you gain weight too quickly, a lot of it will be fat. You’ll become uncomfortable in your own skin and end up cutting short the gaining phase before you’ve made appreciable progress.”

Some fat gain is all but certain when you’re trying to gain muscle, but avoid obsessing over that, Cheadle urges [See Error #6]. Down the track, you can burn off that fat to unveil corrugated abs.

ERROR # 4

You’re Training Each Muscle Too Infrequently While popular, a typical ‘bro’ split that involves pummelling each muscle group just once per week isn’t the best way to go, Cheadle argues. That’s because studies suggest the muscle-building effects of a heavy-resistance session peter out within 72 hours. By waiting a further four days to re-target the same muscle, “you’re leaving gains on the table,” he says.

And that’s not the only problem with this approach.

If you’re training this way – devoting an entire session to chest, say – then you’re

likely bombarding that muscle with a huge number of sets, the result being that the sets performed in the second half of the workout can hardly be attacked with Arnie-like ferocity.

“Imagine if you split that workout in half and did the second half later in the week when you’re fresher,” Cheadle says.

“Imagine how much more weight you’d lift and how much better the workout would be.”

levers: more weight or more volume in terms of sets and reps. It’s also important that you’re able to measure your progress – and it’s very hard to do that if you’re constantly chopping and changing moves.

“Even when I switch to a new training block, I change only about 30 per cent of the exercises,” Cheadle says. “And most of the ones I’m dropping are the fluff ones – [for] biceps, triceps and abs. My core lifts – dumbbell bench press, for example . . . I keep using until I feel I’ve squeezed out everything I can get from them at that point in time.”

ERROR # 6

ERROR # 5

You’re Beating Yourself Up Over Food

A lot of trainers espouse the benefits of ‘shocking the body’ by constantly introducing new exercises.

But when it comes to the narrow goal of hypertrophy, Cheadle advises doing the opposite. “You need to be consistently performing similar exercises over time to give yourself an opportunity to get better at them,” he says.

Don’t dump moves just because they’re taxing. And remember the key to weight training is progression. To grow, you need to keep pulling at least one of two

While of course nutrition’s a key factor in musclemaking, chances are you have more leeway than you think around meal choices.

As far as your body’s concerned, Cheadle says, everything you give it is simply some combination of protein, carbs and fat.

Over a day, you’ll want to meet its macronutrient needs, but the matter of which foods you use to do that isn’t worth the fuss that some guys make it.

“The reason that people end up resorting to such extreme, bullshit diets – nothing but chicken and broccoli, for example – is

You’re Changing Exercises Too Often

that they just don’t know any better,” Cheadle says.

Let’s say you love cake and scoff a piece one lunchtime. Is that the end of the world? No! Instead of fixating on the cake, see it for what it is: a serving of carbs that your body will break down into glucose for energy. “Think to yourself,” says Cheadle, ‘Okay, because of that cake, I’ve now had this amount of carbs today, so maybe I’ll skip that extra serving of rice at dinner’.” It’s a little more complicated than that – some carbs are more nutritious than others – but ultimately, they’re all broken down into the same thing.

Then there’s the broader issue of motivation – the why of training; indeed, the why of living. You ask Cheadle what his body-fat percentage is.

“I wouldn’t have a clue,” he says. “But I know when it’s higher I feel better – higher sex drive, more productive, less irritable.

The older I get, the easier it is for me to place my self-worth in things other than how much body fat I carry. And time spent worrying about that is time spent running away from building more muscle and strength, and having a better lifestyle. I love training and probably train harder than I ever have. But I also eat to fuel performance.”

SWAP N’ SWOLE

Certain iconic exercises are not all they’re cracked up to be as pure musclebuilders, argues Cheadle. Make these substitutions and feel the burn Out: Barbell Back Squat In: Machine Hack Squat Why: A lot of the effort

involved in the free squat is about staying balanced. The stability offered by the hack squat machine allows for maximal mechanical tension on your legs.

Out: Barbell Bench Press In: Dumbbell Bench Press Why: The barbell limits your

ability to isolate the muscles of your chest and puts additional pressure on your delicate shoulder joints.

Out: Dumbbell Fly In: Cable Fly Why: At the top position of a

dumbbell fly, your pecs are snoozing. This isn’t the case when you’re using cables. More constant tension equals more muscle.

OCTOBER 2021 117

WORKOUT #1

BODYWEIGHT BURNER

This session feels good while you’re doing it and gives you the buzz you want afterwards, too. We’re going to be taking some basic bodyweight moves and adding some explosive elements to keep your mind engaged for the full 15 minutes. You’ll take on four moves, doing 60 seconds’ work on each. When you finish the fourth move, rest for 60 seconds, then start again. Do three rounds in total.

THIS SPRING’S FEEL-GOOD HIITS FOR WFH HEROES

1A

AS THE JOKER quipped to the overly earnest vigilante in The Dark Knight: “Why so serious?” While he was just a fictional character – and a psychotic mass-murderer with zero empathy to boot – he also had a point.

Sometimes, we could all do with taking things a little less seriously. Sure, work might be unavoidably hectic and your daily life commitments can be stressful. But there is one area of your life that you can definitely have a bit more fun with: fitness.

Joe Wicks, in case you haven’t been on YouTube or Instagram over the past three lockdowns, has all but trademarked “fun” fitness.

Now, he has made it his mission to massage the world’s mental state through the power of a decent workout, combining the

118 MEN’S HE ALTH

short-term buzz with the long-term psychological benefits of exercise – improved mood, more energy, deeper reservoirs of patience.

The good St Joe has produced three new doses of joy exclusively for Men’s Health. Each takes just 15 minutes and is eminently doable at home, using only the equipment that the majority of us have invested in over the past year. But believe us, this isn’t your average HIIT. Wicks has taken some classic movements and given them a twist, enhancing their physical flavour and adding a generous slug of enjoyment to keep you riding high all day.

Set your stopwatch app for 15 minutes and get going. You’ll be seriously happy that you did.

1B

1 Squat Front Kick

W HE N B O DY S YO U R FAT IGU TA R T S T O E, Y PRODU OUR BR AIN L IF T ING CES MO OD SER OT C O MP E ONIN T O NS AT E . SO PU YO U R S S H ELF HA R THE E N D TO D

Stand tall, keeping your chest up. Sink your hips back, then bend your knees to drop your thighs until they are parallel to the floor (A). Now, this is what gets those endorphins going.

As you stand back up, lift one foot off the floor and kick forward explosively (B). Switch your kicking leg with every rep.

PHOTOGRAPHY: CHRIS FLOYD I STYLIST: CARLOTTA CONSTANT I GROOMING: NATASHA SCHMITT ADDITIONAL PHOTOGRAPHY: STUART HENDRY

Reclaim the joy of fitness with these three 15-minute home workouts from Joe Wicks that will challenge you physically, strengthen you mentally and prime you to face the rest of your day chock-full of endorphins

3B

2A

4B 3A

2B

2 Push-Up Kick-Through

Assume a long-arm plank position, with your core braced and your hands stacked below your shoulders (A). Bend your elbows, lowering your chest to the floor. When you push back up, simultaneously release one hand and shoot the opposite leg through at 90° (B). Alternate sides with each rep and keep going through the struggle.

3 Burpee Tuck Jump

Everyone loves burpees, don’t they? Well, this is the superhero version. Start off standing and place your hands on the floor. Fire your feet back to form a push-up position. Drop your chest to the floor (A), then push up and bring your feet back beneath you. Now, jump up and tuck your knees as close to your chest as possible (B).

That’s one rep.

4 Reverse Lunge Knee Drive

Standing, take a step backwards, bending your front knee until your back knee comes as close to the ground as is comfortable (A). Driving through your glutes, power up your back leg as you stand to thrust your back knee in front of you (B). Switch sides with each rep – and don’t hold anything back.

4A

OCTOBER 2021 119

WORKOUT #2

UPPER BODY

1B

2B

2A

1A

1 Dumbbell Snatch

Squat down and grab one dumbbell (A), then drive up through your hips, generating momentum to pull the weight up and punch it towards the ceiling, finishing overhead in full lockout (B). Hinge down and return the weight to the start position. Switch hands on the way down and keep alternating. Change hands with the weight on the floor if you find that easier.

120 MEN’S HE ALTH

2 Burpee Deadlift

Pick up the other bell and stand, holding them at waist height. Drop to the bottom of a burpee, hands on the handles, forming a straight line from head to toe (A). Now, bring your legs back under you and squeeze your glutes to perform a deadlift, keeping the dumbbells as close to your legs as possible as you stand (B). That’s your first rep.

You know what to do.

3B

4B

3A

3 Dumbbell Thruster

Holding the dumbbells at your shoulders, squat down, keeping your back straight and chest up, until your thighs are at least parallel to the ground (A). Power back up and, in one motion, press both of the dumbbells overhead to full lockout (B). Imagine using your body to “throw” the weights upwards. Now, reverse the movement. Rep away, and find a good rhythm.

4

4A

Shoulder Press

Lift a pair of dumbbells onto your shoulders, with your palms facing out (A). Take a breath and brace your core. Dip at the knees and use your legs to help press both weights overhead to lockout (B).

Lower under control and repeat.

Focus on keeping your head up and breathing – even if you’re blowing hard. Breathing is always a good idea.

B DN F, WORK L

O A D. WOR K WI PLE AS TH URE OCTOBER 2021 121

WORKOUT #3

SWING IT TO WIN IT

2A 1A

1B

2B

PA I N - K E NDOR IL LING P HINS A ND A SP IK E IN A DRE N AL YOU FE INE W IL L L E A EL ING IN VE V ONCE I INCIBL E T ’S A L L OV ER .

122 MEN’S HE ALTH

1 Kettlebell Swing

Holding a kettlebell between your legs, start the movement by hinging your hips as if you were trying to push a door open with your glutes, swinging the weight back (A). Now, drive your hips forward to lift the kettlebell to shoulder height, bracing your core (B). Let the momentum bring you straight back down into the next rep, and try to get into a flow.

2 Kettlebell Goblet Squat

Hold the kettlebell as close to your chest as you can (A). Move your hips backwards, then drop into a squat (B). Your elbows should come in between your knees at the bottom. Drive back up, tensing your glutes at the top.

Think about tucking your elbows into your ribs as tight as you can, so you don’t tire out your arms holding the weight.

3A

4B

3B

3 Kettlebell Clean and Lunge

Grab the bell with one hand. Start a swing the same way as with the two-handed version, but pull the weight up close to your body, jamming your elbow into your ribs to flip the bell and catch it at chest height in the crook of your elbow (A). Now lunge forward with your other leg (B), pushing off that front leg to stand up. Return the weight to the floor and switch sides.

4 Kettlebell RDL High Pull

Start with the kettlebell held in front of you, arms straight and core braced. Send your hips back to lower the weight down your legs. As it passes your knees, bend them to allow the bell to travel all the way to the ground (A). Come back up, extending your knees and then hips to drive the weight up (B), as close to your chin as you can. Not too close, obviously.

4A

OCTOBER 2021 123

6AM WITH . . .

THE ASTRONAUT HALL OF FAMER Michael LÓpez-AlegrÍa is prepping for his next trip into space by boldly taking his muscles where they’ve rarely gone before

BY BRE T T

WILLIAMS AND NASM

PHOTOGR APHY BY SHAWN

MICHAEL LÓPEZ-ALEGRÍA has spent 257 days outside the earth’s atmosphere and performed 10 space walks totalling 67 hours and 40 minutes, more time than any other American. But right now, on the backyard deck of his Washington home, he’s found a new frontier. He’s on all fours, one end of a resistance band wrapped around his left foot, the other held in his right hand. He tightens his abs, then extends arm

124 MEN’S HE ALTH

HUBBARD

and leg. He’s doing a banded bird dog, an exercise that pushes the bounds of his core strength – and one that may help him reach new heights during his next trip into space.

That trip comes next year, when López-Alegría, 63 years young, blasts off to the International Space Station (ISS). He’ll command the 10-day Axiom Space Ax-1 mission, the first private spaceflight

to the ISS, which will be launched by Elon Musk’s SpaceX. It’s a giant leap for mankind (and space tourism), and it starts with López-Alegría’s small wellness step. The US Astronaut Hall of Fame inductee says he has never loved “working out for a workout’s sake”. But he knows his body needs it.

This isn’t about biceps or abs, though. “You don’t need Olympic-athlete fitness to be an astronaut,”

he says. “You just need to be healthy.” Still, he has to pass a battery of medical tests, and, 14 years after his last trip into space, he worried that he wouldn’t be able to. So he started working with trainer Emiliano Ventura, who designs workouts for F1 race-car drivers. “Your cells break down, your body breaks down,” LópezAlegría says. “Now it’s like ‘Geez, am I gonna pass this thing?’”

When he left NASA in 2012 after four spaceflights, López-Alegría thought he was done star-trekking. After years consulting for various space-industry firms, he joined Axiom Space, a company that has designs

on space vacations and manufacturing, as an exec.

He quickly discovered a problem: few customers wanted to join a mission without someone who had been in space before. “We kind of looked around the room,” he says, “and I was a guy who was still able to fly and had been there and done that.”

So to get in missionready shape, he embraced workouts like today’s session, a six-exercise, bands-only circuit. He does 20 reps of bird dogs on each side, then sits on his deck with his legs straight, wraps the band around his feet, and grasps its ends. He starts doing 20 reps of rows, strengthening mid-back,

BETWEEN SETS Favourite exercise?

BAND CAMP

Forge upper-body strength with this 3-round circuit built from moves LÓpezAlegría does often

1

Band Pull-Apart

2

Seated Row

3

Banded Push-up

Stand holding a resistance band in front of you, arms straight. Squeeze your shoulder blades and pull the band apart, keeping your arms straight.

That’s 1 rep; do 20.

Michael López-Alegría will rely on resistance bands when training in space, doing moves like (clockwise from left) bicycle crunches, bird dogs, jumping jacks and rows.

//

Every single day he’s in space, he’ll train. ‘It’s all about preparing yourself for when you come back to earth’//

biceps and forearms. Arm and grip strength and stamina serve astronauts during space walks.

“You’re in a pressurised suit, which wants to maintain its [shape],” he says. “Think of a surgical glove that’s blown up and inflated. So in order to bend the fingers of the glove, you have to exert some force.” Things get even more challenging if he has to grab a wrench or other tool. “Grip strength is

important,” he says, “and [so are the] lower arms, upper arms, shoulders and chest.”

That’s all unnecessary inside the station. “It’s super easy to get around,” López-Alegría says. “You don’t stand up, even.” To offset that, he and his team will train daily on the ISS, splitting time between cardio and resistanceband work. Unlike dumbbells, bands still provide resistance in

Sit on the floor, legs straight, a band wrapped around your feet, hands holding its ends. Squeeze your shoulder blades and row your elbows back to your torso.

That’s 1 rep; do 15.

Hold a looped resistance band in both hands, wrapped around your back. Get in push-up position and tighten your core and glutes. Do 15 push-ups.

space. This training makes it easier for astronauts when they return to earth, readying them to face the power of gravity again.

But the training does more than that. LópezAlegría and his crew will be aboard the ISS for about eight days, working through a packed schedule that includes a series of experiments, and that can lead to plenty of stress. He expects some crew members will

meditate to stay calm.

Others will stave off anxiety by attacking their workouts.

“As you know,” he says, “some people crave [exercise] and they have to have it.”

The man leading the mission doesn’t crave it, but every single day he’s in space, he’ll train, too.

“It’s all about preparing yourself for when you come back [to earth],” he says. That process has already started.

“My favourite exercise is really playing a game.

I like racquetball or squash – something that doesn’t feel like working out; it feels like you’re having fun.“

The exercise you hate?

“Running would be at the very top of that list. And then next is burpees. I don’t know why the burpees just kill me – [I’m] just completely gassed.”

What’s on your playlist?

“I’m very into the Hamilton soundtrack. just fell in love with the lyricism.”

Dream workout partner?

“Neil Armstrong on the moon. I think the suit would be pretty tough.”

Ultimate cheat meal?

“Anything with pasta.

I love pasta. Probably the cheatiest of all those would be linguine carbonara.”

OCTOBER 2021 125

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The burpee is perhaps as misunderstood as it is ubiquitous. Swerve these common faux pas to unleash its full potential

You know burpees are good for you.

You also know they suck. This is how to ensure every rep counts

GET UP TO SPEED

The burpee may be the single most functional movement of all time: what could be more important than the ability to get back on your feet as quickly as possible? However, imperfect reps are the surest path to dysfunction.

Practise these three moves to refine your form

THE QUESTION MARK Maintains straight legs, curling his way down like a stale pretzel, before sending all of that explosive energy back up through a bent back, risking injury. Try to maintain a straight torso throughout and use every centimetre of squat mobility.

1/ FOUR TO THE FLOOR

Stand tall and take a long step backward with your left leg, keeping your torso upright. Bend at your right knee and squat until both hands hit the ground. Plant them and step back with your right leg, assuming a strong plank. Reverse to a standing position and repeat with the opposite leg.

Work 60 seconds on, 60 seconds off.

THE BASE JUMPER Drops like a rock from the top of every rep, directly onto his hands. Wrist pain is one of the most commonly cited drawbacks of burpees. Let the squat take you all of the way to the deck before making contact to avoid strains.

WORDS: ANDREW TRACEY; ILLUSTRATION: HARVEY SYMONS

2/ FIRE UP YOUR THRUSTERS

Step back and down into a strong, straight-armed plank and jump both feet forward, bringing your knees towards your chest. Explosively push the floor away with your hands, shifting your weight onto your heels, and finish at the bottom of a deep squat. Pause. Reverse back into the plank. Work 60 seconds on, 60 seconds off.

C ATCH BIG

3/ ALL THE WAY UP

THE TIGHTROPE WALKER Performs each rep like his shoelaces are tied together. A wider stance on the ascent of the burpee creates more room and minimises mobility demands. Jump your feet to the outside of your hands to reduce the risk of your posture collapsing.

AIR

Take a lu ngful wh ile stand reach th ing. As y e ground ou you’ll rec n at u r a l “ eive a winding ” from h deck – t itting th ake adva ntage an e d exhale h ere

With your feet shoulder-width apart, squat and place your hands on the floor. Jump your feet back into the top of a push-up and lower your chest to the ground. Push up and hop your feet forward to either side of your hands. Shift your weight back, transitioning into a squat, and jump into the air. Repeat until you love them.

Give your burpee technique a quantum leap.

OCTOBER 2021 127

F I T N E SS F I

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No iron? No problem. Add 5cm to your biceps in just four weeks with this push-and-pull bodyweight ladder from elite PT Bradley Simmonds B

1/

YOU MIGHT BE waiting until the pandemic is over to re-up your gym membership, but there’s no reason why you can’t go large in the meantime. Simmonds’ at-home upper-body bulk-up requires no dumbbells. Its push-pull format ensures that one muscle group works while the other rests – so you can squeeze 150 reps from a single workout for supersized benefits. Complete 10 reps of all six exercises before resting and going again, taking off two reps with each new round. Think big.

PULL-UP

(5 sets of 10 reps, 8 reps, 6 reps, 4 reps, 2 reps, minimal rest) Wedge a pull-up bar into your door frame. Start by hanging with an overhand grip at shoulder width (A).

Keeping your core tight, drive your elbows towards your hips, contracting your back and biceps to lift your chest to the bar (B).

Lower and repeat.

A

A

B

3/

INVERTED ROW

2/

PIKE PUSH-UP

(5 sets of 10 reps, 8 reps, 6 reps, 4 reps, 2 reps, minimal rest) Drop from the bar and shake out your arms.

Now, hinge at your hips to place your hands on the floor in front of you, but keep your glutes in the air (A). Flex at your elbows to lower your head to the floor (B), then press back up to the start. Feel the burn in your shoulders.

128 MEN’S HE ALTH

B

(5 sets of 10 reps, 8 reps, 6 reps, 4 reps, 2 reps, minimal rest) Hang below some rings or a TRX, with your legs outstretched (A) – if you don’t have the gear, you can hold on to the side of a sturdy table. Use your back and biceps to pull your chest up (B).

Lower under control, then go again.

A

4/

TRICEPS DIP

(5 sets of 10 reps, 8 reps, 6 reps, 4 reps, 2 reps, minimal rest) Grab some parallettes or a pair of sturdy chairs, then bend your knees to lift your feet off the ground (A).

Lower slowly until your elbows are at 90° (B).

Now, contract your triceps to push back up to the top. Once you’ve completed your reps, move straight to some floor space.

A

B

6/

CHIN-UP

B

(5 sets of 10 reps, 8 reps, 6 reps, 4 reps, 2 reps, 2min rest) Grab your bar, this time with your palms facing you and your hands closer than shoulder width (A).

Focus on your biceps and push your elbows down to lift your chin above the bar (B).

Lower yourself slowly to maximise your gains. Rest, reset and get ready for the next round.

A

B

5/

PHOTOGRAPHY: PHILIP HAYNES

PUSH-UP

(5 sets of 10 reps, 8 reps, 6 reps, 4 reps, 2 reps, minimal rest) Drop to the floor.

With your feet together and your hands beneath your shoulders, push up into a plank (A). Your elbows close, lower until you’re 2cm from the floor (B). Press back up.

A

OCTOBER 2021 129

DATE: February 22, 2001, 8:30pm NAME: HARLEY BREEN FEAT: A would-be actor accidentally discovers his life-long vocation as a stand-up comedian

“IT WAS HORRIBLE. BUT AT THE SAME TIME, I FELT SO ELATED AND FULL OF ENERGY” 130 MEN’S HE ALTH

THE MAIN REASON I got into stand-up comedy was because I was no good at anything else.

When I was 18, I wanted to become an actor and I tried out for all the major drama schools.

I got through to the last stages at NIDA but wasn’t accepted.

“We like who you are and what you’ve got,” the auditioners said, “but we want you to go and get some experience.”

I was very naive, so I thought: “All right, I’ll just be in a play, then.” But this proved to be more difficult than expected, especially as I had no idea how to get any kind of acting work. It got to the point where I was so desperate, I started looking at theatre restaurants in Brisbane in the Yellow Pages, wondering if I could be part of their ensemble cast. But in the same section of the Yellow Pages, The Sit Down Comedy Club had an advertisement. So I thought, “Well, maybe I’ll try stand-up.

That’s a bit like acting”. So I called them up and said, “Can I get a gig?” And to my surprise, they went, “Yeah”.

It was an open-mic night at the Queens Arms Hotel in Fortitude Valley. Back in those days it was pretty rough. When I turned up there were maybe 15 comedians and a couple of drunk blokes at the bar. I was the first person up onstage.

The thing was that I’d never been to live stand-up comedy.

In fact, I’d seen very little of it on television, either. My father was a Reverend and we’d had quite a puritanical upbringing without TV or popular music.

So although I was nervous, because I was so green and had such a complete lack of understanding of what it was all about, I walked into it with this childish naivety. I jumped up and did my first joke where I said something about how the reason why most comedians get into comedy is because they’ve been abused in some way in their past. “So, if I’m not funny today,” I said, “don’t blame me – blame my dad for not treating me badly

enough when I was a child . . .”

This did not go down well.

The room was full of all these comedians going, “Who is this guy telling us about our past?”

Comedians are the worst kind of crowd. They only laugh if something is very bad or exceptionally amazing.

So I did the five minutes I’d prepared and it was horrible.

But at the same time, I felt so elated and full of energy. It was such an addictive feeling. There was this realisation that when I’m on that stage, no one can touch me or change what I want to do. It’s entirely down to me whether I succeed or fail.

I came off stage and one of the more experienced

comedians in the crowd, Greg Sullivan, was very supportive.

“You’ve got a good story and the ability to hold the audience’s attention,” he said. “I encourage you to keep going.”

The next week I got a paid spot that Greg helped me to get. I just thought that’s what happens but, in fact, that’s not normal. Over the next 12 months, I did about 50 gigs and found out the hard way that earning a living as a stand-up comedian is very difficult. But that first gig was pivotal. If I hadn’t looked in the Yellow Pages, I probably would have continued to try and do acting.

After that night, I made a complete about-face.

Making it Australia premieres on September 15 at 7.30pm on Channel 10.